Universal Healthcare?

[Shogun]

this is one of those things you will have to get over. you'll probably figure out that impressing people online ranks very low in my hierarchy of important daily activities. my advice to you is dont read ben franklins autobiography if misspelled words effect you that much.


notice, i left out the capitolizaton and punctuation just for you.

 

[manifold]

this is one of those things you will have to get over. you'll probably figure out that impressing people online ranks very low in my hierarchy of important daily activities. my advice to you is dont read ben franklins autobiography if misspelled words effect you that much.


notice, i left out the capitolizaton and punctuation just for you.

I know, I was mostly just giving you a hard time.

 

[MasterChief]

This thread has kind of got'en off track a little bit. Let me try to bring it back to center.

How many of you know of someone who lives in a country with UHC and likes it? I had a close friend take a vacation in Britain--she is British and married an American. While there, she got sick and had to go to the hospital. Her condition got worst because the simplest things took so long. Her husband became increasingly concerned and finally just took her out of the hospital, got her on a plane to the US and into a US hospital where she made a full recovery. She is convinced that had she stayed in UK, and under their UHC, she'd be dead. I know of nobody who has lived, or found themselves, under a UHC system that praises it.

Imagine for a moment that you are a woman and you find lump in your breast, do you want to be told it may take six to ten weeks to see a doctor? I think not, but that is the average wait time under a UHC system and why Cannooks come south all the time to get medical treatment.

Check it out--the horror stories of the UHC system are many. Those of you who are all for a UHC system need to see that you are just trading one set of problems for another.

 

[Shogun]

I know, I was mostly just giving you a hard time.

yea, me too. NO harm no foul, dude. Welcome tot he board.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

This thread has kind of got'en off track a little bit. Let me try to bring it back to center.

How many of you know of someone who lives in a country with UHC and likes it? I had a close friend take a vacation in Britain--she is British and married an American. While there, she got sick and had to go to the hospital. Her condition got worst because the simplest things took so long. Her husband became increasingly concerned and finally just took her out of the hospital, got her on a plane to the US and into a US hospital where she made a full recovery. She is convinced that had she stayed in UK, and under their UHC, she'd be dead. I know of nobody who has lived, or found themselves, under a UHC system that praises it.

Imagine for a moment that you are a woman and you find lump in your breast, do you want to be told it may take six to ten weeks to see a doctor? I think not, but that is the average wait time under a UHC system and why Cannooks come south all the time to get medical treatment.

Check it out--the horror stories of the UHC system are many. Those of you who are all for a UHC system need to see that you are just trading one set of problems for another.

Have you heard one of the latest?
February 18, 2008
Patients in Britain were waiting for hours on end inside the government's emergency rooms, so the Labor government decreed that no one should have to wait more than four(!) hours for treatment without, of course, seeing to it that there were sufficient personnel to implement that decree. The solution: Keep patients in ambulances for hours so that the four-hour clock doesn't start until the ER staff is sure they can beat it.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/019475.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=515332&in_page_id=1770

How the UK's single-payer system killed 17,000 Britons
2-21-08
http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/30896

 

[Taomon]

The debate about universal healthcare and so forth, as we all know, has been raging for several years now. To be quite frank, I'm still undecided and conflicted about where I stand on the issue. My question to the members of this forum is this: Is healthcare a right? And by "right," I don't mean the unalienable kind endowed by the creator, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, but rather the kind defined by the laws of man. What do you think?

Anyone who believes that it is good to fleece the general public (working class & poor) for necessary medical care is just plain ignorant.

 

[Bern80]

NO, my original point was that it is an opinion that we need roads paid for with TAXES. scroll up. This illustrates my point exactly. YOU think that roads paid with taxes is acceptable and an entrepreneur can say that such is a socialist effort to control commercial ventures into the potential toll road industry. With every excuse youve given about better quality, no less.

Okay, then lay out for me a practical, fair business plan for the private sector supplying our roads and maintening them.

I think we'd have to make another thread entirely for a compromise solution. I'll toss ideas back and forth like we did with the education thread but i'm pretty sure it would be gobbled up among the noise.

Im all for reasonable deregulation, dude. But, i'd have to know exactly what it is we are trying to deregulate.

Well we could start malpractice insureance which I believe the government required are doctors to have.......

 

[Bern80]

TO MAKE PROFIT. not reduce any consumer prices post-deregulation.

These, good sir, ARE the flaws of free market capitolism.

That isn't a flaw at all. It's that purpose that gives people jobs. that creates healthy competition and it's that competetion that provides us with quality goods and services.

 

[jreeves]

I'm not sure I follow your logic. According to my interpretation of your statement, then a foot soldier in the Iraqi desert has violated my rights by taking my money. Afterall, governmental money is taxpayer money. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be so insane as to really believe that, so please explain?

No manifold the American solider is protecting your rights.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Anyone who believes that it is good to fleece the general public (working class & poor) for necessary medical care is just plain ignorant.

Anybody who thinks that it's good to make tax-paying socialized medicine patients wait 4 hours in the emergency room (after even more time sitting outside in the ambulance) is also just plain ignorant.

This is the typical result of socialized medicine…you wind up with poor care…and the scary thing is that the average person has no alternative choice...how's that for a lack of "human rights"?

 

[jreeves]

Can you explain what you mean by the phrase "the rights of the taxpayer?"

Are you suggesting that there is a relationship between the amount one pays in taxes and the level of rights they are entitled to receive?

Rights of a taxpayer, not to have their money spent on programs that fail.

http://www.ncpa.org/pi/congress/pd042700e.html

All taxpayer's have the right not to have their government spend the country into bankruptcy, with new unaffordable programs.

http://www.federalbudget.com/


All taxpayer's have the right to not pay past what their fair share is, for new income redistribution programs.

http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6

 

[Gunny]

Is the money that you earn not at least partly enabled by the infrastructure and laws of civilization? Is it not just a little bit disingenuous to view the issue through such a narrow lense, almost in a vacuum even?

Absurd. One can survive and prosper without the "laws of civilization" while the weak cannot survive without those laws to protect and enable them.

I think YOU have your "narrow lense" twisted a bit backward.

 

[Paulie]

NO one would force you to participate or contribute with the above so it would not be YOUR health care if you choose not to participate. If you can afford better health care then kudos to you. Those who cannot afford even the most basic of service can have an option for the most basic services. It's a win, win, win.

I;ve addressed your concern regarding taxes being used to fund it. Thus, your concern about whose role it iis to pay for someone else's health care is moot. If you think you can pay for better service then you are free to do so, thus your concern about efficiency and govt responsibility is moot as well. If you are given an option not to participate then what is your main objection?


Indeed, it's easy to SAY that the issue needs to be worked on and SAY that the gov is not the solution but that doesn't really meet me in the middle anywhere, does it? It sure doesn't offer any alternative, does it? I respect your OPINION and thus I offer a compromise but we all have opinions and i'll remind you that the majority has more say in this nation than does the claim of a free market economic standard.

Shogun, this all sounds good in theory, but it's only YOUR idea. It's not what is actually being offered by the democrats. In fact, the Dem's aren't even offering the kind of "socialized medicine" that exists in other industrial nations. They are more or less looking to revamp the current financial structure of the system, and mandating coverage. I believe Kucinich had a plan that differed vastly from Obama, Clinton, and Edwards, which was more along the lines of an ACTUAL federal socialized healthcare. But he's too "kooky" for most people, so instead they're getting what the establishment candidates are offering, which is pretty much MORE OF THE SAME. I mean, is it ever NOT? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The United States will never see complete government-funded, socialized medicine. The Insurance, Medical, and Pharma industries are WAY too far in bed with government for it to ever happen. This is of course my opinion, but I really only think the Dem's are using this to pander for votes.

Not that the republicans aren't pandering as well.

 

[Taomon]

Anybody who thinks that it's good to make tax-paying socialized medicine patients wait 4 hours in the emergency room (after even more time sitting outside in the ambulance) is also just plain ignorant.

This is the typical result of socialized medicine…you wind up with poor care…and the scary thing is that the average person has no alternative choice...how's that for a lack of "human rights"?

Actually, you are going by flawed examples. The quality of life in America and the standards that we fight to maintain are much higher.

If socialized healthcare comes to fruition in America we would not be waiting in emergency rooms for 4 hours. People do that now for colds and minor injuries instead of going to doctors offices because they do not have insurance.

Socialized healthcare would clear up the emergency rooms of people with minor injuries as they would see a primary care physician. This would also create more jobs by the way.

 

[Bern80]

Actually, you are going by flawed examples. The quality of life in America and the standards that we fight to maintain are much higher.

If socialized healthcare comes to fruitition in America we would not be waiting in emergency rooms for 4 hours. People do that now for colds and minor injuries instead of going to doctors offices because they do not have insurance.

Socialized healthcare would clear up the emergency rooms of people with minor injuries as they would see a primary care physician. This wuld also create more jobs by the way.

You mean you hope it wouldn't be that way. Look around. Countries with socialized medicine aren't exactley running like clockwork or even close to it. The number one problem that most countries with some form of government run health care is waiting. As someone said earlier what you will essentially be douing is exchanging one set of problems for another. You will be exchanging convenience, responsiveness, and quality of care for affordability. And what good is cheap medicine if it's shitty medicine?

 

[manifold]

No manifold the American solider is protecting your rights.

I don't disagree, in reality that is. However, according to the logic in your previous proclamation, my statement still stands. You still have not explained why you think paying taxes is a violation of your rights sometimes but not all the time.

 

[manifold]

Rights of a taxpayer, not to have their money spent on programs that fail.

http://www.ncpa.org/pi/congress/pd042700e.html

All taxpayer's have the right not to have their government spend the country into bankruptcy, with new unaffordable programs.

http://www.federalbudget.com/


All taxpayer's have the right to not pay past what their fair share is, for new income redistribution programs.

http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6

Them's some pretty subjective rights. How about all the money spent in Iraq? I bet more people consider that a failed program than not. Of course when you keep redefining the definition of success, I guess that's a bit tricky to prove (but that's an entirely different discussion). Regardless, you've failed to convince me of anything and didn't really even attempt to answer the question asked, no offense.

 

[manifold]

Absurd. One can survive and prosper without the "laws of civilization" while the weak cannot survive without those laws to protect and enable them.

I think YOU have your "narrow lense" twisted a bit backward.

You prefer anarchy and you call me absurd???

Duly noted.

 

[manifold]

Anyone who believes that it is good to fleece the general public (working class & poor) for necessary medical care is just plain ignorant.

I agree, fleecing the public for any reason is ignorant.

 

[bennylava]

Consider this: we already have a form of universal healthcare, the ER. People who don't have health insurance wait until their illnesses are really bad and then end up going to the ER where if their problem is bad enough they can't be turned away.
Some hospitals are mandated to provide care through the ER of people who aren't suffering from a life threatening situation. They are already given funding from the government to pay for care for the indigent through our taxes.

I would rather give the money I'm paying now for health insurance to an organization that is actually concerned with maintaining the health of the american public rather than solely making a profit.

The people who are rich enough to say "Well that's not my problem, it's theirs" might be singing a different tune if they lost their jobs or their fortune and had no way to pay for their medications or doctor visits.

It's a shame that we pay for Iraqi's to have full medical care but our own citizens are left to fend for themselves.