It’s really hell having the right not to be to frightened to be ill.
It’s even more hellish knowing my children and my children’s children - regardless of their personal success or natural born health condition - will never have to worry.
Living in a free country is a bit daunting. It means accepting a certain amount of risk & sacrifice in exchange for individual liberty & limited government. It is certainly not for everyone. For those U.S. citizens who value safety & security over liberty, I seriously recommend that they move to a socialistic country, and let our country remain free.
And for those who cannot abide living under our Constitution, I suggest they move to somewhere with less government, like Somalia.
Freedom is not having your family’s healthcare linked to an employer like they’re some feudal Lord, it’s about not living in fear of the extent to which your insurance company will go to avoid its responsibilities. Freedom is about not being frightened to be ill. Ever. You, your grandparents, your great grandchildren, no matter what, no matter when.
From “socialised” Japan and Taiwan in the east to “socialized” Australia in the south to “socialized” Canada in the west: It is freedom to live without fear - and it is why every other industrialized nation chooses it it at every election, decade after decade.
You are being conned.
And if they’re the majority? Shouldn’t *you *move in that case?
It’s a moot point, anyway. Most people want both safety & security *and *freedom. As those two goals are occassionally (but not always) contradictory, most people seek to balance them out. The exact point where that balance falls is decided by the people acting as a democracy. Don’t like it? Live somewhere else.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm???
Will I be able to drop my malpractice insurance ?:dubious:
THAT would make me very happy.
I see you didn’t post to my thread “In what ways are countries with UHC ‘less free’ than the U.S.?”
I think it would be enlightening if you did. It would certainly add some needed context, IMO.
What’s the problem? From The Nation:
If you don’t like the way this country is going – and make no mistake, it is going leftward – why don’t you move to a more libertarian country?
And what socialist countries do you recommend since health care is provided by democracies and all the industrial countries except us.? The socialism argument does not work. It is invalid.
Some countries care about the poor . This country cares about the rich. But they have done so much damage to us in the last couple decades ,that it is frightening. I guess saying "thank .you sir I will have another’, like Animal House would be good.
Not only that, it’s a huge pressure against small businesses. I’m an entrepreneur, I launched a business out of my home about four years ago. It’s going reasonably well, I’m doing business all over the world… but I absolutely cannot afford to take even baby-steps toward expansion with the expectation of being able to take care of my employees. I won’t hire people if I can’t afford to provide for them in terms of a real, living wage and that includes health care. Under our current system, it’s my responsibility as the employer to provide that, and there’s just no way my home-based business can foot that bill. I could hire temp workers, or pay people under the table… I could put people to work, and I could afford to pay them reasonably well for their time and skills, but I cannot afford to build a legitimate company around the sort of real, long-term employees that I want as an employer to invest in, and be able to provide them with health insurance under our current system. That being the case, I turn business away because I’m tapped out for time and hands. What kind of sick joke is that?
We are so wealthy in terms of the manufacturing potential of this country. We could so easily start producing things again and employ our nation. We sit on billions of the richest acres in the world for crops and natural resources and no one can afford to pay people to do anything with it. Even if people wanted the jobs of picking crops and working in factories, it’s impossible to pay reasonable living wages plus benefits under the current system for basic labor. So what are we doing? Exporting money and jobs and importing “stuff”. Why can’t we start making our own “stuff” again?
This health insurance thing is absolutely crippling us, and I just cannot even begin to grasp how and why so many people are letting themselves be carried away by such an astoundingly transparent wash of industry propaganda. I want to do ethical business and employ people in my own country, but I cannot afford to do so purely because of the provision of health insurance. Hell, if it weren’t for my husband holding an “outside” job, I’d be uninsured myself and would never have been able to launch the venture in the first place. Why is no one making more noise about this in the current debate?
It boggles my mind. I really and truly do not understand how anyone can fight changing this system. I wonder sometimes about the universe of creativity and ingenuity being smothered purely because people are terrified of losing their health coverage. How many people are there currently working in jobs they hate for the health insurance? I like the question someone else posed about wondering why no one thinks it’s weird that we don’t depend on our employers for car or homeowner’s policies. The whole thing is bizarre.
For anyone concerned with being “forced” to buy into insurance they don’t want, how is it any different from your state forcing you to carry liability-only coverage at a minimum on your vehicle? If you don’t want to take care of yourself, that’s fine by me, but if you get hit by a bus and wind up in an ER, you’re still getting treated on my dime. There’s no time or rational way to pat you down and ascertain that you’d rather stand on principle and get dumped in the gutter than suckle off the national ICU teat. That being the case, I want my country to take the chance, treat you, then when you’re out of your coma and body cast and back into gainful employment you can pay it back if you don’t want the stink of charity on your extensive orthopedic and neurological repair work.
I’d bet that the bottom-of-the-barrel catastrophic-only coverage option is going to be pretty cheap, and I don’t feel bad for forcing you to buy it, though I’ll certainly concede that whether you choose to be extorted by a private company or buy it from the government on the cheap should be your own choice. Personally I feel as though since the private company does have the out of foisting some of the bills onto the government as it is, they should pay some sort of tax (which of course will come out of your pocket as a subscriber), so in the end it’s probably far more fiscally expeditious for you to just pay into the government plan and save yourself the middleman. If you don’t want to have insurance, you can continue to pay out of pocket in full for your routine medical care as you currently do, but if you get hit by a bus and need emergency care, you’ve already paid into the system that’s going to save your ass. You’d be free to pay the middleman of course, but I have a hard time understanding why you’d want to, if all you’re doing is buying the CYA-care. For those more concerned with their tinfoil hats than the cost and quality of health insurance, they’d be free to continue continue on paying the obscene rates for dismal care that they currently do (and they should take a minute to stop by HR and find out if their company thinks their insurance rates are “reasonable”).
Sometimes the argument goes “I just don’t trust the government to anything right.” Now, see, this I don’t understand either. Do we really collectively agree that our government is just too stupid (or corrupt) to manage health care? That Cuba is smarter than us? That every one of I Love Me, Vol. I’s list of countries wins at government over the United States of America (fuck yeah!)? That’s really your argument? That we’ve either become so grossly inept, or were so from the very start, that we can’t manage this (or according to some, any) particular task? If that’s the case, why haven’t we undertaken a massive restructuring of government so that it can be better managed by and for the people?
I might have more respect for the opposition if there seemed to be any sort of thought behind the bleating. I got into a discussion with an acquaintance (who for context is fundamentally religious in a politically active and very conservative religion). She was insistent that there’s no possible way a private entity can compete with a public-run entity… and was stymied by the question of how Yale manages to compete with UC Berkeley or the local community college. Really? That’s as far as we can get into the conversation before these folks run into mental roadblocks?
I had a conversation with a relative the other day that went: “all you hippies that want universal health care, you never talk about how we’re gonna pay for it”. I suggested that we could see the money through various routes already proposed in this thread, and furthermore that I wouldn’t mind kicking in a few tax bucks if it means ultimately lowering my own out-of-pocket and health-related expenses; we’ll certainly see the returns on an investment in a wholly healthier population in all sorts of tangible and intangible ways. The response was “whatever hippie, if you like socialism so much, move to North Korea” (yes, I know).
I honestly don’t think it’s the government that’s the issue, but too many are stupid, lazy people being driven like sheep. There are some fine, pertinent questions to be asked, but most folks aren’t asking the good questions, nor do they really care to hear the answers.
Well, you got that off your chest!
I’m kind of surprised that no one uses that feudal argument to counter the “socilaiazed” accusation but I live elsewhere so maybe they do.
…and by that last comment, I certainly don’t mean that anyone who opposes the current propositions are stupid, lazy, hive-minders, that comes of as unnecessarily harsh. I’m mostly frustrated that the folks I know in my day-to-day life who vehemently oppose “health care reform” don’t really even seem to know what it is they’re opposing, and these aren’t even folks who normally subscribe to the tinfoil hat or “g’ummint is bad” crowds. They’re just… good, normal (employed, white) people who just don’t stop to think about what their steadfast refusal to engage in this reform really means to them in the big picture.
ETA: whew, I did, didn’t I? 
…and another thing!
Whenever you buy a widget made of steel mined, smelted, factory-fied and widgetized in another country then shipped to the US, you *are *paying for universal health insurance. If you buy something produced in and imported from any nation on that list, you are financing the lives and economies of countries that provide for their own people. If they can afford to end private monopolies on health care and ease the burden on employers… if they can manage health care for the people and also produce things that we as a nation want to buy, then what argument could there possibly be to stop us from returning to a manufacturing-based economy, once you strip the monumentally wasteful current cost of health care from the equation? We have the resources, we have the warm bodies, we have the whole rust belt waiting to get to work, and if the rest of the Western industrialized world can pull it off, I’m willing to bank a few tax bucks that we can probably sort it out, too. Fuck, you put a bunch of newly-healthy people to work and maybe we’d even have fewer drug and crime and parenting problems. Sweet jeebus on a toothpick, this whole thing makes me mad. :smack:
Why are Republicans so adamant that abortion not be covered in any health care plan? Doesn’t abortion save money? Doesn’t abortion preserve freedom?
They’re certainly not acting like people who “respect life” when it comes to health care.
Come to think of it, how do Republicans feel about abortions for illegal aliens?
Most health costs ARE age-related. The Dutch RIVM (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) has published a study on data from 2005 called ‘International comparison of cost of illness’. The (partial) english edition can be downloaded here: International comparison of cost of illness 270751016
The relevant graphs (cost of illness by age group) start at page 80. The cost of the 85+ age group are almost 8 times that of the 15-45 age group (per person ofcourse).
Also relevant to the greater discussion is that the Netherlands switched to a more privatized (but heavily subsidized and regulated) system and health care cost actually increased. To quote from wikipedia: “However, an assessment of the 2006 Dutch health insurance reforms published in Duke University’s Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law in 2008 raised concerns. The analysis found that market-based competition in healthcare may not have the advantages over more publicly based single payer models that were originally envisioned for the reforms.”.
I also don’t see a problem with the government rationing health care. There is a finite amount of medical ‘capacity’, so there MUST be some form of rationing, whether we want to admit it or not. Surely it’s more humane to ration based on the cost effectiveness of a treatment, than on a person’s financial position?
There are only (and only) two problems with Universal/Socialised healthcare:
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The business interests in the medical sector will get hurt massively. Chairmans and stockholders won’t make as much money, bonuses will plummet, doctors may only be able to afford two vacation houses.
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People are absolutely retarded. Seriously. It’s beyond belief. And maybe having access to good health care would help, but I don’t think so, they would probably still be INCREDIBLY stupid. These people refuse to believe that Socialised Healthcare works, even though they can easily check for themself. Even though the nations that have it get better healthcare, for everyone, for less costs. I don’t know if this particular brand of retardedness is brought on by ideological traumas, clever propaganda or if it is genetic. But it is there, and it is obviously massive.
If people would just tell their inner demagogue to shut the fuck up for a second, take an ideology-enema and go look up the god damn stats maybe they’d understand it. But probably not.
The only non-retarded people who can rationally be against it is the ones making huge amounts of money from the current travesty.
[edit: I cna’t spel]
Mostly I’m a lurker on the Board, but I’ve decided to put my oar in the water here because I disagree with many of the folks with whom I agree UHC is a good idea. I don’t think the problem is that people are stoopid or that they’ve been sold a bill of fear. I think the problem is that most (meaning, simply, a majority) don’t see a problem because they have insurance. Sure, some are trapped in shitty jobs to keep it, but they’re the exception. For most, the status quo is okay. Sure, many (perhaps most) agree it would be nice to cover the uninsured, but they’re not interested in paying for it. And, sure, it would be swell to cover everyone at lower overall cost, but that does sound a bit pie-in-the-sky, even to me.
So, what it boils down to is that we’re a “me first” culture and that’s served us pretty well for a pretty long time. I happen to believe that’s the wrong model here. To me, UHC is like universal education and public roads, a public good that justifies the cost. But it doesn’t surprise me to find I’m in the minority. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. Democracy ain’t always pretty.
It is weird that those who have coverage don’t seem to face it that their coverage is deteriorating and they will not have it in the future. They can not even look ahead. I have it now, I’m good. But the cost continues to rocket and it will not be the same in the near future. It simply has to be fixed and now.