You presume that people who are against socialized medicine are also in favor of things like the "War on Drugs" and the invasion of Iraq. Whereas I'm sure that is often the case, it isn't always. Myself for instance.
Except that with a car you can choose not to buy insurance by choosing not to buy a car and drive it on the public roads. Exactly how do I choose not to buy this insurance? Oh.. I can't?
Correct. You need to examine the source of the risk. In the car analogy, the risk of having a crash comes with driving a car, hence if you drive a car, you ought to have insurance. In the health part, the risk of becoming ill comes with living a life, hence if you live, you ought to have health insurance. You can, of course, choose to die. There are instructions on the Internet to opt-out of life.
Are you really suggesting that "by this insurance or die" is a reasonable thing?!?!?
For all practical purposes, yes, unless if you want to live in a cave on a mountain side and eat small animals that you snare yourself. If, however, you want the benefits of civilizations then you need to participate in civilization.
What you're saying is true. However, participating in civilization and depending on the government to take care of you are two very different things.
I'm afraid it's not. Our health care for the working poor is pitiful, and our infant mortality rates are shocking for an industrialized nation. Where we lead is in in fundamentally elective surgery: plastic surgery, bleeding edge technologies which desperate sufferers will try in desperate circumstances and lead to new techniques and technologies, and new pharmacological treatments due to our favorable patent protections for companies that develop them. But many of the results are wasteful, and for a nationwide policy foolish.
If true, then what is the basis for a belief that a government run solution would be better? Sure the poor may get basic care for "free", but what will be the quality of that care? Or are we to say that any care is better than no care?
And they tax to pay for it: a lot of craziness comes in when it becomes burdensomely micromanaged by bureaucrats whose concerns are paperwork first, money second, staff next, and the patients last.
To answer another part of your question. The health care for the poor will be paid for by taxes on the super wealthy. I consider it far more important to save lives of the poor and treat their condition rather than to make sure a wealthy elite can afford another mansion. The taxes on the wealthy are going to leave more than enough to enjoy a very high standard of living, more than which is known to 99% of the population of this planet. If you think that people should eb allowed to die because they are poor so some rich elite can purchase another yacht, while i think your priorities are mixed up, you dont place much of a value on human life.
It would be more accurate to say I have little faith in the ability of government to fix this. Further, I don't subscribe to the idea that robbing from the rich to give to the poor is morally right. If it is, what is the difference between one breaking into a rich man's house and stealing him blind and the government doing the same thing?
Did you even bother to look at what I was replying to? No, clearly not, since it wasn't even on the subject of the health care bill. It was some idiot AC yammering on about one of the tenets of his religion of objectivism. If everyone followed his idiotic little maxim, we would not have a military, let alone a government.
Assume much? I did read it, and I know exactly what it means and what it doesn't mean. I suspect you do not, as it does not proscribe being in the military nor the existence of any government.
Also, if you honestly find that your concern for corporate incomes trumps your compassion for your fellow human beings, I pity you. Health care is a right. If you think that people who provide for things that are rights are somehow enslaved by the fact that they're rights, you're out of your mind. People always choose what they do.
Fine, if health care is a right, what else is a "right"? Food? Cars? Homes? Internet? How far does it go? And yes, people choose what they do right now. However, once you start defining all these rights who's going to provide those services? If no one is willing to for the price the government will pay, shall we force them? That's where the enslavement comes in. If you say a service or good is a "right" then ultimately you are saying that you are in favor of providing that service by any means necessary. Follow your logic.
Except not at all, because "lunch" isn't a goddamn right, and you aren't enslaving anyone by requiring a service, because people choose to work in service industries. He's a troll.
Wait a minute.. food isn't a right, but bloody health care is? Are you high? If your logic is that health care is a right because you'll die without it then exactly why isn't food a right? Or a house?
Presumably, in the same way that any other tax evasion will. Does the police force, military, court system, fire brigade etc. enslave people?
Sigh... No. Because you do not have a right to those services. They are provided by the government but that does not mean you have an absolute right to them. No one will be forced to be a cop or a fire fighter or any of that other stuff. I suppose one could stretch and say that the right to a fair trial creates a need for someone to be forced to be a judge, but only if you accept that the state "must" prosecute. Since it has discretion, the forced obligation does not exist.
"You can also elaborate on exactly how trying to make health care/insurance a government mandated "right" doesn't effectively enslave those who provide such services?"
No, YOU need to explain how affordable health care for everybody has anything to do with "enslaving" people.
Or, if you'd like, you can start by explaining why you are NOT a child molester.
Turn off Fox News and learn how to think.
Wow, first I'm called a terrorist by one person and now I'm a child molester. That's neat.
Anyway, it has to do with the fact that if you create a right which requires that some people provide a service to others, what are you going to do if and when those people refuse to provide the service for the money the government wish to pay? Will you force them to? It is your "right" isn't it?
I've said it before, I'll say it again. You cannot create a "right" that imposes an obligation on others. Period. Full Stop.
Except that there's no such thing as self-sufficient. You'd be lucky to survive the first winter if you really did have to provide everything for yourself.
What you're referring to is absolute self-sufficiency and you're right in that is a rare thing. Surely you also realize that isn't what I meant.
Seriously though, you need to get a grip. People who are ill are by definition less able than those around them. Why should it fall to them to help themselves? Do you actually just strive for the destruction of society? If so, there's a group of people in the Middle East who'd love to hear from you.
Really? Arguing for self-sufficiency is the same as a terrorist? Really?
We have national healthcare in the UK, and, having had both parents working within it for 25 years apiece, it's not slavery. Are the police slaves? The fire department? Your logic is flawed.
My logic is not flawed, you failed to understand it. I said nothing about all government employees being slaves. Further, I said "effectively enslaves". What is the solution if those providers refused to provide the new "right" for the price offered? There is no right to police protection nor to fire services. Those are services provided but you do not have a "right" to them. Thus, no obligation is foisted on to others to provide it. If we say that health care is a "right" on par with Freedom of Speech and such then we are also saying that those who are skilled and able to must provide those services whether they want to or not. It's your "right" after all, isn't it?
One of the central problems with society at large these days is this inflated idea of what constitutes a "right". You cannot create a "right" that imposes obligations on others. Period. No exceptions.
Merely pointing out that the government does lots of things and provides lots of services does not in anyway prove that they are doing it efficiently or all that well compared to other options and methods. Even if you can say that some of those services have made things better in someways, that doesn't mean that government is always the answer to every problem.
Further, pointing out that the world is sliding towards bigger and bigger government since the 80's does not say it is a good thing, just that it is happening.
"Perhaps, you can cite the dozens or perhaps hundreds of other programs the government has run that efficiently made things better?"
That would be hard to do since the opposition puts checks and double checks and red tape like you wouldn't believe into most government programs to try to prevent 'abuse' and limit their spending as much as possible. This bill is no doubt more of the same.
The short answer to your entire post is this. Health care is expensive for a number of reasons, most of them dealing with Tort issues and yes, government intervention. Why don't the limited government "crazies" (nice insult there, thanks) say the same thing about medicare? We do. Medicare and Medicaid are also terrible ideas for the exact same reason this is a terrible idea. Perhaps without all the massive taxes we're paying to provide for all these big government programs people would in fact be able to afford the care themselves?
There are ways in which you are correct. It is a little difficult to see how a "free market" solution can work with something that if you don't buy, you die. However, the free market also says that dead patients pay no bills and that alone would tend to drive prices down if people had to pay for things directly. Prices didn't get really super crazy until both the government, and insurance companies, got into the mix. Back when people paid for things themselves prices could not get so high that no one could afford it. If no one can afford your product, no matter how much they need it, you will not sell it. It is the current system of health "insurance" and government programs that shield the providers from real market forces.
Sorry, but no, it's not sound at all, particularly when applied to life and death situations. We're not talking about some self-entitled "right" to own a big screen TV or a PS3, we're talking about human lives.
Other countries can manage a much better return on the dollar (or euro, yen, etc) for health care. If the US government is so terrible that it cannot do what other governments have already done, then maybe people should try to reform government instead of fighting health care reform?
And how many dollars is "zillions" anyway? Certainly significantly less than the "zillions" paid to transform Iraq from a secular dictatorship into a theocratic one...
How many of those counties create innovative new health care as opposed to merely implement what we come up with? Creating is far more expensive than maintaining. As has been said elsewhere, a government run system isn't likely to come up with innovative new systems. Whether or not one can do it efficiently isn't even the point when it comes down to it. You cannot create a "right" that imposes obligations on others to deliver that right without effectively enslaving those others or at least being willing to enslave them when they refuse to provide that "right" at the price the government is willing to pay.
The only reason that some of the characters were able to be self-sufficient is that they were able to invent magic technologies, like force fields, super-metals, and invisible battleships, to support them. What happened in the book would not work in real life. If you are allowed to postulate arbitrary technology then you can make anything happen.
Are you saying it is impossible to be reasonably self-sufficient in real life and that requires "magic"?
You can also elaborate on exactly how trying to make health care/insurance a government mandated "right" doesn't effectively enslave those who provide such services?
Clown comments like that are why libertarianism will always be a joke philosophy, confined entirely to Internet conspiracy theorists and anti-social hillbillies.
Remember all that Ron Paul crap that infested the Internet all the way up to the last election? You'd have thought the absolute trashing of their candidate would have silenced the Randroids, but they're back like a really stubborn weed.
In short, if all you've got are insults, you need to take your socialist government loving self somewhere else. Real adults take care of themselves and don't look to the government for handouts.
Real adults realise the benefit of society and the welfare state over 'fuck you got mine' anarchy. Libertarians want to turn the US into Brazil, or Victorian England. Maybe they should re-open the workhouses, or is that too much government interference?
So you're saying that "real adults" want the government to be Mommy and Daddy? As such anyone who says you should take care of yourself and kindly keep your hand out of my pocket book is what? A child?
Where do you think the money for those factory jobs came from initially? Thin air? It came from people pooling their money and.... investing it in that company.
Dealing in derivatives and short selling - the two activities specifically referred to by betterunixthanunix - both put zero money into the company,
Granted. However, one could argue that such activities tend to reign in poor performing companies. Though I admit that wasn't what I wrote in the first place.
Ok, then let's stop paying our taxes so other peoples kids(maybe yours) can go to school. Parents take responsibility for your kids instead of unloading the costs(all of them) on the rest of us. If you think government shouldn't provide basic public services, healthcare is easily as important a national security issue as education.
You presume I think the government should be providing education. I don't. I'm completely okay with the idea of privatizing education. It is possible that back in the day that wouldn't have worked, but these days there is little reason why it wouldn't. And don't tell me the "poor" would automatically be screwed out of a good education. That presupposes that both no one would fill the need, and that the public education they are getting now is all that good. I believe the test numbers say otherwise as I don't believe that "poor" people are inherently less intelligent than "rich" people, in general.
Health care in this country is about the best in the world.
That is a lie.
"The United States ranks 31st in life expectancy (tied with Kuwait and Chile), according to the latest World Health Organization figures. We rank 37th in infant mortality (partly because of many premature births) and 34th in maternal mortality. A child in the United States is two-and-a-half times as likely to die by age 5 as in Singapore or Sweden, and an American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as a woman in Ireland."
"Yet another study, cited in a recent report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute, looked at how well 19 developed countries succeeded in avoiding “preventable deaths,” such as those where a disease could be cured or forestalled. What Senator Shelby called “the best health care system” ranked in last place."
Life expectancy does not necessarily equal quality of care. That is about the same as people who say country X has low gun crime with super strict gun laws, therefore we should enact the same! There are other variables to be considered as the poster below points out. If the quality of care here is so terrible, why do people come here for it? I didn't say care was the cheapest here, just that the quality is among the highest.
I am sure this bill will certainly help many of those who cannot afford insurance and will now recieve it. However that does not mean i think it is the perfect bill, however we will be better off with it. It does not regulate insurance companies enough, included in the bill should have been a CEO pay cap, to open p the finances of private companies to be audited and requiring them to reduce their overhead, eliminate advertising budgets, and use all of the money for providing health insurance coverage and capped salaries to their employees. Only then can we be certain that money being paid into these companies is not going to some fat cat CEO while the companies deny claims for life saving treatments as they do now. Private insurance today is pretty scammy and worthless, you often have to fight with the companies to get things covered. Hopefully the bill does set a basic coverage standard which covers everything essential. I have also always been a little skeptical of ideas of linking insurance to employment unless the insurance can continue seemlessly after employment or persons are transferred instantly to a government plan. The Public Option even in this bill is too weak and should have been set according to medicare's cost alignment rather than an average of private insurance. It is unclear whether it will survive the senate. Without the public option I would be concerned that the private companies will ruthlessly jack up rates and massively exploit the people, which could be controlled by the pay caps i mentioned above however and perhaps setting some price control or requiring that as i said the money be spent on actually providing health care. Better yet still would have been single payer, which ironically would be the most efficient, would have saved enough money considering that private insurance is 30% inefficient while medicare is 4% to provide insurance to everyone without spending any more money than we do now. That would save the lives of 40,000 children who die annually so some capitalist pig CEO can get rich. The single payer in progressive plans would be the least beauracratic, you would not have insurance company beauracrats deciding what health care you can get or deciding to deny stuff to help improve the profit margin. The single payer would gaurantee coverage of essential care, and not deny things to improve profit margins.
As far as rationing, the single payer and this bill both fight rationing. To be honest, any system contains rationing. However, it is important to make sure that highest urgency treatment is giving first priority, regardless of the patients income. Our current system rations in the worst possible way, according to ability to pay. It is genocidal to the poor since it guarantees health care to the rich and denies it to the poor. I don't want to hear this idea that people who make money contribute more. that is a lie. Try telling that to the overworked factory slave laborer or field worker who harvests the food you eat who works out in the hot sun all day making $5 an hour. It is usually the case that the hardest working people who do the most essential thing, bringing food to your table, make the least.
I'l be honest and say I didn't read your entire rambling comment. It became clear very quickly that it was a socialist screed and wasn't worth reading all of. Though, it is worth responding to for the benefit of others. And with that aim in mind, could you perhaps explain who is to pay for all this socialist fun and joy? And if you're going to make a claim that a government program is only 4% inefficient, doubly so to make that claim about medicare, you really need to back it up with some thing.
I'm not going to point for point rebut this silliness. Suffice to say to everyone else, if you want to know the socialist mind, read the proceeding comment. You may notice that it is full of holes and assumptions, and very light on facts.
I applaud this move heartily and am glad to see America finally catch up with the rest of the developed, Western world. Forcing citizens to enter patronize particular corporate entities IS the way forward, and I'm glad Obama and the House can see that. Once the citizen realizes he has to give up a large portion of his ability to make selfish INDIVIDUAL choices and act in accordance with that of the leaders of his or her nations, can they develop into a more moral, self-actualized human being. I think this is also an indication that there is a shift towards America having less of this "me, me, me!" attitude and the country is starting to realize that freedom isn't individual greed, but something greater than they are--sacrifice and adherence to ones' governing body. A more moral human being is one that follows the edicts of the body that rules it. A good dog, after all, is not one that jumps the fence and goes where it pleases but one that runs to its master with leash in its mouth, wagging its tail.
Let's see... Buy insurance, or go to jail. It sounds like Massachusetts.
No, it sounds like a reasonable society. I'll use a car analogy because it's a lot clearer there: If you don't have a car insurance, and you crash into me, that is my problem, not yours. Most people who don't have insurance are also too broke to cover the damage themselves. So a law that forces you to have at least enough insurance to cover the other guy's costs is a very reasonable thing.
It's a lot more indirect for health insurance, but the argument is similar.
Except that with a car you can choose not to buy insurance by choosing not to buy a car and drive it on the public roads. Exactly how do I choose not to buy this insurance? Oh.. I can't? Not unless I want to go to jail or die. Sounds like extortion to me. It would be if you did it, why isn't it when the government does it?
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You presume that people who are against socialized medicine are also in favor of things like the "War on Drugs" and the invasion of Iraq. Whereas I'm sure that is often the case, it isn't always. Myself for instance.
HA! :)
Except that with a car you can choose not to buy insurance by choosing not to buy a car and drive it on the public roads. Exactly how do I choose not to buy this insurance? Oh.. I can't?
Correct. You need to examine the source of the risk. In the car analogy, the risk of having a crash comes with driving a car, hence if you drive a car, you ought to have insurance. In the health part, the risk of becoming ill comes with living a life, hence if you live, you ought to have health insurance. You can, of course, choose to die. There are instructions on the Internet to opt-out of life.
Are you really suggesting that "by this insurance or die" is a reasonable thing?!?!?
For all practical purposes, yes, unless if you want to live in a cave on a mountain side and eat small animals that you snare yourself. If, however, you want the benefits of civilizations then you need to participate in civilization.
What you're saying is true. However, participating in civilization and depending on the government to take care of you are two very different things.
I'm afraid it's not. Our health care for the working poor is pitiful, and our infant mortality rates are shocking for an industrialized nation. Where we lead is in in fundamentally elective surgery: plastic surgery, bleeding edge technologies which desperate sufferers will try in desperate circumstances and lead to new techniques and technologies, and new pharmacological treatments due to our favorable patent protections for companies that develop them. But many of the results are wasteful, and for a nationwide policy foolish.
If true, then what is the basis for a belief that a government run solution would be better? Sure the poor may get basic care for "free", but what will be the quality of that care? Or are we to say that any care is better than no care?
And they tax to pay for it: a lot of craziness comes in when it becomes burdensomely micromanaged by bureaucrats whose concerns are paperwork first, money second, staff next, and the patients last.
Is that not the nature of government?
To answer another part of your question. The health care for the poor will be paid for by taxes on the super wealthy. I consider it far more important to save lives of the poor and treat their condition rather than to make sure a wealthy elite can afford another mansion. The taxes on the wealthy are going to leave more than enough to enjoy a very high standard of living, more than which is known to 99% of the population of this planet. If you think that people should eb allowed to die because they are poor so some rich elite can purchase another yacht, while i think your priorities are mixed up, you dont place much of a value on human life.
It would be more accurate to say I have little faith in the ability of government to fix this. Further, I don't subscribe to the idea that robbing from the rich to give to the poor is morally right. If it is, what is the difference between one breaking into a rich man's house and stealing him blind and the government doing the same thing?
Did you even bother to look at what I was replying to? No, clearly not, since it wasn't even on the subject of the health care bill. It was some idiot AC yammering on about one of the tenets of his religion of objectivism. If everyone followed his idiotic little maxim, we would not have a military, let alone a government.
Assume much? I did read it, and I know exactly what it means and what it doesn't mean. I suspect you do not, as it does not proscribe being in the military nor the existence of any government.
Also, if you honestly find that your concern for corporate incomes trumps your compassion for your fellow human beings, I pity you . Health care is a right. If you think that people who provide for things that are rights are somehow enslaved by the fact that they're rights, you're out of your mind. People always choose what they do.
Fine, if health care is a right, what else is a "right"? Food? Cars? Homes? Internet? How far does it go? And yes, people choose what they do right now. However, once you start defining all these rights who's going to provide those services? If no one is willing to for the price the government will pay, shall we force them? That's where the enslavement comes in. If you say a service or good is a "right" then ultimately you are saying that you are in favor of providing that service by any means necessary. Follow your logic.
Except not at all, because "lunch" isn't a goddamn right, and you aren't enslaving anyone by requiring a service, because people choose to work in service industries. He's a troll.
Wait a minute.. food isn't a right, but bloody health care is? Are you high? If your logic is that health care is a right because you'll die without it then exactly why isn't food a right? Or a house?
Presumably, in the same way that any other tax evasion will. Does the police force, military, court system, fire brigade etc. enslave people?
Sigh... No. Because you do not have a right to those services. They are provided by the government but that does not mean you have an absolute right to them. No one will be forced to be a cop or a fire fighter or any of that other stuff. I suppose one could stretch and say that the right to a fair trial creates a need for someone to be forced to be a judge, but only if you accept that the state "must" prosecute. Since it has discretion, the forced obligation does not exist.
"You can also elaborate on exactly how trying to make health care/insurance a government mandated "right" doesn't effectively enslave those who provide such services?" No, YOU need to explain how affordable health care for everybody has anything to do with "enslaving" people. Or, if you'd like, you can start by explaining why you are NOT a child molester. Turn off Fox News and learn how to think.
Wow, first I'm called a terrorist by one person and now I'm a child molester. That's neat.
Anyway, it has to do with the fact that if you create a right which requires that some people provide a service to others, what are you going to do if and when those people refuse to provide the service for the money the government wish to pay? Will you force them to? It is your "right" isn't it?
I've said it before, I'll say it again. You cannot create a "right" that imposes an obligation on others. Period. Full Stop.
Except that there's no such thing as self-sufficient. You'd be lucky to survive the first winter if you really did have to provide everything for yourself.
What you're referring to is absolute self-sufficiency and you're right in that is a rare thing. Surely you also realize that isn't what I meant.
Seriously though, you need to get a grip. People who are ill are by definition less able than those around them. Why should it fall to them to help themselves? Do you actually just strive for the destruction of society? If so, there's a group of people in the Middle East who'd love to hear from you.
Really? Arguing for self-sufficiency is the same as a terrorist? Really?
We have national healthcare in the UK, and, having had both parents working within it for 25 years apiece, it's not slavery. Are the police slaves? The fire department? Your logic is flawed.
My logic is not flawed, you failed to understand it. I said nothing about all government employees being slaves. Further, I said "effectively enslaves". What is the solution if those providers refused to provide the new "right" for the price offered? There is no right to police protection nor to fire services. Those are services provided but you do not have a "right" to them. Thus, no obligation is foisted on to others to provide it. If we say that health care is a "right" on par with Freedom of Speech and such then we are also saying that those who are skilled and able to must provide those services whether they want to or not. It's your "right" after all, isn't it?
One of the central problems with society at large these days is this inflated idea of what constitutes a "right". You cannot create a "right" that imposes obligations on others. Period. No exceptions.
Merely pointing out that the government does lots of things and provides lots of services does not in anyway prove that they are doing it efficiently or all that well compared to other options and methods. Even if you can say that some of those services have made things better in someways, that doesn't mean that government is always the answer to every problem.
Further, pointing out that the world is sliding towards bigger and bigger government since the 80's does not say it is a good thing, just that it is happening.
"Perhaps, you can cite the dozens or perhaps hundreds of other programs the government has run that efficiently made things better?"
That would be hard to do since the opposition puts checks and double checks and red tape like you wouldn't believe into most government programs to try to prevent 'abuse' and limit their spending as much as possible. This bill is no doubt more of the same.
True, but doesn't that just prove my point?
The short answer to your entire post is this. Health care is expensive for a number of reasons, most of them dealing with Tort issues and yes, government intervention. Why don't the limited government "crazies" (nice insult there, thanks) say the same thing about medicare? We do. Medicare and Medicaid are also terrible ideas for the exact same reason this is a terrible idea. Perhaps without all the massive taxes we're paying to provide for all these big government programs people would in fact be able to afford the care themselves?
There are ways in which you are correct. It is a little difficult to see how a "free market" solution can work with something that if you don't buy, you die. However, the free market also says that dead patients pay no bills and that alone would tend to drive prices down if people had to pay for things directly. Prices didn't get really super crazy until both the government, and insurance companies, got into the mix. Back when people paid for things themselves prices could not get so high that no one could afford it. If no one can afford your product, no matter how much they need it, you will not sell it. It is the current system of health "insurance" and government programs that shield the providers from real market forces.
Sorry, but no, it's not sound at all, particularly when applied to life and death situations. We're not talking about some self-entitled "right" to own a big screen TV or a PS3, we're talking about human lives.
Other countries can manage a much better return on the dollar (or euro, yen, etc) for health care. If the US government is so terrible that it cannot do what other governments have already done, then maybe people should try to reform government instead of fighting health care reform?
And how many dollars is "zillions" anyway? Certainly significantly less than the "zillions" paid to transform Iraq from a secular dictatorship into a theocratic one...
How many of those counties create innovative new health care as opposed to merely implement what we come up with? Creating is far more expensive than maintaining. As has been said elsewhere, a government run system isn't likely to come up with innovative new systems. Whether or not one can do it efficiently isn't even the point when it comes down to it. You cannot create a "right" that imposes obligations on others to deliver that right without effectively enslaving those others or at least being willing to enslave them when they refuse to provide that "right" at the price the government is willing to pay.
The only reason that some of the characters were able to be self-sufficient is that they were able to invent magic technologies, like force fields, super-metals, and invisible battleships, to support them. What happened in the book would not work in real life. If you are allowed to postulate arbitrary technology then you can make anything happen.
Are you saying it is impossible to be reasonably self-sufficient in real life and that requires "magic"?
Clown comments like that are why libertarianism will always be a joke philosophy, confined entirely to Internet conspiracy theorists and anti-social hillbillies.
Remember all that Ron Paul crap that infested the Internet all the way up to the last election? You'd have thought the absolute trashing of their candidate would have silenced the Randroids, but they're back like a really stubborn weed.
Real adults realise the benefit of society and the welfare state over 'fuck you got mine' anarchy. Libertarians want to turn the US into Brazil, or Victorian England. Maybe they should re-open the workhouses, or is that too much government interference?
So you're saying that "real adults" want the government to be Mommy and Daddy? As such anyone who says you should take care of yourself and kindly keep your hand out of my pocket book is what? A child?
Dealing in derivatives and short selling - the two activities specifically referred to by betterunixthanunix - both put zero money into the company,
Granted. However, one could argue that such activities tend to reign in poor performing companies. Though I admit that wasn't what I wrote in the first place.
Ok, then let's stop paying our taxes so other peoples kids(maybe yours) can go to school. Parents take responsibility for your kids instead of unloading the costs(all of them) on the rest of us. If you think government shouldn't provide basic public services, healthcare is easily as important a national security issue as education.
You presume I think the government should be providing education. I don't. I'm completely okay with the idea of privatizing education. It is possible that back in the day that wouldn't have worked, but these days there is little reason why it wouldn't. And don't tell me the "poor" would automatically be screwed out of a good education. That presupposes that both no one would fill the need, and that the public education they are getting now is all that good. I believe the test numbers say otherwise as I don't believe that "poor" people are inherently less intelligent than "rich" people, in general.
Health care in this country is about the best in the world.
That is a lie.
"The United States ranks 31st in life expectancy (tied with Kuwait and Chile), according to the latest World Health Organization figures. We rank 37th in infant mortality (partly because of many premature births) and 34th in maternal mortality. A child in the United States is two-and-a-half times as likely to die by age 5 as in Singapore or Sweden, and an American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as a woman in Ireland."
"Yet another study, cited in a recent report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute, looked at how well 19 developed countries succeeded in avoiding “preventable deaths,” such as those where a disease could be cured or forestalled. What Senator Shelby called “the best health care system” ranked in last place."
It's early, I'm lazy, but the facts match up. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/opinion/05kristof.html?em
Life expectancy does not necessarily equal quality of care. That is about the same as people who say country X has low gun crime with super strict gun laws, therefore we should enact the same! There are other variables to be considered as the poster below points out. If the quality of care here is so terrible, why do people come here for it? I didn't say care was the cheapest here, just that the quality is among the highest.
I am sure this bill will certainly help many of those who cannot afford insurance and will now recieve it. However that does not mean i think it is the perfect bill, however we will be better off with it. It does not regulate insurance companies enough, included in the bill should have been a CEO pay cap, to open p the finances of private companies to be audited and requiring them to reduce their overhead, eliminate advertising budgets, and use all of the money for providing health insurance coverage and capped salaries to their employees. Only then can we be certain that money being paid into these companies is not going to some fat cat CEO while the companies deny claims for life saving treatments as they do now. Private insurance today is pretty scammy and worthless, you often have to fight with the companies to get things covered. Hopefully the bill does set a basic coverage standard which covers everything essential. I have also always been a little skeptical of ideas of linking insurance to employment unless the insurance can continue seemlessly after employment or persons are transferred instantly to a government plan. The Public Option even in this bill is too weak and should have been set according to medicare's cost alignment rather than an average of private insurance. It is unclear whether it will survive the senate. Without the public option I would be concerned that the private companies will ruthlessly jack up rates and massively exploit the people, which could be controlled by the pay caps i mentioned above however and perhaps setting some price control or requiring that as i said the money be spent on actually providing health care. Better yet still would have been single payer, which ironically would be the most efficient, would have saved enough money considering that private insurance is 30% inefficient while medicare is 4% to provide insurance to everyone without spending any more money than we do now. That would save the lives of 40,000 children who die annually so some capitalist pig CEO can get rich. The single payer in progressive plans would be the least beauracratic, you would not have insurance company beauracrats deciding what health care you can get or deciding to deny stuff to help improve the profit margin. The single payer would gaurantee coverage of essential care, and not deny things to improve profit margins.
As far as rationing, the single payer and this bill both fight rationing. To be honest, any system contains rationing. However, it is important to make sure that highest urgency treatment is giving first priority, regardless of the patients income. Our current system rations in the worst possible way, according to ability to pay. It is genocidal to the poor since it guarantees health care to the rich and denies it to the poor. I don't want to hear this idea that people who make money contribute more. that is a lie. Try telling that to the overworked factory slave laborer or field worker who harvests the food you eat who works out in the hot sun all day making $5 an hour. It is usually the case that the hardest working people who do the most essential thing, bringing food to your table, make the least.
I'l be honest and say I didn't read your entire rambling comment. It became clear very quickly that it was a socialist screed and wasn't worth reading all of. Though, it is worth responding to for the benefit of others. And with that aim in mind, could you perhaps explain who is to pay for all this socialist fun and joy? And if you're going to make a claim that a government program is only 4% inefficient, doubly so to make that claim about medicare, you really need to back it up with some thing.
I'm not going to point for point rebut this silliness. Suffice to say to everyone else, if you want to know the socialist mind, read the proceeding comment. You may notice that it is full of holes and assumptions, and very light on facts.
I applaud this move heartily and am glad to see America finally catch up with the rest of the developed, Western world. Forcing citizens to enter patronize particular corporate entities IS the way forward, and I'm glad Obama and the House can see that. Once the citizen realizes he has to give up a large portion of his ability to make selfish INDIVIDUAL choices and act in accordance with that of the leaders of his or her nations, can they develop into a more moral, self-actualized human being. I think this is also an indication that there is a shift towards America having less of this "me, me, me!" attitude and the country is starting to realize that freedom isn't individual greed, but something greater than they are--sacrifice and adherence to ones' governing body. A more moral human being is one that follows the edicts of the body that rules it. A good dog, after all, is not one that jumps the fence and goes where it pleases but one that runs to its master with leash in its mouth, wagging its tail.
Bloody brilliant!
Let's see... Buy insurance, or go to jail. It sounds like Massachusetts.
No, it sounds like a reasonable society. I'll use a car analogy because it's a lot clearer there: If you don't have a car insurance, and you crash into me, that is my problem, not yours. Most people who don't have insurance are also too broke to cover the damage themselves. So a law that forces you to have at least enough insurance to cover the other guy's costs is a very reasonable thing.
It's a lot more indirect for health insurance, but the argument is similar.
Except that with a car you can choose not to buy insurance by choosing not to buy a car and drive it on the public roads. Exactly how do I choose not to buy this insurance? Oh.. I can't? Not unless I want to go to jail or die. Sounds like extortion to me. It would be if you did it, why isn't it when the government does it?