The fact that PoliticalChic starts this thread with uncited "statistics" from a website titled "whatthecrap" -while Turboswede's rebuttal draws actual OECD figures- epitomizes the greater health care debate in this country: conservatives rely on false assumptions, truncated facts, and myths in order to lay down their argument.
The fact that you chose exactly two people and conflated them into representations of "conservatives" and "liberals" in general is what's REALLY false and truncated around here. Very telling that you mysteriously missed anything anyone else has had to say on this subject that you couldn't just airily dismiss, isn't it?
The bit about people under 30 being "healthy" and thus not needing insurance is fallacious...it's perfectly possible for, say, a healthy, physically active 24-year-old male to develop testicular cancer (in fact, this is most common in young men, between 16 and 35), or for a 26-year-old female to be diagnosed with underactive thyroid (this can be inherited and can develop at a young age), or for a 19-year-old to break a bone in a sport-related accident. Let alone common ailments such as strep throat (and even pneumonia) which may require expensive antibiotics. The point of having health insurance is: you have financial back-up should something happen to you; and things do happen to young people. And with American society becoming increasingly obese nowadays, Americans are developing diseases such as diabetes at younger ages. So while younger adults are likely to use their health insurance less often than older adults, they still do need it, and the vast majority would probably opt for it if they had the financial power to do so.
The argument is not, and has never been, that all people under 30 are always healthy and not in need of health care. The point is that it is - indisputably - quite common for people who are under 30 to decide that, because they are young and healthy, they don't wish to spend the money to purchase health insurance, preferring instead to spend that money in other ways. The point is, further, that what is fallacious is people like you lumping these young people, who COULD have health insurance and do not by choice, in with the "poor and downtrodden" simply to inflate the numbers. You can argue whether or not their decision to play the odds and gamble that they won't become ill is wise or not. What you can't argue is that they are not "deprived" of coverage.
But conservatives don't see it this way, because they prefer to deny the existence of any problems that challenge their worldview. Instead of offering an alternative solution to the nation's healthcare shortcomings (maybe a solution that's more market-based), conservatives opt to -instead- deny that the problem exists and trash liberals for daring to come up with a solution. And even with an increasing number of conservative politicians conceding that the health care system is broken, hard-core conservatives continue to live in denial, and bury themselves in the politics of spin.
The only denial I see is you completely ignoring the fact that conservatives HAVE offered alternative solutions, all of them "market-based", as you put it, and they have been roundly excoriated for it, when they aren't just ignored in favor of single-payer plans that are even more "broken" than the current system.
This is the first time I've ever heard that the "40-some million AMERICANS" figure includes undocumented foreigners living here; I suppose if some random idiot on a blogging website says so (without citing his "fact"), then it must be true. Somehow, this random blogger, as well as PoliticalChic and her allies in this thread are privy to information that the rest of us aren't. I suppose the "liberal" media doesn't report this information, either. I'm not sure why conservatives live in such denial, but I do know that a country that refuses to acknowledge its own problems and shortcomings will only fall behind in the future, and America is very well headed in that direction because of the hard-headedness of hard-core conservatives.
Fascinating. First, you inform us that YOU have never heard of such a thing, implying that, therefore, it can't POSSIBLY be true, and THEN you heap contempt on the idea based on the fact that it was reported by a blogger. May I ask, please, what makes YOUR opinion more acceptable as evidence than his? May I also suggest that you use your Internet connection for, in addition to congratulating yourself on your ability to make lofty pronouncements, a little bit of research?
The National Coalition on Health Care website gives us this quote:
The large majority of the uninsured (80 percent) are native or naturalized citizens.
Hmm. I guess that would mean the other 20 percent aren't US citizens, huh?
In more specificity, the National Institute for Health Care Management cites the US Census Bureau thusly:
These reported data indicate that there are 10 million non-citizens among the 46.5 non-elderly uninsured. Because the CPS [Current Population Survey] does not collect information on legal status among non-citizens, both legal and undocumented immigrants are included in the 10 million.
Very many of the world's best hospitals, research institutions, and medical talent are located in the United States, but there's something intrically fucked up when the vast majority of Americans don't have access to that top-notch healthcare (or top-notch drugs), and -instead- these hospitals serve a small number of wealthy foreigners who have the money to come to the US, because they don't feel like waiting on a list back home for a non-emergency surgical procedure that can wait a few months. (Of course, let's not forget that waiting lists to see certain specialists, or have certain tests or surgeries done, also exist in the United States to some extent.) The numbers speak for themselves: according to the UN and OECD, America is slowly slipping when we compare the US to other developed nations on infant mortality, life expectancy, and other health indicators. Let alone the claims from millions of Americans who are in incredible debt due to having falling sick. But then again, I suppose our conservative blogger or FOX News will report that all of these people are part of a big liberal consiracy or hoax.
Okay, NOW who's bullshitting and making things up? "The vast majority of Americans don't have access to top-notch healthcare"? First of all, lack of health insurance is NOT lack of health care, and second of all, 47 million ain't even the majority of Americans, much less the "vast majority". Perhaps while you're on the Census Bureau website, doing that research I advised a minute ago, you could look up the actual population of the United States, pinhead.
In addition, I would like very much for YOU to produce evidence of ANY hospital in America that "serves a small number of wealthy foreigners", instead of having its patient base made up primarily of Americans. Go ahead. Let's hear it.
And if you want to see waiting lists, Sparky, try looking at some of those other OECD countries whose stats leftists like to tout. Unlike countries like Canada, England, and New Zealand - just as examples - the United States does not have people dying from wait times in such huge numbers that it's reached epidemic proportions and become a worldwide scandal.
Also, infant mortality and life expectancy statistics - as I've stated so many times, I should just make a macro for it - have NOTHING to do with healthcare systems in any industrialized nation. They are a function primarily of race, ethnicity, and lifestyle, and the United States, unlike most OECD nations, doesn't have a homogenous population.
And while we're on the subject of how to judge a health care system, let me point out that for diseases and injuries that modern medicine can effectively treat, the country in which one lives makes a huge difference. For premature babies, children born with spina bifida, or for people who have cancer, heart disease, chronic renal failure or almost any other serious illness, the chances of survival are best in the United States.
