The Obamacare We Are In For

[Cecilie1200]

So when will you be moving, you know, to save your life?

So healthcare for all Americans doesn't concern you? Just like a conservative to be satisfied with less than best.

The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems
Health Care Statistics | Health Care Problems
NCHC | Facts About Healthcare - Health Insurance Coverage

As Ed pointed out, YOU don't care about what's best for me, so where do you get off demanding that I give a rat's ass about YOU?

I don't know you from Adam, wouldn't recognize you if you fell on me, and quite frankly, it would make no difference in my life if you dropped dead right now. So please explain to me why I'm supposed to make YOUR health MY responsibility. I take care of myself and my family, and I suggest you do the same and stop flattering yourself that your personal health and well-being are issues of national importance.

 

[Tech_Esq]

U.S. ranks 42nd in life expectancy - Health care- msnbc.com

MSNBC???? Oh it's got to be true.

I would have died years ago if I had to go to a medical clinic like they have in Canada.
Why I know?, I have a friend in Canada that tells me how lucky I am that we don't have the healthcare they're stuck, suffering with.

I'm so tired of hearing about life expectancy like that has a single damned thing to do with our healthcare delivery system. It doesn't. Life expectancy is much more a function of other factors in any first-tier country, such as race. The US has a lower life expectancy overall than other economically- and medically-comparable nations because unlike them, it doesn't have a mostly homogenous population.

Another big non-health care related aspect that isn't controlled for is that 40,000 people are killed each year in auto accidents. There are also similar non-health care related losses of life that are baked into the statistic that are much larger in the US than in other countries. If these are controlled for the US moves back to the top of the chart.

 

[Cecilie1200]

MSNBC???? Oh it's got to be true.

I would have died years ago if I had to go to a medical clinic like they have in Canada.
Why I know?, I have a friend in Canada that tells me how lucky I am that we don't have the healthcare they're stuck, suffering with.

I'm so tired of hearing about life expectancy like that has a single damned thing to do with our healthcare delivery system. It doesn't. Life expectancy is much more a function of other factors in any first-tier country, such as race. The US has a lower life expectancy overall than other economically- and medically-comparable nations because unlike them, it doesn't have a mostly homogenous population.

Another big non-health care related aspect that isn't controlled for is that 40,000 people are killed each year in auto accidents. There are also similar non-health care related losses of life that are baked into the statistic that are much larger in the US than in other countries. If these are controlled for the US moves back to the top of the chart.

If you compare the life expectancies of specific racial and ethnic groups in the US to the people of their origin nations - Japanese-Americans with the Japanese, for example - you find that they have virtually the same life expectancy. The overall average across our entire population is lowered by the presence of two populations with comparatively very low life expectancy rates: blacks and North American aborigines (formerly known as American Indians).

Perhaps if we got over all the liberal whining about "buy us healthcare" and being PC, we might find out more about WHY these groups have lower life expectancies, and be able to raise it.

 

[auditor0007]

This is a great article by Walter Williams.

You guys might have seen, if so, disregard.

Sweden's Government Health Care
by Walter E. Williams

Government health care advocates used to sing the praises of Britain's National Health Service (NHS). That's until its poor delivery of health care services became known. A recent study by David Green and Laura Casper, "Delay, Denial and Dilution," written for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, concludes that the NHS health care services are just about the worst in the developed world. The head of the World Health Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care. Twelve percent of specialists surveyed admitted refusing kidney dialysis to patients suffering from kidney failure because of limits on cash. Waiting lists for medical treatment have become so long that there are now "waiting lists" for the waiting list.

Walter E. Williams : Sweden's Government Health Care - Townhall.com

Rest of the article at the link.

This is what we are in for. There is not ONE socialized healthcare taht has not followed this pattern.

Socialized healthcare would not be crumbling in Europe if the rest of their society wasn't so reliant on socialization. In Sweden, the government stats tell us that unemployment is just over 5%, although that is likely rising due to the bad economy. Those numbers were as of 2005. However, it is estimated that true unemployment in 2005 was actually closer to 20%. If 20% are unemployed, nothing is going to work.

Truck and Barter: How high is total Swedish unemployment?

 

[auditor0007]

U.S. ranks 42nd in life expectancy - Health care- msnbc.com

MSNBC???? Oh it's got to be true.

I would have died years ago if I had to go to a medical clinic like they have in Canada.
Why I know?, I have a friend in Canada that tells me how lucky I am that we don't have the healthcare they're stuck, suffering with.

There is a choice when it comes to healthcare. Pay more for better service, or pay less. Countries with National Healthcare plans pay too little to afford the luxury of the best service. In the US, we pay too much and have too many without coverage.

Here is the problem. Countries with National Healthcare also have more of a socialist form of government leading to massive public spending, which limits the amount that can be spent on healthcare. It is all the other programs of socialization that are bringing down what once used to be a great way of providing healthcare.

The problem, and best argument against national healthcare in the US, is that along with the healthcare, we continue to move in a direction that includes much bigger government in every other area of our lives. We are moving right down the same path that Europe chose. If we had limited government in most other areas, and it was only healthcare we were concerned with, it would be workable. However, pushing for national healthcare also pushes the socialist agenda in all other areas. There is no separating the two. Besides providing healthcare for everyone, the left wants to help pay for everyone's education, and to keep everyone's SS benefits at current levels, even when we know it's not sustainable.

For me personally, it makes things difficult, because I do support a better health system than we now have. Ours is broken, but the best solution offered is really no better.

 

[auditor0007]

BAD health care access is better than NO Health care access.

You don't want people like me to want something like socialized medicine?

Create a system which gives we 50,000,000 Americans (and rising every day) SOME ACCESS to HC.

Otherwise why should WE CARE if YOUR health care isn't as good as it was before it was socialized?

Seriously...think about it.

Why would I put YOUR interest ahead of mine?

You don't do that for me, do you? You're putting your interests ahead of mine, aren't you?

So why would I care if your health care wasn't as good, if you having HC depended on my NOT having it?

If you're so selfish and self-absorbed that you don't care that the healthcare I pay for is downgraded because I refuse to buy YOU healthcare, would you mind telling me where you get off demanding that I be any less selfish and care whether or not YOU have healthcare? Why should I put YOUR interests ahead of mine, especially when you just got done telling me you feel you have the right to deliberately harm me for your own gain?

I say screw you, buy your own or die, because the world doesn't need self-centered me-monkeys like you.

Here is the problem. We pay $7200 per year per person for healthcare. For those who can afford it, that's great. For those who can't, do we not have an obligation to at least offer some form of basic healthcare? Can we not find a way too keep service at a very high level while somehow making it affordable for lower income earners also?

In 1980, Americans paid around $3600 per capita for healthcare, in today's dollars. Today it is $7200. Healthcare spending went from 8.8% of GDP to 17.5% currently. At the pace we are on, by 2040 we will be paying double what we are today, and healthcare spending will eat up 35% of GDP. The fact is that this is unsustainable.

Those who defend our current system are not thinking toward the future. At the same time, there are many problems with the alternative. We need new ideas. At some point, one way or another, the cost will determine where we draw the line. Under our current system, it won't be long before the vast majority of Americans will no longer be able to afford the best healthcare. So leaving it as is is not the answer either.

 

[auditor0007]

Since I have no access to HC now, what difference would that make to me?



And how is that different than what I have now?



No, actually I'm not.

I've written reams about why single payer health care insurance won't work to our advantage, and about the shortcomings of socialized medicine, too.

But I am telling you that the fact that fifty million or more of us have either no health care, or health care that is becoming far too expensive and increasing more difficult to get, too, is going to drive this nation into some kind of socialized medicine.

Obviously if you have no HC coverage, something bad is better than nothing at all.

And with each layoff, and with each failing of the private HC industry to treat their cusomers with respect, the political pressure to FIX THIS CAPITALISTIC FUCKING MESS is going to increase






Yup. But wait, you forgot the period when the single payer makes the best and brightest even more outrageously weathy than they are already.

THEN the rationing will commence...once the market drives up the cost of HC to levels even higher than it is now...when HC is costing us not 17% of the GNP, but 25% of it.



One would hope it works that well, Tech.

After all, I HAVE a license, dude.

Unless you have some bizarre circumstances going on, you can have health insurance if you want it. I pay for it myself. I know others on here that do as well. My employer offered some outrageously expensive insurance that would have cost me triple what I pay per month for insurance.

Now I pay $400 per month for a family plan with dental coverage too. So, I don't know what you have going on, but insurance is affordable and available. I'm not a fan of the system as it stands. I think it needs a lot of reform, but citing incorrect statistics is not going to make it better. If you've looked at this issue as much as you say you have, you know there are not 46 million people that go year after year without health care coverage.

In economics they refer to the concept of "frictional unemployment" that's the number of people who are unemployed because they are either moving, changing jobs or careers, retraining etc. etc. This concept is clearly applicable to the health insurance situation, since it is tied to our jobs. There is a certain percentage of people that are "frictionally uninsured."

There is an additional percentage that are uninsured because they are "young and invincible"....or so they think. Better to spend that money for beer on Friday than insurance all month. The only insurance I maintained when I was young was car insurance. Then there are the people that qualify for a government program but have not entered it for whatever reason. (They don't know about it, they dislike government assistance in any form etc.).

I'm probably skipping a few, but you get the idea. It's a free country, people don't have to maintain insurance if they don't want to. But, then at the bottom, there is a residual of people who want insurance, but don't qualify for a government program, insurance is not offered by their employer and/or it's too expensive to purchase.

If the choice is spend Trillions to change to a more fucked up system, or pay for health insurance for those people, I'm all for just paying for a cpl million people to have health coverage.

One of the biggest problems is that a lot of young people choose to go without insurance. They don't pay into the system until they feel they need to. Of course, if they get sick at an early age, they are in trouble. But this puts increasing pressure on the other end.

One of the best systems in the entire world is the healthcare system in Switzerland. It is almost entirely private. In fact, they're public funding for healthcare is far below the 45% of the United States. How did they accomplish this? By making health insurance mandatory. Everyone must have it. Not only that, but employers don't provide healthcare packages as benefits. Everyone purchases private insurance. Compliance is 99.5%.

Since everyone must have insurance, there are no issues with insurance companies rejecting people due to pre-existing conditions. For those who cannot afford their policies, the government helps out. Most policies are of the major medical type with people paying a much higher percentage out of pocket. That actually helps keep rates competetive.

While the Swiss system is not as cheap as some others, they're system costs them four to five percent less in GDP than the one we have currently, and everyone is insured.

 

[PoliticalChic]

So when will you be moving, you know, to save your life?

So healthcare for all Americans doesn't concern you? Just like a conservative to be satisfied with less than best.

The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems
Health Care Statistics | Health Care Problems
NCHC | Facts About Healthcare - Health Insurance Coverage

So glad that you have exposed yourself as bigoted, biased, prejudiced and - saddest of all, ineducable.

Every American currently has healthcare. Every. "Every" means all possible; the greatest possible degree of. Is that clear?

Have you heard of emergency rooms? Hospitals? Do a bit more reading.

In addition there are programs as outlined below.

Are you familiar with the following:
Crisis of the Uninsured: 2006*Update - Brief Analysis #568
• More than 84 percent (247.3 million) of the 293 million U.S. residents were privately insured or enrolled in a government health program, such as Medicare, Medicaid or State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP).
• An additional 10 million to 14 million adults and children qualified for government programs but have not enrolled, experts estimate.
• Another 17 million live in households with annual incomes above $50,000 and could likely afford health insurance.

I note that you have not moved to one of the socialist countries with national healthcare. Why is that? Could it be the following:

One in eight patients waiting over a year for treatment, admits minister- John Carvel, June 8, 2007 Guardian Unlimited
One in eight patients waiting over a year for treatment, admits minister

BTW, once you libs get "nationalized healthcare," what will you whine for next? A national house? A national car? A Hummer, of course, since you'll cry that, "Just like a conservative to be satisfied with less than best."

 

[Freedomgone2009]

The more I hear people talking about health care the more I want to puke.
Every state has a Doctors office that is owned by the state government. the payment you give them is based off what you make. anyone that makes 30k a year will only have to spend 35.00 per visit. anyone making less is 20.00 per visit. thats how it is in Michigan. I would think each state would have the same.
If you guys can't find it, get looking and shut the hell up. Every time the democrats talk about heath care, its only to get you people upset. Health care isn't the big problem here in America. The issue is Obama has already outspent Bush in 3 months! and our Economy is still tanking! We need jobs right now not health care!

 

[Old Rocks]

PChick has it right in her post.

The 40 million figure has been used for its shock value forever, as inaccurate as it is. Even if it were true, if 40 million were without healthcare, then 270 million HAVE healthcare. Use her numbers and it is more ridiculous.

You wonder why libs dont start their argument, "Only 270 million Americans have healthcare........"

In the US, we have about 700,000 families go bankrupt a year because of medical bills. Nearly 75% of these people have health insurance.

People in the nations that have socialized medicine have longer lives, and a much lower infant mortality rate. Their old people are healthier.

The whole of the arguement about health care is the fact that the HMOs and the Pharmaceticals would cease to make the billions that the thieve from us at present. They are every bit as ethical as the people at AIG.

 

[Old Rocks]

There is so much pure shit put out by the Conservatives about health care in other nations, that people should watch this video about how five other democratic capitalistic nations do it. Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, Taiwan, and Japan.
FRONTLINE: sick around the world | PBS

 

[Burp]

BAD health care access is better than NO Health care access.

You don't want people like me to want something like socialized medicine?

Create a system which gives we 50,000,000 Americans (and rising every day) SOME ACCESS to HC.

Otherwise why should WE CARE if YOUR health care isn't as good as it was before it was socialized?

Seriously...think about it.

Why would I put YOUR interest ahead of mine?

You don't do that for me, do you? You're putting your interests ahead of mine, aren't you?

So why would I care if your health care wasn't as good, if you having HC depended on my NOT having it?

You ready to pay for it?

Your paycheck is taxed between 15 and 20%. Suppose BO wanted to add another 12% to every paycheck to pay for health care for all. Add to that his thought to tax the health care benefits you receive from your employer. Last place I worked payed nearly $1,000.00 per month for my health care.

So you pay approximately 30% of your paycheck plus another $300.00 per month - just so everyone can have health care.

This works for you?

 

[DiveCon]

Ed is full of shit
he has just as much access to healthcare as every other Maine Citizen has
maybe he is just too proud to actually seek out what he can get

 

[auditor0007]

There is so much pure shit put out by the Conservatives about health care in other nations, that people should watch this video about how five other democratic capitalistic nations do it. Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, Taiwan, and Japan.
FRONTLINE: sick around the world | PBS

All those systems except for the UK, revolve around mandatory insurance. Everyone must have it. If they can't afford it, the government helps out. Some of those countries like Germany have a single payer system. With the Swiss system, everything is through private insurance.

There are ways to insure everyone, lower costs, and keep the high quality of care.

 

[Meister]

PChick has it right in her post.

The 40 million figure has been used for its shock value forever, as inaccurate as it is. Even if it were true, if 40 million were without healthcare, then 270 million HAVE healthcare. Use her numbers and it is more ridiculous.

You wonder why libs dont start their argument, "Only 270 million Americans have healthcare........"

In the US, we have about 700,000 families go bankrupt a year because of medical bills. Nearly 75% of these people have health insurance.

People in the nations that have socialized medicine have longer lives, and a much lower infant mortality rate. Their old people are healthier.

The whole of the arguement about health care is the fact that the HMOs and the Pharmaceticals would cease to make the billions that the thieve from us at present. They are every bit as ethical as the people at AIG.

Your showing your socialist bias again Old Rocks. I want you to show where it's our healthcare system that is putting us into an early grave, and infant mortality is because of of our healthcare system. You can't ...... Fact is that our healthcare system is the state of art system. Like I've told you before, those socialized healthcare patients come here when it's life or death. Don't try a kind people Old Rocks, because you don't know what your talking about.
I would like to see where you get your stats as far as medical bankruptcies, also? Thats seems to be inflated either by you to get your point across, or by the author of where you got the info.

 

[Zoomie1980]

BAD health care access is better than NO Health care access.

You don't want people like me to want something like socialized medicine?

Create a system which gives we 50,000,000 Americans (and rising every day) SOME ACCESS to HC.

Otherwise why should WE CARE if YOUR health care isn't as good as it was before it was socialized?

Seriously...think about it.

Why would I put YOUR interest ahead of mine?

You don't do that for me, do you? You're putting your interests ahead of mine, aren't you?

So why would I care if your health care wasn't as good, if you having HC depended on my NOT having it?

You can have, only if YOU PAY FOR IT!!!!

100% coverage?? 100% MANDATORY participation. Including 100% of every 20-something, perfectly healthy person out there. You cannot "opt out" for ANY reason.

100% coverage == 100% mandatory premium paying participation.