Nagasama
disgruntled ex-moderator
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hooray for canada!
Potentially the longest thread in history...
- Thread starter Dave
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NosBoost300
I poop on the rug
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mannn first they get free medical... NOW THIS... i'm moving to canada ASAP
zmatt
The Bulldog
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Nah man, I have some Canadian friends. The health care there sucks. They come to the US to get treated. In fact, in most socialized countries the medical care is bad. The US has the best medical care believe it or not. And "free" health care is a misnomer. Nothing is free, there is no such thing as a free lunch. You pay for it in taxes. And you already spend 4 months out of the year paying for your income taxes as it is.
Phantom118
Daemon Poster
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^ Sorry, you have no clue what your talking about. I think the Health care here is great, and yes it is free health care, I'm covered head to toe by the gov. Sure we have income tax, but its no higher then yours.
Nagasama
disgruntled ex-moderator
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i think socialized health care is a god **** good idea. will it decrease my quality of treatment? have you ever been to the doctor's office? i dont see how it could get any ****ing worse.
the thing is with socialized health care here in the states (no offense matt, but you will not like this being the politician that you are) is that the people that can afford insurance say, "we dont want health care like that, our doctors will be products of the state and my quality of HC will decline blah blah blah"...trust me, most of my family are hard-core conservatives.
but, like most things, there is a different meaning, what they are really saying is, "i want to go see a doctor when i want and he can make me better. and if some poor guy cant go to the doctor and get well, then **** him. im still going."
it is a travesty. we are the ONLY major industrialized nation that does not have a socialized health care plan. why? because money = power and the money is in the insurance biz.
would i pay 35% income tax if i was ASSURED that my kids (if i had any lol) and my family were going to be taken care of NO MATTER the sickness? youre ****in A right i would. would i pay 40% taxes if i was assured that my kids could go to college if they so desired? youre ****in A right i would.
we're too busy worrying about the rest of the world to take care of our people RIGHT HERE.
the thing is with socialized health care here in the states (no offense matt, but you will not like this being the politician that you are) is that the people that can afford insurance say, "we dont want health care like that, our doctors will be products of the state and my quality of HC will decline blah blah blah"...trust me, most of my family are hard-core conservatives.
but, like most things, there is a different meaning, what they are really saying is, "i want to go see a doctor when i want and he can make me better. and if some poor guy cant go to the doctor and get well, then **** him. im still going."
it is a travesty. we are the ONLY major industrialized nation that does not have a socialized health care plan. why? because money = power and the money is in the insurance biz.
would i pay 35% income tax if i was ASSURED that my kids (if i had any lol) and my family were going to be taken care of NO MATTER the sickness? youre ****in A right i would. would i pay 40% taxes if i was assured that my kids could go to college if they so desired? youre ****in A right i would.
we're too busy worrying about the rest of the world to take care of our people RIGHT HERE.
zmatt
The Bulldog
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- In an empty Ramen packet
First thing naga, I'm not a conservative. I'm a libertarian.
My rationale for privitized medicine is pretty logical. I will lay it out.
I will start by saying this, there is no such thing as a "free lunch" everything cost money. Doctors, nurses, bureaucrats do not work for free. Someone has to pay for it.
Also I'm going to go out here and say that nobody has a "right" to health care. Our rights has humans cover everything we can do to ourselves without effecting others. I have no right to force someone else to pay for my health care. I can't morally force anyone to pay for any of my wants or needs. I own myself, therefore I own my responsibility. Having someone volunteer is nice, but taxing is forceful coercion. In other words, stealing.
Government is big and slow. Decisions are not made for efficiency and they are not made for the public good. They are made for political gain. Lets not fool ourselves. Also to think that we have "privatized" health care now, is a gross misunderstanding of our health care system. My mother has worked for state run hospitals doing their insurance paper work for over 2 decades. She can talk for hours on end about the ins and outs as a system. The current system is already heavily regulated on the state and federal level. The state operates many of its own hospitals. These institutions commonly have lower quality than the private hospitals.
I said there is no such things as free lunch, I also say there is no such thing as utopia. There is no perfect health care system. But there are better ones. Case in point. Several years back, there was a pretty big heatwave in France. France has socialized medicine. Many people died of heatstroke and dehydration, due to poor planning and resource allocation on thew part of the state health care system. Do you ever hear about that in the US? Sure we have heat waves, but I haven't heard of any needless deaths lately.
I also don't like this notion of making doctors, hospitals and drug companies out to be evil. There is always talk of trying to "put them under control" through government regulation. But what few realize 9especially in my generation) is that it was government regulation that got us here in the first place. The FDA and USDA is responsible for ensuring that all our medications and food are safe for consumption. But all the time you hear of a recall. Some drug causes heat attacks, or causes a rare deadly allergic reaction. Its suprising to think that even though the average time for FDA certification for a particular drug is 10 years, that we still get these falling through the cracks. Or how about how we have food poisoning, and we only learn about it after the contaminated food has reached shelves and has been consumed by thousands?
I present to you an alternative. Before the government regulation we already had self regulating industries. Industry standards for quality existed and were monitored by independant for profit companies. Take Kosher for example. Jewish and other semetic peoples require food to be specially prepared for their consumption. We have had the Kosher seal of approval as long as there have been Jews in America. It is not controlled by the government, it is handled completely by private organizations. To be Kosher, a food product must go through a battery of strict tests and preparation and then finally must pass inspection by a Rabbi. These common food outbreaks have never effected Kosher food. But it effects USDA approved food all the time. What is the worth of a label when it certifies nothing?
But it doesn't end there. Medicine and Government are inextricably joined in our system. Everything can be subject to being a "disease" and has a prescribed "treatment". They are treated by the administration of state approved drugs or "medicine" by state approved care takers or "Doctors". The American people have very little say in how they will be treated. Years ago in school there were children referred to as "energetic", now that is a disease too. we call it ADD. Its actual existence is debated, but that didn't stop schools from forcing parents to give their children Ritalin, or face expulsion, and since schooling is compulsory and our system is so anti-competitive to make homeschooling and private schooling impossible for most working class, the parent shave no choice. Where is your freedom now?
None is this is in the public interest. But what is? The public interest is well trained Doctors, and pure and effective medicine. Patients need comprehensive and accurate information on what their options are and what they mean. A government license or stamp of approval does not insure competence or purity. If it did then there would be no malpractice suits and there would be no food borne illness epidemics. Although certification as an M.D. is a government task, handled by ADA certified schools (which has a monopoly mind you), specialist certifications are handled by boards of other physicians. A self regulating industry. Veteran physicians certifying their students to carry out the same tasks. Doctors have the well being of the patient to look to, Bureaucrats have no such thing.
But back to the main point. Medical insurance. A huge misnomer. It is not insurance in the classical sense, like car insurance or homeowners insurance. Take either for example. An automobile owner pays for all normal maintenance on the car, the insurance only comes into play when a specified incident happens, a wreck, theft, damage etc. Medical Insurance acts more like a pool of money for all medical events, even the normal "maintenance" of ones body. If car insurance worked this way, it would cover everything from oil changes to tire rotation. There would be no incentive for you to shop around or get the better deals, after all who cares? The insurance pays for it.
This is how most Americans approach medicine. They normally pay nothing out of pocket, except for a small co-pay. The insurer foots the bill. This drives up costs. With no market demand for competition there is no need for it. I will demonstrate this with a simple scenario. Say you have a cold and go to the doctor's office for a checkup. The doctor examines, you makes the diagnosis that you have a cold, and writes a prescription. Off you go to the nearest pharmacy to buy the prescription. In most htings in life, you would have gone to the practice that has the best deal, after all things like medicine are expensive, then you would have shopped around a bit to find where you could get the particular medication for the best price. But you have insurance, so oyu go to the doctor's office that you have always gone to, maybe its the nearest one to your house, then you go to the nearest pharmacy and get the medication. No where in that scenario did prices or any of the normal considerations that go into a purchase come into account. But I'm not done.
You ever wonder why so many people lack health insurance? I said somewhere earlier ( it may have been this thread) that it takes the average American 4 months out of the year to pay for their "fair share" of taxes. That is a huge amount don't you think? Thats about a 3rd of the time you spend working. Depending on what bracket you fall in it differs, but I lost about 24% of my income this year due to taxes. Just think If every American got that QUARTER of their earnings back, how much better off we will be. Health Insurance all of a sudden isn't out of reach for most Americans. Not only that, but insurance purchase privately by individuals or employers is not tax deductible, like it is when you get it through your job. << which could very well be an inferior plan. If employees are laid off or somehow loose their job they loose their coverage. And what does our government do in response? Make it even harder on them by now taxing their health insurance. << One of the many ways the government indirectly keeps the poor, poor by the way. And of course there are some people who decide not to buy any because it is expensive and often not tax deductible.
No to truly drive my point home, lets look at history. In the 1960's the government decided that people had a "right" to health care, so they created medicare (pays for direct medical care for the elderly) and medicaid (is a combined federal and state medicare program that pays for the poor, regardless of age). Now another interesting thing happened in the 1960's. Health care costs shot up, and have never come back down. The Government is the single largest purchaser of health care, it is estimated that they directly pay for 44% of the Nation's Health care (sound socialist to me). This makes prices for everyone go up.
Remember when I said that socialized medicine in other countries is failing? This is why; Medicare and Medicaid are the fastest growing parts of the government budget, not social security as everyone thinks although it is screwed too. By 2030 there will be about 76million people on these programs. That's double what we have today. We are an aging nation, and because of this, Medicare has $30 trillion in unfunded liabilities (and you thought that the bailouts were bad), and will require huge tax increases to keep it from going bankrupt (as if it already isn't) There are two choices that congress can make, raise taxes by 100% (yeah now half of what you make is gone) or slash benefits drastically. Either way is not an option. THIS, my friends is the cost of government.
Government regulation only makes things more expensive and difficult. Insurance companies are forced to cover everything imaginable. According to the Cato institute, "states have enacted 1,823 separate requirements that insurance cover particular items." You wonder why insurance is so expensive. If Microsoft had to guarantee against everything from system crashes to spam to bad fps in Crysis, imagine how much Windows Vista would cost. You can't make this stuff up folks. Insurance companies are also forbidden by law form raising premiums to certain groups of high risk people, this means that cost go up across the board for everyone. In other words, people like myself who workout everyday have to subsidies the cost for people who smoke, or are obese.
The truth is this. Socialism in all forms fails. Costs go up and standards go down. Without competition there is no incentive for excellence. Without a market there is no unbiased gauge of the worth of a product or service. Socialized medicine fails everywhere it is tried. Look at Canada, I have friends who could not get their flu vaccination last year because bureaucrats sat on their asses, look at France where sick people died in the heat while lazy bureaucrats sat in air conditioned offices making politically based decisions. Or maybe you should look at the Former Soviet Union, the land is in ruin from pollution and many are sick and are suffering from chronic, inherited diseases. Socialized medicine essentially rations hospital visits and access to medicine. All it insures are the frustration of the people. Patients in the US are admitted with little to no delay, while in Canada the average wait fro care is 17 weeks!
My rationale for privitized medicine is pretty logical. I will lay it out.
I will start by saying this, there is no such thing as a "free lunch" everything cost money. Doctors, nurses, bureaucrats do not work for free. Someone has to pay for it.
Also I'm going to go out here and say that nobody has a "right" to health care. Our rights has humans cover everything we can do to ourselves without effecting others. I have no right to force someone else to pay for my health care. I can't morally force anyone to pay for any of my wants or needs. I own myself, therefore I own my responsibility. Having someone volunteer is nice, but taxing is forceful coercion. In other words, stealing.
Government is big and slow. Decisions are not made for efficiency and they are not made for the public good. They are made for political gain. Lets not fool ourselves. Also to think that we have "privatized" health care now, is a gross misunderstanding of our health care system. My mother has worked for state run hospitals doing their insurance paper work for over 2 decades. She can talk for hours on end about the ins and outs as a system. The current system is already heavily regulated on the state and federal level. The state operates many of its own hospitals. These institutions commonly have lower quality than the private hospitals.
I said there is no such things as free lunch, I also say there is no such thing as utopia. There is no perfect health care system. But there are better ones. Case in point. Several years back, there was a pretty big heatwave in France. France has socialized medicine. Many people died of heatstroke and dehydration, due to poor planning and resource allocation on thew part of the state health care system. Do you ever hear about that in the US? Sure we have heat waves, but I haven't heard of any needless deaths lately.
I also don't like this notion of making doctors, hospitals and drug companies out to be evil. There is always talk of trying to "put them under control" through government regulation. But what few realize 9especially in my generation) is that it was government regulation that got us here in the first place. The FDA and USDA is responsible for ensuring that all our medications and food are safe for consumption. But all the time you hear of a recall. Some drug causes heat attacks, or causes a rare deadly allergic reaction. Its suprising to think that even though the average time for FDA certification for a particular drug is 10 years, that we still get these falling through the cracks. Or how about how we have food poisoning, and we only learn about it after the contaminated food has reached shelves and has been consumed by thousands?
I present to you an alternative. Before the government regulation we already had self regulating industries. Industry standards for quality existed and were monitored by independant for profit companies. Take Kosher for example. Jewish and other semetic peoples require food to be specially prepared for their consumption. We have had the Kosher seal of approval as long as there have been Jews in America. It is not controlled by the government, it is handled completely by private organizations. To be Kosher, a food product must go through a battery of strict tests and preparation and then finally must pass inspection by a Rabbi. These common food outbreaks have never effected Kosher food. But it effects USDA approved food all the time. What is the worth of a label when it certifies nothing?
But it doesn't end there. Medicine and Government are inextricably joined in our system. Everything can be subject to being a "disease" and has a prescribed "treatment". They are treated by the administration of state approved drugs or "medicine" by state approved care takers or "Doctors". The American people have very little say in how they will be treated. Years ago in school there were children referred to as "energetic", now that is a disease too. we call it ADD. Its actual existence is debated, but that didn't stop schools from forcing parents to give their children Ritalin, or face expulsion, and since schooling is compulsory and our system is so anti-competitive to make homeschooling and private schooling impossible for most working class, the parent shave no choice. Where is your freedom now?
None is this is in the public interest. But what is? The public interest is well trained Doctors, and pure and effective medicine. Patients need comprehensive and accurate information on what their options are and what they mean. A government license or stamp of approval does not insure competence or purity. If it did then there would be no malpractice suits and there would be no food borne illness epidemics. Although certification as an M.D. is a government task, handled by ADA certified schools (which has a monopoly mind you), specialist certifications are handled by boards of other physicians. A self regulating industry. Veteran physicians certifying their students to carry out the same tasks. Doctors have the well being of the patient to look to, Bureaucrats have no such thing.
But back to the main point. Medical insurance. A huge misnomer. It is not insurance in the classical sense, like car insurance or homeowners insurance. Take either for example. An automobile owner pays for all normal maintenance on the car, the insurance only comes into play when a specified incident happens, a wreck, theft, damage etc. Medical Insurance acts more like a pool of money for all medical events, even the normal "maintenance" of ones body. If car insurance worked this way, it would cover everything from oil changes to tire rotation. There would be no incentive for you to shop around or get the better deals, after all who cares? The insurance pays for it.
This is how most Americans approach medicine. They normally pay nothing out of pocket, except for a small co-pay. The insurer foots the bill. This drives up costs. With no market demand for competition there is no need for it. I will demonstrate this with a simple scenario. Say you have a cold and go to the doctor's office for a checkup. The doctor examines, you makes the diagnosis that you have a cold, and writes a prescription. Off you go to the nearest pharmacy to buy the prescription. In most htings in life, you would have gone to the practice that has the best deal, after all things like medicine are expensive, then you would have shopped around a bit to find where you could get the particular medication for the best price. But you have insurance, so oyu go to the doctor's office that you have always gone to, maybe its the nearest one to your house, then you go to the nearest pharmacy and get the medication. No where in that scenario did prices or any of the normal considerations that go into a purchase come into account. But I'm not done.
You ever wonder why so many people lack health insurance? I said somewhere earlier ( it may have been this thread) that it takes the average American 4 months out of the year to pay for their "fair share" of taxes. That is a huge amount don't you think? Thats about a 3rd of the time you spend working. Depending on what bracket you fall in it differs, but I lost about 24% of my income this year due to taxes. Just think If every American got that QUARTER of their earnings back, how much better off we will be. Health Insurance all of a sudden isn't out of reach for most Americans. Not only that, but insurance purchase privately by individuals or employers is not tax deductible, like it is when you get it through your job. << which could very well be an inferior plan. If employees are laid off or somehow loose their job they loose their coverage. And what does our government do in response? Make it even harder on them by now taxing their health insurance. << One of the many ways the government indirectly keeps the poor, poor by the way. And of course there are some people who decide not to buy any because it is expensive and often not tax deductible.
No to truly drive my point home, lets look at history. In the 1960's the government decided that people had a "right" to health care, so they created medicare (pays for direct medical care for the elderly) and medicaid (is a combined federal and state medicare program that pays for the poor, regardless of age). Now another interesting thing happened in the 1960's. Health care costs shot up, and have never come back down. The Government is the single largest purchaser of health care, it is estimated that they directly pay for 44% of the Nation's Health care (sound socialist to me). This makes prices for everyone go up.
Remember when I said that socialized medicine in other countries is failing? This is why; Medicare and Medicaid are the fastest growing parts of the government budget, not social security as everyone thinks although it is screwed too. By 2030 there will be about 76million people on these programs. That's double what we have today. We are an aging nation, and because of this, Medicare has $30 trillion in unfunded liabilities (and you thought that the bailouts were bad), and will require huge tax increases to keep it from going bankrupt (as if it already isn't) There are two choices that congress can make, raise taxes by 100% (yeah now half of what you make is gone) or slash benefits drastically. Either way is not an option. THIS, my friends is the cost of government.
Government regulation only makes things more expensive and difficult. Insurance companies are forced to cover everything imaginable. According to the Cato institute, "states have enacted 1,823 separate requirements that insurance cover particular items." You wonder why insurance is so expensive. If Microsoft had to guarantee against everything from system crashes to spam to bad fps in Crysis, imagine how much Windows Vista would cost. You can't make this stuff up folks. Insurance companies are also forbidden by law form raising premiums to certain groups of high risk people, this means that cost go up across the board for everyone. In other words, people like myself who workout everyday have to subsidies the cost for people who smoke, or are obese.
The truth is this. Socialism in all forms fails. Costs go up and standards go down. Without competition there is no incentive for excellence. Without a market there is no unbiased gauge of the worth of a product or service. Socialized medicine fails everywhere it is tried. Look at Canada, I have friends who could not get their flu vaccination last year because bureaucrats sat on their asses, look at France where sick people died in the heat while lazy bureaucrats sat in air conditioned offices making politically based decisions. Or maybe you should look at the Former Soviet Union, the land is in ruin from pollution and many are sick and are suffering from chronic, inherited diseases. Socialized medicine essentially rations hospital visits and access to medicine. All it insures are the frustration of the people. Patients in the US are admitted with little to no delay, while in Canada the average wait fro care is 17 weeks!
Nagasama
disgruntled ex-moderator
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- 6,956
- Location
- probably on the lake
******n man....
bravo, bravo. that was a very well written opinion, good read.
i agree with you that there definitely is no perfect solution. but it think there is a way to balance cost to the patient with quality care. the easiest way to do that? eliminate the insurance companies. is that going to happen? lol.
there is a delicate balance in every social/economic program. youre right, it isnt fair to assume that someone else should pay for us to exist. but, i do think that there is too much importance placed on money and what you can do with that money rather than concern for the greater good of the society. deep down inside, i am a tree hugger hippie. im just older now and see the world for how it REALLY is...and when it comes to "help thy neighbor", its downright ugly. i do not want to pay for someone's free ride (like we dont do that already ha ha), but i do think that if you are a productive member of this society (ie working full time and paying your taxes) then yes, you do have a right to be taken care of by the system that you take care of by doing those things. wether it is perfect or not, there has to be a way to reward actual productivity and you know, like being a good citizen. instead of constantly poking and emptying the pockets of the middle class. i say, if you dont have a job...you dont get ****. you know, when i was in college i went to the financial aid office to get a student loan and a pell grant. i got the loan, but they refused to give me a pell grant. the reason? i was working my way through school and made "too much money". dude...i think i was making like 1-200 dollars A WEEK. and im not kidding, my conversation with the aid advisor:
me: "so...if i sat on my *** and ate cheetos all day and didnt work, you would give me this money?"
her: "yes, unfortunately that is correct."
me: "so, if i quit my job and dont do anything, i can come back and you will give me this grant?"
her: "yes, that is right."
me: "well, i only have one question..."
her: "yes?"
me "how am i supposed to EAT?"
it made me sick. it still does. i have a big ol student loan i will pass on to my kids for them to pay (LOL), while those that chose not to work got money thrown at them.
bravo, bravo. that was a very well written opinion, good read.
classic.
i agree with you that there definitely is no perfect solution. but it think there is a way to balance cost to the patient with quality care. the easiest way to do that? eliminate the insurance companies. is that going to happen? lol.
there is a delicate balance in every social/economic program. youre right, it isnt fair to assume that someone else should pay for us to exist. but, i do think that there is too much importance placed on money and what you can do with that money rather than concern for the greater good of the society. deep down inside, i am a tree hugger hippie. im just older now and see the world for how it REALLY is...and when it comes to "help thy neighbor", its downright ugly. i do not want to pay for someone's free ride (like we dont do that already ha ha), but i do think that if you are a productive member of this society (ie working full time and paying your taxes) then yes, you do have a right to be taken care of by the system that you take care of by doing those things. wether it is perfect or not, there has to be a way to reward actual productivity and you know, like being a good citizen. instead of constantly poking and emptying the pockets of the middle class. i say, if you dont have a job...you dont get ****. you know, when i was in college i went to the financial aid office to get a student loan and a pell grant. i got the loan, but they refused to give me a pell grant. the reason? i was working my way through school and made "too much money". dude...i think i was making like 1-200 dollars A WEEK. and im not kidding, my conversation with the aid advisor:
me: "so...if i sat on my *** and ate cheetos all day and didnt work, you would give me this money?"
her: "yes, unfortunately that is correct."
me: "so, if i quit my job and dont do anything, i can come back and you will give me this grant?"
her: "yes, that is right."
me: "well, i only have one question..."
her: "yes?"
me "how am i supposed to EAT?"
it made me sick. it still does. i have a big ol student loan i will pass on to my kids for them to pay (LOL), while those that chose not to work got money thrown at them.
Nagasama
disgruntled ex-moderator
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- probably on the lake
you can never have too much time. thats like having too much fun.
lancec2c30
Future ex-member
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- Chehalis, WA
Holy crap. Zmatt just wrote the mother of god of huge opinions!
