Society Universal Healthcare

[Tsukisama]

Re: President Obama Wins! Now What?

If that bill passes, kiss American prosperity goodbye.

Would you like to offer why you think this? I personally don't see the harm in the plan. The health care plan that Obama has proposed will not replace those offered by insurance companies; it just offers a government-sponsored alternative, which is necessary.

Many health insurance companies will deny coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. Those people still need some sort of health insurance. The government option would be something suitable for them. A health insurance plan that will not deny any citizen is needed as alternative (unless you can think of some reason why they don't deserve to have health insurance).

 

[Unproductive]

Re: President Obama Wins! Now What?

American health care system is screwed with or without Obama's plan. It's the same level of screwed. It's just a different kind of screwed.

With Obama's plan, it will be screwed in the European socialist sort of way (high taxes and meddlesome government.) Without Obama's plan, it's screwed in big corporate lobby sort of way (Insurance agencies will charge you an arm and a leg and then meddle with your health care choices.) It's a toss up as to which choice is better since both are horrible.

Personally, I believe that health insurance as it exists today is the source of the all the problems in the health care industry. We'd all be better off if none of us had health insurance.

Many health insurance companies will deny coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. Those people still need some sort of health insurance.

You're focusing on the wrong thing. They need health care. Health insurance is just a means to an end. For health insurance industry covering pre-existing conditions would be charity and big business don't do charity as normal operating procedure.

If providing health care to those that couldn't pay was the only problem with the health care industry, we would be fine. Have a few charity cases, let the government step in for a bit, get some doctors to work pro-bono. Instead, health care is of poor quality or expensive for the majority of people in the country.

 

[redcometfm]

Re: President Obama Wins! Now What?

The current health care is affordable, even despite the bad cases reported. The new health care system from Obama will bankrupt us as a country.

Why does no one discuss how we'll afford it instead of bullshitting about what the people need in terms of health care and all that.

Realize that some things are feasible while others are not and we'll just have to live with that reality.

Im tired of lazy ppl in America wanting the easy way out.

 

[Tsukisama]

Re: President Obama Wins! Now What?

The current health care is affordable, even despite the bad cases reported. The new health care system from Obama will bankrupt us as a country.

Why does no one discuss how we'll afford it instead of bullshitting about what the people need in terms of health care and all that.

Realize that some things are feasible while others are not and we'll just have to live with that reality.

Im tired of lazy ppl in America wanting the easy way out.

It isn't a matter of affording health insurance. Many people are denied coverage despite being fully being able to pay for it. They are denied because they have a pre-existing condition and the health insurance either do not want to offer them insurance or they will offer insurance but not give full coverage. Additionally, some people's jobs do not offer sufficient health insurance or any at all. It is needed to provide coverage for those citizens.

Yes, it is going to cost something. Everything does, but some things are necessary costs and better health insurance is a necessary evil.

I don't see how this is about people in America being lazy and wanting an easy way out. There are plenty of hard-working people who don't get the coverage that they need and/or have paid the insurance compaines to have.

The government-sponsored health insurance is not meant to be a charity, and so people would still have to pay towards it. The main differences would be that it would not turn down people's claims based on prior conditions and offer a set amount of benefits. It would be better than private health insurance plans in some areas and probably worse in others, and the ways in which the government plan is better would hopefully inspire reform in the private insurance companies.

How will the US afford this new plan? I currently do not know the details on how this is planning to be financed, but I feel this is worth it. I don't think everything Obama has done has been worth the money (I'm still reserving judgment on whether the economic stimulus package was worth the money it cost), but health care is necessary.

---

You're focusing on the wrong thing. They need health care. Health insurance is just a means to an end. For health insurance industry covering pre-existing conditions would be charity and big business don't do charity as normal operating procedure.

Having pre-existing conditions doesn't stop people from living or needing health care. If they don't have the insurance, then they can't get the treatment that they need, because most doctors' offices and hospitals won't treat you without the proper insurance. Like it or not, health insurance is a large part of the current health care system, and it would be a lot harder to try to get rid of insurance companies than trying to ameliorate health insurance.

 

[redcometfm]

Re: President Obama Wins! Now What?

But why rush into something without a plan? Especially if it could cost more than the country can afford? Or if it causes the potential and most likely degradation of the system itself?

Logically you cannot argue that that makes sense. Sure, something needs to be done, but not a plan that isnt having much debate (/time to debate it) or a clear cut way of being affordably covered monetarily without bringing down US quality of life or bankrupting us altogether (you think he wont try and pass another stimulus if this plan becomes too costly?).

Its RECKLESS.

 

[Kaiten]

Re: President Obama Wins! Now What?

Due to the economic crisis my room mate lost four hours a week at work. She went from the 32 hour week required to maintain full time status to 28 hours. Her company only offers health care to full time workers. Her status was changed to part time this week; despite recently returning to a full time schedule. Her health care was canceled by the company and as an employee of a retail chain she makes far to little to start her own plan. She is now without health care and options until her status can be changed back at the end of the quarter. With the new health care plan she would not have a three month gap in coverage and the potential risk associated with.

It's true I have no experience with government health care. Fortunately the U.S. will not be a single player system. Government insurance will be available to those who want or need it and if Paul Krugman (2008 economics Nobel laureate) is correct, act as a deflationary machine, driving private insurance prices down. Along with planned reform to the medical field this will hopefully drive the ridiculous cost of health care down. So long as only insurance is nationalized, not medical industry in total, it will be a vast improvement over our current system.

 

[redcometfm]

Re: American Health Care System

HAhahahahaha. You really dont get that while Obama is offering alternative healthcare plans for people with nationalized healthcare, he's actually going to cause private healthcare industries to suffer and whither because of his policies and thus force everyone on the government tit. You think hes giving people options. He's not. By principle, Obama is Marxist, thus, his obvious government goal (looking aside from his personal principles) is to have control of the medical industry, like Europe.

 

[digitaldude]

Re: American Health Care System

Yeah, don`t do it guys, we have national health care here and really it`s not that good, I would not say it`s bad, but the obama plan will cost 1 trillion dollars and there is a chance it will end up being crap, so I think you should keep things the way things are like the crappy measuring system you guys have.

 

[Do Kesubei]

Re: American Health Care System

By principle, Obama is Marxist

Sincere query: do you even know what Marxism is? Explain how Obama is Marxist "in principle."

 

[redcometfm]

Re: American Health Care System

Sincere query: do you even know what Marxism is? Explain how Obama is Marxist "in principle."

I do. Explain to me how you feel he is not.

 

[Dark-san]

Re: American Health Care System

Now what has Obama being a Marxist affect the healthcare system? =0

Anyway the other day, I saw a bit of that from the news when Obama urges the Congress to pass the Healthcare bill stating reasons that it is all part of his large economic reforms. I don't see the linkage so can anyone enlighten me on this?

 

[SoulReaporKoul]

Re: American Health Care System

Now what has Obama being a Marxist affect the healthcare system? =0

Anyway the other day, I saw a bit of that from the news when Obama urges the Congress to pass the Healthcare bill stating reasons that it is all part of his large economic reforms. I don't see the linkage so can anyone enlighten me on this?

Obama's larger point is that the highest cost for small businesses is providing healthcare for all employees. Thus, many small businesses (which are the backbone of the economy) are forced to either cut jobs or cut healthcare for its employees. So, by offering the public option, Obama allows these small businesses a chance to choose more affordable heahthcare for there employess (businesses that decide to pay for employee healthcare will earn a tax credit) and if they do not choose to do so, their employees are free to buy their own healthcare ( from both private and public).

Not to mention the situation known as "Job-Lock", that is, many Americans who find a job that pays for medical insurance become unwilling to leave as those benefits cannot be kept. This decreases mobility in the labor market which is bad for the overall growth and health of the economy.


As far as that Marxist statement goes it's the attempt of those against Obama's healthcare plan to paint him as a Socialist, a Communist, and that he's leading America towards Socialized medicine ( But say that in a REALLY scary voice). These claims have been put forth by Republicans and "Blue Dog" Democrats who are attempting to kill Obama's healthcare reform as that is what the Private Medical Insurance companies who give them money and offer them posh jobs once they retire out of congress want them to do (as the status quo is quite alright with them).

BTW Current "Socialized" Public Programs by the US Government:
-Libraries
-National Parks
-Post Office
-Fire Dept.
-VA Hospitals (You know how the Congress people always say that they want the best healthcare for the troops and that is what the troops are getting? Well guess what, the best healthcare turns out to be GOVNMT FUNDED
-CONGRESS AND SENATE ITSELF as govt. healthcare insurance
-THE ARMY
-ROADS ( Yeah, the one you're driving on right now)
etc...etc...

 

[Unproductive]

Re: American Health Care System

You can't be saying that VA Hospitals provide good care? They might provide care free of charge to veterans, but quality's awful.
The post office is well managed?
Federal funded roads given us a national gasoline tax, a national speed limit in the past, The Big Dig in Boston, killed the railway system in the 50's, and given us a nation full of cars.

Most fire departments and libraries are local entities and would not take kindly to the US federal government sticking their nose into their business.

If anything, you're just listing out all some of the dysfunction that comes along with a national government trying to run a business or to micromanage local and private affairs. But no one should be delusional about the current state of affairs in the US. It's already sufficiently socialist. The DOD and the Pentagon is a better example of that than anything else in the country.

The are couple problem with the current model for providing health care. The key characteristics of any model for providing health care are:
1. How is the decision to get health care made.
2. Who are willing to provide health care.
3. How is supply and demand matched? Usually who's paying money, but it doesn't have to be money.
4. How is quality ensured?
5. What are incentives to innovate?
6. How will it adapt to long term changes in demographics.

The current system layers a middle man, the HMOs, in most of these critical decisions. There is a strong favoring towards HMOs a medium for providing health care because of tax code features. Based on tax code advantages, Congress pretty much made HMO plans from an employer the only way to get access to health care.
Since then, middle man in the system contorts supply and demand and makes the health care industry increasingly opaque to the public. Meanwhile, rising cost and rising premiums gave some businesses reason to not provide health insurance to their employees and some people reason not to purchase health insurance for access.

Washington DC's role in this seems to proposing solutions to problems that its own actions have exacerbated. Its current proposal is probably a really expensive remedy to both real and perceived problems with health insurance. I don't expect much out of Washington's ability to create a sustainable solution that will appeal to the public. It'll either be too expensive or provide really poor service. The people in Washington are bureaucrats. They have no idea how to run businesses well, and frankly, Obama and the rest of Congress are just plain clueless about the industry.

 

[kadoman]

Universal healthcare is an economic matter because it involves money. And to insure 300 million Americans it would cost. A lot.

Fair point. I understand that one.

Also it is in fact a step towards communism infinitely more than towards capitalism. .

This is the part I don't understand. It's like people (not you as such) think that this one policy will suddenly turn the entire country and all it stands for into a communist hellhole. Over-reaction much? It's just about providing an alternative, that's all, about choice.

I would have thought, far from denouncing the right to free healthcare, Americans with their acute sense of justice would demand it, would see it as something everyone is entitled to. I can't get my head around cries of communism and socialism - it's too far-fetched.

Australia has free healthcare too but do you think of Australians as raving communists? I don't understand the over-reaction, truly I don't.

If it's about how much it's going to cost, then yeah, I can understand that. But if it's a fear of America turning 'communist' or 'socialist' that I don't get.

 

[redcometfm]

See, in Britain, youre conditioned to believe that government run national healthcare is okay. In fact its not. This Healthcare issue is connected to the expansion of the government's power and control over various categories, which is never, and personally I believe not good when you have a President with high level organizers in his government that are openly communist/socialist/anarchist and want to use the Green movement to gain influence and control, issue government contracts to companies such as GE and put everyone on the government tit. Not to mention that is also being done during a time with so much political corruption and indifference to the public (for example, check out Sheila Jackson during a town hall meeting on youtube, "Sheila Jackson + cell phone + town hall").

If you look at other policies, youll see a marxist/communist angle in them. (Interestingly, blacks and African Americans have a natural marxist tendency due to their culture/cultural separation from other groups)

Its a bad, bad situation. And none of these bureaucrats have a clue about how healthcare works nor how to run it. Its all political, a game, and we Americans are paying for it. Other Europeans are paying for their governments irresponsibility as well.

Plus, who the hell is the government to tell the rest of the people what healthcare they are allowed/can have? (i.e. Britain's NHS attitude toward women with breast cancer and those who get another kind of healthcare other than the NHS and the actions they enforce as a result)

And to who ever mentioned the other categories being government run (fire stations, postal, etc), that doesnt justify the government taking control of another sector in its journey to near total control. Think!

 

[Kaiten]

One of the key points of U.S. health care reform is that the government will not tell people what type of insurance or from whom they must take it out. There may not even be a public option at this point. The purpose of reform is that the private good of the health insurance, pharmaceutical, and medical industry has swamped the public good of the American people. We pay more for less here then any other country in the developed world. The cost of medicine, cost of insurance, cost of treatment, cost of hospitalization, and cost of preventive care are out of control. Not only are private citizens shouldering the cost, so is industry. Businesses that provide health care are paying an inordinate price for group insurance. The number of uninsured Americans is larger then the total population of many countries, 47,000,000 people. By 2019 health care will take up 20% of U.S. GDP. Clearly the system can not be left as it is. A public option, which will not necessarily drive private insurance out of business, is an essential deflationary tool. Without there may not be anything to drive private options down.

Government provided services are not a sign of tyranny or infringement of private life. One of the basic, fundamental reasons for having government is to have an institution that balances the private and public good while providing essential services that the private sector can not afford. Health care is no different from roads, police, military, and postal service; an essential part of human welfare. Access to medical service, irregardless of career or income, is a right of all people. Could anyone truly say that some of us are more entitled to good health and better treatment in times of sickness then others. The health care industry has systematically failed to provide such service for all Americans, becoming a burden on all Americans. There is no better case for the government, as representatives of all the people, to intervene and reform the system for the betterment of all the people.

 

[thsv]

Two things I want to say about the debate in America

1) Some of the things that have been said about the NHS as an argument against a government option are ridiculous (Death panels, rationing). If a British politician had come out with some of the stuff Republicans have they'd never be able to stand for election ever again.

2) Daryl Hannan isn't even a member of the British parliament. He's a Member of the European Parliament who would never have got elected if he'd actually had to present himself to the electorate. Even his own party are disavowing themselves of his views.

If you look at other policies, youll see a marxist/communist angle in them. (Interestingly, blacks and African Americans have a natural marxist tendency due to their culture/cultural separation from other groups)

Blacks have been accused of natural tendencies towards several things, many of them illegal. Generalise much?

 

[Kaiten]

Republicans say a lot of ridiculous things these days. >.<

They're a "rump" party, all that's left are the far right "movement" conservatives. The center - right is now part of the Democratic Party, the "Blue Dog" caucus. The Republicans have to say ridiculous things about health care, stimulus packages, etc. They are the most conservative, libertarian politicians, any moderation or compromise would result in the ultra - conservative groups that fund them withdrawing finance and running a more conservative candidate against them in the primaries. Every time that has happened, Democrats have won the seat. That is why Arlen Spector switched parties. Even the remaining moderates, such as Mccain, have to keep their mouths shut and tow party lines.

 

[nhssavedmylife]

See, in Britain, youre conditioned to believe that government run national healthcare is okay. In fact its not. This Healthcare issue is connected to the expansion of the government's power and control over various categories, which is never, and personally I believe not good when you have a President with high level organizers in his government that are openly communist/socialist/anarchist and want to use the Green movement to gain influence and control, issue government contracts to companies such as GE and put everyone on the government tit. Not to mention that is also being done during a time with so much political corruption and indifference to the public (for example, check out Sheila Jackson during a town hall meeting on youtube, "Sheila Jackson + cell phone + town hall").

If you look at other policies, youll see a marxist/communist angle in them. (Interestingly, blacks and African Americans have a natural marxist tendency due to their culture/cultural separation from other groups)

Its a bad, bad situation. And none of these bureaucrats have a clue about how healthcare works nor how to run it. Its all political, a game, and we Americans are paying for it. Other Europeans are paying for their governments irresponsibility as well.

Plus, who the hell is the government to tell the rest of the people what healthcare they are allowed/can have? (i.e. Britain's NHS attitude toward women with breast cancer and those who get another kind of healthcare other than the NHS and the actions they enforce as a result)

And to who ever mentioned the other categories being government run (fire stations, postal, etc), that doesnt justify the government taking control of another sector in its journey to near total control. Think!

What an absolute load of nonsense.
The government is democraticaly elected by the people unlike the faceless leaders of the American insurance companies. Which is more democratic?

The U.S. spends more than 16% of its GDP on health and 10's of millions have no cover. Britain spends 8.5% and everybody is covered including the bloody royal family.

My 86 year old grandmother broke her hip last week and within an hour was being operated on. The British showed sue your 'conservative alliance', your 'patriotic front for propaganda' or whatever these lunatics are called. These British women they used are all over the media saying how they have been misrepresented and edited.

Daryl Hannan is a reactionary right wing nut case that is sitting in the European parliament alongside fascist Eastern Europeans.

The world has seen how wonderful your corrupt capitalism is. Your Freddies, Fannies, Enrons, Halliburtons, Chenneys and Maddoxes while we watch bodies float through New Orleans. You can keep it thanks.

None of you indoctrinated have yet explained why the U.S's health care is ranked 37 in the world or why Americans have a LOWER life expectancy than the Brits and other Europeans?

What the world can see however, is how underfunded your education system is and how stuck in the 1950's you are. Americans always need a bogey man. Get into the 21st century for christs sake.

Thank god I'm a European and thank god we elect the people that control our lives unlike you with your delusions of freedom and your leaders that nobody knows. How is that foreigner, Rupert Murdoch?

 

[blai]

Okay, it's wonderful that there's an intellectual discussion regarding this topic but please try to keep the friendly tone - no matter how silly you think the other members opinions, facts or thoughts are.

Please restrain from using sarcasm or irony directly at someone and please keep it at a friendly manner.

Tho I have to say that the healthcare system that for example Sweden is using is great - apart from the fact that the government don't want to spend money on educating new doctors and increase the ammount of educated people in hospitals, neither do they want to expand the healthcare in Sweden which leaves us with great health insurances... but extremely long queues.

The thing that they (they is referring to the christian democrates and moderates that is currently leading the country ) want to do is to make the government (indirectly us - the tax payers) pay for the sick people so that they can go abroad and do the surgeries there. For example. I need a knee surgery. Some of the tax money goes to a governmental unit that tells me "you can go to uk and do the surgery there." I then get payed the trip and surgery there, instead of spending the money from our taxes to education and innovation in the healtcare in our country. It will decrease the amount of healthqueues but it will not expand or increase our current healthcare system and by sending people abroad we will decrease the income of our healthcare. Thooooooooooough, they claim that people from other countries around the EU, can come to Sweden and do this. But what use will it be if they refuses to invest in the healthcare as it is because they can't send foreign people in here for surgeries when for example one of my friends grandma had to wait 7years for a surgery.

Just a thought...