Any Christians against universal health care?

[Care4all]

Care - a little mind experiment. Imagine a society where health care is not seen as a marketable commodity but available on the basis of need. Could it work?

ohhhh it could work in a heart beat diuretic.

BUT sadly, I also now know my country, and my congressmen and senators and government and the Lobby machine and simply -the greed that rules many....

Basically, WE would F-it up....someone or some political party will be chosen to represent someone or some entity or some lobby in this whole thing and the end result would be a messed up system that favors someone that the congresscritters are in the pocket of....and this could bankrupt the country, if we are not already on the way there already...I'm serious! I trust no one in Congress to do this without messing it up.

even Obama's plan, includes the middle man, the private insurance companies...so that isn't a universal plan in the least...just a bunch of middle men getting their "cut"....that's pretty costly...

We have to do some thing, I recognize such... the whole system is messed up...

I have insurance and went to the doc last year and got a bunch of tests done and expected it all to be paid for outside of a small deductable.... Been fighting them for over a year to pay it and got nothing but a song and a dance, got the bill from the Hospital on Friday, insurance refused to pay, final answer, i owe them $1850....so now, i am going to have to find some agency to help me fight it...

between what we pay as our share and what the employer pays -the policy is $900 bucks a month and what the hell for....? if they don't even pay your doctor bills when you have to see him? CIGNA btw...buyer beware!!!! Now we are with United Health Care and I hope they are better...our share is $100 bucks more a month than the last policy, let's hope it means they are better?

Anyway, as I said, something has to be done, I acknowledge such.

I have concerns that this is just a gifthorse to corporations and businesses that pay for nearly 60% of America's healthcare costs right now...

when i worked and as an executive, the company used to send me a recap of my TOTAL COMPENSATION at the end of the year....it included my salary, my bonus, my stocks given, the portion of Social Security that they had to pay out in my name, the amount they paid out for life insurance for me, and the amount they paid yearly for my and my husband's health insurance policy....about $10 grand a year....(it was a MUCH better policy than what we have settled for as of late)....

Anyway, this was considered my TOTAL compensation as mentioned...so they counted it as money they were giving me via this perk...

If we go to a true universal system, the companies no longer pay their portion and my bottom dollar is on the companies not increasing the person't salary by the $19k they save, while the taxes of the same employee going up to pay for the universal plan....

like i said, a gift horse to the corps...

that's just one thing...

Another is that before changing to a Universal plan we need alot of reforms...right now it is set up where we can not negotiate with the PHARMA industry on getting a bulk discount for medicare...this was a gifthorse to PHARMA....along with not having the ability to execise free trade and import our drugs from another country that buys them cheaper than us....

the whole thing is a mess... I think we need to be able to negotiate our prices down with PHARMA as ALL other countries in the world do...IT WILL BANKRUPT US, this is the single thing that is putting us in to a destined bankruptcy, before this recent mess....

There are so many, many things that are all done because of being in someone's pocket, it's just unbelievable....

So YES, i believe we all deserve to be able to have health care...I just don't believe anyone in congress really has the citizen's best interest in mind...again, sadly.

Care

 

[AllieBaba]

I deserve a toilet seat made of gold.

But the government isn't obligated to provide it to me.

 

[Diuretic]

1.5% of taxable income here Care keeps our health care system running.

Allie - yer arse would stick to the seat in winter - go for some sort of polished wood like mahogany or a nice Tasmania Huon Pine.

 

[Care4all]

1.5% of taxable income here Care keeps our health care system running.

Allie - yer arse would stick to the seat in winter - go for some sort of polished wood like mahogany or a nice Tasmania Huon Pine.

I am certain there IS a way to do it.....a universal plan....

Obama's and mccain's plans and the way we have it now are not Universal Plans, they are costly plans and will put us at spending 30%-40% of our gdp in just a few decades is what the GAO/CBO has estimated....

Good morning!

 

[Diuretic]

As I said before and this is just an idea and it does need testing, that health care shouldn't be a commodity.

I need to point that my knowledge of economics is rudimentary at best. Me and numbers don't like each other and last time I looked economics had lots of numbers in it. So I can only talk in general concepts.

But it seems to me that two of the basic laws in capitalist economics are "demand" and "supply". I just admitted I don't know much about economics so I won't pretend to know how these things work. But apparently those two laws work to ensure some sort of equilibrium. If there's too much demand for something then that will attack supply or something. High demand will mean the price of the stuff on the supply side will go higher and that will feed into the market and the high price will have a general deterrence on demand and force it back into realistic territory. Or something like that.

If there's an oversupply and not much demand then the price will drop and that may stimulate demand and things get back into balance again.

My simplistic view.

Now, that's fine for cars or plasma televisions. But why is it necessary for health care?

The demand for health care isn't discretionary. It's not like the demand for plasma televisions that becomes higher before the superbowl (I mis-typed that, it was "superblow" - I immediately thought "presdential debates").

People don't known when they are going to be a consumer of health care. They can't say, "well, I really think I need to get this severed hand seen to, but money's a bit tight this week so maybe I'll put it off until the tax cheque comes in".

Health insurance. Like any other form of purchased insurance it's a bit like the bookies at a racetrack who take your money, stack it up and hope like hell the favourite doesn't come in.

Health insurance companies are in the business of making a profit.

In the broader insurance game you make money in a couple of ways. You take the punter's cash and hope like hell their house isn't hit by a falling 747. Now if that happens the insurance company has to hope that, like the prudent bookie, it's laid off its bets with one of the big European re companies. The other thing the insurance company can do with the householder (who was out at the time of said 747 plunging into the house) has a clause in the contract that says, "this does not cover Boeing 747 aircraft crashing into your house."

Health insurance companies do much the same. They lay off their liabilities by spreading them around and by re-investing their cash in order to make money justin case they have to pay out. But unlike the regular insurance companies they seek to control the insured consumer by limiting what they can have. The consumer might be bleeding but the only flow the insurance company wants to staunch is cash going out of its coffers. "Oh no, sorry, we didn't have severed hands in the contract, bad luck, you'll have to find the money yourself. Why not sell your house that might pay for some of it?"

So, there you have it. My simplistic take. This is why health care should not be a commodity. This is why both Obama and McCain are completely wrong with their health care policies.

I'll take objections now, thank you.

 

[KMAN]

when you get colan cancer or prostate cancer or dimentia or diabitis or kidney failure or a heart attack, it then pays for you....

not that i am advocating it, i haven't really made up my mind!

I have a kidney disease but why should you have to pay for my future transplant????

 

[KMAN]

oh yea... I can see it now..


"Need your Meds? Come on down and devote your life to jesus first!"




what a joke.

i mean, thank GOD that there has never been a corrupt christian organization!

Just like St Jude and all of the other Christian hospitals right? LOL

If this is what you think, then you know nothing about Christianity pal...

 

[Care4all]

I have a kidney disease but why should you have to pay for my future transplant????

because you paid for my skin cancer treatments..... it's the least i could do! lol

i don't really have skin cancer, but if i did....

Besides the fact that I am already paying for a portion of your employer based insurance plan by giving your employer a tax deduction for their portion of your healthcare insurance bill, plus I am already paying for all the senior's medicare healthcare with taxes, and all of the indigents and poor's medicaid health care with taxes, and all of the Military's healthcare with taxes, and all of the retired Military's health care with taxes and all of the Veterans care with taxes and a great portion of every federal employee's healthcare with taxes and all of state employee's healthcare with taxes and most teacher's healthcare with my taxes....

those in the middle are already paying for the health care costs of others...those i listed above, while their own health care is not covered...

to me, this is not fair....the only fair thing would be that our taxes spent on healthcare get distributed to everyone....i just don't know how to go about it without busting us....so major reforms are needed beforehand...


Care

 

[Diuretic]

I have a kidney disease but why should you have to pay for my future transplant????

We could have a whip-around in the office if that would help?

 

[Diuretic]

Just like St Jude and all of the other Christian hospitals right? LOL

If this is what you think, then you know nothing about Christianity pal...

Where did you get your theology degree?

 

[KMAN]

because you paid for my skin cancer treatments..... it's the least i could do! lol

i don't really have skin cancer, but if i did....

Besides the fact that I am already paying for a portion of your employer based insurance plan by giving your employer a tax deduction for their portion of your healthcare insurance bill, plus I am already paying for all the senior's medicare healthcare with taxes, and all of the indigents and poor's medicaid health care with taxes, and all of the Military's healthcare with taxes, and all of the retired Military's health care with taxes and all of the Veterans care with taxes and a great portion of every federal employee's healthcare with taxes and all of state employee's healthcare with taxes and most teacher's healthcare with my taxes....

those in the middle are already paying for the health care costs of others...those i listed above, while their own health care is not covered...

to me, this is not fair....the only fair thing would be that our taxes spent on healthcare get distributed to everyone....i just don't know how to go about it without busting us....so major reforms are needed beforehand...


Care

Why don't we just give people more of their own money back and let them use that money to pay for their own healthcare?

 

[Diuretic]

Why don't we just give people more of their own money back and let them use that money to pay for their own healthcare?

Because that doesn't work?

 

[KMAN]

Because that doesn't work?

How do you know it doesn't work? How do you know universal healthcare does work?

 

[Diuretic]

How do you know it doesn't work? How do you know universal healthcare does work?

Because the health care system in the US seems to be not doing its job. In countries with universal health care it seems to be working.

 

[cbi0090]

Tort reform? Please enlighten me.

Limiting the amount that a person can sue for in cases of negligence. Unfortunately, our lawyers have convinced us all that medicine is an exact science and our doctors should be flawless practitioners. In reality, neither is true. But when you have a well-to-do doctor and a crippled child sitting in front of you in a court room and a lawyer telling you that the doctor messed up what are you going to do?