Since we never had a thread on healthcare...
 

...here's one now. Sorta.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...use-democrats/

First off, my take on the whole healthcare system in general: ideally, it would all be totally deregulated, totally open market. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world, and there are tons of people that get left out in our existing attempt at "free market" services. In that light, I think we as a successful society owe it to the people of the nation to provide for universal health care, in line with the other services like the military, police, rescue, etc services we provide to all.

That said... the above article is despicable. Now I understand that people feel like the Democrats are "pulling a fast one" by pushing forward and passing legislation that the Republicans don't support. But that's the nature of our (crappy) two party system. Right now the Democrats are in power, and this is the boon they get because the majority of the nation elected them.

But no level of sore-loserism can justify threatening lawmakers who are simply trying to make the country better as they see it. Do people really believe that the healthcare bill is a ploy to take over america from the inside? Really? There's far more evidence that stuff like the DMCA, or Gitmo, or the Patriot Act, or the DOHS have drastically reduced our freedom far more than the silly slippery slope that people run down when they suggest that gov't run healthcare is a precursor to Nazi-style concentration camps and totalitarianism socialism. Maybe the Democrats are right, or maybe they're wrong about whether or not universal healthcare will be good for the nation... but certainly it's not some nefarious takeover of the gov't to make us into socialists... and certainly it doesn't warrant threats to members of Congress.

And while I'm ranting about all things political... I have to mention the Tea Party folks. They've got it both right, and horribly wrong. They're right about protesting our gov't getting larger and out of control. They're right about not wanting to pay more and more taxes to a gov't that can't seem to budget themselves out of a paper bag. But they're so far off the mark with who they're protesting against it's borderline comical. It's not the Democrats in power that are the real problem, if anything they're the party the Tea Party guys should be supporting! Sure the Democrats lean towards social programs and are more willing to spend money and regulate the economy. But it's really the big corporations that lobby both parties, but have traditionally held the Republicans close in hand, that are the real problem behind our issues with the nation's policy and laws getting so divorced from what the general public wants.

Our country was founded on the believe that gov't should be "for the people and by the people". Then somewhere along the lines, corporate entities were validated as having the same rights as individuals. The problem is that corporations have far more leverage in terms of money and power than an individual. So by allowing them the same access to lobby the lawmakers as individuals, corporations end up having nearly unchecked sway in the laws that are passed. And even that wouldn't be all that bad except for this: individuals and corporations are both held responsible to the law of the land, but individuals also hold themselves responsible to their own personal moral code, while corporations hold themselves responsible to their shareholders. Anytime you have an entity that's morally responsible to profit... greed is there lurking in the shadows.

So what happens is that we've got corporations that are morally responsible to make money any way legal... which eventually includes spending money to lobby for laws that help them profit as long as the lobbying cost is less than the cost of doing business under existing or proposed laws. Now the laws that we're all accountable to are phrased in a manner to allow big businesses to profit regardless of the side effects felt by the individuals. We're no longer a gov't by the people for the people, we're a gov't by the corporations for the corporations. Most individuals are left struggling to get by without the support of the gov't that should be there to ensure they have their right to pursue health and happiness. We end up tied to our jobs, tied to our debt, tied to playing the roll of a consumer over the roll of a person. I don't care what political spectrum you subscribe to, you have to see the injustice of people having to chose between dying and losing their life savings because our gov't wants to protect the ability of insurance and pharmaceutical companies to make a profit. IMO that's blatantly contrary to what our nation was founded upon... "we the people".

So I applaud the Tea Party movement... I just think they should turn on the hand that feeds them if they'd really like to address the source of the problem they say they're fighting. If you want your individual rights upheld, if you want the option to chose for yourself, if you want your vote to count more than the dollars Exxon piles your Congressperson with, if you want big government to be thinned down... it's not the Democrat's healthcare plan, or a lean towards socialism, or tax raises you should be trying to stop... it's the campaign and lobby money quietly coming from the few megacorporations that are really deciding our nation's policies and laws. If our individual rights trump that of corporations, then we will once again have the power to elect folks that will do what's right for us, regardless of whether you're for or against stuff like universal healthcare.

/mega-rant off... now, did anyone bother to read enough of this to fight with me? (seriously though, I'd love to hear a well thought out contrary argument)

I read nearly all of it before running out of steam. :lol: I'd pick a fight, except I pretty much agree with you. Democrats win, so they get to make the rules. Conservatives should be praising baby Jesus every night that they've shot themselves in the foot as much as they already have.

I hope the tea partiers realize that if they actually start a civil war, we're the ones with free health care.

I have spent a good bit of time in France and Canada, and worked for a French company for 12 years, and I can say that they are pretty happy overall with their single-payer healthcare, despite what the FauxNews Teabagger Network might tell you. Of course they have gripes, but nothing like what we gripe about relative to our for-profit (big profit) insurance companies controlling our health and well being. FauxNews usually interviews some wingnut Canadian expatriot who is fairly well off and loves the healthcare in the States compared to back home. I bet they would be fine no matter where they were.

I have actually met a couple of these semi-ex-Canadians. One worked for a gold mining company here and she had nothing good to say about Canada taxes and healthcare. Well... that was until she got pregnant. I bet you can guess what she did. Headed back home to get it all payed for, including paid maternity leave, etc.

Normal everyday Canadians are mostly pretty proud of it actually. A guy I worked with in Ontario had knee problems. One time while up there he was limping around. He said he hurt it and needed to get it operated on. I asked how long would it take to get an appointment for an operation like that. See, I has always been told that their were these long wait lists and Canadians would flock across the border for procedures that were so much better and more available in the States. He said, "Whataya mean, eh? Goin' toomorrow. Thaat's why we needed you heere t'day on this proh-ject." Then when he realized my ignorance he got somewhat offended and gave me a hard time forever-after.

No, they don't like their higher taxes, but yes, they are in general happy with the healthcare.

Some of the frogs I worked with would actually fly back to France for major procedures. With their dual citizenship they were covered back in France, and it was cheaper to pay airfare (pre-911) than to pay their deductibles, + co-pays, etc. They loved it here, but hated the health insurance.

Now back then when I pointed this out to people they would always poo poo France's socialism, and their high unemployment rate, and their 38-hr workweek, and their 8 weeks of paid vacation (the horror!). I guess better overall health, longer lifespan, lower infant mortality and shit like that didn't matter compared to their high unemployment and their welfare state. Well France's *real* unemployment rate is better than ours now, so tell me again how we do it better than them?

Haha, I really don't have the interest or energy to deal with this issue at the moment, plus class starts in 16min.

Suffice to say, Party Politics is a game, not a solution. There are huge problems with where our government/society have gone, if measured by the "American" yardstick of personal freedom, personal accountability, hard work, and opportunity. It did not start last week, and both Parties are driving it.

Yes, the reset button needs to be dusted off. But nobody playing Party Politics has the true will or stones to uncap the can of Pledge.

This is why I have not paid close attention to national politics for some years.

I'm with Sperry. The government's sole purpose is to protect the people from injustice, but too often it panders to the needs of corporations instead. Capitalism is all fine and good, but without laws designed to protect us, the environment and human rights are thrown out the window.

It's truly discouraging, isn't it? I align much more with one party than the other overall, but I am constantly disappointed and disillusioned with that party and hate them for it. This healthcare "victory" is a perfect example. The enemy of my enemy is my friend though... I guess.

That reminds me, I should head home for some free healthcare.

Mike wins.

Yah, fly halfway around the world to get your cholesterol checked for free!

I have to, they don't have metric dipsticks here.

Probably can't find the right thread pitch for your prostate exams either.

As someone who has worked since he was 13 , and has always had health insurance either due to my dad or my own job this Quote really rings out to me ...

"To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, 'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.'"
-- Thomas Jefferson

If you want people who currently don't have health care, to have it, Start a new charity , we don't need the government forcing it upon everyone.

One more that i think is true (Though i agree with Sperry we need more more open / free market health care system for this to work properly)

Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.
Benjamin Franklin, letter to Collinson, May 9, 1753

I have been working since I was 13 too (and that's 30+ years for me). I currently do not have health insurance through my employer because he is me. I cannot afford anything other than very-high-deductible anti-catastrophic coverage, which is basically no coverage unless something serious happens, and then it will only prevent bankruptcy if you are lucky.

Please make your check out to the "KS Healthcare Charity Fund c/o KS Enterprises LLC".

J/K. Actually I have insurance through my girlfriend, as we are are "domestic partners". Thank gawd for gay-rights advocates or I would be SOL.

One comment - if welfare didn't exist, and people had to pay out of their own pockets or form insurance cooperatives, would not prices and care be more realistic and practical?

The only reason that health care is so crazy expensive is because you are in direct competition with welfare babies who go to the doc at every opportune moment. Think of everything in terms of who you are competing with. Toss in the confounding factor of a completely irresponsible court/justice system, and it's not hard to figure out why health insurance is so expensive and yet practically ineffective in many ways.

It's kinda like buying a house - single-income families cannot compete in a market driven by dual-income families, everything else being equal.

Using that logic, health care in socialized medicine systems would cost infinity, since everybody is a 'welfare baby.' But the actual cost of health care in every other modern western democracy is less, per capita, than ours. the reason our health care costs are so high is because we don't have any protection against capitalism gone to extremes in this segment of the economy. Our government goes crazy trying to find ways to cut down Microsoft's profits, but they do literally nothing to stop health care insurance providers from raping us like crazy.

I thought the gouging was more from the healthcare system, not the health insurance companies?

I'm confused about what "the system" means outside of the corporations?

I just heard on the radio that health insurance companies actually have a very small profit margin. But I know that health industries (like the pharmaceutical drugs industry) make bank.

These are the services I believe my gov't should provide to all for "free", paid for by our taxes:

education (K-college)
military
justice
police
fire
rescue
medical/healthcare
basic food/clothing/shelter

In short, no one in the country should have to be stupid, hungry, sick, or homeless unless they choose to be. Citizens should all have universal access to these basic services as a benefit of living in a modern society. Outside of that, people should be free to do anything they wish so long as it doesn't infringe on another person's freedom to do the same.

If you want to mooch off the system, go right ahead. I just have a hard time believe there are many people that would aspire to nothing having been provided with a quality college education. If the gov't is going to be paying for your basic services, you should be required to get an education.

And all of that should be paid for with a flat national sales tax. No more income tax... just a VAT on all goods sold at all steps along the manufacturing pipeline. So even if you're a welfare moocher, unless you're living on just the bare necessities paid for by welfare, you're going to be paying taxes on the stuff you buy.

Something like 30% of all health care money goes to administrative costs. Salaries of the Board, and of the people who do nothing but process claims and billing and manage those people, and manage those people, and write new claim forms, and create shiny marketing brochures, and find legal loopholes to deny claims, and funnel money to Congress to create more loopholes, and sit in an office and take a slice of money to determine which conglomerate your money for premiums will go to, who all provide nothing in terms of value to the rest of us. That money is not included in "profits" on accounting sheets. "Profit" is the money that hey can't say they spent on something else, so yeah, it's not a very high percentage. A huge amount of health care cost is spent just running the massive insurance machine.

Do you really believe that the actual cost per given service will be less in a socialized system vs. a free market system, quality being equal?

Abso-fucking-lutely. Our current healthcare mess is one of (if not *the* most) expensive of industrialized nations, yet we rank like #30. France's is considered the best (single payer with independent doctors, etc.). I would hope we could do better than the French. Maybe not, though.

I have to agree.

Our current system not only costs us more out of pocket than any other, we also spend more via taxes than most countries with socialized healthcare.

Basically, we're getting the worst of both worlds right now. And it's not so much because of a failure of free market vs. socialized healthcare, it's because our "free market" has been allowed to manipulate the gov't so much via lobbyists. We already have socialized healthcare... except our taxes aren't paying into the system to help citizens, they're paying into the system to subsidize the insurance and drug companies massive profits.

We need to either put all the companies out of business by totally socializing the industry, or put them all out of business to force them to start over and actually compete. Because right now they're getting away with murder (almost literally). Even the ObamaCare changes aren't really forcing them to compete with anyone.

Yes. This isn't the Soviet Union, where a bureaucrat will tell who what doctor to see, and if or when. Competition among service providers for your business will not be eliminated with a single-payer system.

I guess when I say "actual cost", I mean the real monetary costs of a government managed/mandated system. I forget that most people never think beyond the out of pocket + some vague notion of tax increase. This includes total funding costs of all bureaucracies involved and additional tax burden on the population, and most importantly feedbacks along different tax demographics (e.g. if they pull most of these extra taxes from middle-class and up, how will those various economic agents modify their behavior to pass the costs down the line?). All of which actually would take some fairly sophisticated economic modeling to work out, and then probably not even be accurate (I did get a minor in the subject, after all).

When I say "given same quality", I essentially mean maintaining or exceeding the quality of *necessary* care that now exists in the U.S.. I cannot speak for other countries such as France, I only spent 3 months there and it was not enough time for me to require various levels of medical assistance that would allow for proper evaluation. I can, however, evaluate the *necessary* care available here, having had 2 knee surgeries, one facial surgery, some medium-grade dental work, and various fractures and whatnot. When considering this, you basically have to pretend as if today's doctors will all be retired, and that a new generation will be brought in under the new system, and consider the levels of motivation, expertise, and work ethics that will be present. Again, it WILL be different than now, but how much and in which direction is the $64k question.

It is a large enough chunk of the economy that no matter what you do there will be huge feedbacks on the rest of the system. A hypothetically-successful socialized medical system is highly dependent upon how the rest of that government and economy function.

No doubt, this is another case of trying to solve the world's problems over coffee - ain't gonna happen, as all you can do is debate from a general principle point of view. Instead, we need to rely on our political "leadership" to spend the time, money, and have the interest and intelligence to properly evaluate the problem from all angles before acting - I mean, we are the best at rocket science, right? But, why do I get the feeling that this is less about "health care" and more about simple governmental expansion, with big paydays for all the cats involved? The majority have plenty to gain from advancing their agenda, and the opposition gets to rile everyone up, hopefully with a payday down the line........no, I don't believe our modern government is capable of pulling this off at all, let alone the powers that they were originally charged with in the Constitution.

I agree with that sentence, but that's about it. That's how it works now. No one has to be any of those things, they choose to be. I don't think the government should provide healthcare, housing, or college education. I believe everyone should have the right to be stupid, sick, or homeless, if you so choose. That's what America is about, the right to choose. Everyone has a chance to better themselves in this country. If you're not happy with not having the health insurance you want, do something about it. Quit using a cell phone, and use that money for insurance. Quit driving a car and ride the bus. I shouldn't have to pay for health insurance so you can have it for free.

I'm going to school to become an engineer. I'm putting in all this work right now, so that I can make a bunch of money later. It's stupid that I should have to pay for someone who has never tried to better their situation. Why should we all have to pay for people who drop out of high school, get a shit job, and spend all of their money on weed and alcohol instead of health insurance?

Sorry if this got a little rant-y or hard to read, I'm a bit fired up on the topic. And I don't mean to single out Sperry, it's just the one post I chose to quote. I might be playing with fire, trying to pick a fight with Scott :lol:

One more thing: you can't say people will not aspire to nothing, given an education. People do that now! How many people in your high school class dropped out? I know quite a few. Hell, I even have cousins that did it. Plenty of people choose to do nothing with their lives, and they have the right to do so. What they don't have the right to do is make me better their situation for them. I'm not your mom, I'm not here to clean up your mess. I'm here to clean up my own.

Well Said bigrobwoot,

So i was hearing on the radio the health care bill says that starting in 2011 our medical benefits provided by our employers, so it could easily be counted as 3-6K more income. and the bush tax cuts are going to expire. double whammy !

what's next scott, maybe we have the right to public transportation? if i'm free not to work and be provided an education, housing, food, and health care, how am i supposed to get from my provided house to my provided health care and to the grocery store. and if my transportation is a car you need to provided me with car insurance too, and gas .. And really how can you expect me to drive with out Satalite radio ? so that could be next? ya this is gonna end well...

Well said for someone who's never met people that want to have a better life but can't.

It's all well and good to tell people they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but it's totally unrealistic to say that's possible for everyone. Life ain't fair... for many many people the only difference between success and failure is luck. Luck to be born rich vs luck to be born blind... etc.

The question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you believe that a successful society has an obligation to provide for those that can't provide for themselves. Now I'm with you on the idea that a "free ride" isn't fair to the rest of us that are paying for it... but that's why I think people on welfare should "pay their way" by going to school. If we require folks to get an education in order to receive their "free" welfare, we end up with folks that have a college or trade school degree in a few years that are now capable of contributing and giving back to society. The vast majority of people that are living in welfare hell now are there because they were born poor, never got an education, and are having kids that will perpetuate the cycle. They're not there because they want to be, they're there because they don't know how not to be there. Teach them a skill, give them a sense of accomplishment, and I bet the vast majority of people that have tasted success will now have the will and skills to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

And for that tiny minority of people that actually are lazy, that education can't help... well that minority is probably so small that we can write it off as an expense in the business of providing everyone with the opportunity to succeed.

Sure, 'cause what I'm suggesting is free flat screens and hummers for all! Let's just jump to the most unrealistic conclusions possible while we're at it and argue that the gov't should be providing free weed, crack and guns to the poor! It's their right to live how they want on the goverment's dime after all, right? :rolleyes:

What you just described is our current welfare system, where people are given money to spend on shit they don't need just for being poor and having a bunch of kids.

What I'm talking about is more in line with a job... you work at improving yourself, the state will make sure you've got what you need to succeed. You want to sit on your ass and eat cheetos? You do that and you're on your own.

I am not going to get caught up in the majority of this debate, but will make a few comments.

1. For the most part, you only really appreciate the worth of something if you had to pay for it in some direct tangible manner. Routing your hard earned money through a bureaucracy in the form of taxes and the government in a single payer system just obfuscates you away from it. Employer paid does much the same thing only worse in some respects.

2. Paying Cobra and trying to buy your own health care insurance is a true eye opener.

3. Interstate competition and the centralization of regulation instead of 50 states making their own rules would probably help, not hurt.

4. Preexisting conditions suck for everyone involved, but have to be covered and the risk spread. The only way to eliminate them is have magical coverage for all from birth to death at which point we are back to #1...

Who's fault is it that they never got an education? For the record, I'm saying high school education, while you may be referring to college education. Arguing my point, it is their fault that they didn't get an education. It is free to get, and against the law not to get, an education right now. Yet, there are still plenty of people not going. Also, it is their own fault for getting pregnant at 16. All of us are smart enough not to. We learned in middle school how to not get pregnant.

Ignorance is no excuse for not being better. I "didn't know" how to go to college, because neither one of my parents went. I'm figuring it out. Same with my girlfriend. She is probably a better example. Her single mom with 4 kids is working 2-3 jobs at a time to provide for her kids. All of her kids realized that they wanted better than that for themselves, so they are all educating themselves. If you look at your parents at their dead end jobs and don't realize you want better than that, it is not my responsibility to pay for you just because I did want to be better than my parents. Everyone has an opportunity to do well in this country, but not the right to do well in this country. What you do with that opportunity is entirely up to you.

College is not the only answer, nor is it the answer for everyone. I have friends that I went to high school with for whom college is just not the way to go. They aren't as booksmart as me, and I don't mean that in any demeaning way. They are much better at construction/flooring than I am, so that is what they do. Not everyone is good at the same thing, which is how it is supposed to work. If everyone was as good a mechanic as Cory, he wouldn't have a job, because everyone would fix their own problems in 15 minutes with a banana peel, some duct tape, and a tire iron. That's how the system works. You find what you are good at, find a way to get paid for it, and buy the things important to you.

And you're right, Scott. I haven't met anyone that wants better but can't get it. The only limitations they have on bettering themselves are self-imposed. I've met plenty of f-ups, in fact I'm related to a bunch of them, but not one of them is incapable of improving their situation. Unmotivated to do so, yes, but not incapable.

Personally, I'm tired of this getting dragged into a debate on economics. It's not about money. It's about people being told to die, or remain crippled, or suffer unnecessarily because they aren't wealthy. 98% of Americans CANNOT afford to pay for serious medical bills out of pocket. This means we all need health insurance. I personally don't give a crap how much it costs me in taxes, I despise that we let people suffer when we have more money than anybody else in the world. Will taxes go up with 100% coverage for al of us? I don't know. Will I care if they do? Not really. This isn't about 'welfare' or how much we spend on highways or the military or foreign aid. It's not an economic issue. It's a moral issue with economic implications.

I'm not a 'tax and spend' liberal, mostly because there are very very few people who fit that. It's a construct of the Right, just like the fascist fat-cat money-grubbing Republican is mostly a fabrication of the Left. My personal opinion of the government, like Scott's, is that it exists as a tool for society to use to achieve its aims. Since every single one of us deserves medical treatment we need, and free market tools aren't working, it's time to do something about it. Government should be closely monitored to make what we spend on it is as efficient as possible, but it really grates on me to hear people railing against any and all form of taxation when there is simply no alternatives for some things. Farm subsidies? Stupid. Bank bailouts? Also stupid, but because the situation shouldn't have been allowed to exist in the first place. Earmark pork barrel pet projects? Stupid. Waging 2 useless wars around the globe for no real benefit? Stupid. Maintaing a military that prevents another nation from conquering us? Not stupid. Building and maintaining a good highway and rail system? Not stupid. FDA? Not stupid. Funding education? Not stupid. Ensuring people don't die because they are poor? Not stupid.

Everyone has the right to not sink so low that you can't provide food, shelter etc. for yourself. Anything above that, you have to work for. "Welfare state" does not equal marxist communism.

The only people that is happening to, are the people on the government's healthcare right now. That 98% of Americans should have insurance to help them cover their medical costs. If they don't want to have insurance, then they should be allowed to do so. If something does happen to someone that is uninsured, they should have to pay for it. I, on the other hand, should not have to pay for it. Also, it is already ensured in America that people don't die because they are poor. It is illegal (AFAIK) not to treat people in emergency rooms.

That's great that you don't mind paying for other people to have health insurance. Do so via donations/charity. I do mind paying for other people. I should not be forced to do so. "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime." Bailing people out of their problems does not teach them to be a better person. It teaches them to be a reliant person. Reliant on everyone, including the government. Everyone except for themselves. People need to be self-reliant.

I disagree. Everyone has the right to sink as low as they allow themselves to. I totally agree with unemployment, I think it is a great program. It is a thoroughly abused program, but it works, because you have to pay into it before you can use it.

There is no excuse for allowing yourself to sink that low, IMO. If you do so, you should pay the consequences. It is too easy not to lose everything for people to lose everything. I just filled out my FAFSA to apply for loans/grants for school. Since I have seen how much money my parents lost last year, due to losing a business, and they didn't lose their house or their rental properties, I know it is possible to not lose everything when you lose everything, if that makes sense.

Thing is, what happens to the poorest in a society happens to all of us. Who do you think commits the majority of crime, especially violent ones? Have you seen what real inner city life looks like? Would you like to live in proximity to the LA Projects? Or do you think maybe your world is going to be a better place if those people don't have horrible lives, and maybe have just enough incentive to behave themselves a little better because they have something to lose?

Another thing to keep in sight is that the portions of tax money and the percentage of people involved in this end of the debate is pretty small.

But let's get back to the "everybody should be 100% self sufficient" model. You realize that our economic system absolutely and without exception requires there to be a significant number of 'have nots' right? Like I discussed in the education thread, many, many, many essential jobs require little or no education/training and therefore don't pay worth a damn. People who work menial jobs cannot, and under our current system never will, be able to afford health care, or full comp/collision coverage on the car they need to get back and forth to their crap job, or be able to buy their own home and thereby have a chance in hell of retiring at a reasonable age, because Social Security barely gets seniors (who ususally have massive medical bills, or at the very least hundreds of dollars in prescription medications that keep them alive) above the poverty line. Not to go an yet another tangent, but I only view SS as a safety net to keep seniors from becoming utterly destitute, not to enable them to retire to Florida and play golf every morning and Penochle every night. But I digress. Point is, some people in the capitalist economic system get completely fucked by the circumstances of their life. Yeah, some people can overcome and be a real heartwarming success story, but that's about as common as winning the Super Lotto jackpot. Not only that, but what I am asking for is simply that all people can survive and not have to wonder if they're going to be homeless a month after losing their job, or if their kid busts his leg playing in the yard and they have to declare bankruptcy, because dad's job at Jiffy Lube pays $9 an hour and mom makes $6 an hour waiting tables at Denny's. How exactly do you raise a family and get full coverage medical (not just crappy high-deductible stuff, but real insurance) on that kind of money? Don't say "get a better job, because the world can't provide that. Some of us HAVE TO be in that situation for this society to function in the manner we're accustomed to.

I don't think it's out of line to guarantee a very basic survival-level of living without the ever-present fear of everything you have dissolving in a moment, and becoming just another statistic. Besides, if you think anybody on the planet really wants to live with less than that, all they have to do is not cash the check.

Where you're off the tracks is that this statement is patently false.

There are many, many people that try as they might cannot make their lives significantly better than their parents. It's probably hard to believe or accept if you don't know people like that who have been hit by hard times or bad luck to the point where the best they can do is to just get by on Medicare/Medicaid/Disability/Social Security no matter how hard they wish for a better life. Personally, I don't know folks that are really quite that hard up, but I do know some that are just a heart-attack away from it... and I can see how easy it would be to end up on the down-side and addicted to welfare, especially if you happened to be born into those conditions where you grew up without even a hint that life could be better than it is.

My point is that as a successful society, we have the ability to make it a right to everyone that they have their most basic needs met, thus giving them a real chance to improve their lives, and more importantly ensure their kids lives will be better than their own. The problem is that doing so is expensive in the short term, even if in the long term it will keep America on the top of the heap economically. People seem to miss out that the US is on the short road to mediocrity, and that we're getting driven there by the rich folks/corporation that have been concerned with today's profits over tomorrows opportunities for the last 20-30 years. We need to reinvest in our nation's base, the way we did in the 50's right after WWII ended, if we want any chance of keeping up with China.

I guess I'm saying that everyone has an opportunity to do well, but as a nation, we don't have the ability for everyone to do well. The ones that work the hardest will be the most successful. It's kind of like the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam, for those familiar with it; for those not, only the top 70% pass. That 70% could have gotten all but 2 answers wrong, as long as 30% got all but 1 wrong. It's a sliding scale. Some people will be better than others, but that doesn't mean everyone should quit trying and complain that it isn't fair. Life isn't fair. Get over it, and work your ass off to get where you want to be.

Unfortunately, this is also not true. How many hard working people lost their asses just now when the economy tanked? Meanwhile a bunch of rich investors that spend a few hours each day gambling on stocks are just slightly less rich after they got their bailouts.

Or how about someone like Cory for example. He's probably one of the hardest working people I know. Who do you think works harder, Cory or the CEO of Exxon-Mobile? My money is on Cory (and the millions of hard working people like him). Where's Cory's billions of dollars?

But you are right that life isn't fair. My suggestion is not that everyone share the wealth (communism). My suggestion is just that when the unfairness strikes there's a liveable minimum you're ensured to get. Food, shelter, medical, and education. Because even hard-working folks can end up on the downside of things, and they deserve a baseline opportunity to climb back up the ladder.

I can see both sides. Alex and Rob are simply saying, don't get rid of the stick and just give the carrot to the ass cuz he'll cop a squat and ask you for another one.

Scott and company are saying, that we all have a fundamental right to carrots (health) along with police, fire, etc. The cost shouldn't be unreasonable in the scheme of things, spread out among everyone and is a worthy investment.

For the record, I'm on Scott's side. I feel like protection from debilitating disease/injury and medical bankruptcy won't demotivate the working class, but simply protect it from cruel and unusual punishment.

Does anyone know if the following statement is true or not? It's something I have been thinking.

The uninsured are a larger drain on the economy currently than they will be if we force them to get insurance, even if we have to subsidize the investment as taxpayers.

I mean, we force all drivers to have car insurance so that we're all protected from financial loss in an accident. Shouldn't the same principal apply to health insurance? When the uninsured have an emergency, doesn't the cost trickle down to everyone in the form of higher medical costs anyway? Don't we want as many people as possible to stay above the poverty line so that the economy thrives?

Oh, and also for the record, I'm not a fan of the government becoming an insurance company. I think that they should simply require all insurance companies to offer an affordable plan to everyone, but not so affordable that the insurance companies lose money. And everyone should be required to have at least that minimal plan.

Actually, it's even better for healthcare to pay up front than auto insurance in your example. The cost of preventative medicine is many many times cheaper than the cost of treating unprevented diseases.

This is especially true in our current healthcare/insurance system, yet the insurance companies still cover very few preventative procedures... likely because they rely on denying claims later on by calling them "pre-existing" or some other such nonsense. Basically, they're able to deny enough expensive claims that it's still cheaper to allow their clients to get very sick and pay for the percentage they can't deny than to cover preventative medicine and doctor visits for all. Clearly the current insurance system is not at all geared to creating healthy individuals, but to profit, and that is exactly why it should be a gov't program, regardless if it costs more in the long run. Any healthcare system should be about keeping people healthy first, not making money. We've just got a bunch of companies that have jumped on the fact that people are willing to dump their life savings into not dying, not hurting, and not having boners. IMO, it's borderline extortion.

But as far as your last statement, I'm opposed to regulating the insurance industry that way. IMO, either a service is universal and available to everyone equally paid for by taxes and run by the gov't and accountable via our votes, or it's a free market enterprise where the only regulations are general fair business conduct type regulations. I dislike the idea of the gov't setting the cost an insurance company is allowed to charge. Instead I would rather see a universal public healthcare system that provides basic healthcare, and insurance companies that will offer services above and beyond those provided by the public system, competing with each other as they see fit. Basically, you get your preventative checkups, diabetus meds and heart transplants from the gov't, and your Viagra, botox and plastic surgery from the existing style system.

That's interesting. Ideally we would just pool our money together to absorb everyone's medical expenses.

I guess I was just worried that the government would be less efficient (real cost) than the current system.

The cost of government inefficiencies is way, way less than the cost of unregulated insurance industry profits, plus the cost of administering said industry as I mentioned earlier.

The healthcare chaos really gets me going ... there are several issues that I could be really outspoken about, but I'll start with this: everyone who wants health insurance, can't necessarily buy it today.

Rob - when I was in my early 20's I remember being very idealistic; and much like what you are saying, I knew that those who were the have-nots - the people on welfare, the people asking for hand-outs, were in that state because they chose to be so, and because they didn't work for something better. It's not an unexpected opinion from an idealistic viewpoint.

Fast forward many years, and here is a reality check from my experience: I worked for a company for 26-1/2 years. Paid taxes, donated to United Way, paid my employee portion for health insurance. Worked hard, became a salaried employee, met the 50 hour workweek expectation, which grew to 60, then 70 or more, sometimes 7 days a week, sometimes on the road for several days up to several weeks at a time at other sites. Sometimes on call 24/7, working on a problem from 2am until 4pm the next day. When the company started outsourcing work to India to save a few bucks, I trained some of those contractors. The day I got a pink slip, I was one of 50+, while the company kept paying for out-of-country contractors!

"Yes", they said, "you can get COBRA"! It turned out that my Cobra payment was $600/month. When you are unemployed, and UI runs out, it's pretty unrealistic to pay $600 every month, for services you might or might not need.

For those of you with idealistic expectations, I wish you a lifetime of success and of never needing to use your health insurance. For the rest of us - I wish us something fair. $600 / month (or more for some) is rape.

DK, your experiences are not much different from my parents now that they retired.

Apparently, the cost of paying themselves for their dental insurance is so expensive and so limited in coverage for whatever reason that they've decided just to drop it and pay out of pocket for everything. And that's with my mom having a temp crown on a tooth that will need to be finished up. It's literally cheaper to pay the cost of the crown than to pay one more month for the insurance to cover it.

I think the only way the health insurance CEOs sleep at night is because they can afford $30,000 beds.

There is no Jeffersonian constitutional right to education, to roads & highways, to clean air and water, air traffic control, police protection, fire departments, flood control, coast guard, national parks, museums, etc... yet the government provides all of these to everyone despite their ability (or willingness) to pay, even all those vast hordes of lazy goldbrickers who evidently are taking over our society according to what some people think. Should we privatize all these government-provided benefits and make sure only those who can pay for it get it? I think it is arguable that healthcare is more a fundamental "right" than most of the things I listed (if not all of them).

Since you are wont to quote my favorite Founding Father... "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men... are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Lack of healthcare causes the death of at least 45,000 Americans annually. The low-quality of our healthcare also kills another 200,000 annually. Our shitty healthcare also obviously limits many more people's liberty and any chance of real happiness.

So we as a society are willing to provide everybody with extra-constitutional niceties like paved roads and national parks, but we just look the other way as 10's or 100's of thousands are deprived of their "unalienable rights" by privatized insurance-company-run healthcare. And worse yet we do this while many other lesser industrialized nations have already solved this problem and do it equally as well for less cost to society despite covering 100% of the population. And to justify this we point out that are some lazy people who will take advantage of the system, and then we justify it more by assuming that those without don't deserve it because of some bullshit bootstrap metaphor. That's immoral, unethical, and just plain fucked up. And WTF is a bootstrap anyway?

You obviously just weren't pulling hard enough on those bootstraps! Try making a loop out of the bootstrap for you handhold and reinforce it with duct tape to keep it from coming undone.

^ ^ ^
Tee heee! I had long-ago donated those bootstraps to someone who needed it more at the time than I did. My bad...

Anyone here see Michael Moore's 'Sicko'? I know, I know, he's a sensationalist m-f ... but still ...

One part of his story talked about some of the 9/11 rescue survivors who are now (at the time of that movie) suffering from health conditions that are likely the result of working in the hell zone of the disaster area to save people. Some of them are/were fighting the health and insurance system to get treatment for their conditions; and were being denied! But that's not the only part of this story that enrages me. Michael Moore takes these people on a boat to Guantanamo Bay, to ask if they can be treated there - since the criminals housed there were getting US Government treatment for free, why not non-criminals too?. No can do, their boat might be shot at by the guards, so they motor on to Cuba. In Havana, these heroes get treatments for free! And then, the Cuban firefighters honor them as the heroes they really are. When I think about this scenario - I just wish I were a lawyer who could sue the asses of some of these people who are benefitting from the injustice of our current healthcare system.