So... the healthcare debate rages on. What should be done about the US healthcare system? Is Obama right, or should it be left alone - or reformed still further, NHS-style?
US healthcare should definitely not be left alone, like the Republicans want. Sure, some kind of free healthcare might cost a bit more tax, but its something that, if I were in America, I'd be totally willing to pay. Considering that the main anti argument seems to be that the NHS lets people die (something so much worse than refusing to treat them, obviously) I don't think there is any strong valid objection to free healthcare.
Here's a good objection to free healthcare.
With free healthcare, anyone can use it. This includes people who don't necessarily deserve it (Drunk people who've had fights, Drug addicts, criminals etc.), which means that people who do genuinely need medical care are forced to wait. This, essentially, means that time, money and drugs are wasted treating people who'll just be back in the same situation in a couple of days time.
But if they had the money they could use it anyway, pay-systems don't discriminate on grounds of worthiness any more than free systems. And a person who DID need it but DIDN'T have the money couldn't.
Most of the people who are in hospital for something trivial would be able to afford it... once of twice. I like to think of it as alcohol or tobacco; because they costs so much, people generally try to avoid them to save money. A pay-as-you-use hospital would have the same principle, and would discourage people from doing anything stupid that might earn them a trip to hospital.
I didn't say that hospitals discriminate based on worthiness. I said that because so many people are admitted to hospital for trivial matters that are mostly their own fault (Especially at weekends), hospital staff can't concentrate on patients who genuinely need their attention. Also, people like this are generally drunk and abusive, which makes the job of the staff even harder.
But then what do you do with the people who genuinely need help and can't afford it?
Health Insurance, same as in the US.
Health Insurance costs money... that's why 1/5 of Americans don't have it, they can't afford to pay
Quote from: "Jubal"Health Insurance costs money... that's why 1/5 of Americans don't have it, they can't afford to pay
Privatised healthcare is a bad idea at the core, instead of making people better hospitals/insurers have to worry about making money.
That means:
1) expensive patients are taken of cover for small reasons/given substandard treatment
2) anyone who has a family history will be given a massive price hike, through no fault of their own
3) patients are a product, the more treated in the shorter time the greater the profit
At least hospitals in America have money. It's my understanding that the government actually owes billions of pounds to the NHS.
Quote from: "Boyninja616"At least hospitals in America have money. It's my understanding that the government actually owes billions of pounds to the NHS.
the NHS isn't the way the proposed American healthcare system is to work, let alone the only example fo healthcare
(the NHS has an annual deposit of
Nor is it, of course, true that a well managed NHS system needs to have huge over-spending. Government needs to get smarter...
Scott Brown won!
What I don't understand is how people can be all for getting rid of manifestations of discrimination, and yet are in favour of a healthcare system that inadvertently discriminates against poor people.
F*** Massachusetts, frankly. :p
I think it's a tad odd that many Republicans, who are behind getting people to die for their country and being all patriotic, can't see the patriotism in giving a little more tax money so all of America will have fair and affordable healthcare. :ermm:
oh you boys...
:D
Can they do it? Can they do it?
No.
Why so?
(As in why CAN they not, rather than why SHOULD they not)
Because I say they can't. :D
As for why they shouldn't; it's simple: public opinion polls show that we citizens are against it by a majority. End o' story.
Whether it passes or not say goodbye to the Democrats in November. :sparta:
It passed. Republicans up in arms. World moves on.
Bollocks.
I have to say it'll be interesting to see if a majority are still against it by November. I'm thinking several people will be finding their healthcare bills shrink (or finding that the insurance comapnies will actually give them insurance for once) and thus will be feeling rather happier about things in a few months...
Bills might shrink, but taxes will go up higher, we are still paying for it and more regardless.
Ah, but for those who didn't have healthcare it could well be an improvement. Only time will tell; we kept our NHS, mind, and our system works better than yours (higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality certainly).
Quote from: "comrade_general"Bills might shrink, but taxes will go up higher, we are still paying for it and more regardless.
What's the problem? As long as the tax increases are smaller than the savings in healthcare bills.
Quote from: "Boyninja616"Quote from: "comrade_general"Bills might shrink, but taxes will go up higher, we are still paying for it and more regardless.
What's the problem? As long as the tax increases are smaller than the savings in healthcare bills.
Thats not how it works. Its not like ooh free health care hooray - that money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is ultimately our pockets.
I would be okay with helping the small percentage of people who
really need medical help, but having a significant percentage of my income taken away so someone with the sniffles can walk in to the ER and get a free diagnosis is not cool. Its not fair to the multitude of people who don't need that much coverage but will be forced to pay for it anyway. I'm doing just fine with my cheap insurance.
Yea, but companies in the US do tend to refuse people insurance on stupidly small health grounds which is knida unfair.
Doing something about that doesn't require forcing a healthcare overhaul through legislation that is disagreed upon and unwanted by the public.
How many of the public do disagree with the reforms? Are there stats available? And I'm talking nationwide, not just a certain state.
Nationwide I have not seen a poll where the opposition has dropped below 50% and I've seen as high as 75%. The support is usually around 30%.
As I say though, you may find that that changes in a few months as this becomes the norm.
I don't see anything that its going to do for me other than an eventual raise of my taxes. My insurance is already only $9 a paycheck. Aflaaaaack!
But you're young and presumably without any pre-existing conditions, so you're bound to get a good deal. You're a pretty low risk from the insurer's POV.
So then why would I want to change healthcare? I wouldn't thats why. I'll admit insurance companies can be a little stingy, but I would never be ok with the government dictating my medical needs. A person needs to worry about their own hide before anyone else's. I am not here to live for the good of the state. This is America; land of the free, home of the brave. Don't judge a book by its cover, and the cover on this place does make us look atrocious its true, but we are not all like the "America" you see on TV: 99.9% not I would say. Thank you.
:rant:
I was bored, big whoop wanna fight about it (http://bigwhoopwannafightaboutit.ytmnd.com/)? :D
QuoteA person needs to worry about their own hide before anyone else's.
But under the new law, while you're paying more in tax it doesn't actually decrease the amount of care you're getting. So in that sense your own hide is covered, so what's wrong with a small extra to help those around you?
My taxes are already being squandered to 'help' the unfortunates, its called welfare, and I've seen firsthand its ridiculousness.
The best way to put more money in people's wallets is to leave it there in the first place.
-Edwin Feulner
We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
-Milton Friedman
We have rights, as individuals, to give as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money.
-Davy Crockett
The greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regard as the public good.
-Fredrich August von Hayek
Welfare is what gives us better statistics on social deprivation, crime, health, and quite a few other things to the US despite you guys being the richer nation...
It's not a perfect system, but I prefer it to not having it. Friedman, Crockett, et al are all people who basically were comfortably off; people who do well in the US are of course happy with things. For people who do less well-paid jobs, have difficulties of once sort or another, suffer from discrimination, and so on... it's pretty clearly a worse system than the European ones. In the end it comes down to a value judgement of whether you'd rather share and avoid anyone being in a really bad state or whether you're happy to leave some people in a armadilloty state so some people can live lives of luxury. I don't think that the latter is morally defensible myself, so I have to go with the former. Besides, having a class of permanently unhappy/poor people in any society is a dangerous thing.
"If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all" - Will Durant
"All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it." - Ben Franklin
"If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Marx, Paine, Lenin, Jefferson were causes not results, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you foreve ito "I" and cuts you off forever from the "We"..." - John Steinbeck
You should see what these people do with the money once they have it. Don't think for a second that it is being used responsibly or efficiently; lottery tickets, cigarettes, alcohol, bingo (I'm not even kidding), cable, mountain dew, etc. and then when they need medication they whine to the government that they can't afford it. Food stamps are sold for half their worth so the selling individual can get the items formerly listed.
Ben Franklin was talking about taxes for public works, not giving away free money.
Which simply means that the government should increase the range of items that can be bought with stamps to include all basic necessities and no luxury items, and then outlaw their sale for money, which is the system I myself favour. There's no question that benefits should only be being spent on necessities rather than cigarettes and alcohol, I totally agree, but the problem in my opinion is the way the system is implemented (which I totally agree needs improvement, along the lines I just mentioned) and not the fundamental idea that welfare should exist to give necessary support to those who need it.
O/T, have you ever done the political compass test? I'd like to see where you come out on it.
It is illegal to sell the food stamps.
Sure, I'd be happy to take it. Where can I find it?
First post of the Religious/Political profile thread in this forum. :)
Nevertheless, I guarantee that if you made it significantly harder for people to sell the stamps (issue every long-term benefit holder a card without which they cannot use the stamps, for example) and expanded the uses of the stamps into areas such as basic clothing to avoid giving them so much actual money one could greatly improve the system. And systems do need to be imporved, but the very effective argument you have given for them needing to be improved doesn't to me show in any real way that their existence is unjustified.
I completely agree; I've come up with some of those ideas myself. And if we could be absolutely sure that it was being used for necessities then it would be justified. Even with those restrictions it is very hard to control, for example: welfare recipients have been known to use food stamps to buy stuff like raw hamburger to feed their pets (which they always seem to accumulate) because dog food isn't covered by the stamps.
Your left/right score; 1.38
Your lib/authoritarian score; -1.59
Your religion; atheist
What does it mean? fiik :) But I can see on the little graphic that no one else is represented in that lower right quadrant, and I am close to the middle. Hey, I just want my guns and low taxes. B)
I like this question from the test:
Those who are able to work, and refuse the opportunity, should not expect society's support.
I'm not a great fan of the test because it incorrectly tells me I'm a commie, but it's pretty good really. :P
Left/Right is taxation based; the further right, the less taxes and less government spending, the further left the more socialist. 1.38 is pretty centrist really, just a bit to the right (in short, you aren't into big government in any way but see the need for some taxing & spending for the benefit of society in general). Lib/Auth is basically the lower the more individual freedom, the higher the more state control over the individual, so -1.59 is accepting some state restriction on some things but generally being opposed to it. As for me, I'm VERY liberal and VERY leftwing on the test.
Back on topic;
It is hard to control, but tbh if people are feeding their pets rather than themselves it's more or less their own stupid lookout I guess. Of course one could even amend animal welfare laws to state that people had to have sufficient income to feed a pet to be allowed to own one and so on... but nevertheless I think that more or less concludes my argument on welfare. Currently I perfer our doing it badly to your not doing it, but doing it well is clearly the best long-term option in either situation.
Guns is another fun debate, but I suspect we should leave that for another thread. :D
So is that how you'd figure me to turn out, or am I not as right-wing-nut-job as you thought? ;)
Quote from: "Jubal"Guns is another fun debate, but I suspect we should leave that for another thread. :D
Why argue it, how 'bout you do what you do and I do what I do? :)
Nope, that's more or less my expectation. It may surprise you to learn that according to the guys who made that compass most politicians are actually to the right of their voters.
I don't feel the need to argue about guns, though I think America's gun control laws are looser than they need to be and suffer from a lot of misinterpretation by the NRA, etc. Some people in that organisation do seem to hold pretty dumb views, or at least that's what it looks like from this side of the pond. I'd feel less safe in the US I think, particularly in states where one can carry concealed weapons.
I just have to shake my head. You have no idea what its like to live here. If you come visit I'll be more than happy to show you around. :)
With all due respect.
Fair play on that; ditto/vice versa with the UK. I guess everything is affected by perspective, and people who seem to be arguing on opposite sides will often find that their underlying principles co-incide but are just worked out differently depending on their situation.
Anyhow... looks like Obama might've wrapped this up for us, until November at least.
Quote from: "Jubal"Anyhow... looks like Obama might've wrapped this up for us, until November at least.
Not really, this healthcare thing of his hasn't done anything at all, pretty much fizzled away.
I'm doing now what many have done for years; through the company I work for $10 bucks is taken out of every bi-monthly paycheck and I am fully insured against anything that might happen to me. What ungodly percentage is taken out of your paychecks?
I only meant wrapped it up as in actually passed the bill, even if it is a ***t bill.
And yeah, single healthy working people like you benefit from your current system. People who can't find work, or are old and poor, or are young with poor parents lose out. You measure a society by how it treats those who can't help themselves, not those who can.
I'm not going to work my butt off to help those who will abuse what they think they are owed.
Solution: fake Canadian IDs for all Americans! got a problem? us the free health care in Canada!
thats actualy from a Dave Chappelle skit lol.