My father runs his own small business. He pays upwards of $2400 a month to insure himself and his wife because he had prostate cancer last year. Clean bill of health now, but he is getting nailed on insurance.
That is simply insane and the government, in a modern democratic country, shouldn't allow that to happen. At the very least the country should have a plan like Romney pushed through in his state, but nationwide. Why Romney doesn't run on it is still a mystery to me. Sorry to hear that, Mulder. Impeach Bush.
Because Romney needs to get the GOP nomination first, and universal health care isn't the way to get it. If he gets the nod (big if), then I can see him use it in the general election.
I think he's made a big mistake. He could have run as a "progressive conservative." I personally know a lot of Republicans planning on voting Democratic next time around, and it would have appealed to them. It also would have been attractive to independents. Instead, he's made a sorry spectacle of himself, trying to be "far right." And it hasn't worked. Romney comes across as a brittle phoney. He should have run on the economy and what he did in his state, like the insurance plan, instead of sucking up to the Religious Right and the others on the far right in the GOP, who make up a minority of the party, in my opinion. The guy blew it. Impeach Bush.
With a pre-existing condition like type 1 diabetes it is near impossible to get health care on my own. It isn't just that it's more expensive, it's impossible to get it. Furthermore there are children that can't do it for themselves.
Is it? Then why don't all smart people become doctors? Why do some very intelligent people choose professions (in academia for example) where they make a small percentage of what a doctor would make? I would argue that the problem wouldn't be finding intelligent doctors - instead, that making medicine a "get rich" profession has attracted scores of insufficiently dedicated people to the field. But that's a quibble - who's to say that doctors, by and large, would be making any less under a new system? If "healthcare delivery systems" eliminate huge CEO incentives, advertising, and if the billions of dollars in government tax breaks to healthcare corporations are made unecesary - what then? Why couldn't the profession be equally profitable? Doctors in Great Britain certainly aren't going broke, and most make an income comparable to physicians in the United States. Much, if not most, of the money for R&D in the United States already comes from the government. And, otherwise, I'm not sure the problems you mention are as prevalent as you portray them, though there may be some anecdotal stories. But, this is getting at the point I was making earlier - socialized systems have problems, there's no doubt about that (I would argue that our problems are far more substantial) - why can't we improve upon previous models? We have many examples of socialized systems in other countries - we've seen how and where they've succeeded, and how and where they're having trouble. The experimentation in that type of system has already been done for us. We have a greater population, more healthcare professionals, more facilities, and (arguably) a more extensive healthcare infrastructure than most of these countries - we can do it better than it's been done before. A 'gross and vile intrusion on freedom'? What about people who get an infection, can't afford a doctor's visit, and are forced to wait until it becomes life-threatening before they get care? What about people with type 1 diabetes (as mentioned earlier) who have to wait until their kidneys fail or their eyesight deteriorates to nothing before they get help with the $300 a month required for basic treatment? What about insurance companies who declare a surgical procedure 'unecessary' (without ever speaking to the patient or the doctor) simply because it eats into their profit? What kind of 'gross and vile' situations are these? Is market morality more important than human lives? Okay, on the opposite end of your hypothetical 'slippery slope' argument - why don't we make it possible for people to pay more money to get more votes, you know, people who pay, say, $5,000 get an extra vote? Why not open up the police force banks to donations that will assure you better protection, and more leniency when you're accused of breaking a law (according to the size of your donation)? The point I'm making is that it's not a case of going whole-hog in one direction or another. Making medical care available to everyone equally does not require that we give government-mandated iPods to anyone who can't afford to buy one. This is healthcare, not the market. What you're really saying here has more to do with the supposed sanctity of the free-market than it does with reality. But, also, it has to do with the limitations of the options in the poll. I have no problem if, for example, a 'cosmetic surgeon' (as opposed to a real plastic/reconstructive surgeon who works with disfigured people), wants to spend all those years in medical school and then make phat cash giving girls fake t*** and injecting botchulism into an old lady's forehead.
I have a question I meant to include in the previous post: For those of you who are opposed to making medical care equally available to everyone, why are you opposed? Because you believe it would make your taxes higher? Because you don't think everyone should have equal access to quality care (meaning: that those with more money should be allowed to purchase "better" care than those without the money?) Do you believe the system is already working just fine?
Yes and yes. I don't want higher taxes. That's a personal reason. Next, there's no such thing as equal access to quality care. Because of limited resources, every healthcare system in the world has to restrict access to care based on something. Some choose not to give care to those who they judge as having taken poorer care of themselves (smokers, addicts, overweight). Some choose not to give care based on timing. Whoever gets in line for treatment first gets treated first. If you die before your turn in line comes up, you don't get treated. Some choose to restrict care based on severity. The worst-off get treated, those who are in less bad shape don't. Instead, we choose to restrict access to non-emergency healthcare by ability to pay. I happen to think that's better. Most importantly, I think it will degrade the quality of our healthcare system as a whole. In another thread, I pointed out how bad our education system has become with increased Federal Government involvement. A simple comparison of VA hospitals to for-profit hospitals, charity hospitals, or even county-run socialist hospitals will show you that the US Federal Government is the least-capable of providing quality healthcare in our country. While neither would be the best solution, I'd rather turn our healthcare system over to the Catholic Church than the Federal Government.
weslinder, with all due respect, that's a gross oversimplification of a complex subject. There are numerous "universal care" models this country could pick and choose from, absent any will to create something new ourselves, and then improve on. There is Romney's system in Massachusetts, the state I can never spell correctly, on one end, if you will, that is mostly run by the private sector, but provides, to my knowledge, coverage of some kind to everyone. Then you have a system like the British have (which I wouldn't want), where the government pretty much runs everything, from soup to nuts. Why can't we pick from all the models out there and improve upon them, as thadeus suggested? Do you just have some knee-jerk, Libertarian viewpoint towards the subject? I'm really curious. I personally know middle class families that can't afford to cover all the family members due to pre-existing conditions. I can give an example... one is a family I know very well, where the wife was a school teacher and the husband a construction supervisor for Brown and Root (when it was Brown and Root, not KBR). She was covered, but after he was laid off from Brown and Root, the least expensive health coverage she could get for him, through the school district, was several hundred dollars a month... closer to a thousand a month than the other direction. They simply couldn't afford it. Anyone familiar with the construction industry knows that layoffs are a fact of life, but so is losing your insurance coverage after a period of time. If you were diagnosed with diabetes, as this gentleman was, after he was laid off, the insurance companies don't want to touch you. What is "fair and balanced" about that? They were middle class people who had paid thousands in taxes every year, went to church, raised a family, owned a home... the whole nine yards. Where is the justice for them? Hey, they don't have to worry about the problem any longer. The fellow died last Spring from a disease related to his condition. I went to the funeral. He still wasn't covered. Impeach Bush.
What is going to negatively impact more people, the few who cannot get affordable insurance under the current model, or the many that will have to subsidize them under the universal model? Would the negative effects on the high end American health care be factored in to the decision? If we are going to do it with health care, what about food? Housing? Clothing? Cars? Why don't we just collect all the money everyone earns at their job and give it to the government to provide what everyone needs. We can even come up with some kind of catchy slogan. Something that uses the words each and his a couple times.
Sure... blow off over 45,000,000 Americans. Go ahead. I just hope you are in that situation someday, SM, I really do. Can't get insurance for yourself or, worse, a family member, perhaps your child, when you thought you were doing everything right, and then, when looking for help, you discover no one gives a good god damn. Easy to be complacent and laugh it off when it isn't you or your loved ones. Damned easy. At least for you. Impeach Bush.
Do you really think every uninsured American has no insurance because there is no way they can afford it? That is kind of an absurd hypothesis (even for a Democrat ). I for one, have chosen not to get insurance because the odds are stacked in the insurance companies favor. Like all insurance, health insurance is a means of distributing the risk to individuals across the whole population (with a healthy cut for the insurance companies themselves). I refuse to participate. Outside of the small percentage that require very expensive treatment when they are suddenly diagnosed with a terririble disease or suffer some kind of severe trauma, you are almost always going to pay more for insurance than you would pay just paying for treatment as you go. As for your moralistic appeal, the same could be said for many situations (which was the whole point of my previous post). How dare you live in a house with your family when there are homeless people in the very city where you live. Why don't you invite some homeless people to live with you. I hope one day you are in that situation some day and no one helps you. Actually, I don't (just wanted to show you your own words). I wish no one was homeless, or sick for that matter. I don't think it is the government's job to give everyone a house, and I don't think it is the government's job to provide equal health care to everyone. I would like to see more free clinics and free housing options available, but they should be, how shall I say, minimalist, and would not necessarily need to be provided by the government.
Denying people early, even free healthcare costs more down the road. Someone is denied preventative care and their condition gets worse and then gets more costly to treat when they finally show up in an emergency room. That's the difference between health care and the others you mention. Furthemore, people who can't control what they spend on food or housing or clothing are stupid while people who get in trouble with healthcare costs are victims of a system gone haywire. Healthcare cost is the #1 reason for bankruptcy in this country. What does that cost the country?
Why not have free clinics that provide the basic preventative care then, instead of having taxpayer funded health insurance that will cause as many problems as it solves? The problem isn't with paying for the preventative care (how much would insurance cost if all it covered was that preventative care anyway? methinks that level of care is more available than is being taken advantage of), it is people with low health care costs paying for people who have high health care coses.
My dad was in construction and my mom never worked. He got laid all the time. His med insure is like 670 now I think and he is retired. I guess you decide what you can "afford". A teacher makes what 40K a year? They decided to spend their money on other stuff. (did they own 2 cars?) Why if they do not even decide to buy health care the .gov will decide for them. And then we all have to pay. And after you account for the costs of collection and distribution it costs well over 1000 to insure them. Hell I am fully insured and I don't recieve the BEST medical treatment like the wealthy do. I don't have a problem with it. If you have a crappy job and you have less money your life will probably suck more. Screw healthcare what about contruction workers who trade their bodies for money. Or coal miners who trade their lungs and lives.
Maybe it is a knee-jerk libertarian reaction, but I certainly believe it's true. The reason for ridiculous health-care costs, in my opinion (backed up by many studies and personal experience), is that the health insurance companies, with the help of the federal government, have successfully moved the market forces away from the provider-customer relationship. I've told this experience before. I get seasonal allergies every Spring. It makes me miserable. I go to the clinic, they take blood to run tests, prescribe an antibiotic, and give me a steroid shot. When I had an HMO, I only paid my $50 co-pay out of my pocket, while my insurance company was billed about $350. Two years ago, my company began offering an unmanaged, high-deductible health insurance plan, with significantly cheaper premiums. When I went to the clinic for the same treatment, I told them that while it still needed to be filed on my insurance to count toward the deductible, I was paying cash. Without me asking, they eliminated unnecessary blood tests and only charged me $85. $265 of the bill that they had normally charged was for unnecessary tests that the clinic knew the insurance company wouldn't fight. I certainly think the system is broken, and we need a way to fix it. We have fair pricing laws in other industries, I would support that, especially if the Federal Government reduced the number of restrictions on kinds of insurance that could be offered. Instead of forcing insurance companies to provide "government approved" insurance plans, let them be inventive. Then force them to insure anyone who wants it at their flat price. Then, effectively, the whole country is the bargaining pool. All I know is that the more government involvement in healthcare, the less that the citizens are satisfied with it. To me, that's the most important part of the WHO study. As bad as our healthcare system is in the US, Americans are more satisfied with it than any other country, by a long shot. In the UK, my company has below average salaries, but it offers a private insurance that can be used for anything (not just what the NHS doesn't cover). Our employees there say that is more important than more money. Even so, if the Federal Government quit providing free healthcare today for anyone, we wouldn't see any more people go without treatment. Charities and local governments would pick up the slack. You have to believe in people to believe in freedom. I happen to believe in people.
Oh yeah, one other thing. We are up to our ears in debt in this country, and we've promised more retirement and medical coverage entitlements than we will ever be able to afford. We have got to cut enough out of the budget to cover that and pay down the debt before we ever think about offering more entitlements.
