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[eerr]

Loo, what the problem? USA citizens dont want free healthcare? Okay, their decision ,theirp roblems? Broke a leg but dont have money for healthcare? Too bad, but htat was your choice.

I really, honestly want to know.  Do people actually believe that health care is "free" under a nationalized system?  I really hope people that say that are just being facetious.  If you are really this naive, please lie and act like you knew this all along, save yourself the embarrassment.

Stop being stupid. Increased taxes are nothing compared to prices of healthcare in USA.

Exactly, to pay for the healthcare bill as proposed orignally by obama 'Increased taxes' really doesn't come close.
We're talkin such taxes that government will grow noticeably larger.

Quite an accomplishment considering how bloated it is already.

[Luke_Prowler]

While it's not exactly part of the current conversation, I think part of the complaining is from whiny Conservatives trying to start a huff. It's not really about whether the system works or not, but that the Liberals got their way.

[Andir]

Andir... You suggest having state funded healthcare on a state level... but healthcare is not something that can be done on that level.  If one state introduces it, sick people from other states are likely to flock their, crippling their finances.  The whole country needs to introduce it or it is useless.

Considering that it's not really that different from today... if someone crosses the border to get care in another state, their major medical insurance is restricted to the state from which they came.  You'll still have to pay for your treatment in California because your insurance is restricted to Nevada by Federal Law... and this system they just voted in doesn't change that!  You can buy Health Insurance in another state, but you'll have to go there for providers (ie: care).  So even if you did go to another state and didn't have your coverage card you'd still get the bill, the collections, etc.

(edit: BTW, I just went through this when I called an ambulance because my Mom was visiting me when I was in Chicago and she had a diabetic fit... she was charged the full amount because she had out of state insurance.)

This would also be no different than someone going to Canada or Mexico to get a treatment.  Do you see a lot of this going on? (edit: struck Mexico... I really don't know what their health care is like.  )

As for chaining you up... No, that'd obviously violate multiple other points of the constitution.  Basically, if you really want to, you can declare ANYTHING unconstitutional by selective quoting.

Sure, chaining might have been a reach, but let's say the "General Welfare" of citizens in Maine included everyone in America buying Lobster for every meal... btw, they sort of already do this with Corn and HFCS indirectly through tariffs and mandates... which I think is wrong as well, but another topic.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Hell, that's part of what being a social animal is all about. You take care of your weak, period.

Err.... Not exactly. See, inbetween the stages of "psudo-animalistic tribes" and "modern day" in human history, people were not exactly good to the weak, and even really are not so today. Modern thought encourages that we care for those unable to care for themselves, but it isn't really as ingrained as you claim. Being a social animal means working together to obtain the best compromise of a goal that could never be done alone. This sometimes will involve dropping a bridge on the weakist of your group. On the whole, most people don't really like destroying the few for the good of the group, but it is a simple thing to rationalize. Technological and Philosophical advancements have allowed us, in the past few centuries, to begin moving away from this horrible part of what it is to be a society. Nonetheless, it's a work-in-progress.

And then there are just those that are so filled with hatred, fanatical madness, or just plain insanity that the weak will end up falling prey to them. Once again, we are attemting to move away from this by the use of prisons and mental health institutions, instead of the oft-used "drag to edge of settlement, pelt with stones untill dead" method that has so far been dominant in human history.


But back to the topic: The main issue here is that we have no real way to determine between those who need honest healthcare that they are trying to obtain but have no chance of getting, and dregs of society that wish to either do nothing or become a parasitic to the first person who will support them. Although such distinctions can eventualy be made easly, healthcare presents a problem in that it needs any particular patient's problem to be either solved or turned away fast. There just isn't any solution that I can see here.

[Leafsnail]

(edit: BTW, I just went through this when I called an ambulance because my Mom was visiting me when I was in Chicago and she had a diabetic fit... she was charged the full amount because she had out of state insurance.)

Just more evidence of the American healthcare system working.  Although if you're ok with living your entire life in one state I suppose it's fine.

This would also be no different than someone going to Canada or Mexico to get a treatment.  Do you see a lot of this going on? (edit: struck Mexico... I really don't know what their health care is like.  )

It's a lot easier to police borders of countries and check if you're from Canada or not than it is to do the same with states.  Sure, you can illegally emigrate, but it's gonna be hard to get state healthcare in Canada with no paperwork.

Sure, chaining might have been a reach, but let's say the "General Welfare" of citizens in Maine included everyone in America buying Lobster for every meal... btw, they sort of already do this with Corn and HFCS indirectly through tariffs and mandates... which I think is wrong as well, but another topic.

Analogy doesn't work.  People die without basic healthcare.  People do not die without lobster.  Welfare doesn't need to go a long way, but keeping people alive is a fairly basic tenet of it... and having some coverage for the poor makes sense economically.  Britain first began to introduce healthcare reforms because our workforce was crippled and sick (and because, on starting the Boer War, we found that a large number of our young men were actually completely unfit for military service), and we were beginning to fall behind countries like Germany with healthy workers.

[Rotten]

The reason were got the new healthcare system is that the current one is shit. You can be booted out, even as a paying, honest customer, for filing a claim. For instance, there was an article in TIME (I think it was TIME, could of been a different magazine though) about how the largest health care provider in the US dropped millions of women after the company discovered they had breast cancer. 90% were normal paying customers, but when they got the problem, they were dropped. The company is more willing to let these people die than to pay out for their claims. You can say that the government can make that illegal, but companies find loopholes. They hire lawyers just to pick through these laws and find exploits. When you have companies this fucked up, relying on them for a basic human service is insane. Imagine if the water company shut off your water if you tried to get a drink. It's easier to simply socialize it and provide it reliably then try to write and enforce (the real hard part) laws to regulate one of the largest sectors of the US economy.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I'm worried.

I don't care or know anything about the healthcare stuff. I want good things for me and my country. And I hope the citizens we elect to learn about this stuff and serve us above all other interests will do the right thing.

But I'm worried about politics.

Let's say a Conservative doesn't want socialized healthcare. And a Liberal does. Let's just be really basic here.

Ideally, they would come together and argue and present evidence and not lie about anything. And when they found the best plan, the plan that is best for the citizens of their country, they would implement it.

But I'm worried about something that's clearly happening. The Liberal will push his socialized medicine plan through, and the Conservative will fight against it 100% because he is idealogically opposed to it. But let's say the plan is pushed through and it will be attempted. The Conservative will not abandon his resistance. He will continue to fight against the plan, even to the extent of harming his country. He will try his best to make the plan, which might succeed, into a failure. He's willing to sabotage a potential win scenario for all of us just because he's opposed to the plan itself.

An analogy would be two people trying to cross a river, one says they should build a raft and the other says build a bridge. The bridge plan is attempted, but the raft-man saws through the struts so the bridge collapses.

I'd say, what matters is that we get across the river safely and securely. Maybe a raft will do it. But maybe the bridge will too.

I guess I'm going out on a limb and expecting more from politicians than we're used to. What do you guys think about this problem of sabotage? In our current healthcare example, a Conservative may sabotage the plan by inserting things into it that he knows will make it weaker, instead of improving the plan.

[Neruz]

Fear! Paranoia! Taxes! Conspiracy! Parasites! More Fear! Change! Abject Terror! Socialism! Communism! Liberals! Conservitives! More Terror! Misinformation! Backwards Ideals! Exclaimation Marks! ADDITIONAL TERROR!


I think that pretty much sums up everything.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Fear! Paranoia! Taxes! Conspiracy! Parasites! More Fear! Change! Abject Terror! Socialism! Communism! Liberals! Conservitives! More Terror! Misinformation! Backwards Ideals! Exclaimation Marks! ADDITIONAL TERROR!


I think that pretty much sums up everything.

Yeah, that seems to be all of it.

[Leafsnail]

That's... actually an amazingly good point, which could be applied to a whole load of issues.

It seems to come up quite a lot in politics... anything that's bad for your opponent MUST be good for you, right?  Similarly, if you're not in power, you need to do everything you can to mess it up for the ruling party, riiiight?

[o_O[WTFace]]

Well, keep in mind that America does have limited state healthcare.  Medicare provides coverage to something like 50 million people over the age of 65.  The people that would benefit most from UHC already have it and they worry that any new UHC program would involve taking a cut out of their benefits.  Retirees also vote at a higher rate then other demographic groups and form a large part of the population, so that right there makes healthcare a huge uphill battle and this is probly the biggest reason UHC just isn't going to happen for a long time. 

Also, most people have health insurance through their employer.  They don't see the X dollars their employer pays them in the form of Health Coverage (that would become wages... or company profit) but they can see the higher taxes they would pay to support a UHC program.  So again, selling people something they already have.  It could realistically end up being better and cheaper for them then their current situation, but its easier (for them) to imagine it ending up worse and more expensive.

Similarly, people can't really see the indirect savings that would come from preventative treatments and screenings.  Things that are treatable with a hundred dollars worth of pills get left untreated until they become life threatening emergencies, then thousands are spent on the intensive care necessary to save them.  These unpaid bills and bankruptcies an are currently just baked into healthcare costs and invisible. 

Really though, the biggest reason is that UHC would mean that people are going to pay more taxes for someone else's benefit.  America is a naturally conservative country and just reflexively doesn't like that sort of thing (unless Roosevelt and friends already did it decades ago) and doesn't like big sudden changes. 

And honestly, I'm being a little generous here.  Probly half America's "liberals" just want more money and some sort of identity politics cause to feel righteous about.  Half America's "conservatives" likewise just want more money and some Socialist/Communist/Atheist enemy to feel good about battling (what Neruz said, basically).  What LeoLeonardoIII is exactly true and the biggest problem with America right now.  The real liberals and the real conservatives could just sit down and hammer out a very modest system thats better for everyone, because the current one is just hilariously awful. 

[Neruz]

When considering America, it's important to remember that the "American Dream" that pretty much the entire American lifestyle is built upon is that of a man making his own way in the world, building his own fortune with his own work and his own two hands. If you keep that in mind, the fact that so many Americans have some sort of allergy to helping people less fortunate than them and half the country explodes when you suggest UHC suddenly makes sense.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Good point. And when the country was expanding, and you could strike it rich in minerals or oil or pelts or just buying land for pennies, I'm sure the American Dream seemed feasible.

Now you have to strive for a Curtailed American Dream, which is "if I work really hard all my life, and don't get sick or injured, and nothing bad happens to my family either, then I might be able to retire to an efficiency apartment at 70 and then into a reasonably priced nursing home".

[Andir]

(edit: BTW, I just went through this when I called an ambulance because my Mom was visiting me when I was in Chicago and she had a diabetic fit... she was charged the full amount because she had out of state insurance.)

Just more evidence of the American healthcare system working.  Although if you're ok with living your entire life in one state I suppose it's fine.

I never said it was perfect as it is right now, but I think they are going at it the wrong way.  I don't think centralizing the power (and that's my biggest complaint) is a good thing at all.

All it takes is two forms of ID to cross the border.  (I've been to Windsor Canada quite a bit...) and it would be fairly easy to find a hospital and get care if they didn't ask for ID... but the flaw in your argument is that it wouldn't matter if you had universal healthcare or not... they will still ask for ID.  If you have an out of state license, you obviously don't fall under the the state coverage.  BTW, you are legally required to obtain a new driver's license within 90 days of changing states and we don't have "Government IDs" so it would be pretty obvious.  (We have social security numbers, but it's not considered identification unless it's accompanied with a state issued picture ID.)  Sure there are no police at the borders between states, but that doesn't matter.  It has no relevance to this.

Again, I ask... if you think states establishing their own health care plans is bound to fail, I need another excuse besides the one you gave because it's totally irrelevant.

And this isn't about people dieing (I really don't care, I'm an ass)... this is about misappropriation of power.  The Federal government is NOT like other governments and you CANNOT expect the same attitude, laws, and mentality when dealing with it.  Our Federal Government is a check on the states... by bypassing the states and making law and regulation against the people, you are violating the very construct that put it in place.

[Andir]

Good point. And when the country was expanding, and you could strike it rich in minerals or oil or pelts or just buying land for pennies, I'm sure the American Dream seemed feasible.

Now you have to strive for a Curtailed American Dream, which is "if I work really hard all my life, and don't get sick or injured, and nothing bad happens to my family either, then I might be able to retire to an efficiency apartment at 70 and then into a reasonably priced nursing home".

Only if you work for someone else all your life...  The American Dream by definition is being able to create your own business, make money, and be successful.  Working for someone else is supposed to be a stopgap and a way to get experience.  The A.D. has nothing to do with time, resources, land grabs and all the crap you spouted.  It's about a single person being able to make success in life without having to rely on someone else for help.