All of you guys arguing against UHC, without regard to the pros and cons of moving from our current system to another one, but rather based on the general idea that government is wasteful, seem to throw around the concept of the straw man a lot. It’s as if you are propping up the straw man of government waste and knocking it down as support for your reasons why we should have multiple private insurers acting independently rather than a more coordinated system of insurance.
Did Hannity use the term straw man recently?
The term’s getting a lot lip talk and not even seeming to be used correctly.
Did you guys just misunderstand the term to be some sort of rhetorical trump card?
It’s just government-is-wasteful-bad, over and over, with the only details being about things like the relative murder rates amongst countries, or the rate of welfare fraud in California, neither of which is directly relevant–in fact, no one is even attempting to explain the relevance beyond the generalities that keep being harped on. Even when asked to.
A bunch of stuff that I cannot answer came from LilShieste. You need to stay on point - I’m not going to follow you all over trying to figure out where you are jumping to. My only comment is that simply because some department cannot get a conviction on every case they hear about doesn’t mean that abuse is not happening at a high rate.
How many people in the US do you think have paid more than a couple of million in premiums, or can afford to pay that kind of money in cash out of their own assets?
Almost all patients who cost significant money to treat are being paid for by others, either co-insured (who have to pay increased premiums as a result) or by taxpayers (if the patient is uninsured or they hit their policy’s limit). UHC or current system doesn’t matter, either way healthcare costs are passed to society and the country is still headed for a hard choice between financial implosion or dragging people off the cancer ward to be euthanised. The discussion is around finding the least inefficient way to handle the cost distribution.
I think you already do, unless you are arguing that the US system is the best arrangement for medical care that could ever be put together, which would be a somewhat unusual viewpoint.
You think the UK is a socialist country? Australia? Canada? Germany? Taiwan? Israel? Saudi Arabia?
If the answer to any of these is ‘No’ then what are you babbling about? If your answer to ALL of these is ‘Yes’ then I suggest you leave us all alone and go back to your own private alternate universe.
Yes. Yes it is.
To address the rest of your post, I haven’t been arguing anything, but posted questions seeking the pro-UHC perspective on why UHC is feasible given the level of useless found in your average government office. I have stated repeatedly that my GUT FEELING is that it won’t work. That doesn’t mean I’m one of the rabid repubs, or Hannity watchers, or anything else. It simply means that I’m curious about UHC and asking questions about it. I could have sworn that was allowed here.
However, if you really need data on how wasteful our government is, this is a good place to start.
I suspect the answer is “yes”. IME, conservatives think that any country less fiscally conservative than Monaco is “socialist”.
I did point out earlier that whatever government waste may be present in the not-yet-proposed UHC system will be hard-pressed to match the waste inherent in the current system.
You did, and I wasted my time responding to the knuckleheads, which was dumb given the amount of time I generally have to spend on here. Let me address your post now.
As for point one, I’d argue that the same would apply to a central healthcare office. No government agency has to fuction effectively, since the government has a monopoly on the service. Indeed there have been many arguments that by thier very nature a government office cannot function efficiently. And, in fact, the $1 billion was distributed specifically to address the backlog issues at USCIS - they received other funds to “combat terrorism”.
If UHC devolves into another typical government program, where does the consumer go for health care?
Point 2, granted. USCIS has a lot more problems in that regard than other agencies.
Point 3 also granted. I do wonder whether it would make sense to force some sort of standardization on insurance companies prior to implementing any kind of UHC plan though. It would make any such change easier and less expensive, and would have the added bonus of reducing waste in the current system.
Another question I have: What’s the fallback plan? If (and I’m saying IF) the naysayers are right, and our health care system becomes a shambles as a result of UHC, what’s the fix? I don’t think getting rid of it is an option. Has the government ever taken away a similar entitlement? I don’t think it has, but if so, I’m sure someone will point it out. If getting out isn’t an option, what happens?
Until they hit their limit. After that, unless they qualify for Medicaid, noone pays for them. Would this also be true of the UHC, or are we all going to be responsible for paying out this kind of money over and over? How long before we would be totally in the tank if that is true?
No, where I live I can go to the doctor when I need to and get treatment. Yes, that isn’t true for “the working poor” but I cannot see how expecting one health care system to cover everyone no matter what their habits, station in life and ability to pay are will make for anything better than what I already have.
I think I’ve said this before - I have no idea, I don’t live in any of those places.
From dictionary.com –> "socialism [soh-shuh-liz-uhm] –noun
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole."
It seems that the major reason folks want to have a UHC is because there are some people who can afford health care and some that can’t. This is also why we have welfare, because people think that folks who have (what they view as) “extra money” should be giving it to those who are less “fortunate”. The more we create “safety nets” like a UHC, the closer we are to becoming socialist, which is only one more step to —>
"communism [kom-yuh-niz-uhm] –noun
a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state."
I would much rather live in a place where my efforts, skills and work ethic are rewarded and I am not required to pay out to support people who cannot get off their butts and earn a living. I am already paying to give them food, shelter and diapers, now you want me to pay to give them health care - under the laughable idea that it would cost me less and/or provide better care.
If, as some here claim, the benefits of UHC might not translate to the USA, isn’t it just as reasonable to argue that the advantages in top-end care are not due to the lack of socialized medicine?
If we’re being sloppy to claim that UHC works in other countries & would therefore work here, then isn’t it even more sloppy to claim that private medicine causes better transplant care?
And yet you had no problem implying Canadians don’t have the “underclass” with the same culture of complaint as the USA does. Do you know anything about Canada or not?
Is it really that hard to pick up an encyclopedia to learn what countries are socialist and which ones aren’t? Or look it up online?
I am stunned, curlcoat. You stun me. Should payment be required before admission to the ER? Whether or not you think it’s good that you already pay for emergency and life-saving medical care for the poor, you do it. This is a fact. If you’d rather that the poor die in the gutters outside the ER rather than be treated, well then kudos, I respect your evil. But it’s unlikely that you do want this. Well, hypothetically speaking, say you paid for some regular inexpensive preventative care for these people so that you don’t have to pay a lot more later to keep them alive. Does this not seem like a good idea?
Jesus merciful fuck, this thread is still going on?
Curlcoat has no intention of actually thinking. She’s a fucking automation, with as much going on under her top hat as the animatronic Lincoln at Disney Land.*
Has she conceded a single argument yet? Has she actually looked at anyone’s data or links and actually learned a single thing? She lives in an ignorance bubble capable of deflecting any logic or factual attack.
*I’ve never been, so I don’t know if he’s actually wearing the hat.
Pfui. Simply because you don’t agree with my conclusions doesn’t mean that I am not thinking. It actually makes you look like an automation, absorbing and believing every fantasy that sounds good to you, when you post something like this.
Having government sponsored social safety nets does not equate to socialism. This is (American) right wing propaganda that somehow’s made it into the mainstream of political discourse. Let’s be clear: you made the claim that moving toward public health care was a step towards socialism. It’s your job to back that up.
The point of the quote was obvious. Adam Smith was a well known capitalist theorist and espoused the primacy of free markets, yet even he recognised that the government has multiple roles, in promoting social justice (through his proposed progressive taxation) and also to prevent the “publick evil” of widespread disease in the population. Tell me, curlcoat, in your view, was Adam Smith a socialist?
(As an aside, it always amuses me that Smith has somehow become a folk hero to extreme libertarians, seeing as he generally recognized that governments routinely have to intervene in the “free market”.)
Of course I don’t agree with you. I didn’t have the advantage of your preternatural ability to suss out the right side of an issue without evidence and thinking.
I did. Since you apparently didn’t understand my post regarding moving towards socialism, I’m not surprised that you didn’t understand the “back up”. OK, hint - it has nothing to do with whether or not the government is sponsoring anything. Think overall attitude of the people.
(BTW, I don’t waste my time listening to the right wing, or the left wing for that matter, and don’t listen to propaganda from anyone. This may be what the problem here is - I think for myself so my conclusions may be uncomfortable for those that let Faux News think for them.)