Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[TheMercenary]

GIve it up. It is the same old mis-informed tired arguement.

[classicman]

"A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money."
- Everett Dirksen

[Urbane Guerrilla]

This rubs our noses in the underperformance of the welfare state, and in its costliness -- for those of us who weren't with it enough to know already.

Socialism does not work; socialized medicine does not work. Reject both, for ever. Vote out anybody caught trying to vote it in. The Democrats are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

[TheMercenary]

At Bitman: :

[Shawnee123]

I'll take that bet: $100,000*100,000 = $10 billion. There are a quarter billion people in the states, so that gives us .. $40 per person per year. Problem solved.

How much is that per the estimated 46 million uninsured?

Think how much more we could save if male vanity drugs like Viagra weren't paid for (I would be willing to offset this savings by PAYING for birth control pills.)

[TheMercenary]

I don't know about your area, but down here you can get BCP at the public health department and a pretty big discount.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I don't know about your area, but down here you can get BCP at the public health department and a pretty big discount.

YOu can get VIAGRA for FREE from Medicare.

Makes sense, huh? It shows that old pasty men are in charge. Always will be.

Now excuse me, I have to go buy a 10 dollar box of tampons.

[classicman]

Good job of posting some excellent links Bitman. Lotta good info there.
Hope you don't wait over a year to post again.

[Bitman]

Originally Posted by classicman

Thanks but I've got a greedy reason for posting. I'm genuinely curious as to why the only two options I hear about are corporate insurance and national insurance. Personal responsibility is the only way to keep costs under control; any kind of government plan is fundamentally broken. Yet many other countries have some form of socialism, so I wonder -- What am I missing?

[Aliantha]

Over here (Australia) we have both options. Many people have private health insurance, but there's also a pretty good public system. When I say pretty good, that's in comparison to some other systems out there. For people with private insurance, there are tax breaks, although that's all about to change by the looks of things. Anyway, we'll see how it goes, but for now we have both.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Bitman

Personal responsibility is the only way to keep costs under control; any kind of government plan is fundamentally broken. Yet many other countries have some form of socialism, so I wonder -- What am I missing?

Because there is an inherent understanding around the world that medicine is a different beast. If someone wrecks their car and has no insurance, boo hoo for them we say, now you have no car. You must suffer the consequences of your actions, and rightly so. If someone is hurt and has no insurance, as a society we (and most others) say we can't simply let them die for their mistakes, those consequences are too great for what is essentially a sin of greed (not wanting to shell out for insurance--and I know people will jump in and say "it's not that they don't want to, they just can't afford it; but unless they're completely homeless and unemployed, the reality is they could "afford" it, just at a drastically reduced standard of living that understandably no one wants to endure.)

It is a reality that we are going to end up providing at least a base level of care for the people who choose not to take personal responsibility. So many countries have decided to remove the choice from their hands, and force "responsibility" on them in the form of mandated programs and taxes. Is that a better system than we have? I don't know, I've never experienced a socialized program, and really what everyone wonders in these scenarios is "will it be better for me?" As a middle-class family who already shells out a pretty decent but not absurd amount for our coverage, I suspect our personal situation is going to stay pretty much the same no matter what the system is. It's the people at either extreme who will feel the effects of it.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

If someone wrecks their car and has no insurance, boo hoo for them we say, now you have no car. You must suffer the consequences of your actions, and rightly so.

What if wrecking their car involves injuring not only themselves, but also other people and their property?
Conversely, if someone decides to engage in risky behaviors - they are not hurting others - they are only hurting themselves.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by classicman

What if wrecking their car involves injuring not only themselves, but also other people and their property?

That's precisely why the government mandates auto liability insurance. You have your choice of private companies, but other than that it is a direct example of enforced socialism.

[classicman]

I agree that is why auto insurance is mandated - not so much the socialism part though. Also, I don't think that transfers to Health insurance though.

[TheMercenary]

Whoson is basically correct. If that plan makes it through the legislative process. The question remains will the historically powerful lobby of the health care insurance industry have the strenght to convince Congress to vote against it? This process of introducing the "alternative' government plan may encourage companies who currently provide insurance to their employees to drop it. The costs of such insurance for private companies is second only to payroll. Will the companies continue to pay for it or in more recent discussion allow employees to be taxed on it? What will be the penalty for those companies that drop their plans and let the people just go and apply for the government sponsored plan? Obama floated this during the election. No one knows. And given the previous process of how things have been ramrodded through Congress without having the time to read all of the details in massive bills we may never know til it is to late. The fallout will be felt in all sectors.