Healthcare plans: a threat to freedom?
"The greatest threat to freedom that I have seen," that's how the leader of the Republican opposition in the House of Representatives, John Boehner, described the Democrats' health care plan to a mass demonstration on Capitol Hill.
Apparently the big organisations that represent America's doctors and retired people do not agree.
The president greeted their backing for the bill with some relief. He said of one of them, the AARP:
"They're endorsing this bill because they know it will strengthen Medicare, not jeopardize it. They know it will protect the benefits our seniors receive, not cut them. So I want everybody to remember that the next time you hear the same tired arguments to the contrary from the insurance companies and their lobbyists."
It wouldn't cut much ice with the thousands of demonstrators outside chanting "kill the bill, kill the bill" and carrying placards with pictures of a red hand with the legend "Hands off my health care".
One man told the BBC that it was "terrible". "They just want to take over everything. They want everyone to join the public option."
A woman said it was "abominable" and "unconstitutional", because the bill was too difficult to understand and people had not had time to read it. She said it was the responsibility of the churches and communities to look after those who couldn't afford healthcare, not the state.
The House of Representatives expects to have a bill passed by Saturday, which would be nowhere near the end of the affair, but the end game is that much nearer.
I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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OK folks... can somebody give me a RATIONAL explanation for why a health care bill is "The greatest threat to freedom that I have seen"?
My brain is translating these words as straight-up nutspeak, but I'm willing to set aside my knee-jerk reaction and try to figure out how someone else might come to this conclusion. Any takers?
Disclaimer: I've visited a few countries with various national health care provisions, and everyone in those places seemed perfectly healthy and free to go about their lives. In fact they regularly pointed out that they were MORE free... to move to a new employer, or start a business, or even start/expand a family... because they didn't have the hammer of total financial annihilation from medical bills hanging over their heads. I first heard that analysis nearly 20 years ago and it's been fairly consistent since then, so I doubt their reaction is the product of our current media spin cycle.
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a Couple point these orginization don't always represents their members views anymore than the people forced to join union agree with their leaders political views.
Second don't sell short the effect the protester have.
Finally you should start a thread on FT Hood.
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"Hands off my Health Care?" I know that one shouldn't draw conclusions from individual examples, but at least in my experience with people of all income levels and social backgrounds, the loudest cries (apart from the agitators, of course) are coming from those who are most in jeopardy under the current system. I know a number of people who either have no health insurance or rely on Medicare/Medicaid for their support- and are deathly afraid of this change.
Who's to blame? Our educational system? Or our politicians, who for years used "socialism" as a bogeyman, responsible for all the direst evils in the world? If you preach fear enough, eventually all it takes is for someone to say, "there, that's what I warned of" and some people will react as conditioned.
As far as "... it was the responsibility of the churches and communities to look after those who couldn't afford healthcare, not the state"- while I am a regular churchgoer, the idea of churches "and communities" (whatever that means) to provide for all of those lacking medical insurance is absolutely, totally, ludicrous. So we should all break out the mason jars and stand on streetcorners to solicit spare change, so that we can pay for someone's cancer treatment?
The saddest part is, just about every time we go to a local grocery store or pharmacy, there's a collection jar for someone- usually a child- needing critical medical care.
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Ugh. Sadly, some of my relatives are of the protesters' opinion. Afraid, skeptical, and angry, they believe what they're told without ever bothering to check the facts, read the legislation for themselves, or even getting their information from more than one news source! So they compare national healthcare to Nazi concentration camps (see http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/11/scenes-from-a-tea-party.php ).
Disgusting? Absolutely. This culture of proud ignorance does nobody any favors.
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Yes, it's a threat to freedom. The freedom to make money off the misery of others. The freedom to convince people to pay for insurance and then refuse to cover them when they get sick. The freedom to engage in legal mass murder for profit.
"We want health care reform now!" 40,000 dead Americans a year due to lack of health care insurance can't be wrong.
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DigitalJanitor - you want to know how public health care is a threat to individual freedom? Just look around you in the UK.
Just about everything we do is monitored, judged and controlled by government on the basis that "it costs the NHS millions of pounds". Smoking, drinking, horse-riding, driving, eating, sleeping, waking, walking - everything.
If someone wants to be obese then that should only be their concern - however the existance of the NHS means that we all pile in against the individual because it is 'costing us money' via the NHS.
If someone wants to smoke tobacco then that should only be their concern - however the existance of the NHS means that we all pile in against the individual because it is 'costing us money' via the NHS.
The NHS is an excuse for the government to expand its remit endlessly, taking control of every aspect of our behaviour - by forcing us to pay for others treatment they take no responsibility on themselves, and the government trick us in to blaming them for their behavour, rather than blaming the governemnt for forcing us pay for it.
Kill the NHS and see individual freedom live again.
If I don't pay your medical bill then I don't care how much you eat, drink, sleep, drive, dive, ride etc - it is your business alone, you are free to do what you like with out interference from me - go, enjoy! Live your Life!
The price of the NHS is not just taxes, it is government monitoring and interference - it is a very bad thing.
We can pay for our own health care and choose (if we wish) to give to others to pay for their health care, the state need not be involved - they just add cost, admin and waste; while stealing our freedoms too.
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p.s. if you doubt me - just check out 'the simpsons', one of the most popular cartoons of all time -- who is sponsoring it on tv? the damn NHS!!
Their stupid plasticine models are shown at each break - and who is paying? the british taxpayer...
Everyone *knows* being fat (smoking, tomb-stoning etc) is not healthy - we just don't really care! It is not a lack of information, it is a lack of *MONEY* to do any thing more itneresting... and why don'e we have the money? because the damn government have stolen it from us in taxes to pay for their damn commercials!!
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"The greatest threat to freedom that I have ever seen" says a lot about the state of the Republican Party today, and nothing at all about the House Democratic health plan.
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1 digital janitor.
Nah they aren't really free.
they just think it.
All that time off an extra time not worrying about health care so much as their health makes them soft,;)
TRT
;)
Big laughs there.
"Kill the NHS and see individual freedom live again."
Wow now people say I'm crazy.
Practice your freedom to smoke till you die.
I do. but I sure as hell ain't going to complain if they raise the tobacco prices. I voted for the tax measure they would tax me more. And we don't even get health care from it.
stop whining that you have it so hard with the freedoms.
change the laws. Hell I'm a pot smoker. look at the fiasco in Britain about Gordy and that. Had the problem of it being illegal not just taxed. I'd gladly pay a tax based on it's toxicity .
you drink. GO BREW YOUR OWN. Many here do that to get around buying it. Buy drink from the offie and drink at home. not the pub. Starve the gov of their extra tax. If that is your issue.
But dropping the NHS has nothing to do with increasing freedoms.
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And the right complain about the taliban distorting truth.
I suppose we should be grateful they don't have guns.
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6. RT
Then why is it that there is no ground swell of public support for the abolition of public health care in any OECD country in which there is a public health care system?
Why is it that there are no politicians in the UK trying to convince UK voters that they should convert back to a private fee for service system as in America?
Do you think that maybe people like to grumble a lot, but when it comes right down to it, they recognize that, (to paraphrase Churchill), public healthcare is the worst form of healthcare, except for all the others?
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The bill before Congress is a disaster. Heavy fines if you don't have medical insurance. Taxing lots of people who already do if they keep it. A huge new government bureaucracy. And 2000 pages it will take a while for congressional staffs and other analysts to sift through to find out what it all means. Yes we know the system is broken and needs to be fixed. But there are things worse than doing nothing. This may be one of them.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
As a US citizen I am embarassed at the way lobbyists from the insurance companies are playing the minority who love to have a reason to protest like puppets. Please don't judge the majority of Americans who actually use our own brains to have opinions by those who have delegated this responsibility to Fox news. While I do have some concerns about the healthcare plan, especially now that it has been watered down due in large part to insurance lobbyists, I am more concerned about how the US spend so much of its GDP on healthcare yet is ranked 37th in the world on healthcare outcomes. The insurance companies have had their way with us for decades and change is needed NOW. Also, please forgive us for the boneheads calling the UK and Canadian healthcare systems Socialism; these are big words and they sometimes get them mixed up (socialized, socialism...for them it is a short knuckle drag to communism). If they would only Google these terms before they used them in a sentence it would help tremendously. I bet it sure makes for good jokes in the pub though.
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IF well put.
Some people need to understand that they are objecting to so much. they have restricted the parameters that can be worked in to such a small area that there is little possibility of it working very well.
But then it may force another change. at that stage will the people that complain now accept that a universal system is what is needed.
Or are they still going to complain that americans can't do it.
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. At 00:40am on 06 Nov 2009, DigitalJanitor wrote:
Disclaimer: I've visited a few countries with various national health care provisions, and everyone in those places seemed perfectly healthy and free to go about their lives. In fact they regularly pointed out that they were MORE free... to move to a new employer, or start a business, or even start/expand a family... because they didn't have the hammer of total financial annihilation from medical bills hanging over their heads. I first heard that analysis nearly 20 years ago and it's been fairly consistent since then, so I doubt their reaction is the product of our current media spin cycle.
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next one,
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. At 01:08am on 06 Nov 2009, Corncob wrote:
Ugh. Sadly, some of my relatives are of the protesters' opinion. Afraid, skeptical, and angry, they believe what they're told without ever bothering to check the facts, read the legislation for themselves, or even getting their information from more than one news source! So they compare national healthcare to Nazi concentration camps (see http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/11/scenes-from-a-tea-party.php ).
Disgusting? Absolutely. This culture of proud ignorance does nobody any favors.
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Alright then:
One of the reasons that the healthier people are still healthy is because they just are.
Nothing to do with anybody or anything, they are healthy period.
Many of the people that do get sick, can get well all by themselves, at times. The dead can't talk, so we can't ask them about why they did die.
Maybe the doctor cut a few corners and didn't take that xray that would have revealed a hidden ailment, which may have been operable, thereby saving the state some money. A similar exemple like the one Obama proposed, "Don't have the surgery, go home and take some oxy's for the pain" Leave the money there for someone more important! Why did not Ted Kennedy just go home and die? Because he could afford to live for as long as money could get him, and when he did finally die, He still left close to 100 million dollars to his family. The truth about this bill is that, The people pushing it had hired a consultant who is a very talented at embellishing language and text.
This person has said to the administration, to be careful to present the bill like it would benefit everyone and not empower or favor the government. But he used more complicated terms to say that.
Similar to what the IRS used to do in the tax seasons earlier on. Most people would like to see a copy in layman's language. This feels like treason to me; It denotes the level of deceit and calculated pseudo science involved. The fact that there is so much pressure on the people to just 'trust' Obama on this is suspect all by itself.
If this is any indication by which to judge Him, then He must also be lying about almost all else. Another reason why people with totally, government run health care appear to be doing good is the dead people that are not around to say the truth. This looks like dictation of terms upon the many and therefore is not fair. Legislators, congress etc all have sweet deals and will be excluded from any of this (unless they get fired shamelessly) deal. The war will still continue to draw more resources and the call to accept even less will be placed on the shoulders of the underclass. Honestly folks, there is a tension of sorts all about, people are touchy feely, worried, near the edge and it is a shared,(although not collectively or even organized)by many. What some love about America may become a retired myth. Yes, that, if it were not ironic, might be amusing. How many here, could read the bill(if it became available before it was signed)and truly apply its contents in every event if needed? I dare to say that perhaps a few and count me out. So in effect we have a nation of people who are trying to tell other nations how to successfully adopt our ways, and we can't even accomplish a good health care bill.
We can build safe bombs, we can bomb the moon, we can spy on someone from thousands of away, we can fly a drone to kill people, and all that takes much money; so why is health care too much?
Maybe Israel can donate some of their doctors and some of their money, because we are in the poor house. It is not time to be proud, Go ahead ask them. We can perhaps at least collect the brass and metals from the exploded cartridges and recycle them, that should bring in some funds. If we are that poor, then how can we afford the war? Maybe Mark would like to contribute
a few bucks too. I'm sorry but we have lost our positive appeal.
The new war of ATTRITION has begun.
What if Paul Revere was sick that day and could not afford a horse, then Maybe we would already have coverage.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The health care legislation in America has been fraught with falsehoods from both sides. Joe Wilson was correct in pointing out Obama lied. Joe Wilson was actually familiar with the part of the legislation that was being misrepresented.
The legislation is being crafted in secret and will be voted on, unread. Not only is the public kept ignorant and misinformed, so are the legislators.
Besides violating the very spirit of our founding fathers, this legislation is yet another vehicle to deny the Americans of their right for the "pursuit of happiness".
It was never intended in this country that the government would provide cradle to grave services. It was never intended that individuals were entitled to things and services without earning them. Nor was it intended that those who earned would denied the rewards of their efforts to fund the entitlements of others.
The legislation being crafted is unfunded socialism. It is actively being withheld from the public and is being misrepresented to the public to get the legislation passed before it is understood.
While we can respect your countries with national health care, I personally did not find the Brits to be a terribly healthy lot.
I can appreciate the total cost of your labor and the taxes you pay. I am not sure you realize how much your program costs you or how it detracts from your labor being competitive on the world market.
You will note the absence of "Democrats", "Republics", and the accompanying denigrations. While some of the protesters are truly ignorant and protest none-the-less, many appreciate their government is not representing the people and are actively deceiving the people.
If the U.S. Congress adopted this "healthcare" in lieu of the ungodly expensive program they now have, the public might then feel the program has merit.
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#6 trt- I am indeed sad that draconian surveillance has settled on the UK. But I'm still confused... if I were to choose to ride a horse, what exactly would the government do to me?
#17 Ranter- "Leave the money there for someone more important!"
Our health insurance companies already cost cut in this manner in every manner they can get away with, so I still don't understand the fear in this.
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A friend's mother was diagnosed with advanced cancer a few years ago. She waded through all the paperwork, screening, etc. for a bone marrow transplant, had her immune system nuked down to nothing over weeks, and was actually getting prepped for the transplant procedure itself when the ins. co. called. The transplant was supposed to happen THAT NIGHT. The insurance co. was pulling out. And no hospital will go through with the procedure unless there is provision to pay for it and all the attendant aftercare, so it was canceled.
While she had NO immune system left to even continue fighting with.
She died within a couple months.
My opinion: We can only pray for God's justice on those heartless bastards, because this country refuses to hold them accountable or to make any meaningful changes to ensure it doesn't happen again. And again. And again. And...
Husband's awesome red-white-and-blue, freedom-fry-flavored employer coverage sports a $1000 lifetime cap on chemo treatment. I don't know how those scumbags can even look in the mirror after printing that on a piece of paper.
Sorry, the rant is getting out of control.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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At 04:19am on 06 Nov 2009,
youngasterix wrote:
It was never intended in this country that the government would provide cradle to grave services. It was never intended that individuals were entitled to things and services without earning them. Nor was it intended that those who earned would be denied the rewards of their efforts to fund the entitlements of others.
This is the point exactly.
This whole business of doing things secretly does go against our constitution because it will affect us directly and with real life or death consequences. Some of the protesters have a me too attitude and just like you wrote, they just have a bad feeling on the issue.
Turns out, I agree that we have much to worry about in this case.
At times, it seems like we are revisiting the early 1960's, with so many protests going on and all the war memories.
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Watch the magician's hand. That hand being the hand of the media. I switch from one American news station to the next and all I see, save for c-span, is sensational coverage of the FT Hood soldier.
At any point, in any civilizations history, whenever a policy was enacted that drastically limited the freedoms of said individuals and turned the evolution of such a political system spiraling to its doom.
Regardless of the intentions of either bill, the fact that the media has use a distraction technique means that whatever will happen, it is bound to be bad.
We are being shown the gun and not the pen. That pen will shortly grant a wolf free reign of the sheep.
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I really liked Via-Media's post in comment 3. I generally agree with all of it.
One legitimate criticism raised by opponents, however, is that universal healthcare, and especially the public option, will end up like welfare. Many welfare recipients either do not realise, or do not care, that they are essentially in debt to their fellow Americans who pay taxes, and so they think nothing of taking from the taxpayer dole year after year. It's the impersonality of government that does this - it's hard to feel that one owes anything. In contrast, if one's in a rough spot economically, and one goes to one's church (or other social organisation) for help, that person either knows the people who are donating money to help get him or her back on his or her feet, or one is aware that individual people are giving up some of their own money for his or her benefit.
That is bound to make one feel a bit more in debt, and a little shamed that one needed to go beg, essentially, for financial help. Before I rile people up with this last bit, I just think shame is a good emotion in this situation in that it is likely to motivate people to try harder to get a job so that: a) they no longer have to look to others for help, in this regard, and b) hopefully one day they will be in a situation where they are wealthy enough to be able to help out another monetarily.
While not directly related, 'free' healthcare helps to bolster this attitude that nobody's footing the bill for these services - which is not the case - and so it is acceptable for freeloaders to take advantage of this without ever contributing anything. If these 'freeloaders' could be educated, or shamed into realising that others are giving up things like a new car, for example, to help them, then maybe they'd start pulling more of their fair share.
Obviously, a child (or adult) with some rare, debilitating, and costly form of cancer is not going to be expected to pay back the cost of medical care. But in the majority of cases, people who already freeload in American E.R.s (the de facto existing public option) could be doing more to pay their costs.
So in that respect, I sympathise with opponents. If there's going to be a move toward (official) subsidised healthcare or even the public option, then there should be a corresponding cultural change among the many Americans* who are already in debt to their tax-paying peers who bail them out at their own expense.
On the flip side, in theory a public option where people are much more willing to seek preventative care, or go to the doctor as soon as they get sick, might end up being cheaper than the costs Americans pay through taxes already and through hiked-up hospital bills made so expensive to compensate for the free care freeloaders get in E.R.s.
* I'm not going to touch on the topic of whether or not illegal aliens/immigrants are currently putting an enormous strain on hospitals, or whether or not a free public option will lead to large numbers of Mexicans crossing over the border to get free access to developed-world healthcare in American cities near our southern neighbour.
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20 youngasterix
"It was never intended in this country that the government would provide cradle to grave services. It was never intended that individuals were entitled to things and services without earning them."
Do you really believe the founding fathers intended that the USA never develope and remain exactly as it was in 1776?
Try this .... it was never intended for women to vote. It was never intended for slavery to be abolished.
Go away and think about your ridiculous argument.
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"The greatest threat to freedom that I have seen," that's how the leader of the Republican opposition in the House of Representatives, John Boehner, described the Democrats' health care plan to a mass demonstration on Capitol Hill.
Well Bin Laden and his buddies must be sighing with relief that they're no longer public enemy No 1.
If this is the House leader of the republicans speaking then they look very like they've run out of real argument (of which there was little to begin with) and have gone back to the "permenant state of fear" tactic.
Woooop Woooop Wooop - Code Red - Code Red - Wooop Wooop Wooop
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A woman said it was "abominable" and "unconstitutional", because the bill was too difficult to understand and people had not had time to read it. She said it was the responsibility of the churches and communities to look after those who couldn't afford healthcare, not the state.
Mark, if you could post the name and address of this woman's church and local community centre, it would be a great relief to poor people who need to see a doctor that they can go to pick up some cash.
Or maybe the churches now have "Christian" doctors offering FREE medical treatment as part of their charitable giving.
Meanwhile on the subject of "abominable" and "unconstitutional" why not try the Patriot Act, rushed through on the wings of fear (yes I know the Dems signed it too) without anyone seeming to read it. Land of the Free?
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6 the-real-truth
You seem to be confusing the UK system, with its many faults, with what is being proposed in the US.
They are not going to simply adopt the NHS in its current form.
PS get a better user-name. You give yourself away as a fantasist - only you can reveal the truth! Hmmmm
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The idea of universal healthcare is one I support 100%.
However I am concerned that what is going to come out of all the horse-trading and negotiation on the Hill is going to be neither fish nor fowl.
If the bill does not block insurers from denying cover for pre-existing conditions or repeat treatment, and also does not cap the premiums so these conditions are not "loaded" (technical insurance term) to the extent that they become unaffordable, then it will have failed.
If the bill does not make it easier for someone to see the doctor without pay-and-claim-back for the money - then if has failed.
If the bill does not encourage preventative care by blocking insurance limits on GP visits then it will have failed.
Sadly I don't think nearly enough will have been done to curb the power of the insurers.
Also is the bill addressing lawsuits - and I don't just blame the lawyers here. The level of litigation in the US medical system is mind-blowing.
Patients do not have the right to compensation just because they didn't recover instantly. Genuine negligence must be shown. Most hospitals and doctors personal insurers pay up rather than run the risk of expensive litigation. Sort it out.
And finally a major programme of health education must be initiated. People can then make their choices in a free world, but the education must begin young.
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24 anonymouscali
"I just think shame is a good emotion in this situation in that it is likely to motivate people to try harder to get a job so that: a) they no longer have to look to others for help, in this regard, and b) hopefully one day they will be in a situation where they are wealthy enough to be able to help out another monetarily."
What part of Planet Zog do you live on?
Do you really think shame is the right emotion for those who have lost their jobs and med cover in the last 18 months through no fault of their own? Well shame on you then.
Not everyone on welfare is a lazy scrounger. That is simply right-wing rhetoric.
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"While not directly related, 'free' healthcare helps to bolster this attitude that nobody's footing the bill for these services - which is not the case - and so it is acceptable for freeloaders to take advantage of this without ever contributing anything. If these 'freeloaders' could be educated, or shamed into realising that others are giving up things like a new car, for example, to help them, then maybe they'd start pulling more of their fair share."
Think for just a short moment.
Any health insurance company works just like a micro version of socialised medicine.
Everyone pays premiums (socialised = tax)creating a pot of money .
Some people get more ill than others and use more of the pot.
Why do you not want a refund from your insurer if you were not ill, as others have had something that they have not paid for. And with socialised medicine, if there is a profit left over at the end of year .... it remains there to fund future treatment, not fund extra dividends for shareholders.
By your childlike logic we should abolish all insurance and just pay each time we need something .... which is fine until you get hit by a car, or contract a nasty illness.
A good socialised medicine system would be cheaper for probably 95% of the population (and the other 5% can afford it).
The problem is that some people are so blinded by false logic that they do not even realisd they are being taken for a ride.
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24 anonymouscalifornian
I can see why ou remain anonymous
"people who already freeload in American E.R.s (the de facto existing public option) could be doing more to pay their costs"
FREELOAD is a pretty emotive word .... if you were to lose everything next week - job, med cover, house etc - would you ocnsider yourself a freeloader?
Or do you suggest a panel of "right-thinkin' folk" who will decide which poor people are "freeloading" and which are just "in a tight spot".
In order to do more to pay their costs, what do you suggest? Perhaps they should pull their socks up and get a job!!!!
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23. Antiloquist wrote:
"Watch the magician's hand. That hand being the hand of the media. I switch from one American news station to the next and all I see, save for c-span, is sensational coverage of the FT Hood soldier.
Regardless of the intentions of either bill, the fact that the media has use a distraction technique means that whatever will happen, it is bound to be bad."
Are you suggesting that the Fort Hood incident is not newsworthy, and that it is being used by the media as a diversion tactic to take away from the health issue.
I hope your underground shelter is well lined with tinfoil - it stops the president beaming messages into your head.
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"We are being shown the gun and not the pen. That pen will shortly grant a wolf free reign of the sheep"
Wow, good analogy. Imagine the wolf of "healthcare for all" snarling at the "corporate insurance" sheep.
Oh I like that - the irony of comparing insurance companies to sheep, when they've been fleecing the people for so long.
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20 youngasterix
"While we can respect your countries with national health care, I personally did not find the Brits to be a terribly healthy lot."
Great generalisation. You have won the argument against socialised medicine!
We live longer and have lower infant mortality than you Yanks.
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It's funny. We Yanks walked off with most of your legal system, derived large parts of our sense of individualism from the... Magna Carta and it seems the lot of you still don't get it.
When Americans who see this as a grave threat to liberty, they do so with recognition that a government exists to provide for the majority, does so at the expense of the minority.
Let me address my own countryman who said -
"Do you really believe the founding fathers intended that the USA never develope and remain exactly as it was in 1776?"
No. But the inherent purpose of our Constitution was to limit the extent of government power. The extent which government might intrude into the lives of the individual citizens of the nation. Our founders recognized the need for an evolving law and created a mechanism to address that law through provisions of amendments to the Constitution. But getting a law passed as a Constitutional amendment is much more difficult than passing a law and waiting for it to be challenged in the courts. And when it is challenged in the courts - we are stuck with a Supreme Court Justice's interpretation of what they think the law means.
The subsequent points my countryman makes does nothing more than further my point. Slavery wasn't abolished by the Constitution at its inception; in fact, there was nothing in the Constitution about slavery aside from how voting rights were apportioned. Women didn't have voting rights. But in both cases - how was this resolved? Anyone? Why, it was by Amending the document to ensure the provisions of equal protection and suffrage better defined. The best part of that piece of paper was the largely universal nature that encompassed and enshrined our views. The crafters of the document weren't idiots. This universality of the document was the exact reason why there was a huge argument over whether we even needed to have a Bill of Rights in at all.
We're very lucky the Bill of Rights were included in our Constitution. Most of my own countrymen would probably assume they had no rights unless the government provided them. And now they assume that forcing others to pay into a healthcare system is somehow a right they are privy to decided. We decided on a system of negative rights, borrowed from French philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment. (Note to my countrymen: that is "enlightenment", not "enlargement" of the waistline)Yes, the French abandoned it and the British never quite understood it at all and we adapted it into a one-trick pony none of its citizens remember.
To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes: Your right to healthcare ends where my wallet begins.
(I do apologize for the length of this comment, it was not my intention to give my fellow citizen a lesson in our own History) Speaking of which, if this healthcare proposition is so good, why is it our largely public education system is so abyssmal at teaching our own about the very reason we thumbed our noses at you Brits?) I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming on BBC.
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Once again the Obamaphiles deride anyone who dares disagree with the healthcare plan.
Some of you blame Fox News or lobbyists from the insurance companies. did it ever occur to your elitist mind: That is a bad bill with a public option that neither can be paid for or managed effectivly?
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35 Magic -
If you read my posts you will see that it is not blind criticism of anyone who disagrees with the plan. In fact I am critical that the plan does not go far enough to create a decent healthcare system for ALL American citizens.
The bill is not perfect, but the idea is sound.
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34. sumwatt wrote:
"It's funny. We Yanks ...."
I should point out that I only used the word Yanks in response to the previous contributor's use of "Brits". No offence was meant, but for every American who is offended by Yank, there is a British citizen offended by the lazy shortening of our nationality.
"When Americans who see this as a grave threat to liberty, they do so with recognition that a government exists to provide for the majority, does so at the expense of the minority."
If you are oneof that minority (let's say who earn 250k+) then I can see your point economically ... but that just makes you selfish and uncaring. If you are not one of the minority rich, then you are insane not to be in favour of a system that would improve the lives of most Americans, and if done right, reduce their individual health spending. That is why in Europe we spend less on health per capita.
"Let me address my own countryman who said -
"Do you really believe the founding fathers intended that the USA never develope and remain exactly as it was in 1776?""
I'm not your countryman, unless you are British.
Also I appreciate the history lesson on the constitution - but this is not about the constitution. It is about whether people beleive that health should be a right not a privilege.
To offer up the disgrace of the public school system as a reason not to have public health is reverse logic.... and to this out-sider it seems unamerican to believe that your great country is incapable of doing it properly. If the will was there it could be done. Isn't that supposed to be what America is about.
The problem is the will is not there, and selfish people who care little for the problems of others use specious technical argument to avoid saying that they simply don't want healthcare to be freely and easily available to all.
I believe there are big problems with the bill in its current form, not with the reasons the bill is needed.
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Ignoring the weirdness of not wanting to be able to see a doctor when you need to for a moment, so a universal health care system is the greatest threat to freedom that the leader of opposition has seen!? What worse than Soviet Russia, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and radical militant Islam!?! And there are some people that take this man seriously! The US has gone to war to protect its freedom against hostile ideologies but the idea that someone who cannot afford to pay for lifesaving heart surgery (see below) might actually get it is a far more terrible threat!
I was born with a congenital heart defect, a hole in my heart, from the birth to the age of eight I had to have regular check ups at the hospital (twice a year). Now my Mum did the usual thing at that time and looked after my sister and I until my sister was about five, only then did she return to work. Also during that time my Father was made redundant and was unemployed for about six months, just after he had gotten over a hernia operation.
So would I have received any healthcare insurance? I suspect not, since the only person who could have received it was my Father, who would have had to use it on himself and was made redundant. Things changed when I was eight, when new technology discovered that the hole was much larger than originally thought. I ended up having major open heart surgery (over 10 hours) and spending 10 days in hospital and remaining on the paediatrics books for regular check ups until I was 21.
I don’t think my parents would have got the necessary health insurance in the States and they definitely could not have afforded to pay for the operation themselves. So there appears to be a good chance that I would have died if I had been born in the US, and some of you guys think this is acceptable!?!
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ref #36
Almost no one denies healthcare reform is needed The dispute is how to do it. The goverment wants to take over a 1/6 of the economy. Many people don't trust their ability considering how they mange the post office and congress major part in the economic meltdown.
If tort reform was a major part of the bill it might get bipartsian support.
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34 sumwatt
"To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes: Your right to healthcare ends where my wallet begins."
You make your position very clear .... unpleasant, but clear.
How do you feel about medicare and medicaid? Should they be abolished?
How do you feel about socialised education, or policing, or firefighting.
Firefighting is a good example of how things changed ... in the 18th century in Britain fire services were private and only would put out fires of paid up members of the company. In London today you can still old "firemark" plaques on buildings which would show the firemen that you had paid up. Doesn't seem right to us now though, does it?
You may argue that firefighting is in the general benefit of the community because fires may spread ..... but health is in the general benefit of the community too. A healthy population works more productively and thus good general healthcare should be a pillar of capitalism. Given that medicare and medicaid are essentially the state paying for private treatment, then alot of tax dollars are going straight into the pockets of the hospital corporate shareholders.
A well-organised public system recycles profit into itself and aims at preventative care (ie see the doc when you're slightly ill and get better quick, rather than wait until you're chronic and then see the doc and cost more and take longer to get well).
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39 magic
"If tort reform was a major part of the bill it might get bipartsian support."
Well I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with you.
I have consistantly said that the lawyers, and the people who sue are as much a problem as the insurers.
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34 sumwatt
If the Founding Fathers (blessed be their names) intended for there to be no change save through Constitutional amendments. then I suppose that they weren't very good at practicing what they preached, were they?
-Where does the Constitution give the President power to invade states supporting piracy, without act of Congress? Mr. Jefferson...
-Where does it permit the purchase of millions of square miles of land? Mr. Jefferson again...
Other leaders later exacerbated this unbearable situation:
-establishment of the Coast Guard
-establishment of a standing army
-establishment of national parks, monuments, and wildlife refuges on public land
-cession of uncounted millions of acres to the railroad barons as they built across the country
-sending of troops more times than I can count to meddle in the internal affairs, and to support American financial interests, in just about every one of our neighbors in Central and South America and the Caribbean, without a declaration of war
-supporting the takeover of a sovereign kingdom by American business interests, then annexing it (Hawaii, anyone?)
-annexing and brutally suppressing partisan fighters seeking independence (the Philippines? Cuba? Puerto Rico?)
-massive foreign conflicts just about every decade without a declaration of war (Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Gulf War 1, Afghanistan, Iraq?)
-construction of a Federal highway and interstate highway system
-massive buildup of the world's most sophisticated and dangerous military force
-establishment of a Federal program to directly support religious groups' charity efforts
I find it very convenient that the only time objections are raised to government acting "unconstitutionally" is when it does so for the collective good. Actions under which we can rally round the flag, by jingo, are just the way it should be. So, Civil Rights, clean air and water and land, conservation of our dwindling natural resources, protection of endangered species, and now health care are all unconstitutional, unAmerican, socialist, and a threat to freedom...
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42 via-media
Applause!
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Mr. Boehner is right, the proposed healthcare reform will impair the freedom of the insurance industry to rip off the public with impunity.
What the GOP and the supporters of the insurance industry don't seem to understand, or understand it and support it wholeheartedly, is that the increases in insurance premiums are unsustainable and most corporations are not going to have a choice but to scale down or eliminate healthcare coverage from their benefit packages to reduce cost and remain competitive.
Ref 39, Magic
"If tort reform was a major part of the bill it might get bipartsian support."
I don't have a problem with putting restrictions to eliminate frivolous law suits, but when there are clear cases of malpractice people should be able to ask for compensation or take action to ensure reccurrences never happen again.
I read an article in a newspaper some time ago about a surgeon removing the wrong kidney from a patient. Why should a patient not be compensated for things like that, and why should that butcher be allowed to continue to practice medicine?
Bear in mind that the so-called tort reform is just a tool used by the GOP to discredit reform and divert attention to an issue of marginal importance to the issue at hand while the real problems that affect most American families remain unchanged.
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From a political perspective, the Democrats should be delighted to have opponents like Mr. Boehner, Palin, Huckabee; and Limbaugh, Coulter and the rest of the gang to cheer them on.
They are one of the reasons the GOP took a beating last November, and they may very well be the reason the GOP may not gain as many seats next November as they should, considering historical precedent.
Unfortunately for the GOP, the current leadership seems determined to please the radical wing of the party and have all but abandoned mainstream America, which is far from liberal and given our precarious economic circumstances may be very receptive to the conservative values that made the GOP the party of choice for most of the past 4 decades.
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40 RomeStu.
The health of our Neighbours is of public benefit to us all. We have an incipient H1N1 epidemic all about us, people are lined up for blocks to be vaccinated, and we have people here who are arguing that it isn't right for them to pay for other people's healthcare.
How selfish, small-minded, and frankly, stupid, can they be?
One of the very points I was going to make, too. Thanks.
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42. Via.
Good post.
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48. Perhaps it is worth pointing out that someone who loses their life savings, or their house, to the crippling bill for a catastrophic health care treatment is likely to suffer a far greater loss of personal liberty than someone who is obliged to pay their share of the cost of public healthcare.
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ref #45
The conservative boogypeople you mentioned are match by the liberal Pelosi,Reid, Rangel, Obermann etc.
That is why it is telling Senators who were members of the gang of 14: Snowe and Lieberman are against Harry Reid's version of the plan
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ref #48
Perhaps it is worth pointing out that someone who loses their life savings, or their house, to the crippling bill for a catastrophic health care treatment is likely to suffer a far greater loss of personal liberty than someone who is obliged to pay their share of the cost of public healthcare.
________________---
Define share? The congress get a cadilac plan which we pay for. If I could get my insurance loweered by a fair amount than talk to me. but the only ones who got a benefit from the Mass version were low income people . I don't qualify under the Mass plan.
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6. At 01:44am on 06 Nov 2009, the-real-truth wrote:
"If someone wants to smoke tobacco then that should only be their concern - however the existance of the NHS means that we all pile in against the individual because it is 'costing us money' via the NHS."
Though I can't speake for Britain - we have a simlar yet not identical system in which someone who smokes pays the same as someone who doesn't for healthcare. Our Goverment however was smart enough (for a change) to set a high tax on cigarettes so that anyone who smokes pays what he costs more by smoking for the health care system already when he buys the cigarettes, which I find quite convenient. In northern Europe they even did the same for alcohol. About the other issues from your list: I doubt any of those will really cause a severe increase in costs for health care.
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ref #6
How about some personal responsibility?
If someone started smoking in the last 20 years, why should the rest of us pay for that stupitidy? Although I abhor the Nanny State, I do not want smokers anywhere it disturbs my health.
Likewise people who are overweight by choice, should not have the rest of us subzidize their helath.
Americans do eat too much and do not execise enough
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50. At 12:44pm on 06 Nov 2009, MagicKirin wrote:
Define share? The congress get a cadilac plan which we pay for. If I could get my insurance loweered by a fair amount than talk to me. but the only ones who got a benefit from the Mass version were low income people . I don't qualify under the Mass plan.
_________
As a preliminary comment, you seem to forget that the health of your neighbours is a benefit to you.
It benefits the economy and the tax base generally (a) by improving overall productivity; and (b) by decreasing the ratio of non-working (and therefore non-taxpaying) people to taxpayers. If you think this is an insignificant financial benefit, think again.
Second, we have seen, for example, a resurgence of both tuberculosis and polio in the homeless population. It is a very large public benefit to prevent the return of both diseases.
Third, your own personal risk of disease is smaller when any number of diseases are contained.
Those are all significant benefits.
Now, as to your specific question, we pay about $ 2000/year for healthcare for every man, woman and child in the province. It used to be paid for under the fiction of a healthcare levy of $ 100/year (35 years ago), but at the end of the day it has always come out of general revenue. As far as I am aware, we still have a longer life expectancy, and lower incidence of all sorts of health problems than our American friends, although we do not do as quite as well as the Scandinavians, the Swiss or the Japanese.
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How are these people losing freedom because they get to choose a health care plan and get medical attention ,if anything it's giving freedom to people to get to take advantage of a system they are left out of and get their family care.And protesters, they are out there screaming and holding signs so I don't see how they have lost their personal freedoms,if anything they are using them.Social programs don't hurt freedom.The education I have received from Public Schools,I am great full for and willingly want to give to others in my country.I am glad I was able to learn ,something that isn't available in many places around the world.A government is just an expansion of our family and community.Why can't we take care of our own,and shouldn't we.These people with signs either don't trust the people they elect(which I get)or they are selfish and are worried others sharing into the system will mean they get less for themselves.Or they have nothing to do.What gets me is a lot of these same people want a military,police,S.S.,Medicaid and Medicare(which are government run health care),Federal bank,have attended Public schools,etc..how is this different.Socialism is not Communism.We our now and have been a country with Social programs,whether they come from the local,state,federal government or churches and NGOs,the government can barter for prices better than NGOs by having more resources and people to bargain with and for.Besides I want something for my Federal taxes other than a military.I want to see every child be able to see a doctor in this country and their parents not have to worry about where the money is going to come from.I have at times not had health care for my children and we could afford to pay for Doctor visit,vaccines,and Prescriptions,however if any of our kids wound up in hospital we would have been screwed luckily we have very good insurance now and it's very expensive as well which I am willingly supporting Health Care Bill.These health care bills are not about the poor but about the low and middle, middle class getting health care who pay most taxes and our largest amount of voters.Most hospitals are Non-Profit because they supposedly help the community however all the profit go into buying more hospitals than lower or keeping prices low and why? So Board Members can get large salaries,bonuses,and forgiveness loans(they don't have to pay back loans but you do) while not paying taxes.Colleges get grants and payout from drug companies again non-profit but still tuition goes up.Drug companies get to do their own testing FDA should be doing it and charge a fee.Not only are you charged by Pharma companies but by chain drug stores while our government and NGO's give away medical assistance to foreign countries.Their is something wrong with our system,it's disturbing.Our country is been Monopolized or Tri-opolized by Companies that price fix and Politics,Non-Profits getting tax exemption while many don't actually help that many people but instead pay out salaries.Our taxes shouldn't give any money to any business or any tax breaks.If the government wants certain products than pay for.Give the people on welfare (but than you can't tell the poor how to spend their money which Dems think very lowly of the poor)a job than people get to be proud and productive and we get work for our taxes that benefits everybody in our community,rebuild America.
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One of the things that interests me in the US healthcare debate is the recurrent selfishness of some of the postings.
When we had this debate here - very nearly half a century ago - I don't believe that was an issue. I am rather surprised to see it now. Here, I don't believe anyone would have voiced an opinion like that in public precisely because it would merely have been to announce to the world that they were selfish and small. That would just not cut it in our society, at least not in those days. Your neighbours and co-workers (and possibly your own relatives) wouldn't have wanted to have anything to do with you after that.
And so many other countries have public health care, and now regard it as the natural way of doing things. It is taken for granted. Of course that's how it works.
But why is it different in the US ?
I am beginning to wonder if this has something to do with race. Is that possible?
Is the issue here that people who are black or hispanic are proportionately over-represented amongst the population that does not have health insurance?
Is the issue that some people simply don't want to pay for health care for their black and hispanic fellow citizens? Is that what this is really about?
Is that why the US is prepared to pay perhaps 5 - 6 % of GDP more for healthcare than most other nations with comparable economies? Is that one example of the hidden cost of racism?
Why is the US so different from all other major industrialized nations on this issue?
I may be completely off-base here. I have known the US all my life, and I think I know the various different regions and economies of America fairly well, but I cannot explain this particular difference.
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I live in Michigan we have some of the highest tobacco taxes in US,and the federal government also taxes tobacco but it only part of it goes to cover health costs of smokers most goes for programs that have nothing to do with smoking.The state of Michigan puts very little of the tax money for smokers to quit because they are now using smokers addiction to disproportionately pay for government programs because smokers are less of the population.And guess what the State Dems again are wanting to raise tobacco tax instead of water bottle return,not giving state income tax to people on Welfare who which would cover some of what they receive,or a alcohol tax,or cutting spending.Smokers in some US states more than pay for their health costs in fact they way over pay.
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A small but vocal group of ignorant people can accomplish a lot in Washington D. C. (although that could be a description of congress). The political concubines of the insurance industries prostitute themsevles and convince the disadvanged that they should vote against their own self interest. I would hope that all those in congress in opposition to government run healthcare that they should give up their government run helathcare and end the hypocracy that they live. The media never ask the right questions nor provide factual information as they slide into entertainment and not news. It is a real shame that the lack of leadership in the US on these issues and the fear they have of a small and unrepresetative group. Make no mistake there are many democrats that are also recipients of the insuranace industries "contributions."
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#5 Gavrielle_LaPoste
"We want health care reform now!" 40,000 dead Americans a year due to lack of health care insurance can't be wrong.
Republicans probably see that as 40,000 less Democrat voters a year - hence their opposition.
;-)
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The most hilarious thing about all this are those people who compare the reform plans with euthanasia (being German and knowing what it means this already makes me shake my head about those).
However these very people actually promote a system that denies you treatment that could allow you to live 80 years instead of just 7 just because you are not born into a rich family. If anything at all so deperately needs to be compared to euthanasia (which I doubt) then it is the system that you have now.
I would feel ashamed and couldn't sleep being one of them causing a few dozen unneccessary deaths PER DAY by delaying / preventing any kind of reform.
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I think part of the problem is that conservatives are terrified of the British and Canadian systems. Let's face it, why would anyone want a health care plan based on the NHS? And while Canadians are said to love their system, there is opposition in Canada to it as well. (Which is why there is a current move in the country defending it. No opposition, no need to defend). Anecdotally, I know two middle-class Canadian families living near me (Louisiana, USA): one loves the Canadian system but the other does not.
I think liberals/progressives should be pointing to EFFECTIVE continental systems, like France, Italy and Belgium. I have seen Belgium's system at work first hand and the quality is excellent. I can, given the horror stories that regularly come out of Britain, understand why many Americans are afraid of replicating the British system here.
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Ref 52, Magic
"How about some personal responsibility?
If someone started smoking in the last 20 years, why should the rest of us pay for that stupitidy? Although I abhor the Nanny State, I do not want smokers anywhere it disturbs my health.
Likewise people who are overweight by choice, should not have the rest of us subzidize their helath.
Americans do eat too much and do not execise enough"
Personal responsibility is an absolute necessity in everything we do, but that does not absolve society from collective responsibility for services such as national security, Social Security/Medicare, public education, healthcare, and other programs that must be available for everyone to use and benefit from in order to guarantee the welfare of our society and our country.
I do not smoke, I am not overweight, and I ride my bike and walk 4 to 5 miles a day. Unfortunately, taking care of yourself does not guarantee you are not going to be afflicted by disease. In spite of my personal habits, I had a malignant tumor and a kidney removed a year ago. I was fortunate, I am eligible for MEDICARE and my supplemental insurance covered most of the surgical and hospitalization expenses, but many people are not as fortunate.
In spite of what some suggest many don't have insurance because they can't afford to pay the premiums. When my youngest son was laid off a few months ago he was insured for 1.5 months because he couldn't afford to pay the exhorbitant COBRA premium that is available to all Americans...if you can afford it. His son has cerebral palsy and requires constant care, that was the longest 1.5 months in our lives, fortunately he was OK and didn't need care.
On the issue of Emergency Room availability, anyone can go to an ER and receive care if they get hurt or have a major medical problem, but preventive care is not offered which increases the likelihood of chronic or serious medical problems and the potential for increased cost to the system.
In addition to having a lousy and unfair healthcare system, our system also places a tremendous financial burden on our corporations, a fact that contributes to our products and industry not being competitive.
We need reform and we need it now.
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60 dan
"I think liberals/progressives should be pointing to EFFECTIVE continental systems, like France, Italy and Belgium. I have seen Belgium's system at work first hand and the quality is excellent. I can, given the horror stories that regularly come out of Britain, understand why many Americans are afraid of replicating the British system here."
Dan, no one has proposed a copy of the UK system in the US.
Those of us who have been more specific have often mentionned the French system as a good one. I don't know about Belgium, but I would not hold up the Italian model as one to follow - it has universal care, but so many layers of bureaucracy that it is like negotiating a labyrinth.
Also the horror stories out of the NHS are just the "newsworthy" sound-bites. Most Britons are very happy with the idea of the NHS. The antis always make the most noise. Be more worried about the horror stories from the US system - people made bankrupt because they lost their job, and thus their healthcare and then got sick.
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As I said before, healthcare is going to kill us--either in premiums (payroll or nonpayroll), in paying out of pocket for services, or in fighting over whether my freedom is endangered when someone gets healthcare from the government (silly idea). The Israelis get good healthcare at half the price we in the US pay, and they live longer to boot!
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When health insurance companies literally donate millions to politician's campaign funds, you are NOT going to get impartiality on health care issues. What politician would want to plug this fountain of money? As a consequence the American public will still not have a public option and many millions will still be without health care coverage when the dust from all this settles. Perhaps viewing the insurance company contributions to politicians as corruption and therefore illegal would change everything.
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As a preliminary comment, you seem to forget that the health of your neighbours is a benefit to you.
_____________--
I think you are missing the point, how much should the middle class pay?
Right now, we have not seen how this is going to pay for itself without higher taxes.
I pay $4400 a year for health insurance and unless I wan't to play roulette and hope for no injuries or health problem that is the best I could get. Or I can pay $200 and if I go to the hospital and be required to pay 20% of the cost no matter how much. But the Mass health plan will not allow me to be a member.
How is that fair? Why should Congressman Ed Markey get his cadilac plan while the rest of us don't?
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#25 RomeStu
Do you really believe the founding fathers intended that the USA never develope and remain exactly as it was in 1776?
Try this .... it was never intended for women to vote. It was never intended for slavery to be abolished.
Spot on Stu!
I'll also wager that it was never intended to ban hemp and other recreational drugs, tell people what gender they can fall in love with, or to tell everyone that you are either with us or against us and embark on a crusade against non-believers.
I wonder how many oppose universal healthcare and support the encroachments against freedom I just mentioned?
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24
"One legitimate criticism raised by opponents, however, is that universal healthcare, and especially the public option, will end up like welfare.
...people scrounging.....
INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
this nations constitution says "general welfare" should be bettered.
Health is well th
Every occasion america this nation that was portrayed as so "positive" by JW(glad to see him gone )
It is really so negative that it's solution to most situations is war.
can we provide stability and health care in afghanistan.
How come or how do we do it. we can't even provide it at home.
America has spent more on it's war on drugs than healthcare for it's own people.
Our town has swat teams, poLICE ,armoured response vertical to break down wooden walls of the barely standing shanty houses that are so common in the states(lol really not shanty but wood is soo..... blow down wolf,for a house)
They can spend on "drug WAR" but not health War.
maybe that is the solution. a nice sounding name and a WAR.
This is not the healthcare debate
it is the war on healthcare debate.
because again it's always easier for positive minded people to go to war than sit around and think of how to better the lives of their fellow citizens.
cough cough
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Romestu: "Dan, no one has proposed a copy of the UK system in the US."
Perhaps not, but conservatives repeatedly charge that that is the case and I don't here progressives denying it. As for Italy, I recall reading a BBC story sometime back where many British pensioners were off to Italy because of the quality of that nation's care. I think the US system needs reform but I would start slowly. If Obama had proposed that insurance companies be not allowed to cap coverage, and deny pre-existing conditions, and expanded medicaid coverage for the poorest and S-Chip for children, a bi-partisan bill would have passed in August and millions more Americans would be eligible for health care. Instead, the Democrats are fighting for a plan that won't get passed until next year at the earliest and won't begin coverage until 2013. In my opinion, both Democrats and Republicans are pulling at the extremes on this issue.
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sum watt erroneous brother of MA.
you big fibber.
you do know your constitution right.
" general welfare"
go look it up then come back as so many other yanks (his word) and try telling those of us that were brought up with a less personal version of the English language exactly how general welfare does not include health.
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27 LOL stu.
you could add that she should shut up because she should have no right to vote according to the constitution.
I just read it. men men men but no women. she's out of the saying.
it would be an abomination to allow her to vote.
hey I like that lets adopt outdated bigoted ways in order to fit the constitution.
"welfare" debates are not race debates, but they ignore the racial issues that are involved with poverty.
and health care access.
cough cough
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64 miker
good post.
In Europe political donations have to be made to the party organisation, not to a specific person - that is corruption, and people over here go to jail for accepting "brown envellopes".
We still have corruption (and leave Italy out of it please, I nkow, I live here) - but it is not so overt.
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anonymous cali
" I'm not going to touch on the topic of whether of..."
BUT YOU DID TOUCH IT.
like many that Pretend to be reasonable ( I don't) you TRY to claim this"only looking through clean lens" crap.
then you go on about scroungers. then you bring race into it.
I kinda had a feeling you would, but I didn't want to make an assumption.
I presume you do not think that there is any reason to touch the subject because it is a pile of bull .
right?
Or can you tell a nationality and tax payment record from looking at the face of a patient.
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Fluff
"They can spend on "drug WAR" but not health War."
I think you've discovered the hidden conspiracy - a war on health.
At least it's a war that the US is winning! ;-)
(it's a joke, please don't saddle up the high horses)
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sumwatt of a misleader.
again I read your post.
What a long winded way of saying nothing relevant.
you crap on about a bunch Pretending to think. but the same constitution never said "health care is off the books don't think about it.
but does say to better the general welfare.
so HOW to you take that to prove there is some reason the constitution bans health care.
that Oliver you quote may quotable but may also be an idiot.
I would assume it reading your quote.
cough cough
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#25 "Try this .... it was never intended for women to vote. It was never intended for slavery to be abolished."
True, but both the abolition of slavery and national women's suffrage were obtained through Constitutional amendments. I am sure Conservatives would love "Obamacare" to have to be passed this way. I am sure however, the Supreme Court will uphold most any health care reform, based on the "interstate commerce" clause (insurance regulation) or the "general welfare" clause or something. Many Conservatives do seem stuck in the late-eighteenth century at times.
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37 stu interesting tactic on yanks there (as one I'll use it all I like;)I tries a "y " word for Jew the other day to show someone that Gentile was offensive to me.
seemed I was a criminal for doing so.
on the care. it seems that the americans are still wrapping their head around the way forward.
. they think that by standing still you can move forward.
I don't know. As you know I have been rather rude since.... oh about this time a year and a half ago when these anti healthcare freaks started sprouting out of the woodwork. and all the racists jumped on because
" who cares why , it's a lynchin ,i'll be there"and that's just what they miss the most about the old days
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55 IF--
Race may be part of the issue, but it is definitely not the only issue, and probably not even the main issue. If you want something to criticize the States for regarding race, look into education. It's not formally segregated, but it's certainly not equal, either.
The reasons for a desire for no national healthcare system are myriad. First, we simply don't have the money. G. W. Bush made sure of that.
Secondly, we're scared of the government. We know they're spying on us, profiling us, looking for suspected terrorists amongst us, even demanding that librarians tell them what books we've been reading. (Have you ever been afraid when checking books out of the library that the gov't might dislike your choices and put you on its no-fly list? I trust not.) To put it simply, we're terrified of giving the politicians more power.
Thirdly, we're worried about privacy. If all the health info. about everyone in the nation were put in a national database, it might help prevent doctors from accidentally prescribing something that the patient is allergic to. But there would be thousands of people with access to all the info, and sooner or later someone would take advantage of that.
Fourth, a lot of people are worried about higher taxes. I'm not too worried about that at this point since I'm not making enough to even have to pay income tax.
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The biggest reasons why healthcare costs so much in the US are malpractice insurance rates (due to the lawsuits that have no limits in many states), obese patients (who add so many burdens to hospitals and nursing homes), and the inequality and inefficiency of the present billing system. Someone without health insurance who goes to a hospital is actually subsidizing a wealthier person who has insurance.
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Did you know that most Old Order Mennonite and Amish groups believe that insurance is wrong? (Because of the Bible verse "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers" in Corinthians, I think) Some of them have had huge medical bills, too, because of farm accidents, buggy accidents, cancer, and children born with extremely rare genetic disorders. Despite that, I do not know of any who have been bankrupted by medical bills. Each different group has their own way of handling the situation, but basically they support each other in times of need, without any government involved.
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I actually think that the difference in mortality between the US and Canada is lifestyle, not medical. I could be wrong, though.
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39 Gherkin Cooooo Eeeee
" Almost no one denies healthcare reform is needed The dispute is how to do it. "
Really so will you say here and start harassing those that say there is "no right"
to health care.
Try taking your comment to the tea party when you go next time.
OK to be fair you just think the dems can't do it.
OK so how are the GOP going to provide us all with health care.?
by giving free reign to insurers and the industry with NO protection for the patients.
On tort reform.
you keep missing the egg.
IF one gets mistreated by a doctor (Ie they make a mistake) in the UK they will under the national health be found out. (it does sometimes take time as we have seen) but the same doctor in the US would only be prevented from moving from one mistake to another IF they are sued and it is part of their employment record.
That could be an issue.
Tort really does not amount to many millions that are charged by the INSURANCE industry (again we are to trust insurance (health car etc) companies think of US).
That industry has been over inflating the costs of insurance.
Go check them stats as the actual number of "torts" eaten in the USA.
ot as great as those "anti tort" docs would say.
Because America sues just about anyone for anything does not mean that the medical suets are all as frivolous.
People are suing Hospitals and docs to get the cost of treatment taken care of.
Given health care cost rising so much the $100,000 paid out now for the medical costs for the next X( guess how long patient will live) years.
THERE IS NO BACK UP.
so the patient has to try to sue for all the costs judging costs into the future and hoping the cost of the same treatment doesn't rise.
It's a red hearing and the GOP know that.
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You are looking at this bill from a European perspective. Unlike the British and Canadian healthcare systems the proposed US system does not guarantee to cover most Americans' healthcare costs - far from it. The proposed bills only force us to purchase insurance from private companies. In my case, since the company I work for offers insurance, I would have to buy that insurance. This year I gave birth to my one and only child and that insurance company weasled out of paying for 90 % of the medical costs even though I've been paying insurance premiums for 2 years and this is the first I've used it. Therefore, the insurance policy that will be my only choice under the healthcare reform bill is pretty much worthless and a waste of money but I'll be forced to pay the premiums anyway and then come up with more money to pay for copays, deductibles, and most of the rest of my medical needs as that insurance has proven itself more than capable of weasling out of paying anything. The only one that will benefit from forcing me to pay premiums for that insurance plan is the corrupt insurance company itself.
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25. RomeStu wrote:
"Do you really believe the founding fathers intended that the USA never develope and remain exactly as it was in 1776?
Try this .... it was never intended for women to vote. It was never intended for slavery to be abolished.
Go away and think about your ridiculous argument."
The formation of the current United States of America was on September 17, 1787; not 1776, that was the Declaration of Independence. Article V of the constitution allows for amendments, which were they allowed changes to the constitution including Abolishing slavery (13th - 1865) and Women's right to vote (19th - 1920).
This is mearly a history lesson; the founding fathers did realize that times do change, that is why they allowed amendments to it. If dates are thrown, please research first before making gross assumptions.
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77 TC; 65 MK.
The thing is, people keep talking about public health care being expensive, and taxes going up, but the fact of the matter is that US private sector fee-for-service healthcare is the most expensive on the planet, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GNP.
Take MK, for example. He says he pays $ 4400/year. He did not say whether he has dependents, but from the context of his comment he appears to be speaking for himself, alone.
Under our system healthcare works out to something over $ 1800/per person, per year, which in my mind is close enough to $ 2000. (forget about the exchange rate difference, which would make our system look even more attractive). For MK to have to pay more than he is paying now, his net taxable income after all allowable deductions would have to be over roughly $ 120,000./yr. (Someone may want to check my figures on this, but this ought to be roughly correct). Well, gosh. Some of us think that those who earn more should pay more, and to have that amount of net taxable income would place a person in the 90th percentile of income in this country, or higher.
The point is, I guess, that if everybody in the US is paying an amount similar to Magic, roughly 90 % of Americans would be better off under a public system. The majority of Americans would be way better off.
I pay a lot of tax for healthcare, some might say over the odds. But I don't begrudge one cent of it. I also pay a lot more than most of my neighbours for defense, schools, roads, police, garbage disposal, and every other service provided at the federal, provincial or municipal levels. It goes with the territory. Why should healthcare be any different?
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75. At 4:22pm on 06 Nov 2009, Dan wrote:
"... Many Conservatives do seem stuck in the late-eighteenth century at times."
If only that were true.
I don't know what century religious Conservatives are stuck in, but it certainly isn't the Age of Enlightenment.
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In response to post #21. Digital Janitor, I am truly sorry about your freind but none of the proposed bills would have helped her. Since her husband's job offered insurance she would have been ineligible for the public option (most Americans will be ineligible for the public option). Worse, her husband would have to keep paying premiums for his worthless insurance plan or pay a heavy fine. So he would be paying the premiums and paying out of pocket for everything the private plan didn't cover. This is why the bill is disastorous for working Americans and this is why so many people here oppose it.
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44
Dominick
wayy hayy well said. SOOOO glad to hear someone say that.
the GOP great red hearing race.
73 lol stu why would I get on me 'orse. "we ain't no quiters we will win this war "
I just don't get the right.
On the fire men.
terry Pratchet had a laugh abut it.
how once you pay for each house put out firemen get careless with their cigarette buts.
same with docs here.
though not intentionally, just as the over prescribe and create more problems while ignoring the reasons.
Prozac a nation
cough cough
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60. At 3:29pm on 06 Nov 2009, Dan wrote:
"I think part of the problem is that conservatives are terrified of the British and Canadian systems. Let's face it, why would anyone want a health care plan based on the NHS? And while Canadians are said to love their system, there is opposition in Canada to it as well. ..."
"I think liberals/progressives should be pointing to EFFECTIVE continental systems, like France, Italy and Belgium. I have seen Belgium's system at work first hand and the quality is excellent. I can, given the horror stories that regularly come out of Britain, understand why many Americans are afraid of replicating the British system here."
________
Fair enough.
There is grumbling about all of these public health care systems.
The point is that for all the grumbling, nobody, anywhere, is proposing that they junk their present public systems and adopt the US private fee-for-service model.
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Gherkin
" Define share?"
Here is the answer from the def bit in google
" n.
1. A part or portion belonging to, distributed to, contributed by, or owed by a person or group.
2. An equitable portion: do one's share of the work.
3. Any of the equal parts into which the capital stock of a corporation or company is divided.
v., shared, shar·ing, shares.
v.tr.
1. To divide and parcel out in shares; apportion.
2. To participate in, use, enjoy, or experience jointly or in turns.
3. To relate (a secret or experience, for example) to another or others.
4. To accord a share in (something) to another or others: shared her chocolate bar with a friend.
v.intr.
1. To have a share or part: shared in the profits.
2. To allow someone to use or enjoy something that one possesses: Being in daycare taught the child to share.
3. To use or enjoy something jointly or in turns: There is only one computer, so we will have to share."
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look under noun . Not lucky number three this time.
though I am sure you reckon it wer
I included the rest so you could learn the meaning of share better.
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IF
"But why is it different in the US ?
I am beginning to wonder if this has something to do with race. Is that possible?
Is the issue here that people who are black or hispanic are proportionately over-represented amongst the population that does not have health insurance?"
YES
been telling you for a long time most just call me crazy though for saying it.
cough
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80 washuatoku
Glad to see you've grasped the fundamental points of this discussion.
Now tell us what you think!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
68 "dems are fighting " for more to be covered.
What are the GOP fighting for.
Can you start slagging them off for a minute?
Just a bit more than well both behave like....
No the GOP has been OBSTRUCTIVE.
the "Blue dog"ron Widen from Oregon would have been a lot more lefty. that was his blue issue.
not that it covered to many which is what the GOP keep complaining about.
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I am completely baffled by those who claim that the proposed plan(s) would make us pay for "freeloaders" or that "Your right to healthcare ends where my wallet begins." Your wallet, for the record, is in fact currently being affected by others' healthcare. Exactly who do you think is paying for emergency room treatment for the uninsured and underinsured, and the extensive care needed by the desperately ill?
Answer: *You* are. I am. We are already paying for these things; we are just paying for them ineffectively through higher hospital costs that affect us all and higher insurance premiums that, yes, affect us all.
I'm reminded of a scene in _The Shipping News_ (the book, not the movie) where local Newfoundlanders are discussing a recent influx of foreign immigration (foreign meaning, you know, mainland Canada). They are afraid of a rise in drug and property crimes; meanwhile, they all know of many incidents of incest, sexual and domestic violence, and random violence committed by lifelong residents, which they accept as par for the course. It's not that "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't." Rather, the devil you know stops looking like a devil at all.
By all means disagree with the details of the healthcare proposal. But acknowledge the current situation for the devil it is. Just because it is familiar, that doesn't mean that it is acceptable.
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new mom.
that your company weaseled out of payment doesn't surprise me.
Which is why I would nationalise the hospitals and stuff the market at this stage.
But most americans are so scared of "the reds" (herrings)that they will say no No NONONO.
OK but that leaves you dealing with insurance companies.
America can accept "insurance companies"
there will be no real solution so why not make a solution that will show the insurance industry for what they really are?
I will be without care while that happens(or in jail ,lol( really do you think they have the jail space what with all the 1/3 pot heads in the system?)).
I personally, like most brits and onlookers from the outside(with certain very dense exceptions) cannot understand that they still need more time to figure this out.
Again I'll say cause no one else will ,rising health premiums helped destroy the economy.
cough cough cough
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that point I make on the fines.
or the punishment for not paying the health care when mandated.
The america justice system has convicted rapists let out to kidnap girls for years because they have too many beds full of them youthful pot smokers (80 000).
I know americans would rather spend money on drug enforcement and jails than health care but does anyone really think they will waste money locking poor people up for non payment of health care to a company that was giving nothing for it but an excuse to the same old representatives in the democratic bastion that is washington to say "see they are covered"?
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Madness. Just reading the blog post from Mark makes me embarrased to be an American. I mean really people, pull your head out and accept that 40 million uninsured in unacceptable and the gov't must be involved in the fix. Sorry, but would you really want to leave reform up to big business? I'd take gov't incompetence over private greed any day of the week.
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88. RomeStu wrote:
"Glad to see you've grasped the fundamental points of this discussion.
Now tell us what you think!"
As a card carrying member of the Republican Party, I am not much for the bill as it stands. I do like a few things about it like insurance companies cannot drop people because they are sick and removing the ability to be a monopoly to one company or state. I don't like the public option though since it will destroy insurance companies (granted, they suck too), I just think any business can compete against the Government when they can A) take on debt at the backing of the American People and B) change the rules at will. I don't think it's unconstitutional like some might scream, it's well within' the government's right of what healthcare system we have (free trade, socialist, or none). The costs of all this is also pretty high and countries that have a socialized healthcare system can tell you what they had to do to cut costs (queues, limited resources, etc.). There is no perfect answer obviously, but I don't think a radical change is benifical either. We shall see though, keep up the good work Mark.
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That is precisely the point, and it is because of that, that many of the people who have placed their trust, hope and faith in the hands of one, who has promised so much in this area (that is so critical to our wellness) (Though He has given reason to be suspect) are still optimistic about a good result. The Idea of good propaganda in a political forum is not new. What feels new to me is that among the many who felt Obama was in some way going to remain objective, (was going to make a statement on how a man in tune with the problems facing an impoverished society could truly make a positive impact, for the people of America) I remain unconvinced by His rhetoric.
Words that are vague, general, intentionally misleading and unclear only serve to reassert his continued quest to impress and confuse the masses. How does that make him rooted or committed to the cause of betterment of man. Hiring clever advertisers is one sure way of committing to deceit. No, I did not vote for Obama and I did not vote for McCain either. I am a registered voter with some power over the outcome of the elections.
There is a new election coming up in just a few years. Chances are that by then someone worthy of my vote will step up. If Obama is up to the challenge and returns to earth by then, there will be something to show for it. If not, I feel certain there will be someone else casting the net. Black, White or whatever nationality, what will matter will be the issues and results. The patriot act along with the Afghanistan war will also be a motivating factor in the process. A complete sentence uttered by a person seeking approval on an issue needs to contain full clarity and no ambiguity. Like this, "Reality exists independently of our ability to observe it". (Albert Einstein)
Remember that walking on water is a lot easier if you have faith.
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#9 #21 #28 #51 - and others...
Thanks for your comments.
Clearly I am right -- the only way to give people freedom is to remove from them the 'burden' of having other people charged for their health care.
I don't want others to pay for my healthcare, it is an insult to have stolen money forced on me -- equally I don't expect to be forced to pay for others, it is for *me* to choose how my money (earned by the sweat of my own brow) is spent.
The NHS (as currently organised) is a disgusting affront to freedom. Its better than the current american system, but only in that China is more democratic than the USSR was...
The current US system is an anti capitalist,. anti freedom monopoly run by the AMA, the current UK system is pure socialism -- both are bad.
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The real reason the insurance industry, its supporters and the far right are determined to kill the public option is not because it would be ineffective or expensive, but because it would be so effective that it will put private insurance companies out of business. Profits and ideology are the root cause of the opposition.
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IF comments:
You are assuming the U.S can do a managed healthcare, I'm not coninced they can.
I think many on the left are still stuck in the 60s
Which except for MLK, the moon landings and great rock bands is viewed with more nostalga than it deserves.
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Americans are scared of this health care bill because it will fine people who don't have insurance and throw them in jail, if they cannot pay.
This bill is confusing and many believe that it will hurt the elderly, as Medicare/caid are getting cut, which is what pays for nursing homes and older people's care.
Many believe that this bill will take away their rights to what health care provides for them and make their health care worse, as not as much will be offered.
But people are mostly scared because President Obama has not been straight with us on what is in this health care bill. Instead, he has made it complicated and hard to understand, when it should be to the point.
There are many people who are scared because they believe the govt. will take over all health care and that the govt. will decide what health care that Americans will get, whether it be surgeries, tests, or screens.
Americans agree we want a new health care system, but not a govt. run one.
I don't know a single American who likes the health care bill.
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100...of course the bill is complicated and difficult to read, it was written by lawyers! Look up any bill on the Congressional website, they all read the same way. I understand the fear of a change to healthcare, but I am tired of the argument that the gov't will make our health decisions and deny coverage, because that is exactly what the insurance co's are doing now! If you want to know what is in the healthcare bill gets some friends and split up the 1,900 pages and read the damn thing! It's online for the world to read, how is this "Obama not being straight" with us? When did Bush/Cheney post what they proposed online? Heck, Cheney had Google-earth blur out his house! We all know that the "debate" on healthcare in the US is nothing more than the insurance co's doing a fantastic job of spreading propaganda. Whoever is in charge of the media for the insurance co's is a damn genius of marketing!
Again, this is such an embarassing time for the American public. The EU must think us such ignorant children...
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Some Dems in white-middle class districts will definitely lose their seats next year if they vote for health reform, but I hope they have the guts to risk falling on their swords for this one anyway. It's the right thing to do and if they really care about the country, they should be willing to risk their careers for it.
I work in small business environments. One company had to cancel healthcare to its employees because it became so expensive. The owners were nice people; they didn't want to do this. But it was a choice of healthcare or going out of business. Another company simply didn't offer healthcare at all for the same reason. That's not welfare queens, that's not "I'm alright Jack; I've got mine so buy your own." It's the backbone of this country - full-time small business workers who put in the same 40 hours minimum as anyone else - not being able to afford health care and then being terrified when they have it that can vanish at any minute.
I do understand that fear of government is in the DNA of the country (which is why abortion is still legal after repeated attempts to ilegalize it ironically enough), but I do think the incremental approach advocated suddenly by conservatives is a red herring. Health insurance issues have been getting worse over the last decade, but in all those years of GOP power, I never saw anybody doing anything - incremental or otherwise - to offer any kind of reform. In fact, that's probably the main reason the current plan is so huge; we've waited too long to tackle any of this.
I can tell you from personal experience that most middle-class homeowning suburban dwellers hate the government, or rather the concept of government, outside of law and order issues. If this passes, they will probably throw out a lot of their Dem congressmen who choose to vote for it. But the system is so messed up, and I've personally been bounced around inside it like a pinball for so long and am scared to hell this will continue forever, that I hope those progressive politicians are willing to stand up for their beliefs, get it on the books and then face the very real possibility that their political careers will be over.
BTW I used to be a registered Republican, but this whole health issue pushed me into the Democratic camp years before I'd ever heard of Obama.
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It is perplexing to view some of the postings here where they regard telling or trying to force people to do things for their own health.
Under those conditions, don't any of you think, that those same circumstances would open the way to legislate for just about anything, under the pretense of health. It is similar to the patriot act. The best example I can find is when the 911 attack took place in 2001, the then president Bush used the momentum and confusion to quickly enact this bill. It has continued under the Obama administration and will probably continue and become who knows what. I completely disagree with those views, because if I think someone next to me smells like something which I might be allergic to, then I would have to call the police and charge the person with being alive while stinking. The lady with the overpowering perfume for smelling like a hussy and the MBTA for smelling like the rat infested pee hole of a tunnel under the earth that it is. And we all know that energy is only recycled and cannot get more out of something than we are able to put in. All this would be a futile effort under the part of just one person at a time against the powerful machine of the wealthy. It is one thing to create a clause which may state that a smoker would have to pay an additional premium because health and smoking are not compatible in some cases and it is quite another to dictate to the public at large a command. The government has not done their jobs and are now trying to make the public jump with responsible enthusiasm at their economic comedy.
Cry about the fat people, the smokers and the silly poor excuse for a human being that came into this world all screwed up and cry for the elderly because their years of service are over and can't contribute dollars toward the failing economy. Just don't tell me to pull the plug on any of my relatives. If they decide to end their existence on this planet, all they have to do is ask and I am sure their burden to society will only gladly be removed. So tell me, why was DR, Kevorkian sentenced to jail time? Smoke drink, have sex, go join the army, become a politician and all these things are choices that we can make today. Do we want to limit our liberties, By choice? Please don't tell me we have come to that. I do not drink booze, am not fat, am not unhealthy but I do smoke cigarettes. They are getting expensive and my chest hurts a little, but don't worry about me. It is my money. If it comes to cancer, I will know better than to go to the waiting room. Just some advice for those who worry about their health and the effects my smoke has on them. It probably falls within the realm of a class action suit to file against the polluters of the world. They are responsible for many cases of asthma bronchitis and many other sources of contamination and while you analyze that go check on the weapons manufacturers and nuclear facilities in America and find out where they are dumping their waste products. Ask them why they area shooting the moon with nukes and missiles. Find out where they buried the nuclear waste of world war 2 and beyond that. Find the missing anthrax from the twin tower fallout. It was only the same strain the was reported missing which was made in USA. If I am lying then come and get me for libel and defamation. Stop the manufacturing poisons with which to use on humans on outside wars. Oh, where are the mustard gases and other chemicals of the years ago.
What happened to leading by example, (I meant good examples).
I have to congratulate Via-Media because he had the courage to post what some of us know and what some of us did not. That post is truthful, and so are many others here. Earlier today someone I know, who had just heard about the shootings at Fort hood, was trying to explain to me why Muslims have no business in the US military.
I disagreed and could only say that all the Muslims were not responsible for that incident.
I know in past postings I have taken exception to Islamic radicals, however the key word would have to be radical. (as a friend here likes to put it(with emphasis)'stress').
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RomeStu #27: '"Meanwhile on the subject of "abominable" and "unconstitutional" why not try the Patriot Act, rushed through on the wings of fear (yes I know the Dems signed it too) without anyone seeming to read it. Land of the Free?"
Most definitly not!! I, in my short 23 years on this earth, have come to the most embarrissing and shameful conclusion that we are the weakest, most pathetic nation in the world, purely for the reason that at every single time through out our long 233 year history as a republic when we have felt even the slightest bit threatened (either domesticly or from abroad,) we have at least curtailed, if not utterly thrown our constitution and its so-called "unalianable rights" out the window. From stripping the American people of their Habious Corpus rights during our civil war, to our first, fourth, fifth, and sixth amendment rights during the first and second world wars (wars to supposedly fight for those very freedoms) and much of the cold war, right up until the present, where just because some planes knock down a couple of buildings (horible though that was,) the mentality of the White House (and the Congress's aquiessence) suddenly became '"Constitution? What constitution?" when passing such draconian laws such as the Patriot act (one which, I'm willing to bet, probably wouldn't even get off the ground in Great Britain!!)
Just having the audasity to actually think that we can keep such company as the UK to me is mind blowing!! I mean seriously!! Britain had the sh*t bombed out of it during the second world war and didn't even flert with the possibility of torturing German POWs!! One relletively big national tragedy happens to us and we act as though every treaty and piece of good legislation passed before then became instantaneously obsolete!!
We're flaming hypocrits!
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InterestedForeigner #55. . .
Well given that the United States of America is the most flawed (especially when it comes to race relations) nation in the western world, I wouldn't be surprised one iota if a large reason why we haven't had significant health care reform these last 100 years is due to racial biggotry at all!! Although I don't think that's the main reason.
For well over two thirds of our existance, we have utterly betrayed our founding principles. You do the math(s).
Just be thankful that in Canada you don't have nearly as many or as deep problems and conflicts of moral interests as we do!!
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105 PofL:
Oh, don't be so sure of that. We have our problems, some of them very deep, and long enduring. All countries have their founding myths, and most of them have some kind of original sin to overcome.
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99. At 11:00pm on 06 Nov 2009, MagicKirin wrote:
"You are assuming the U.S can do a managed healthcare, I'm not coninced they can. ..."
________
Magic, you've really got to work on your proof reading. I'll leave that for another time.
Look, the US spends roughly 16% of GDP on health care.
Most comparable nations spend 7 - 11%; let's call it 10%.
Suppose the US could reduce that to 12% - i.e., not as good as any comparable major industrial nation.
4 % of GDP is a huge amount. It is like a 4% raise for everybody.
And that assumes that the US is unable to run a public health care system as well as even the worst of the rest.
Why is it that we would assume that America must inevitably be so poor at this? There was a time when Americans knew how to do things, and were proud of it.
Neither the Hoover Dam, nor the Golden Gate Bridge, nor the Interstate System were built by people who convinced themselves before they even started the job that America couldn't do it, that America had to be second rate.
When did Americans start thinking like that? That isn't the America I have known all my life, not by a long shot.
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This health care reform could be a threat to our cherished freedom. If it does, will we tolerate it for as many years as we have the present corrupt and inefficient delivery system? If it performs badly will it diminish our freedom, reduce our available funds, bankrupt more families, cause human misery, pain, physical and mental disabilities, and unnecessary deaths comparable to or greater than we have experienced and can expect to continue to see, under the present scheme?
Do we have good enough sense to throw out what threatens our whole way of life, our personal and national economies, to return to the freedom from medical oppression that we once had? If we do not, if we no longer have the self confidence to recognize and right what is wrong, then we cannot rescue our freedoms - they are already lost.
KScurmudgeon
wiping the mud from his eyes
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107 Yep that's why I say the anti health care people are a bunch of anti american traitors
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108 kscurmudgeon
"This health care reform could be....."
The key word is "THIS" - and it pains me to say it, but the current proposals do not go nearly far enough to resolve the problems in the USA.
They leave this unpleasant idea of mandatory purchase of insurance, when it should simply be free and funded through direct taxation, by far the most economically equitble and efficient way.
It also leaves the insurance companies to continue milking the populace. Granted they may not be able to exclude pre-conditions and so on, but have we been told that they will not be able to unduly load the premiums for those conditions?
The problem is not health reform, but the proposal on offer, and I, as a staunch Obama supporter, was hoping for something a bit more ballsy.
There is a real danger that if this half-baked, neither fish nor fowl, bill those through, then it will not provide what people expect (which however is often very different to what is proposed), and may well set further refeorm back a generation.
I feel that Obama has missed a trick on this one, and should have gone for something way more radical .... real socialised medicine. After all, the reaction from the right couldn't have been any stronger could it?
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110 stu lol I can't see that it would have been much more radical, but then who would have thought them to be so obtuse about their own health care.
;) Ok I could have and you maybe, but they were such positive people? it's baffling really.
I'm not so sure it will set it back another generation.
that is why the AARP recommendation might help get it through as is.
this is a generational divide here.
That generation is leaving us.
The boomers are moving in.
And they have grown real accustomed to their health care.
(their generation had pay packages that included health and holidays, not so for those signing up for work today)
Nationalise it.
;)
pss "look strictly between us ,One health insurgent to another, I think the oldies are the problem. They are teh ones needing convincing.
all policies are driven by them old voters (not all you old folk I love some of you) and in every thing Obama does he has first to get the Oldies along.
The youth are cynical and have time and health. the oldies don't . and so it is more important to them.but whatever the issue Obama faces the age problem."
Mind the Gap
cough cough
"
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Threat to Freedom. This bill as currently written, if passed and signed into law, will provide the unelected Health "Czar" to "unilaterally rewrite regulations" beyond Congressional oversight. Congress in effect will dissolve their authority concerning health concerns, thereby dissolving represented rights of the American citizen. Would one purchase a car from a dealership that provided you a contract that was 1,990 pages or even 100 pages long? Would you sign the contract knowing that the credit manager had the authority to rewrite the terms and conditions once the contract become binding? The American citizens name is on this legislation as guarantee. If this legislation becomes law there will be no alternative. It's best to move with caution.
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6. At 01:44am on 06 Nov 2009, the-real-truth wrote:
"If someone wants to be obese then that should only be their concern - however the existance of the NHS means that we all pile in against the individual because it is 'costing us money' via the NHS."
An American folk hero, Will Rodgers, said, "your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." The problem with your defense of gluttony, smoking, drunk driving, etc. is that it is a theoretical defense of absolute personal freedom WITHOUT liability.
Freedom to be obese or intoxicated is and should be limited by the danger and cost [economic as well as other] to other people. I grant you that you have a right to get blind drunk, but not to drive or assault someone while in that condition. In addition to directly threatening the safety of others, should you suffer medical problems because of this behaviour, you take up the time and use medical resources that would otherwise be available to responsible citizens [the ambulance picking you up can't be picking up an innocent victim nad the ER doctors treating you will not be treating the other patients], you would also raise their cost and delay their treatment.
Freedom must be responsible, otherwise we have selfishness and anarchy, in which no one is really free.
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112
Would one purchase a car from a dealership that provided you a contract that was 1,990 pages or even 100 pages long? Would you sign the contract knowing that the credit manager had the authority to rewrite the terms and conditions once the contract become binding?
That is EXACTLY how much of American business does operate.
Where have you been?
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113 don't worry about 'the truth'. It ain't real.
eer spell check says ain't ain't a word
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Our American friends seem to be losing more marbles with each passing day. They have been so brainwashed by decades of capitalist agitprop that their capacity for rational thought has disappeared altogether. What could possibly be wrong with a national health care system that actually provides healthcare for everyone, not just for those who are fortunate enough to be able to pay for it? And don't tell me that your private insurance companies have very simple, easy-to-understand policies without small print that allows them to wriggle out of actually paying for essential healthcare services. This national madness would be sad or funny, depending on one's state of mind, if it weren't so downright dangerous, considering all the weapons of mass destruction they have at their disposal at a time when their whole system is rapidly going down the drain through sheer social and economic stupidity.
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again on 112
"Would one purchase a car from a dealership that provided you a contract that was 1,990 pages or even 100 pages long? Would you sign the contract knowing that the credit manager had the authority to rewrite the terms and conditions once the contract become binding?"
Funny you should use this to describe the Gov option.
It seems that the privates already practice that way.
look at the weasel outs the industry pulls all the time. It takes lawyers to get them to hod to contracts.
It would be funny, comments like your's but if you didn't notice the irony of the comment you make considering the reality of getting health care in the UA, you must be a hole short of a course.
(which no g 20 ministers will be playing today;)not even after lunch.
Jimigorilla.
Yup.
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InterestedForeigner #106. . .
"Oh, don't be so sure of that. We have our problems, some of them very deep, and long enduring."
Well thank you for the words of comfort, but be honest now. Have you ever had, or have, any problems akin to our race relations one? Have your government treated the majority of its population like second class citizens, all the while falsely promising them equal rights in time until the lies finally boil over and they come to the harsh realization that the only way they'll be treated equally is if they fight for their rights themselves? I'm sorry, but I just don't see canada as a nation that would do such an awful thing to its people as that.
Make no mistake, I believe that you have problems; no nation is perfect. But problems as many and as huge as ours? Do you have any specifics of which I might know of?
"All countries have their founding myths, and most of them have some kind of original sin to overcome."
Yeah? And what was Canada's? Not having enough insanely tallented musicians to grace the world with in its first few decades as a nation?
In all sincerety though, based on the knoledge I have of Canada, you're pretty much the closest thing to Utopia one will come to on this earth. You should be very proud of yourselves.
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RomeStu #110. . .
So the bill will pass and we'll all get screwed over just as much as before. Come on now. Did you honestly think we would get real health care reform this year...or ever? That's about as naive as Roosevelt thinking he could persuade Stalin around to his beliefs in the rightness and goodness of democratic governance through befriending him and distancing himself from Churchill during the second world war.
We'll never get real health care reform. The problems are just simply too intractable.
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119
Them problems die off.
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120 fluff
They are breeding new generations of "problems" ....
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121 don't worry we'll brainwash them.;)
(read give em a foot bath)
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I cannot recall a time when our nation was so passionately divided on a exclusively American issue.
Healthcare plans: a threat to freedom?
Are we free now in regards to healthcare?
I cannot choose to NOT pay Medicare/Medicaid tax on payday.
Try and request that your doctor prescribe a natural supplement, such as Ionic Silver solution, for treatment of a Staph Infection. Ionic Silver solution of 80ppm has been clinically proven to starve the Staphococcal virus of oxygen and cause it to stop reproducing i.e. kill it with no side effects to the patient. None. However, if you want insurance to pay for their part, you MUST do what the doctor says and take what the doctor prescribes to you. Otherwise, you pay out of your own pocket.
The American health care system in it's current form makes it possible for companies to PROFIT from US residents getting sick. Anytime there is money to be made, GREED will raise it's ugly head.
ENTER the United States Government
Our US Government is simply positioning itself as any business would in their situation. The US Government wants a piece of the multibillion dollar pie that insurance companies are eating by themselves.
Regardless of what happens, the pharmaceutical companies and thier associates provide the money that drives this beast.
A trip to the doctor for ANY ailment will end with a prescription being written.
I was in the hospital for a few days last year. The nurse was starting to inject something into my IV. I asked what it was, and she replied "Prilosec". I did not request this, so I asked why I was being given it. She said that EVERYONE, I repeat, EVERYONE receives a dose every 4-hours to help them not have an adverse stomach reaction to the other drugs they receive. Since I was not receiving any other drugs, I told her to NOT give it to me. She was stunned. I had to demand that I not be given Prilosec.
Those injections were billed at almost $75 per dose. Multiply that times 6 (#of doses per day) then times the number of patients NATIONWIDE in a hospital somewhere. Times 365 days/year. That is a LOT of money JUST for the makers of Prilosec. This is a drug that I did not ask for and did not cure anything.
Take notice of the advertisements for the miracle drugs that get prescribed. None, not one, claim that the drug will cure your ailment. It MAY provide relief, but most definitely will not cure the disease or condition. If you are willing to risk the potential side effects, which may include DEATH, you can ask your physician if this drug is right for you.
Are you kidding?
Gavrielle_LaPoste says it so well:
"Yes, it's a threat to freedom. The freedom to make money off the misery of others. The freedom to convince people to pay for insurance and then refuse to cover them when they get sick. The freedom to engage in legal mass murder for profit."
The US Government has to do something about the current state of our healthcare. New laws must be passed. Options must be available to the public.
We have only a few choices:
1. Reject the plan and start over again
2. Modify the plan until our lawmakers and our President agree on it
3. Scrap the idea of healthcare reform and continue our current path to economic disaster at the hands of Medicare/Medicaid
Bottom line is that healthcare reform WILL happen and US citizens WILL be divided in their views. We, the voters, asked for our president to fix the healthcare mess, and Obama, like him or not, is trying to do just that.
It's really all about the money, so what difference does it make if the insurance companies or the government gets the money? We don't have too much choice as it is now, so let's get on with it and see where it goes. It's broke, so let's fix it.
- A believer in natural cures vs. pharmaceuticals
Pat
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Mark:
Regarding the idea of Healthcare reform is a threat of freedom,
is insane and no-sense...
=Dennis Junior=
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Stop paying all taxes and then the politicians can decide if they still want to work. Canada is a good country, they don't cause trouble for the US and stay out of their way. The US will never invade Canada. Such a role model they are.
We will lead the world by following their examples, Starting with this health care deal. We will open the border of Mexico and declare it a territory of the US. They will be two thirds American 2/3. Next we will teach them English, whether they want to learn or not. Since they are not total Americans we will pay them $ dollars an hour for working in our best fields. Unless someone protests and want that job that is Full American. For 5 hours a day and 25 hours a week and no health care unless adopted by A US citizen. Since there are about 110 million people there and the median age is 25, we have 50 million strong hands. We use their land for growing stuff and export it to the Us and send it back processed and only charge a little profit.Since we are creating jobs they wont have to leave Mexico to get a job. Wait, what about nafta? Ok then, we invade(I meant patriotice) Columbia... There is water on the moon, uummm Lunar Spring water, uh uhm good. Just $1,000,000 a gallon.
I'll take 3 mcg. keep the change.
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Well the Pelosi plan passed but the bipartsian ship was in opposition.
37 Democrats crossed the aisle.
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Now that is the America I like. I turned off the following item - about this subject oddly enough - health Care - talking heads but I had had enough on that subject and in my view silly over the top comments from all sides. Sorry Stephen Scully.
But before that a C-Span special for us here in the United Kingdom - was it an hour and a half long - broadcasted first on 4 October was it - on the United States Supreme Court. The time flew by but it was so lucid and informative, Mark. I was chuckling when toward the end of the piece one of the Supreme Court Justices mentioned that "rulings" made could be re-visited? I had just seemingly heard of a 12 month delay in something but that is another story.
It reminded me that another Justice reported never having heard an unkind word from presumably other Justices within those hallowed walls in all his years there. I could volunteer to correct that failing to the bigger picture to the human experience of said Justice! Unkind words I mean. lol
Yeah - I wish the USA I see via various media could get together more on topics as important as HealthCare but there in my opinion is a determination not to form the 5-4 majority either way on too many things Stateside at the moment.
Now there is an idea. Give the whole matter to The Supreme Court to decide on. Health Care. They give each side half an hour to make their case normally.
Subject: jobless recovery - giant slayer - spade comma
Anagram: Solver by CoS jeer - nag - list year - Cad seam MoP
The programme ended with the words "and it is"! How about that!
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I, like the 435 Reps who voted,do not know what the 2000 page bill contains; however without that insight I must fall back upon what any honest non delusional person has witnessed and experienced in their daily lives. Namely it is the indisputable fact that a Government as massive as the United State's cannot efficiently run anything.The proof of that is right within the very chamber where this vote was tallied. Our Internal Revenue Service cannot efficiently collect taxes from many of the very representatives that voted yesterday.I am very fearful of how the the created administrative beauracracy,that must be created to run this program,can process American healthcare needs.Any American who had the misfortune of having to enter any government program, at any level,recognizes the effects of a process systematically paralyzed by its rules and regulations. Well maybe if the meteor hits in 2012 its all for naught, otherwise GOD HELP AMERICA!
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118. PursuitOfLove wrote:
"Yeah? And what was Canada's [original sin]? ..."
Thanks for your kind words, but really, it's pretty ordinary here.
Our main "original sin" involves the relationship of our two main linguistic groups. Lord Durham referred to them as two nations warring in the bosom of a single state.
Although we did not engage in the mass slaughter of our aboriginal groups, they have been treated pretty shabbily.
We rounded up a group of fellow citizens based on race; shipped them to the interior, and confiscated all of their property. (The US did this too).
We refused entry to refugees fleeing their homeland, and sent them back to their deaths, simply because we didn't like their religion.
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To John #128:
"it is the indisputable fact that a Government as massive as the United State's cannot efficiently run anything"
If you feel this way, why is government education, policing, and firefighting different?
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the-real-truth wrote:
DigitalJanitor - you want to know how public health care is a threat to individual freedom? Just look around you in the UK.
Just about everything we do is monitored, judged and controlled by government on the basis that "it costs the NHS millions of pounds". Smoking, drinking, horse-riding, driving, eating, sleeping, waking, walking - everything.
This is a totally erroneous description of life in the UK. There are laws about the first four things on the list, the same are there are in the USA. I don't recall any laws about the last four. the-real-truth seems to have made the common forum users mistake of confusing advice with laws.
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pat good luck and right on.
john yea sure nothing works in the USA, but if we are going to spend on nothing working then why not at least get health care as one.
Oh I know . You're allright.
yellows
TRT is a bit of an exaggerator. it would seem.
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Yay, we're all one step closer to having to buy worthless private insurance so that Obama can brag to the world that everyone in the US is insured. I for one am glad I will, once again, have a worthless piece of laminated cardboard in my purse that says "health insurance" on it. If I get in a horrible accident I can set it on fire and use it to cauterize any hemmoraging wounds as I still won't be able to afford to go to the hospital with this worthless insurance. Hoorah!! Its a victory for Obama who has forgotten which side of the Atlantic he's President on.
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Is it "impeach" or empeach and can we do it to Congressmen too?
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116. At 3:28pm on 07 Nov 2009, jimigorilla wrote:
Our American friends seem to be losing more marbles with each passing day. They have been so brainwashed by decades of capitalist agitprop that their capacity for rational thought has disappeared altogether. What could possibly be wrong with a national health care system that actually provides healthcare for everyone, not just for those who are fortunate enough to be able to pay?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read the bill. It doesn't provide healthcare for all. It just says we have to buy insurance and most of us will have to buy it from the same private insurance companies that are already failing to provide us with affordable insurance. It also will make these plans even more expensive because the private insurers can't refuse to cover high-usage people and we have no choice to but to buy the insurance no matter what they decide to charge.
If we don't buy it we have to pay a hefty fine. If it actually provided everyone insurance or provided a means for everyone to obtain affordable insurance I would be all for it. However, this is just another way for Obama to make himself look good in Europe (since Europeans assume that private insurance plans will actually pay for medical bills like NHS does) while milking the working classes for more money!
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128
"Namely it is the indisputable fact that a Government as massive as the United State's cannot efficiently run anything."
Well then the only logical step forward is to disolve the union and regress to individual states as countries. You'd all be so much better off.
Or actually get behind some reform and see if, by actually trying, you can make it work.
Come on America, show the rest of us that you live up to your own rhetoric.
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Romestu, individual US States do have many sovereign rights and a couple have tried healthcare reform, unsuccessfully, on their own. They're no need to dissolve the Union. Many of their plans were actually better thought out than Obama's. The problem with Obama's plan is that it doesn't do a whole lot to actually reform the healthcare industry here, despite the bill's title. To use an American phrase -- "read the fine print." I have a new baby and for her sake am only interested in trying actual reforms that may actually work. I can't afford to be forced to pay for private insurance that won't pay anything when I need to use it and higher taxes.
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NewUS mom
You have a good point about this healthcare bill not actually providing genuine socialised medicine. It has bothered me fom the beginning that Obama did not have the b&lls to go for a real shift and get a decent functionning health system.
I imiagine his rationale was that it would never pass, so he is moving one step at a time ..... I hope. Little by little that things will improve dramatically forthe less well off in the USA.
That said, can you as Americans actually do anything? If you organise online petitions with millions of people, would your senators and reps have to take into account the voice of the people. The problem is that no one knows what the real people think because the small-minded "antis" are blindsiding and distorting whatever information is out there and it just confuses everyone.
Also no one has yet been able to tell me whether the insurance companies will have limits placed on the premiums they set for pre-existing conditions etc - given that everyone must now have the system.
My view is that it's a poor bill, but still a step in the right direction. However I had hoped for more.
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Romestu, The Congressmen who voted for the bill know what the will of the American people is. The New York Times article even says that many of them voted for the bill knowing that it would cause them to get voted out of office next Autumn. They know they are going against the will of the people that they are supposed to be representing but the apparently think we're too stupid to decide things for ourselves. So much for the will of the people.
As for your comment that "Also no one has yet been able to tell me whether the insurance companies will have limits placed on the premiums they set for pre-existing conditions etc - given that everyone must now have the system." This is what worries us too and could leave us paying very high costs for mandatory insurance coverage that doesn't pay for our medical expenses.
BTW - The insurance companies also have things called "life time caps" which enable them to say they will only pay a total of so many dollars for chemo, hospital stays, etc for the entire time you have their insurance. Thus if you reach that cap they will not pay anymore. Since you now have to keep paying for that insurance it could leave you paying premiums for a plan that will never pay another dime for your care again.
I hope the Senate sends the bill back to Congress and tells them to make something that actually benefits American's instead of cobbling together a bill just so they can say they passed a "healthcare reform bill".
If a healthcare reform bill is passed and gets signed into law litigation will start and the bill will eventually end up in front of the Supreme Court. Hopefully, they will strike it down (unless Congress actually makes it worthwhile). This issue may also result in the American public forcing an ammendment to the Constitution that blocks the goverment from forcing Americans' to buy a product from a private company.
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NewUSmom
"BTW - The insurance companies also have things called "life time caps" which enable them to say they will only pay a total of so many dollars for chemo, hospital stays, etc for the entire time you have their insurance. Thus if you reach that cap they will not pay anymore."
I did not know about lifetime caps - and now I'm more disgusted than before (scarcely seems possible!).
It's all very worrying .....
With all our problems in Europe I still beleive that our politicians are far more accountable to the people, and far more likely to be properly and rigorously questionned by the media. Ours may not give a damn either, but at least they pretend to.
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At 6:44pm on 08 Nov 2009, NewUSMom wrote:
Is it "impeach" or empeach and can we do it to Congressmen too?
We can say 'pro tempore' and it is the same. Though I doubt it is a good time right now to do this. Perhaps 2010 will do. there are too many bulls right now.
Maybe it is a good time to create the position of 'go between' (I know i could have said liaison)for those who need help with the health care deal. Since the government now re owns many interests, they will be outsourcing jobs in that field.
Like Blacwater but less dangerous, unless you come across a disgruntled person. It is probably a good idea for people to start using bullet proof vests. Anyway you won't have to worry about pating the fine for not having insurance until you get sick and need care. Either way This bit will most likely only affect the middle class, oh,noo that's most people. Alright so they will have us pay he fine in installments and thereby avoid health care prison. Come to think about it the care in jail is free! I heard on this radio show someone say that no one would be put in jail for not paying the fine, or that it was not yet decided what would be done about that. Also for years now some have been going over the Mex border to get cheaper solutions, Meds and other things. I can't back that up though. I will encourage anyone to begin stocking up on wind up generators, flashlights, batteries candles and anything that can be used to produce some electricity. Cut back those cell phone bills and cable etc. Money will be even more necessary soon, yet maybe not enough to buy some of the articles i just mentioned. Yeah, I know they laughed at Noah also. But many don't believe in that stuff anyway.
Oh, I almost forgot that the same radio host said that the government workers were getting exeactly the same coverage as everyone else, except they would have more choices, something like 178.
And Barney Frank doesn't know what marijuana looks like, But he is supporting the legalized use of it.
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What freedoms might we lose if health care were reformed?
"Freedom" to become medically bankrupt.
"Freedom" to die untreated.
"Freedom" to be denied because of a pre-existing condition.
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"The greatest threat to freedom that I have seen,"
As a fiscal conservative who is against this bill in its current form, nonetheless, what an absurd, alarmist comment!
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Here's my greatest fear to healthcare. More Insurance company gouging. I sell health insurance and was just notified by one of my companies, American Community Mutual, that they are giving a off anniversary rate increase to my clients, ranging from 66% to 87%. A off anniversary rate increase means that before the annual renewal of the contract, the carrier is raising rates of folks. One woman and her children are going from $611/month to $1,125/month. If that isn't gouging their customers I don't know what is. The Insurance company hasn't told us yet if there will be another increase on their current renewal date or not.
This is where the trouble with the US health system lies, these giant increases.
I was told recently that the Chairman of United HealthCare is paid $7 for every $1,000 spent on all healthcare in the USA. Even worse, United has had record profits for over 45 continuous financial quarters.
This is what has to stop.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Subject:repost145
Health care plans: a threat to freedom?
Posting:
How about 25 thousand dollars fine for not having health care and 1 year in jail, if they prove one can afford it but won't get it.
Now that is a little far out.
Most people who happen to be middle class don't buy health insurance because they may get into a higher tax bracket. Now they could get fines that will definitely put them within eligibility. After they get out of jail and if they could get another job I wonder if this could happen more than once. Shame of it all. Some will have to go through life sick and in secret. Never having a chance to achieve the success granted by our constitution.
This link for the Constitution:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
Nothing about health care there.
Must be in the new constitution among the 2000 pages!
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Mr. Mardell,
Duplicative threads will most likely lead to dupilcative posts as in:
Many have asked, “Why should anyone wish to entrust their health into the hands of the state?”
Why should anyone wish to entrust their health care into the hands of people who would make a profit and get bonuses for denying it?
My insurance company denied essential tests for almost a year, making for the condition becoming more serious and the eventual operation more expensive. And as for my pain and suffering, what's that when compared to profits?
The companies have far more motive to provide overpriced healthcare or none at all because they make their money that way than the government. That also explains why our healthcare in the US is more expensive and inferior.
The cure is, at the very least, tight control on the salaries, bonuses, profits and procedures of the insurance and pharma industries. That might not be as good as a single provider government [but as independent as possible] system, but essential to a reasonably good private care system.
Which comment would be equally appropriate for either of the two two current threads. This leads me to ask whether too similar threads should be avoided or merged into one.
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Any corrected thread deemed appropriate is for Mr.Mardell and mods to officiate. When mine gets flagged I make a revision and resubmit it. I post, they decide, my post gets rejected I make a concerted and respectful effort to comply with the thread and mods. Many rules here, and all of them allow for corrections. Not for disregarding any of them. So I in my own way say thanks to them because I am not perfect and at times falter.
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As a US citizen I am embarrassed by the way politicians are playing the liberal minority in our country who love to have a reason to protest like puppets. Please don't judge the majority of Americans who actually use our own brains to have opinions, by those who have delegated this responsibility to the mainstream media. While I have grave concerns about the healthcare plan, esp. now that it has been so expanded by the left-extremists groups, I am to a lesser degree concerned by the skewed statistics stating the US is ranked 37th in the world on healthcare OUTCOMES. Informed people are aware that public healthcare systems are based on the QALY system. This method enables healthcare resources "to be allocated in a way that is most beneficial to society instead of the most beneficial to the patient".(Wikipedia). If you do not treat or you delay treatment for a disease until it is too late to treat it, then, of course, it is not counted as a "healthcare outcome". The QALY system reduces healthcare for the elderly (no longer beneficial to society)to the point that we would "pat their hands" while we wait for them to die. Cuts numbering in the billions from programs like motorized wheelchairs and imaging (x-rays, MRIs, etc. for the elderly). Even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office states doubts as to whether the $500 billion cut from MediCare (elderly in US) "could be achieved through greater efficiencies in the delivery of healthcare (as Democrats claim) or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care is unclear" after they read the 2000 page bill! Most rational Americans want a simple expansion of MediAid (program for poor in US) not this radical overhaul of our healthcare system!
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Many Americans understand Capitalism, few know the sharing of wealth that takes place among the fluently rich Americans and partners, some of which have no American bloodlines. Capitalism and self interest are boundless. To naively believe in others to take care of their own, is a dream.
While there is no sign of cutbacks in the budget for the defense, Lunar pioneering, graft of funds funds or citizens oversight, our only personal amenity, Medical Care, is being raped and sodomized by our very own keepers and trustees. We obviously feel we need this important constrict, we clamor for it. Social etiquette dictates that in controlled times of national remuneration; keep the change is our payment. The 2 (two) pork cops we ate some time ago, is now one chop once a week. Thomas Jefferson had no idea that when he said that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants alike" It would come to mean so much and ring so true.
Those with substantial means, will neither toss out a bone or give back some. While it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a wealthy man to be saved, it is even easier nowadays's. Our concern has shifted to who is causing the biggest strain on the governments budget, without looking at why we are spending, even what we don't yet have. That is our own fault; we call one another by non complementary pejoratives, all seeking to label and alienate,(with the possibility to exclude)the other, because the less of them the more for us. But 'who' is using your/my tax dollars? 20 million from the defense fund for Ted K. Memorial, 200,000 for golfing x 500+ politicians and I would need 2000 pages to name the others if I could. Orson Wells was not wrong, Earth is being invaded, but they don't come from mars, they only spend like martians and martian travelers, they live next door, but not to most of us of course. The legends and volumes of literature that could be espoused about home grown terror on unsuspecting and expecting people alike, centers around comments like 'beyond the beltways'; concerned citizens with very legitimate causes are now outlandish dissenters! demagoguery is almost dead and electricity is, or batteries are, too expensive, stand out in the rain and if you are lucky lightning may save you or kill you, should you need your heart restarted, because the machine is not covered past the age of xx. I see now how intellect is superior to compassion, even if you paid for treatment at some point.
Look at these lyrics written in the 70's and see for yourself what I mean.
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Ball-Of-Confusion-lyrics-The-Temptations/5CE42244EBDFE10448256D8F0028A6B7
We are too intelligent to know any better.
When the soldiers, those that do make it home, come back, will they have to hire out as mercs, just make a living? How many Americans can get a job in government? 300,000,000 people with .5% of the pop being the rich, all others vary greatly in degrees. All the way down to the cute little child being wheeled around with in a dilapidated stroller,saying mommy Santa Claus is asking for money, when the salvation army is at the corner ringing in xmas,(politically correct abbreviation).
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149. At 9:04pm on 20 Nov 2009, vmacUSA wrote:
"As a US citizen I am embarrassed by the way politicians are playing the liberal minority in our country who love to have a reason to protest like puppets. ... While I have grave concerns about the healthcare plan, esp. now that it has been so expanded by the left-extremists groups, ..."
________
Please define the word "liberal".
I do not believe you have any idea what it means.
Please define the word "minority".
Polls consistently show that a strong majority of Americans want public healthcare. It is difficult to see how you can construe the word "minority" as meaning more than half.
"left extremist groups ..."
What is either "left" or "extremist" about having healthcare on a basis similar to that in one or another of every other OECD country?
No other rich country puts up with the ludicrous system of health care delivery found in the US. So, are all the people in those other rich countries "left extremists", or is it your view that is way out of kilter with reality?
Are you really suggesting that every western European country takes its old people, and sets them in dustbins by the roadside to be collected? By and large this is a website where people discuss public policy in a rational manner. Take a rest, have a cup of tea, and then re-read your post.
Does it look like something written by a rational and thoughtful human being?
No, it doesn't does it.
Healthcare in America is ridiculously expensive, leaves 1/6 of Americans without coverage, achieves outcomes that are overall no better than the much less expensive public systems found in other major trading nations, and, all the while, acts as a bizarre import subsidy. Are you so in love with the insurance industry that you want to see every last manufacturing job in the country shipped overseas?
Give your head a shake, man.
You don't know what you are talking about.
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I thought it was $mas!
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