An outsider watching the US health care debate

[slip969]

so if you did not pay for the care, who did?

Oh you. I see what you did there. Yes I did pay for a portion with my taxes. But I'd rather pay a portion in taxes than paying $800+. And then everyone gets to take advantage of it. Good idea no?

So let me get this straight. It's alright for someone who has to bust their ass every day at work to pay for health care for people who don't work, collect welfare (<-- already an awesome example) and let corrupt government agencies decide that I'm just not working hard enough and crack the whip to take more taxes out of me? No thank you!

I'll gladly pay for my poison ivy treatments myself, choose my doctor and hell... probably pay less then the taxes they are going to take from me anyways.

Basically, under Obama's regime... the more you work, the more your punished. Fuck, maybe that's the idea... let me get fat, clog my arteries, pop out 2 and 1/2 kids and never work again. I'll be taken care of by my savior Mr. Obama... Awesome!

Fuck that fascist pig in the face.

Under your assumption everyone should be working, there should be 100% unemployment. What rose coloured glass world do you live in? The idea of social healthcare is to provide for a nations people when they can't.

A person is shot or has a broken leg...whatever. Goes into a hospital but doesn't have insurance. Do you toss him out on the street? By your view, I'm assuming you would.

That is not the case at all. You can go to any hospital here in the U.S. with a broken leg, etc.. and will be taken care of. However! the patient will be of course billed for it later if they do not have insurance or will have to pay the deductible on the plan.

Now, I have absolutely no sympathy for people who can't pay their way in life. Most employers today offer some sort of company health care as a part of the job and have low deductibles. Hell, a friend of mine even gets medical benefits by working at a grocery store. So I'm not saying go out and become a rocket scientist to afford your health care, but take some responsibility for your needs in life (<-- that is a whole other topic).

For instance, look at our welfare system. I dutifully pay my welfare tax out of my paycheck every week like a good little citizen. What do I see when I go to the local food store or Walmart? It's always some fat, retarded lady with 5,000 kids running around paying for $400 worth of groceries with the welfare card. Please somehow tell me this is looking out for my fellow citizen or "being compassionate". It's a fucking mess, just like health care will be.

One of the largest concerns in my opinion about the national health care proposal is that companies are going to be mandated to carry the "government" option. Let me tell you as a small business owner that it's already hard to be competitive with overseas companies and eek out a average living by today's standards. What we need right now is less legislation and bureaucracy, not more.

[jaycanuck]

so if you did not pay for the care, who did?

Oh you. I see what you did there. Yes I did pay for a portion with my taxes. But I'd rather pay a portion in taxes than paying $800+. And then everyone gets to take advantage of it. Good idea no?

So let me get this straight. It's alright for someone who has to bust their ass every day at work to pay for health care for people who don't work, collect welfare (<-- already an awesome example) and let corrupt government agencies decide that I'm just not working hard enough and crack the whip to take more taxes out of me? No thank you!

I'll gladly pay for my poison ivy treatments myself, choose my doctor and hell... probably pay less then the taxes they are going to take from me anyways.

Basically, under Obama's regime... the more you work, the more your punished. Fuck, maybe that's the idea... let me get fat, clog my arteries, pop out 2 and 1/2 kids and never work again. I'll be taken care of by my savior Mr. Obama... Awesome!

Fuck that fascist pig in the face.

Under your assumption everyone should be working, there should be 100% unemployment. What rose coloured glass world do you live in? The idea of social healthcare is to provide for a nations people when they can't.

A person is shot or has a broken leg...whatever. Goes into a hospital but doesn't have insurance. Do you toss him out on the street? By your view, I'm assuming you would.

That is not the case at all. You can go to any hospital here in the U.S. with a broken leg, etc.. and will be taken care of. However! the patient will be of course billed for it later if they do not have insurance or will have to pay the deductible on the plan.

Now, I have absolutely no sympathy for people who can't pay their way in life. Most employers today offer some sort of company health care as a part of the job and have low deductibles. Hell, a friend of mine even gets medical benefits by working at a grocery store. So I'm not saying go out and become a rocket scientist to afford your health care, but take some responsibility for your needs in life (<-- that is a whole other topic).

For instance, look at our welfare system. I dutifully pay my welfare tax out of my paycheck every week like a good little citizen. What do I see when I go to the local food store or Walmart? It's always some fat, retarded lady with 5,000 kids running around paying for $400 worth of groceries with the welfare card. Please somehow tell me this is looking out for my fellow citizen or "being compassionate". It's a fucking mess, just like health care will be.

One of the largest concerns in my opinion about the national health care proposal is that companies are going to be mandated to carry the "government" option. Let me tell you as a small business owner that it's already hard to be competitive with overseas companies and eek out a average living by today's standards. What we need right now is less legislation and bureaucracy, not more.

I'd argue your points...but I've repeated myself over and over in this thread and the right just can't see it. So why continue to try and hammer it home.

[lahabra1976]

Well I can understand both sides of the argument here and why neither sides will give in.

The "less government" side is understandable because the "American" way of life has been set on free competition, less government involvement, and the strong American economy relative to the world is prove of how this philosphy has worked (America makes up 20% of the world GDP, which is measure of economic size). And of course it make sense people compete and competition drives people to improve productivity, quality, and the like.

But on the other side, the "more government" involvement in health care I can understand cause will other countries that use socialized medicine appear to have better health care than us, period.

I do work as a doctor in the health care profession and I will say yes there is competition in the health industry. But the rules of competition don't work the same as other industries and, thus, this has lead to lower quality healthcare. The truth of the matter is a doctor is paid by insurances and insurances don't pay you to cure the patient or to make them better. You paid per visit for the patient so the more you see the patient the more you make. So this commonly done, you do a procedure one day and have the patient come back another to do another so get paid twice when it could all be done on the same day.

Additonally insurances pay you a set fee for everything. A set fee for the exam, other procedures. Can you imagine if all restaurants had to charge the same price for everything? All this does it cause doctors to find ways to cut cost and, thus, cut quality. For example, insurances pay about $100 to take a picture of the back of the eye. And the same each charged for all doctors. Now there are several machines out there that can take this picture, some are high cost, but give better detail. But since insurance always pays the same, most doctors get the lowest cost machine. Again the result is less care to the patient.

I only bring up this example to prove the point that American healthcare problem is not as simple is who pays for what. The problems transcend through the entire system and perhaps it may regulations on health insurances that maybe needed rather than government providing the care. Cause afterall government providing the care doesn't solve the problems mentioned above.

[Beagle]

I haven't seen everything on this topic....but what I have seen on the news scares the shit out of me. Seriously...when did helping those less privileged turn into Obama being Hitler? You have some incredibly uninformed people down there.

Who knows...maybe it was like that when our universal health care was introduced....but I don't think people were called Hitler.

Gotta say folks, I hope you guys do find your way. I went to the hospital twice last month for poison ivy. Didn't spend 1 red cent there.

Bring on the flame!!

Jay,

The Hitler thing was way overblown. Nancy Pelosi started this whole Nazi-Hitler thing by making a bogus comment complaining about the town hall protestors carrying swastikas -still unproven, by the way.

I haven't heard any mainstream opponent of Obama care using the Hitler reference. Actually, The Hitler references were much more prevalent during Bush's reign.

Now it seems in this country you're not allowed to criticize the President without being accused of being racist. And yes, while it was out of line for Joe Wilson to exclaim "You Lie" during the president's speech, to call him a racist like Jimmy Carter and congressman Hank Johnson recently did is just disgusting.

The fact of the matter is the majority of Americans do not want state-run health care. This is way the Democrats haven't just rammed this bill through by now. The majority of Americans are fed up with the insane spending, pork bills and they upset in the direction this country is headed. We see that NOTHING that the government runs works well. NOTHING. Social Security, Medicare even our Post Office are horribly mismanaged and loses money. They don't trust the government. They even screwed up the Cash-for-Clunkers program.

And notice that there was no Tort Reform in any of the Dem's bills either. This was a sure sign that they weren't serious about reform. There are numerous things and laws the govt could enact to truly bring down the cost. Tort reform and eliminating the stupid barriers to interstate insurance commerce are but two examples.

Yeah, they weren't crazy about Bush and when he overspent and they're sure as hell upset when Obama outspends Bush by nearly an order of magnitude.

All of these protests and town hall meetings HAVE NOTHING to do with the color of Obama's skin, his haircut, the ties he wears, the food he eats or whether or not he wears briefs or boxers.

It's a fundamental disagreement with his policies. That's it. Anyone trying to play the race card and to paint those of us who object to a state-run health care plan as being racist are sadly wrong and will find their desperate attempts will backfire.

[Beagle]

Also, regarding the so-called 50 million number of uninsured people here in the US.

We now know this is a bogus number.

How many of these are illegally here? Obama now says his program won't cover illegals....he'll just make them legal and then they'll be covered. Heh...clever play on words.

I know dozens of young healthy people who simply don't want to spend their money on health insurance. They think they're invincible and they're cheap. There must be tens of millions of these people in our country. Well, one law Obama could pass that I would support is some sort of proof of insurance. You need proof of car insurance to drive, why not the same for health insurance.

Obama has admitted he eventually wants a single payer system. One big fear is that he's using a plan of incrementalism to move us in that direction.

This is why i don't trust him when he says I can keep my doctor and health insurance. I won't be able to keep my doctor and health insurance if my insurer goes out of business because everyone's on the public option. My employer has already told us that they would only offer the public option because it will be easier and cheaper for them.

So much for keeping my insurer and doctor.


PS: Of ALL the people that cross the US border in order to receive health care - what percentage LEAVE and what percentage COME into the USA?

[jaycanuck]

Again...I've debated this to death but...

Re : Hitler comments. True...no political opponents here...but referring to my original post...it's what we see up here. Gotta admit that that stuff is shocking.


And an additional video about the success of Cash for Clunkers


I think it's good that they're attempting new ways of doing things. Are they perfect? No. But they're attempting.

[Beagle]

Jay,

Look, there's always going to be wackos on both sides. Let me ask you an honest question...

How come all the Hitler comparisons made against Pres Bush never got the mainstream media as upset and sensitive??

Hitler-Bush comparisons were an everyday occurrence for years and no one seems to care much. And they were MUCH more widespread than the few wacko (Lyndon LaRouche supporters) we've seen.

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

The problem is that the media is trying to now portray those of us who disagree with Obama's policies as radical, hate filled mobs and they go out and find the few wackjobs in order to make their points.

Again...I've debated this to death but...

Re : Hitler comments. True...no political opponents here...but referring to my original post...it's what we see up here. Gotta admit that that stuff is shocking.


And an additional video about the success of Cash for Clunkers


I think it's good that they're attempting new ways of doing things. Are they perfect? No. But they're attempting.

Regarding Cash for Clunkers...

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

I can post dozens of similar links that show the problems. And what now that it's over. Car sales just took a huge nose dive.

What's the purpose of a short term incentive if afterwards things crash even worse?

Instead of a slow sure recovery we now have dealers in trouble because there's this huge vacuum of sales. One dealer right down my street just closed their doors.

Hell, it would have been better to use that money and give these struggling dealers tax amnesty.

[jaycanuck]

I think the difference with Bush to Obama is that there was war involved. This is legislative reform. Two extremes.

[Beagle]

Are you actually saying that it was OK to compare Bush to Hitler because there was a war?

Well, we still have a lot of troops at war now, perhaps that makes it OK to compare Obama to Hitler?

Actually the rabid left wing had many reasons to compare Bush to Hitler...

http://archive.democrats.com/preview...r%20Comparison

Bush-Hitler comparisons were big business during the past 8 years.

And now that we have a few wackos (that aren't even republicans - but Lyndon LaRouche wackos) carrying an Obama Hitler poster it's big news?

Cmon, now. It's just a bit disengenuous don't you think?

[jaycanuck]

I didn't say it was ok. You're putting words into my mouth. I'm explaining the 2 extremes of the actions. nothing more. I never called Bush Hitler. He was his own unique war criminal.