# To my friend on FaceBook who has been spewing anti-healthcare-reform messages for the past 6 months **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 4, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277 "2009-11-04T14:13:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/81 "2009-11-05T02:13:39Z")
So what happens to you if you don’t have a church congregation to grovel to? Or a large group of friends? Charity is not an acceptable substitute for the collective provision of governmental services, but unfortunately there are too many that believe this. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/82 "2009-11-05T02:16:21Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > Whatever works. I would rather not ask total strangers to pay for me. YMMV. I’d rather have a parent thinking about how to make sure their child gets the best possible treatment then how to pay medical bills. Let alone how to make sure that the family doesn’t lose their home because they can’t. Some of us think children are important even when they aren’t in the womb. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/83 "2009-11-05T02:51:27Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > You’d rather inflict economic pain on total strangers who owe you nothing, than ask for help from people who care about you, and would often be happy to help? So, taxation is actually better than charity? Your ego is more important than job loss, economic stagnation and wasting dollars on government administration. :dubious: More like this: there is only one means of effectively and efficiently transforming the method by which healthcare is made available to Americans, and that’s through a radical shift in the means by which it is funded, as well as **mandated** price controls, which can _only_ come via the government. Anything else is only going to shuffle the problems around. Yes, in this instance, taxation **is** better than charity, _if_ taxation is the funding mechanism for a healthcare program that alleviates the need for families in the midst of the turmoil of a cancer fight or the need for an organ transplant to split their focus between the care for their ill family member and running around all over the place to try to raise money for tests and treatments that cost 2 to 3 times more for them than anyone else in the world. Remember, the vast majority of Americans _have_ some form of health insurance. These fundraisers, these charitable appeals are being conducted by people with insurance because our insurance system is so desperately broken that even people with coverage have to have spaghetti dinners and pancake breakfasts to avoid _financial ruin_ when an illness arises. Charity isn’t doing it and insurance isn’t doing it. The majority of Americans declaring bankruptcy are doing so because of medical bills and the vast majority of those people _had_ insurance. The private system has **failed us entirely**. You’re damned right, in this situation, taxation is better than charity. Sadly, because of people like you, it’s not even going to be an option. And people like me, who don’t have a story that’s fundraiser worthy but don’t have and _can’t get_ insurance? Well, screw us. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/84 "2009-11-05T02:59:40Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > I’d rather have a parent thinking about how to make sure their child gets the best possible treatment then how to pay medical bills. Let alone how to make sure that the family doesn’t lose their home because they can’t. > > Some of us think children are important even when they aren’t in the womb. How fucking sanctimonious can you be? Give me a fucking break - “Some of us think children are important, blah, blah, blah…” So now I’m a fucking pro-lifer? You may think your mind-reading powers are amazing, but they’re dead wrong. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/85 "2009-11-05T03:06:38Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > How fucking sanctimonious can you be? Give me a fucking break - “Some of us think children are important, blah, blah, blah…” > > So now I’m a fucking pro-lifer? You may think your mind-reading powers are amazing, but they’re dead wrong. Oh go fuck yourself. I’ve actually known people personally who have in fact gone bankrupct because a child had a serious illness. Positions like yours truly and viscerally disgust me. It is bad enough coping with a child who has a serious illness. As the mother of a six year old daughter I cannot begin to imagine such pain. It is inexcusable that a parent should have to worry about finances on top of everything else. People like you are indeed what’s wrong with this country. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/86 "2009-11-05T03:12:35Z")
> [@whole\_bean](#): > > jesus man, what part of “in part” eludes you? If something is funded 50% with donations and 50% with revenue, it is funded with donations, _in part_. It’s still fukcing funded with donations (along with revenue). To say it is funded with donations is accurate, though incomplete, but accurate nonetheless. He didn’t say “in part”. Using your logic, he could have said “relying on Republicans”. Because, you know, my neighbor Stan thinks its a good idea. Idiotic. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/87 "2009-11-05T03:22:58Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Oh go fuck yourself. > > I’ve actually known people personally who have in fact gone bankrupct because a child had a serious illness. Positions like yours truly and viscerally disgust me. It is bad enough coping with a child who has a serious illness. As the mother of a six year old daughter I cannot begin to imagine such pain. > > It is inexcusable that a parent should have to worry about finances on top of everything else. > > People like you are indeed what’s wrong with this country. Hey! Me too! Cousin Joshua - born without a portion of his brain - currently has made it 17 years, completely and totally disabled Cousin Danielle - 14, has leukemia Cousin Michelle - Type 1 diabetes Mom - lung cancer, currently dead Uncle, Grandmother x2, various friends - cancer, some dead, some made it So, since you have some kind of inside track, please explain to me how I don’t know anything about it? I am not rehashing the UHC debate here in this thread. You are welcome to search one of the threads about UHC on this board I have contributed to and read my various arguments. In addition, as part of my job, I have spent the last twelve years reviewing bankruptcy petitions. In my district (ND Indiana), I can tell you that less than 30% of bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. I review at least 80 new filings a month, and the main cause is credit card debt. Yes, our health care system needs some serious reform. However, there are very serious questions, economically, Constitutionally, morally and practically that the current UHC bills being pushed by the government cannot or will not answer. I see no reason why we cannot slowly and carefully enact reform, directed at both insurance and doctors, and employers, patients and the government, in order to arrive at a good solution. Remember - about 80% of Americans are satisfied with their healthcare. It is just as terrible for the government to take away by force their options, as it is a medical crisis that takes away the option of a patient. I would love for this to be as easy as “Can’t someone else do it?” But it can’t. And no amount of self-righteous hand-wringing or ignoring the reality of a complex economic system will make it so. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/88 "2009-11-05T04:18:20Z")
Every single other fucking country does it better than we do. They live longer than we do and they pay less for it. What we have simply doesn’t work. It doesn’t cover the whole population. It ties your job to your access to health care. It overfunds end of life care and ignores preventative medicine. Our system sucks. Our system is expensive, ineffecient and frankly cruel. You can be reasonably satisfied with your own health care here and still recognize all of those statements as facts. Slowly my ass. The system needs to be fixed and it needs to be fixed yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/89 "2009-11-05T11:58:07Z")
> [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](#): > > I feel your pain, Athena. It’s tough, as a Canadian, keeping my mouth shut when random people at the dog park start going on about Obamacare. Do they really think people are dying in droves in Canada? Don’t you think we would have noticed? > > ETA: in case it’s unclear, I am a Canadian living in the US. Don’t keep your mouth shut. The only way ignorance can be fought is if people are actually exposed to opposing viewpoints. > [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > That’s horrible! I’m an RN and everywhere I’ve worked I’ve had insurance so good that everyone was green with envy. This is one profession where you have jobs waiting for you, I hope she decides to look for a better benefits package for the future. They’re out there, that’s for sure. I work for the government, another industry in which other people are jealous of our benefits package. Another government attorney I know recently had a recurrence of her cancer (not sure the exact type but it’s rare and abdominally based–she went in for liposuction after losing nearly 50 lbs but being unable to get rid of her “belly fat” and they found out her “belly fat” was a 13-lb tumor). Even though we have a cutting-edge cancer center in town, they can’t handle it, so she has to fly to…Houston, I believe, for treatment. Her insurance does cover this treatment, amazingly (most others would consider it out of network, I think) but what it does not cover is the transportation and lodging when she’s out of town at the only place that has the remotest chance of keeping her above ground. Poor woman. > [@Sateryn76](#): > > In addition, as part of my job, I have spent the last twelve years reviewing bankruptcy petitions. In my district (ND Indiana), I can tell you that less than 30% of bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. I review at least 80 new filings a month, and the main cause is credit card debt. You know, it’s funny, I bet the woman I mentioned above is putting a whole lot of hotel room stays and flights on her credit card. Would you realize that this was for cancer treatment instead of a bunch of vacations? Probably not. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/90 "2009-11-05T13:06:25Z")
> [@whole\_bean](#): > > as opposed to what? the unjust spoils of marauders who just happen to use their ill-gotten gains to pay for, among other things, roads, hospitals, courts, police, and fire fighters. Yeah! I mean, what has the government ever done for us? My neighborhood doesn’t even have a decent aqueduct. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/91 "2009-11-05T13:49:56Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > And you couldn’t fund it alone. Therefore, it is not funded out of acts of kindness. This is the best you can come up with and you’re calling someone _else_ stupid? Quibbling over whether taxation is kindness or not makes you look pretty damn dumb, but if you want a scooby snack for making that point, I’ll throw you one. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/92 "2009-11-05T14:00:09Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Why are they more beholden to your care than a stranger? Just out of curiosity, how many benefits for complete strangers have you attended? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/93 "2009-11-05T14:20:26Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > Just out of curiosity, how many benefits for complete strangers have you attended? I just went to one two weeks ago. It was a fundraising event for a hospital in rural Haiti. Total strangers help each other out all the time. It’s called charity. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/94 "2009-11-05T14:33:28Z")
> [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](#): > > I’m starting to think this is the crux of the matter for those opposed to health care reform: if more people detect preventable diseases before it’s too late, there will be fewer opportunities to bask in the warm glow of righteousness you get after donating twenty bucks towards painkilling medicine that help dull the physical torment of the last months of someone’s life. Yay. That was my first thought. Your five year old kid is dying, but just put that on hold for a second, because these good people need a show of your grovelling gratitude. And would this be a good time to ask what, exactly, is a spaghetti dinner? (yes yes, I get the eating spaghetti part, I just don’t get how it pays medical bills). SanVito Two parents survived cancer. No financial hardship. No charity. No medical bills. NHS. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/95 "2009-11-05T14:41:17Z")
“Well, Billy, the bad news is your tumor has metastasized, the hospital wants us out by the end of the day, and we can’t afford to pay for your chemo… the good news is there’s a \*lot \*of leftover spaghetti!” ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/96 "2009-11-05T14:50:53Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > And would this be a good time to ask what, exactly, is a spaghetti dinner? (yes yes, I get the eating spaghetti part, I just don’t get how it pays medical bills). It’s a pretty common thing around here to see posters in places like grocery store lobbies that are trying to get people to come to the proverbial “spaghetti dinner” that benefits someone who has some horrible disease. Typically they have a picture of the person, and an explanation of what’s wrong (“5-year-old Billy has leukemia and his parents have no insurance.”) The idea is that a group of volunteers get together at a church or some other place, make a bunch of spaghetti (or lasagna or burgers or whatever), people come to the dinner, pay maybe $15 per dinner, and because it’s a donated facility and volunteers make the food, the bulk of that $15 goes to the person who is sick or their family. There is always at least one of these posters in my local grocery store. Sometimes there’s more than one. I’ve often thought about starting a thread here to see if anyone in countries that have universal health care ever see advertisements for spaghetti dinner fundraisers in their grocery stores, but I’m afraid the answer would be too depressing. I fucking hate that I live in a country where we think it’s OK that sick people have to organize charitable events in order to pay their bills. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/97 "2009-11-05T15:06:08Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I just went to one two weeks ago. It was a fundraising event for a hospital in rural Haiti. Do you go to every one you find out about? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/98 "2009-11-05T15:11:53Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > See, now that’s really strange. 'Cause I’m looking at the list of “hot polls” on Facebook right now, and we’ve got such gems as: > > \ > > Do you think Global Warming is a Myth? > _52% Yes_ That one started out much worse: 72% said yes. I claim victory for driving down the yes vote by 24% - by God, I spent parts of three whole days on there trying to explain to people that 31,000 scientists isn’t very many. > [@Sateryn76](#): > > Okay, well, I can’t even find a place to see the “Hot Polls” so I can’t comment on that. And, I don’t really care to participate in such unscientific polling, so I ignore those types of things. > > What I’m talking about is the seemingly constant “status updates” that contain some kind of call to action or defense of a position, which contain only those positions of my “friends”. The vast majority I see are generally considered Lefty, like when Obama won the Nobel, or that awfully annoying “If you believe someone shouldn’t die from having no health care (or whatever it was)”. That’s what I see most often. You don’t care to participate in unscientific polling… but you are perfectly happy to throw out your own even-less-scientific anectdotal evidence. Right, that makes perfect sense. Let me clue you in on something: no matter how popular you are, your Facebook friend list is not a statistically significant population. Now, granted, Facebook polls tend to be ridiculous (rightward-slanted) leading questions, and they’re self-selecting, but they’re still a million times more scientific than “man, my friends are all in the tank for Obama!” > [@Sateryn76](#): > > You’d rather inflict economic pain on total strangers who owe you nothing, than ask for help from people who care about you, and would often be happy to help? So, taxation is actually better than charity? Your ego is more important than job loss, economic stagnation and wasting dollars on government administration. :dubious: What jobs would be lost? The number of jobs in the healthcare industry would go up significantly, since the number of people who are financially able to obtain care would go up. A number of jobs in the health insurance industry might be lost eventually, but not under any current proposal. Economic stagnation? Yes, reduced lost work hours due to illness and a _60_% reduction in bankruptcy filings are _bound_ to cause economic stagnation. Not to mention the competitive disadvantage American employers will no longer be at when they don’t have to provide health insurance to their employees. Wasting dollars on government administration? Medicare overhead costs account for 3% of its budget. Private health insurance overhead hovers around the 10% mark. Why are you so keen on wasting dollars on private administration? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/99 "2009-11-05T15:14:25Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > Do you go to every one you find out about? Do you? I’m curious. What are you trying to accomplish with this chess move? It doesn’t look to be a winning strategy, just sayin. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277/100 "2009-11-05T15:16:12Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Here’s an interesting documentary. > [Sick Around The World | FRONTLINE | PBS](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/) I’m well aware of that article. It is quite good, but maybe you missed the bits about the premiums and out-of-pocket expenses that those 5 countries have. For example, Germans pay on average almost $10,000 a year for their healthcare. You don’t think that constitutes a financial hardship? You could have your ER trip every year for that much! Or why would $10,000 a year in premiums not be a hardship, but paying $5000K out of pocket for a single incident is? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-my-friend-on-facebook-who-has-been-spewing-anti-healthcare-reform-messages-for-the-past-6-months/516277.md?page=6)