Americans set to get standardised/universal healthcare

[Wrath of Dagon]

We don't, Barry Dunham and his crew do.

[213374U]

Er, I dont.

Well, that's great. But the chump at 1600 Pennsylvania Av. may not be so clear on that.

 

edit: wod beat me to it

Edited September 25, 2009 by 213374U

[Gfted1]

Does everyone deserve a full stomach? A roof over their heads?

Yes. Yes they do.

 

 

Lol, you better start writing your Congressman now. That bad boy is going to run another 2-3 Trillion all by itself. I know! We'll raise taxes on the "evil rich ones" who stupidly worked to get to that point. That will teach those bastards while at the same time provide for people that "deserve" it simply through accident of birth!

[ramza]

So if I PM you my Paypal info you will cover my mortgage for me? Ive been working for 21 years and I still have 26 left to go. Im tired of that and dont feel like doing it anymore, cool with you? No? Why not? Id argue thats more important than healthcare. After all, I need a house every day but I only need healthcare very infrequently. Oh, any Im going to need you to hook a brother up with free meals too. For my entire family. Its the only civilized thing to do after all.

 

Being sick is synonym to suffering. If you find it normal that in a developed country, people die in the streets, live like dogs and cannot even afford a doctor, then I am left speechless... We send doctors to third world countries to provide some healthcare, and you find it normal to deprive our own citizens of the very same healthcare? How can you be so insensitive? This has nothing to do with generosity or mortgage or whatever. You decide to buy a house or not. But you don't decide whether you will fall sick or not, have cancer or not, etc. Is it so hard to be humane enough to help each other under such dire situations?

 

There are some basic social needs that should be provided to everyone: healthcare, education, food and lodging if you want me to name them. All western continental european countries provide all of these to some extent. Schools and universities have very low wages and still manage to provide some quality education (high quality in some cases). There are some social buildings where apartments can be rent at a lower cost provided the families have low wages. Food, well, the state doesn't provide directly food but there are some public funded associations that do this job. Finally, universal healthcare is something that is considered as due.

[213374U]

People watch too much Star Trek.

[alanschu]

So if I PM you my Paypal info you will cover my mortgage for me? Ive been working for 21 years and I still have 26 left to go. Im tired of that and dont feel like doing it anymore, cool with you? No? Why not? Id argue thats more important than healthcare. After all, I need a house every day but I only need healthcare very infrequently. Oh, any Im going to need you to hook a brother up with free meals too. For my entire family. Its the only civilized thing to do after all.

 

 

With a glorious post like this, I wonder what I am missing in this thread.

 

/me starts at the beginning.

[Gfted1]

Being sick is synonym to suffering. If you find it normal that in a developed country, people die in the streets, live like dogs and cannot even afford a doctor, then I am left speechless... We send doctors to third world countries to provide some healthcare, and you find it normal to deprive our own citizens of the very same healthcare? How can you be so insensitive? This has nothing to do with generosity or mortgage or whatever. You decide to buy a house or not. But you don't decide whether you will fall sick or not, have cancer or not, etc. Is it so hard to be humane enough to help each other under such dire situations?

 

Sad? Yes. Tragic? You betcha. My problem? Not a chance in hell. I work to support myself and my family, not yours. People who are not going to the doctor because they dont want a bill are stupid. They arent being denied healthcare, they arent going because they dont want to pay.

 

There are some basic social needs that should be provided to everyone: healthcare, education, food and lodging if you want me to name them. All western continental european countries provide all of these to some extent. Schools and universities have very low wages and still manage to provide some quality education (high quality in some cases). There are some social buildings where apartments can be rent at a lower cost provided the families have low wages. Food, well, the state doesn't provide directly food but there are some public funded associations that do this job. Finally, universal healthcare is something that is considered as due.

 

*is dumbstruck*

 

I dont know how to respond to that mentality. You feel the world should be handed to you and I feel you should work for it. I suppose were at in impasse.

 

But enough pontificating and navel gazing, whos stepping up to take care of me and my family? Ill, need about 5k a month to support my lifestyle. Remember, I deserve it, just because.

[ramza]

If things were done right and if everyone contributed according to their wages, there wouldn't have been a funding problem. You don't complain when your taxes serve to fund the war in Iraq but you complain when they are given to provide medication or soothing to some poor soul. That's simply dreadful. What if you lost your job and your house tomorrow and you were asthmatic? How would you pay for your medication? Have you even thought about that?

It's not that people don't want to pay their doctor's bill, they just can't. When healthcare is as expensive as it is in the US, how do you expect someone with low wages to pay his taxes, feed his children, pay the rent, pay the school fees and have money left when he, his wife or his children fall sick at least twice a year?

 

When you live in a society, you do not live on your own and work for yourself. You are part of the society and you have rights and obligations as well. It is part of the social contract to allow people to live with a minimum of decency, not like animals.

[Gfted1]

If things were done right and if everyone contributed according to their wages, there wouldn't have been a funding problem. You don't complain when your taxes serve to fund the war in Iraq but you complain when they are given to provide medication or soothing to some poor soul. That's simply dreadful. What if you lost your job and your house tomorrow and you were asthmatic? How would you pay for your medication? Have you even thought about that?

It's not that people don't want to pay their doctor's bill, they just can't. When healthcare is as expensive as it is in the US, how do you expect someone with low wages to pay his taxes, feed his children, pay the rent, pay the school fees and have money left when he, his wife or his children fall sick at least twice a year?

 

When you live in a society, you do not live on your own and work for yourself. You are part of the society and you have rights and obligations as well. It is part of the social contract to allow people to live with a minimum of decency, not like animals.

 

 

Ay carumba! What a steaming pile of altruistic crap.

 

1) My taxes did not increase to fund the war. They will increase to pay for your healthcare.

2) If I lose my job? Sucks to be me. Guess Ill have to get back on the horse and try again. Oh, no I wont, you guys will support me.

3) They CANT pay their bills? You do know you can make payments, right? No, of course you dont. The bully boys will be right over to drag you from your home, take sexual favors with your wife and press your children into service working in the coal mine.

 

Seriously, WTF, its been almost an hour and nobody is taking care of me yet. How can you be such animals?

[Morgoth]

Makes me glad I don't live in America. Way too ****ed up for my taste.

[ramza]

Yup, despite both belonging to the occidental world, europeans and americans have very different positions on certain matters: universal healthcare, firearms ownership, death penalty to name a few... We are not that similar...

[Wrath of Dagon]

We're glad too.

 

Funny how people can afford cell phones and big screen TV's and cable but not insurance. Still, it's true healthcare is unreasonably expensive for the average working person, mostly because since insurance pays, the consumer doesn't care how much his treatment costs.

[alanschu]

um, no, this is not true. we pay more because we are offsetting the "deals" other governments have made with the drug companies.

 

You pay more because the people will pay it. Or are you saying that the drug companies would be willing to sacrifice their bottom line simply to charge the Americans less than they'd be willing to pay?

[Gfted1]

C'mon guys, only five minutes until I leave for the weekend and Id like to know Im retired before I go. Wont someone take pity on this poor schmuck whos worked his whole life to get where he is? Ive been a pawn of "the man" for too long, someone come pay for me. I deserve it!

[213374U]

If things were done right and if everyone contributed according to their wages, there wouldn't have been a funding problem. You don't complain when your taxes serve to fund the war in Iraq but you complain when they are given to provide medication or soothing to some poor soul.

Yes, if things were done right, "there would be no more terrorists, and no more arguments and disputes, and we all went to live in the gingerbread house at the end of lollipop lane in the land of chocolate ..."

 

Seriously, you really need to stop watching so much Star Trek. The real world does not work like that at all, no matter how much ideologues and naive idealists wish otherwise.

 

National defense is one of the few things the individual cannot reasonably be expected to do well on his own. National defense also includes defending one's vital strategic interests, by whatever means necessary. I suspect you have no idea to what point Western prosperity is built on oil. Our dependency on it is absolute and unlike anything before. So, yeah. Unless you're willing to go back to living Victorian-style, don't get all teary-eyed when folks don't protest their taxes being used to fuel the US war machine... you're getting a free ride, after all.

 

 

That's simply dreadful.

You know what's really dreadful? People not knowing their history. Not knowing how much effort went into building what they now take for granted. Not knowing how much blood was spilled so they didn't have to worry about watching what they say or what they think. Not knowing that nothing is free. Not understanding the meaning of accountability, responsibility and confusing natural rights with contingent rights and other assorted socialist propaganda. In essence, not knowing what the flaming crap they are talking about.

 

That is dreadful.

 

 

It's not that people don't want to pay their doctor's bill, they just can't. When healthcare is as expensive as it is in the US, how do you expect someone with low wages to pay his taxes, feed his children, pay the rent, pay the school fees and have money left when he, his wife or his children fall sick at least twice a year?

So foster competence and that'll drive healthcare prices down. Why are you taking for granted that the only way to solve this is to force hardworking taxpayers to pay for everything?

 

 

When you live in a society, you do not live on your own and work for yourself. You are part of the society and you have rights and obligations as well. It is part of the social contract to allow people to live with a minimum of decency, not like animals.

That's nice. I don't remember endorsing any contracts where it said that I have to take care of the lazy, the stupid or the cheating. I'd see about rescinding that contract if I were you.

[alanschu]

I read on salary.com that a surgeon in America on average makes about 350.000$-570.000$, with the majority at around 400.000$, a year in America. In Denmark the minimum is around 550.000$, so by your logic our doctors are more motivated and therefore better? And that's just in our public hospitals, our private healthcare sector they make around 1.5x that..

 

Please check your sources before making generalizations please...

 

 

My cousin just got her Doctor of Medicine in April. Her starting salary up here in Canada is about CDN$350,000/yr. She seems to be doing okay financially.

 

 

I saw an interesting video in my Sociology of Health and Illness class, my final year of University. It took a look at the health care system of Canada, and the health care system of the United States.

 

In talks with both sides, you saw doctors that were for the system they were in, as well as against it. In both cases, doctors had issues with having to deny patients care due to cost, either due to limits from the government (Canada), or the HMO managing the care center (United States). Both sides had universal complaints about the escalating cost of health care, and restrictions on using expensive tests to make diagnosis.

 

Though what I found most interesting was that, in general, the Canadian doctors interviewed said they'd prefer a more private system like the US, but the US doctors interviewed all said they'd prefer a system like the Canadian system.

[alanschu]

Even in Canada's system, the administrators don't work for free. It's just silly. People making money off of the sick and dying is the very definition of the Health Care profession.

 

Not to get into the debate, but "not for profit" doesn't mean that people work for free.

[Rostere]

My taxes did not increase to fund the war. They will increase to pay for your healthcare.

 

That statement is actually pretty interesting. I'm not saying that it's wrong, though.

 

What about the economical situation, had there been no war?

 

If your tax did not increase, what paid for the war?

 

 

Due to circumstance, I'm actually for the current health care system in the US. However I'm happy we don't have the same system where I live (even though it would probably be in my immidiate interest to reform the Swedish system into one similar to the American one).

[alanschu]

sigh... the same old tired correlation equals causation argument. do yourself a favor and study up on some basic statistics.

 

Correlation does not imply causation is true, but mostly because causation is pretty much impossible to determine.

 

 

However, the entire scientific method is about observing statistical correlations and implying causation. I just get tired of the mantra on the internet of people stating "correlation does not mean causation" as a defense to anyone that brings in some data.

 

If you wanted to be really skeptical, you could take Hume's approach that determining causation is pretty much impossible

[alanschu]

*sigh* Maybe some day you will be able to see a pov different from yours. So far, all models Ive seen predict a 13% increase in taxes for all workers to pay for this UHC. Not 13% per family, 13% per person. That equates to a 26% decrease (both my wife and I work) in my families disposable income. I can not absorb a 26% decrease without significant negative consequences to my way of life. Why? So Joe A-Hole can get a free ride? Screw that. It makes me want to stab him in the face myself so at least I can have the satisfaction of seeing my money at work.

 

 

Umm, that's still a 13% decrease.

 

 

100 - 13% = 87

100 - 13% = 87

---------------------

200 - 13% = 174

 

Of course, if your employer no longer had to pay for your health insurance premiums, he could directly give that money to you.

 

 

EDIT: Not surprisingly this has been addressed already >.>

Edited September 25, 2009 by alanschu

[Theseus]

sigh... the same old tired correlation equals causation argument. do yourself a favor and study up on some basic statistics.

 

Correlation does not imply causation is true, but mostly because causation is pretty much impossible to determine.

 

 

However, the entire scientific method is about observing statistical correlations and implying causation. I just get tired of the mantra on the internet of people stating "correlation does not mean causation" as a defense to anyone that brings in some data.

 

If you wanted to be really skeptical, you could take Hume's approach that determining causation is pretty much impossible

Hume wasn't even about disproving the correlation of cause and effect. He was showing how we humans tend to condition ourselves to take for granted the cause of such and such effects. One of the conditions being through repetition we take. His billiard ball idea was very psychological. Yet this just proves that looking at the statistics i agree Alan, all the top countries have drastically more money then the US when universalized.

[alanschu]

Hume wasn't even about disproving the correlation of cause and effect. He was showing how we humans tend to condition ourselves to take for granted the cause of such and such effects. One of the conditions being through repetition we take. His billiard ball idea was very psychological. Yet this just proves that looking at the statistics i agree Alan, all the top countries have drastically more money then the US when universalized.

 

 

Fair enough. I certainly won't dispute that people have a need to believe in some sort of cause and effect. Heck, even controlled experiments, which are said to be the way to determine causation by controlling variables, are still just a bunch of statistics that attempt to find a correlation between two variables, and infer a causation from them.

[alanschu]

No. That's not elementary at all.

 

Americans pay more in taxes on healthcare AND pay more for their private health insurance than the vast majority of Western countries with universal healthcare.

 

The only viable argument for you to run with to claim universal healthcare is more expensive is a short-term, high start-up cost argument, since a UHC is cheaper from a long-term perspective. In fact, that appears to be the main barrier in the House and Senate at the moment, and it has some validity since America is a massive conglomerate of disparate states, all with their own quirky healthcare regulations (not to mention the odd mashup of non-universal Federal healthcare safety nets).

 

 

Well, UHC seems cheaper than the US system, but the US system seems pretty fugged up to me. I couldn't state that UHC is best and most efficient for the United States, especially based on its culture, but right now I am pretty comfortable saying that the health care system, in its entirety, of the United States needs to be overhauled somehow.

[alanschu]

taks, I have a question. How is it any more irrational or fascist to pay for someone else's helathcare than their security with the police and army?

The Constitution requires the federal government to secure the republic and defend the borders. It does not require (and I would make the argument does not permit) the federal government from administrating healthcare, nor compelling the citizens to participate in its largesse.

 

 

That seems like a bit of a copout answer though. All you have done is said that it's acceptable because our constitution said so.

 

This sounds harsher than I mean it to, but do you think you would you support a UHC system if it had been written into the constitution all those years ago? It's a genuine question and I know it's hard to answer "honestly" because you grew up, and are the person you are, in part because of your belief in the constitution.

 

 

At its literal level though, I have a hard time perceiving the base acts any differently.

 

 

 

The breakdown I'm about to show is intended to be simplistic, but I don't think I'm really missing anything particularly crucial. Let me know if I am.

 

 

Government takes money from you --------> Government funds defense (at all levels: police, military, etc)

Government takes money from you --------> Government funds health care

 

 

Now, I personally have never relied on my police service to investigate a crime for me. There are a lot of people that do though. Is it not analogous to the health care criticisms to say that they are benefiting off my dollar, whereas the system could just as easily be set up in a way that people pay the police themselves to investigate crimes?

 

To me it seems quite parallel. Help clear it up for me. With the exception of the constitution being explicit (I'm assuming so, I am not really all that familiar with the US constitution).

Edited September 26, 2009 by alanschu

[Asol]

Government takes money from you --------> Government funds defense (at all levels: police, military, etc)

Government takes money from you --------> Government funds health care

 

Now, I personally have never relied on my police service to investigate a crime for me. There are a lot of people that do though. Is it not analogous to the health care criticisms to say that they are benefiting off my dollar, whereas the system could just as easily be set up in a way that people pay the police themselves to investigate crimes?

 

Enjoyable polite society and anything one can consider 'their rights' within comes from rule and enforcement of law. You have most likely relied on it for every aspect of your life. Are we going to pretend their is not a gulf here being jumped in terms of necessity or benefit? It is just greed and entitlement being encouraged here, personal health is a personal responsibility. Breaking 100 is an achievement is not a right, further you don't get surguries and cancer meds because you had to eat McDonalds and smoke cigarettes everyday and so on...

 

The world is not here to be your opium den people, imo this is nothing but greed and lazyness voting for freebies and pretending future generations won't be paying through crushing inflation and other disasters. Its hard to find nicer or more charming ways to make these points and the topic is unmotivating. The perspective of entitlement is so thick.

Edited September 26, 2009 by Asol