Health Care Is A Right Not a Privilege!

[Andylusion]

I personally was not, but a member of our group was, and we've had subsequent people there who were Hospitalized. One in fact, was directly told by the people at the hospital, that he had to return to the US because he would get better care back here.

Only one of the three, was told this, I'll grant you that much. But I've been there, I've seen the difference first hand... it's not the same.

not so surprising since France is a poor county and socialist too!

I'm pretty sure you couldn't afford to live in Paris in the style you do in the US. What is it with the Right thinking that Europeans are all poor?

That's our point. You are making OUR point. Yeah, we couldn't afford to live in Paris, and enjoy the lifestyle we have here.

Yeah, that's the point.

Does that mean they are "poor"? Poor is a relative term. Compared to the average life style of the US, Europeans are 'poorer'. But they are not "poor".

Europeans have less land, smaller homes, less services, fewer appliances, smaller cars, and fewer toys.

That doesn't mean they are 'poor'. But they most certainly are 'poorer'.

Again, I've been there. I've seen Europe. I've lived in their homes. I know what they have and don't have. I've seen the cars with 4 seats, that can only fit 2 people. I've seen the 3 people riding, a motorized bike, that's smaller than an American Moped. I've seen the clothes lines hanging inside the house, because no one can afford a clothes drier.

No again... they are not all 'impoverished'. No one (or few) in western Europe is 'impoverished'.

But they simply can't afford the life style, that the poorest in America routinely enjoy.

Why? Because of socialism. They pay tons on tons of taxes. As a result, they have less money, as a result they can't afford what we can.

But they have mandatory vacation! Which lowers their wages. But they have free health care! Which taxes the wages they do have.

Socialism drives down the standard of living, which for many leftists, is a plus.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Virtually NO ONE in Paris lives in the style that we do in the US, which is rather the point. Why are we supposed to believe in the superiority of a nation which, despite being technically a first-tier country, has a lower standard of living than we take for granted at home?

We think Europeans are poor in large part BECAUSE it takes so much more money to live so much worse. That's not rich; that's fucking stupid.

Yes France has the per capita income of Arkansas about our poorest state.

How many times did you repeat that in this thread alone?

do you know why the percapita income of France is so low? Do you know why our liberals love France?

 

[Luddly Neddite]

dear, you really should visit France.

They live quite well - both cities and rural areas.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

dear, you really should visit France.

They live quite well - both cities and rural areas.

If you don't mind rioting in the streets and chants of "Gas the Jews".

Come to think of it, you probably don't mind that, as long as they don't bother you.

 

[Listening]

dear, you really should visit France.

They live quite well - both cities and rural areas.

Based on what measures ?

It would be nice if you twits on the left...just once in a while....would define your metrics.

Ignoring all that...when do you move ?

 

[Andylusion]

dear, you really should visit France.

They live quite well - both cities and rural areas.

Been there, done that. Have friends there now. Thanks for asking.

By the way, if you the opportunity to go there... and preferably stay.. You have our blessing.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

dear, you really should visit France.

They live quite well - both cities and rural areas.

as long as you want to live on a level comparable to that of Arkansas you can say the French live well. But, just to take one example, they depend on the USA for medical innovations because France doesn't do innovations well, as a socialist country! We literally breath life into them. We freed them during WW2 and they took credit for the liberation. They imagine they live well now and take credit for it when in reality they live poorly and again must give credit to the USA for what they do have.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

dear, you really should visit France.

They live quite well - both cities and rural areas.

So do the people in Arkansas, yet you hold them in utter contempt because they are poor.

 

[OmegaAMason]

I think that we should really let some of these people go out on their ass and find out that they can’t buy anything for the next few decades because they didn’t have insurance. While I disagree with the Affordable Care Act, I think that we definitely need a much better system than what we have nowadays.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

I think that we should really let some of these people go out on their ass and find out that they can’t buy anything for the next few decades because they didn’t have insurance. While I disagree with the Affordable Care Act, I think that we definitely need a much better system than what we have nowadays.

yes a capitalist system in which people are carefully shopping with their own money and providers are competing on the basis of price and quality. It would lower prices to 20% of what they are now and add 15-20 years to our lives.

 

[Andylusion]

I think that we should really let some of these people go out on their ass and find out that they can’t buy anything for the next few decades because they didn’t have insurance. While I disagree with the Affordable Care Act, I think that we definitely need a much better system than what we have nowadays.

On that, we agree. I wager the difference is what method we should adopt to reach that "better system than what we have".

I would say we need to adopt a more free-market system. We need to eliminate the tax deduction for business.

We need health insurance separated from employment.

We need to eliminate nearly all regulation on health care.

We need to phase out Medicare and Medicaid.

First we need to separate insurance from business. I have never lost my auto insurance, because I got laid off. All insurance should be the same. Now if you can't pay your premiums because you lost your job, I feel that under personal responsibility. I keep no less than $1,000 in the bank, untouched, unused, at all times, just in case of an emergency. $1,000 is a ton for me, a single guy with few bills, and zero debt. Others with families should be keeping about $10,000 in the bank at all times, untouched, unused, for emergencies.

That way you can keep your insurance, and pay for food, water and shelter, until you find another job.

Next we need to phase out Medicare and Medicaid. These programs are part of the reason health care is so expensive. They drive up the cost on private premium payers, by not paying the cost of treatment. Hospitals specifically, lose money on every Medicaid / Medicare person they treat. In order to make up that loss, they have to charge private payers more, and at the same time, we have to pay the taxes to fund those programs.

Lastly, we need to drastically cut down on the regulation of health care. The most obvious example is "certificate of need". Nearly every state has C.O.N. systems in place. Basically, before you are allowed to open a new clinic, or new hospital, or treatment center, you have to have CON issued by the government, usually the state.

So I'm a doctor in Columbus Ohio, and me and three other doctors, decide we want to open a new clinic. So we have to go to the state, and apply for a certificate of need. The state then determines if there is a 'need' for a new clinic there. Now who do you think the state goes to, in order to find out if there is a need?

Who would know whether there was a need or not? Of course they go to the existing hospitals and clinics, and they give their report on the 'need' for another hospital or clinic.

It's like asking Walgreens and CVS, if they think there is a 'need' for another drug store chain.

Well of course, the existing hospitals and clinics say there is no need. Until of course they themselves decide to expand to a new location, and then suddenly there is a 'need'.

These and many other price hiking regulations need completely removed. Allow the free-market to work, and prices will drop.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I think that we should really let some of these people go out on their ass and find out that they can’t buy anything for the next few decades because they didn’t have insurance. While I disagree with the Affordable Care Act, I think that we definitely need a much better system than what we have nowadays.

Such as?

 

[dblack]

I think that we should really let some of these people go out on their ass and find out that they can’t buy anything for the next few decades because they didn’t have insurance. While I disagree with the Affordable Care Act, I think that we definitely need a much better system than what we have nowadays.

yes a capitalist system in which people are carefully shopping with their own money and providers are competing on the basis of price and quality. It would lower prices to 20% of what they are now and add 15-20 years to our lives.

I can't emphasize enough how I think this kind of argument is a mistake, if your goal is to encourage limited government and a free market. It's a mistake because it implicitly grants the core claim of the statist - that things like the price and quality of services available, and how our health and lifespans, are legitimate concerns of government.

To illustrate my point, if it could be shown that a locked-down police state would lower health care prices by 30% and add 20-30 years to our lives, would you be in favor of it? I'm not saying that's the case, but I trust that even if it were, you'd still be opposed to such a policy. Because maximizing our efficiency as a society should not be the goal of government. The goal of government should be protecting our freedom to voluntarily create the kind of society we want - not to decide what that society should be and force consensus.

 

[emilynghiem]

I personally was not, but a member of our group was, and we've had subsequent people there who were Hospitalized. One in fact, was directly told by the people at the hospital, that he had to return to the US because he would get better care back here.

Only one of the three, was told this, I'll grant you that much. But I've been there, I've seen the difference first hand... it's not the same.

not so surprising since France is a poor county and socialist too!

I'm pretty sure you couldn't afford to live in Paris in the style you do in the US. What is it with the Right thinking that Europeans are all poor?

I hate to break it to all you folks trying to compare people by country.

There are always the richest of the rich living alongside the poorest of the poor.

Happens everywhere.

We don't teach a sustainable system of how to buy property and land and move up the scale, so the rich get richer by investing, and the poor get poorer by getting into more debt till they lose what they have.

I was trying to help community and Veteran leaders set up a campus to teach this in Houston, using a historic district next to very wealthy areas, where the Freed Slaves originally built their own houses, churches and business district by themselves, with support of other churches, but with NO govt help because they weren't citizens 100 years ago when Freedmen's Town was a thriving district.

Since the govt took over the land away from the people by eminent domain, it has gone DOWNHILL where public funds in the millions were abused to seize and destroy property for private interests and profit from encroaching development, even kicking out elderly residents and forcing churches to hand over land to the City for lack of funds to preserve it themselves. The residents with business plans to make a SUSTAINABLE campus for teaching people to GET OUT of poverty, off welfare, and become independent landowners and business owners got CENSORED by govt where politicians REFUSED to fund those plans. Clearly the City and Developers who decide who stays in office wanted to take advantage of the poor, take the land for the rich, and even use tax money to benefit themselves at the expense of the public and national history sacrificed for their gain.

So it is an issue of POLITICAL slavery and poverty. All over control of land for taxation purposes. Get real, people! This can't be that hard to figure out. Even my coworkers who don't know the difference between state and federal govt know they can't win the rat race when the city and county controlling taxes can take away people's property.

If you don't address the politics of ownership and power, no amount of wealth can buy independence. Lesson is the people need to own the land to be equal. As long as the city, state or govt can tax people into losing their property, you aren't equal.

So folks, you can fight day and night over who has more money or wealth or political influence; but look who owns the land and which govts control and impose taxes on people.

Until you address that, we aren't equal, and we stay distracted and stuck fighting with each other over crumbs falling from the Master's table instead of looking at what's going on in the kitchen and who's really running the place! Wake up!!!

 

[Listening]

I think that we should really let some of these people go out on their ass and find out that they can’t buy anything for the next few decades because they didn’t have insurance. While I disagree with the Affordable Care Act, I think that we definitely need a much better system than what we have nowadays.

yes a capitalist system in which people are carefully shopping with their own money and providers are competing on the basis of price and quality. It would lower prices to 20% of what they are now and add 15-20 years to our lives.

I can't emphasize enough how I think this kind of argument is a mistake, if your goal is to encourage limited government and a free market. It's a mistake because it implicitly grants the core claim of the statist - that things like the price and quality of services available, and how our health and lifespans, are legitimate concerns of government.

To illustrate my point, if it could be shown that a locked-down police state would lower health care prices by 30% and add 20-30 years to our lives, would you be in favor of it? I'm not saying that's the case, but I trust that even if it were, you'd still be opposed to such a policy. Because maximizing our efficiency as a society should not be the goal of government. The goal of government should be protecting our freedom to voluntarily create the kind of society we want - not to decide what that society should be and force consensus.

Amen...rep on the way.

They are to protect the playing field so the game can go on. They are not the referees.

I am talking federal and state governments.

The same isn't so true for city and county governments (IMHO).

 

[dblack]

yes a capitalist system in which people are carefully shopping with their own money and providers are competing on the basis of price and quality. It would lower prices to 20% of what they are now and add 15-20 years to our lives.

I can't emphasize enough how I think this kind of argument is a mistake, if your goal is to encourage limited government and a free market. It's a mistake because it implicitly grants the core claim of the statist - that things like the price and quality of services available, and how our health and lifespans, are legitimate concerns of government.

To illustrate my point, if it could be shown that a locked-down police state would lower health care prices by 30% and add 20-30 years to our lives, would you be in favor of it? I'm not saying that's the case, but I trust that even if it were, you'd still be opposed to such a policy. Because maximizing our efficiency as a society should not be the goal of government. The goal of government should be protecting our freedom to voluntarily create the kind of society we want - not to decide what that society should be and force consensus.

Amen...rep on the way.

They are to protect the playing field so the game can go on. They are not the referees.

I am talking federal and state governments.

The same isn't so true for city and county governments (IMHO).

Not to quibble, because I'm quite sure you get what I'm saying, but the ARE the referees. They're just not the coaches.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

that things like the price and quality of services available, and how our health and lifespans, are legitimate concerns of government.

of course they are concerns of govt since the govt represents us. And it is a concern to us the people since most of the planet is certain that govt can better the lives of people!

 

[dblack]

that things like the price and quality of services available, and how our health and lifespans, are legitimate concerns of government.

of course they are concerns of govt since the govt represents us. And it is a concern to us the people since most of the planet is certain that govt can better the lives of people!

Against our will even!

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

that things like the price and quality of services available, and how our health and lifespans, are legitimate concerns of government.

of course they are concerns of govt since the govt represents us. And it is a concern to us the people since most of the planet is certain that govt can better the lives of people!

Against our will even!

govt is for or against our will and for or against truth, but govt is there and most of the planet wants it that way. So then the issue is to explain that govt at best harms efficiency and at worst is genocidal.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Haven't read the thread but --

Watch/read Money-Driven Medicine

At end of WII, most other countries made the very conscious decision to invest in their own countries. The US decided to invest in their military.

The result is what we see today - the US 27th in health but first in bloated military and policeman of the world.

So, we're sick and not well taken care of but damn, we can kill any other country several times over.

Dumb and self destructive.