Public Healthcare is Bad

[vanderbilt_grad]

Slow, last election I voted for two democrats and two republicans for the major offices. I lean left on some issues and right on others. Voting wise I generally try to decide who I think the best canidate for a given office is regardless of party.

 

[SLOW DECK]

Todd.. Many Democrats here in Chicago just voted twice. I think most people will agree that the country run's best with split powers between House, Senate, and the Presidency. I can't disagree with that. The health care vote basically changed the power of the person, and moved it back to the power of the party. A vote for a democrat for congress next election seems like a direct vote for Nancy Pelosi, and Nancy Pelosi staff having more power than that congressman.

Jeremy and Silly, you lost me when you quoted Jon Stewart. Your left wing hack jobs aren't any better than those right wing hacks. I won't be able to win a debate with 20 somethings. Once you guys pay the taxes I have paid, and seen and heard enough stuff from "REAL PEOPLE", you will get jaded also. You guys have spent most of your young lives "riding" on the wagon of this Country.... Not much time yet pushing the wagon.

 

[Jeremy Badeaux]

Todd.. Many Democrats here in Chicago just voted twice. I think most people will agree that the country run's best with split powers between House, Senate, and the Presidency. I can't disagree with that. The health care vote basically changed the power of the person, and moved it back to the power of the party. A vote for a democrat for congress next election seems like a direct vote for Nancy Pelosi, and Nancy Pelosi staff having more power than that congressman.

Jeremy and Silly, you lost me when you quoted Jon Stewart. Your left wing hack jobs aren't any better than those right wing hacks. I won't be able to win a debate with 20 somethings. Once you guys pay the taxes I have paid, and seen and heard enough stuff from "REAL PEOPLE", you will get jaded also. You guys have spent most of your young lives "riding" on the wagon of this Country.... Not much time yet pushing the wagon.

Or it could just be the Jon Stewart has more journalistic integrity than anybody on fox, msnbc, cnn, or any radio host. . . .

If you are incapable of winning a debate with 20 somethings, you might need to brush up on those debating skills a little bit. lol

You know what, you probably have paid more taxes than I have, seeing as how my money was tax-free while I was in Iraq. :thumb:
I don't expect anybody to say, "thank you for constantly flying air assaults and your unit directly causing a 60% drop in violence while you were in Iraq" or, "thank you for your unit flying more hours than any other unit, catching more high-value targets than any other unit, and doing such an awesome job at it that the army training and doctrine command decided to change their training to make units more like yours", or even a, "thank you for risking your life day in and day out so I don't have to", but if you're trying to claim that you've dealt with more,"REAL PEOPLE" or that you've done more for this country, you could not possibly have picked a worse person to pull that garbage with.

A co. 3-1 Blackcats of the 1st I.D., part of the Nightmare Battalion and the Demon Brigade.

Bubba, you might be able to pull that with 90% of the people on this forum, but I can assure you that your wargarble will have no effect on me.
I've seen things that will haunt me until the end of my days and my angry veteran-fu is very good, so I would give you a friendly warning that it isn't wise to play the, "IM A REEL MURIKAN" card with me.

Maybe if you had read any of my posts, you would realize that I don't like democrats at all and if the republican party wasn't using a domestic terrorist to lead the charge, I would probably be pulling for the republicans.
Let me guess, you ignored those news stories because facts are known to have a liberal bias?

Chicago is known for voter fraud (plenty of voters that show up for years and years after they died), but if you honestly think that Democrats are the only ones who do it, then you are the same as all of the Palin-Americans waving poorly-worded signs at protests.

That's right, the power was taken away from the people, it's a good thing Bush never did anything like that (if he did, I'm sure he would have called it some sort of, "Patriot Act" so the REEL MURIKANS would know it was patriotic). :thumb:

To explain to the uneducated, the Jon Stewart quote came from an episode of the Daily Show where he spoofed Glen Beck.
His understanding was that since, according to right-wingers, any support of any sort of government regulation means that the person must support the most extreme possible instance of government intrusion, the same logic could also be applied to the invasive violation of personal rights by the republicans.

Since logic is hard to come by, how about another story?
http://www.texastribune.org
This time, a republican stepped in to stop a private party from putting on a privately-funded play, because he found it to be religiously offensive.
Freedom of speech only means anything to Republicans if they agree with the speech.

If you want to talk about taking the power from the people, you better be able to defend your hero's actions of stripping people of their civil liberties as well.
I'm sure this will be ignored as well, seeing as how reality does have a liberal bias. :lol:

EDIT: I voted for McCain, but I know plenty of republicans who just didn't want Palin anywhere near the white house.

P.S. I was going to leave it be, but you wanted to push your luck, so I'll go ahead and point out that if the thing about taxing hard work is true, then where the heck did, "trickle down economics" come from?
Seriously, giving tax breaks/more money to people who are rich because they don't spend money was going to help the economy how?
Taxing the little guy more so the big guy doesn't have to, "push the wagon" at all FTW?

I guess that's why when Bush ended his second term, America was going through a time of prosperity unlike anything we had ever seen and the economy magically imploded the exact moment Obama was sworn in?

Also, nothing Obama has created has the, "power of the party" that Bush created by giving the government the ability to lock you up without any charges, without any right to legal counsel, and they could keep you as long as they wanted to.

 

[ryanvergel]

the preamble might not be cited as justification for a new law, but it does refer to the purpose of government, and this law fits the purpose of the government, so i feel it is necessary and thus justified.

i love the intent of this movement and set of laws. it is very far from perfect, but i think it is an excellent step forward, and can always be changed- but it is a great start so far.

if we have to reorganize society, or perhaps go through tough times or big reforms in order to bring about a fundamental purpose of the government, then so be it. the civil war cost countless lives, but it established a fundamental purpose of the government that was once being ignored.

the government and laws serve us, not the other way around. if the laws don't allow for a way to enact something fundamental and necessary, then like the forefathers wrote, we have the right to reject it:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

this form of government doesn't allow for the taking up of resources and their allocation? um, taxes, and every other public program? roads, schools, etc? this is something new, but similar. if it doesn't allow for this particular type, and we deem what is not allowed necessary and fundamental, then we reject the current laws and alter them- in this case by introducing this law despite the inadequacy of the constitution to acknowledge this need.

we probably should have amended the constitution or something first, but maybe it come afterward anyways.

 

[Jeremy Badeaux]

That's very true Mr. Vergel.
Even though it is far from perfect, it is a great step in the right direction.

Honestly, after I got out of the military, somebody hit us and totaled our car (I was lucky that my car had a 4-star safety rating and likely saved my wife's life).
After the insurance claim was filed, my wife and I found that even though we had enough money set aside, we suddenly had to budget for another car (can't be jobhunting in California without a car) and found ourselves considering that we might not be able to afford to get checked out by a doc.

A couple of days later, my wife had a burning pain in her stomach and I remembered something, so I checked through my car insurance policy, and luckily, I had about 5k of medical coverage on my policy so we were able to get my wife checked out (I have medical training and the VA hospitals that I can use).

It's a very real problem that happens to more people than anybody thinks.
They simply can't afford to get sick, or get injured.
Nobody should have to suffer because they don't have enough money to help the doc get a 2nd country club membership.

Were you aware that doctors all have their own fees?
No less than five different doctors (not specialists, but regular docs, from the same section) saw my wife before there was any attempt to help her.
I'm sure the bill will have fees from every one of those docs who introduced themselves, asked my wife how she was feeling, and then walked away and never came back (I made sure to warn my insurance company about that one).

Doctors scam the system too and they had the incredibly broken system helping them do it.

Some of the bill definitely needs to be fixed, but the health industry has been in dire need of some form of regulation for a long, long time.

 

[SLOW DECK]

Jeremy you service in Iraq meant you weren't sitting on the wagon for a free ride. Thanks.

Jeremy yes, medical saftey net is needed by all. But this plan is ripe with sweetheart deals for Doctors(AMA), Pharms companies, and even insurance companies. The Unions got 5 BILLION dollars out of this bill to pay for the UNIONS medical insurance costs. Do I as a Taxpayer get a union card now that I payed my share of that 5 BILLION dollars? BTW, my share is $200 of that union give away.

I am happy that we aren't in single payer system yet. This plan is, could it be something that helps people. Yes, I don't mind that part. Strip out the special interest money that finds it way into every bill, could be a new livable norm. Doctors scam the current system and they will definitely scam the next system.

What is next? New taxes to save the enviroment?

Regarding your if the other driver is at fault, your wife would have a legal action against the other drivers or their insurance company, or your own UM/UIM coverage. Your own medical pay is great. I hope she get's back to 100%.

 

[vanderbilt_grad]

Slow, can taxes be too high? Of course. Are they too high now? That’s actually a very interesting question. By historical standards both our individual production & wealth are at an all time high while our taxes are relatively low. Bronze Age peasants frequently had absurd "tax rates" for example.

Economists frequently cite lower relative tax rates as being one of the things that lead to greater production in the modern age. However the taxes we do pay have also pretty much created new industries themselves. Without the publicly paid for roads we wouldn’t have much of a trucking industry would we? Similarly aerospace would be far behind where it is without government spending from the military and NASA. The bottom line is that these interactions are complex and not easily modeled by a relatively simple “wagon” story.

My personal issue with national taxes is that we rarely seem to reexamine laws. Subsidies to farmers made sense when we were trying to save the small family farms. IMHO they make less sense now that we have mostly big agribusiness. Yet meaningful reform rarely gets talked about. I wish that all non-constitutional federal laws had an automatic sunset. I had that thought frequently while reading Washington Waste from A to Z back in the 90s. The relative “nickel & dime” from hundreds of old laws really adds up over time. Stopping services that are no longer needed is one area where the government seems to fails most of the time, and sadly that’s true for both parties. The Republicans have their pet spending that they don’t want cut just as much as the Democrats have theirs. The modern Republicans have also felt free to add to government spending as well.

Just as a quick aside, many businesses are really bad at this too. I worked at a major energy company back in the early days of deregulation. They were having their third round of layoffs while I was there and they essentially had every department cut 10% of the workforce. There was no examination of what areas of the company were making the most money, had the most work, or were reducing overall costs the most. There was no discussion of cutting function X or Y and reducing cost that way. Instead everyone, even the most productive units, had to cut folks. It was dumb, but that’s the kind of mentality that seems common to the human condition.

Anyway to answer your rhetorical question about Environmental taxes my answer would be yes, I could see that being OK … but I probably wouldn’t support it without meaningful reduction of costs, & thus taxes, in other areas. I personally worry about the environment, not just because of what you might see in the news, but because of longer term trends and historical precedents such as what happened to the Easter Islands when the natives cut down their last trees long before the arrival of the Europeans. Our modern leaps in technology, production, and raw numbers has given us an unparalleled control over the Earth. The technology and production has enabled us to avoid the Malthusian cycles that plagued all other agricultural civilizations in earlier ages ... but if we crash it will be a worldwide crash unlike any other this time. If spending money on the environment can be done responsibly (i.e. reducing costs elsewhere) and proven to have cost effective benefits that will prevent this then I pretty much have to be for it given my understanding of history from the agricultural age on.

 

[Jeremy Badeaux]

Jeremy you service in Iraq meant you weren't sitting on the wagon for a free ride. Thanks.

Unfortunately, you prefer black and white analogies.
Since I paid no taxes in Iraq, I wasn't pushing the wagon, therefore I must have been dead weight on the wagon.
The situation can't jump between "black & white" and, "shades of gray" whenever you need it to. :tongue:

Jeremy yes, medical saftey net is needed by all. But this plan is ripe with sweetheart deals for Doctors(AMA), Pharms companies, and even insurance companies. The Unions got 5 BILLION dollars out of this bill to pay for the UNIONS medical insurance costs. Do I as a Taxpayer get a union card now that I payed my share of that 5 BILLION dollars? BTW, my share is $200 of that union give away.

I know it's chock full of sweetheart deals.
I don't think anybody has any question about who decided they should slip in that little gem for mandatory health insurance.

Unfortunately, politicians need their bribes (because by giving money to their district instead of putting it into their pockets it doesn't count as vote tampering).
We gave groups of people the power to give themselves more power and even the power to give themselves raises whenever they feel like it.
All politicians are dirty (with very few exceptions).

During the last election, somebody told me, "but Obama is somebody we can trust" and I explained that nobody makes it to a presidential election by being somebody people can trust.
I don't like that Obama's answer to everything (including allegations about the church services he sat through) is, "I didn't know".
At this point, he's either a horrible liar or a complete idiot.
At the same time, he did actually have strings attached to his bailout package (as opposed to Bush giving away money to pay for exec parties).

No matter what flaws are in the HCR bill, at least somebody other than a politician can benefit from the rest of the bill.
To be completely honest, I think the HCR was complete overkill because the only thing we needed in the first place was some basic regulations for the health insurance industry.
I personally feel that the execs of the health insurance companies should be facing manslaughter or negligent homicide charges for every person that died because they were fraudulently denied coverage in order to increase the company's profits.

Regarding your if the other driver is at fault, your wife would have a legal action against the other drivers or their insurance company, or your own UM/UIM coverage. Your own medical pay is great. I hope she get's back to 100%.

That's all well and good in candyland, where I don't need insurance for my unicorn, but in the real world, I can't afford to wait however many weeks for our overly bureaucratic courts and insurance companies to sort everything out before I go to another job interview.

Oh well, I have a feeling that HCR is going to be Obama's, "Mission Accomplished". :lol:

 

[PokemanFan4Life]

I applaud your satire Pat460, although I find it almost, but not quite as good as Jon Stewert's impression on GB, it doesn't seem like a complete apples to apples comparison. For instance, the government doesn't mandate by law that you purchase a certain food item. Not to mention that(as PokePop and Jeremy Badeaux, and maybe others have pointed out), the government stepping in and requiring citizens, by law, to purchase a service and/or good from a private company is a little troubling. Although I do agree with the idea not just letting go without insurance and then getting it as soon as they need a major operation, which is just as bad as the doctors scamming the system as far as I'm concerned.

I do like some of the things the bill does. For instance, children should've never been denied coverage due to preexisting conditions.

I think blame for the bill not being better lies with both parties. The Republicans for unreasonably wanting everything o start over from scratch, and the Democrats for criticizing the Republicans for their lack of support on the bill, while at the same time being unwilling to incorporate any Republican ideas(some of which, even President Obama said he liked).

I'm new to the boards, so I'm not really familiar with any of these posters yet, but just from observing this thread, I was wondering something. Jeremy Badeaux, do you just try to word posts so as to get a maximum possible reaction without actually blatantly "trolling"? No offense meant either way, just the wording/style/tone of your posts makes me wonder. lol

"Oh well, I have a feeling that HCR is going to be Obama's, "Mission Accomplished"."
I'm not sure about that one. Wasn't the HCR supposed to be Obama's "Waterloo"?

To finish up for now, just an observation for the first two pages, and a little off the original topic. I've noticed a few "Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:", but #25 and #26 in this topic are by the same poster. Is it alright to double post, or was there just a glitch in the system, or something else?

Just my two cents.

 

[Arcanine/Arbok Master]

If you make a post right after another, it gets fused into one post. If you wait for awhile and then post again, however, it will be 2 separate posts.

 

[thatcharizardguy]

Here’s a small edit, with examples from my every day life as a US citizen:


Every morning I am awoken by my alarm clock built by a privately owned company powered by electricity generated by the local power company, which is taxed by the power monopoly that is the US department of energy. I then take a shower in the water sanitized by a privately developed method, which was then contracted out by the government due to it’s success. This water is provided by the local water utility, which is regulated by the government. After that, I turn on my T.V. to one of the FCC regulated channels so that I can only watch programs that are considered politically correct by a committee of government bureaucrats. I try to watch congress on C-SPAN, but unfortunately, the “most ethical congress ever” passes it’s bills late at night and on the weekends, so that the public can not see the debate between congress members and the results of voting. I watch this while eating my breakfast of cereal made by a privately owned company with grains from privately owned farms and taking drugs manufactured by privately owned pharmaceutical companies. Since these food and drugs are so well made, they have been approved by the USDA and FDA.

At the appropriate time that I have figured out from my own personal experience, I get into my vehicle that was well built by a privately owned company, and because of this, it has national highway traffic safety approval. I set out to school on the roads built well by a privately owned construction company, but designed poorly by a civil engineer paid by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, which leads me into a hour long traffic jam. I am now out of gas, so I stop to buy fuel of a quality determined that has been found to be most efficient in my vehicle, and then approved by the environmental protection agency. I have to use a significant amount of legal tender, since it’s value has been lowered due to overregulation and inflation by the federal reserve bank, and also because of the 54 cent per gallon gas tax imposed by the state of Washington. The money from this gas tax is supposed to be used only for repairing and rebuilding of roads, however, due to conflicts between state, federal and local governments, this money is unable to actually be dedicated to any meaningful project. Since I am now already late to school I stop by the post office to check and see if I got any mail sent out via the US postal service, and deposit any mail I need to have sent. The only mail I have received is my taxes from the IRS, which even apply to 16 year olds who work part time jobs. I want to mail something also, however, I realize that I spent most of my money on gas, and the price for stamps has risen. I decide to just mail the one package I can afford to send, but the line at the service desk is extremely long, despite the large amount of staff employed at the office. I decide to go to the UPS store, where there is no line, and I also pick up my Pokémon cards I ordered earlier, using UPS as my delivery service since they are much faster than the postal service AND ship seven days a week. I get to my public school where all of the books are outdated and test scores are low. Almost everyone at my school can apply for the governments free lunch program, but the food tastes horrible and is only in small portions. There are national standards for education, however, there is no punishment for teachers and districts that do no meet these, so the school continues struggle and not meet national averages, which are lower than those of private schools. There are several fights between different gangs, which the lone police officer on campus is unable to stop. At least it is not as bad where I live as it is in Seattle, where Rainier Beach can’t play against Garfield because of tensions between South End and Central District Gangs.

I loaned my car to a close friend, so I take the metro home, witnessing several more fights between drug addicts, as well as other criminal behavior. I get off at the metro station, which has become a haven for crime since it was built a few years ago. You would think the violence and open air drug dealing would be stopped, but since it is the county transit system, the city police say that the county sheriff is responsible, but since it is in city lines, the county says it is a city problem. Instead of making a decision, or working together, the government run organizations continue to argue with each other, and crime continues to increase. I return home where my house hasn’t burned down not just because it rains constantly in Washington, but also because it was well built by a private contractor, to standards that are much more modern and safe than the irrelevant minimums the government mandates. Because of my security system monitored by a private company, and the signs I bought from a sign company that declare I own and will use guns against any and all trespassers (guns made well, by a privately owned company) the local thugs and thieves know not to try my house. Because people are moving away from my town because of the high taxes, there is now a budget deficit, and the city council, in their infinite wisdom, decided to cut the police force to only one officer on duty at a time, instead of cutting their multiple personal secretaries. The police had nothing to do with the fact that no one broke into my home.

I then log onto the internet which was developed by the military during the Cold War, a war against socialist and communist nations that supported things like high taxes and socialized medicine, a war that we, a capitalist nation, won. I look at Fox news and read what I couldn’t find out on CSPAN: that a government run healthcare program has been passed, a program that will increase taxes immediately, but not actually give benefits until 2014.….

The government is not a source of help or innovation. They did not invent cereal, guns, cars gas, paper, mail or computers. All the government does is test and tax these things. Their testing methods were developed by scientists and researchers over many years, not by politicians or government paid committees who approve vehicles and breakfast cereal. Even then, the government’s approval is often biased to support the people currently in power and their agenda and friends, not the people.

And the truth is Pat, even if everything the government did was perfect (which obviously, nothing the government, or anyone does is), that wouldn’t mean that healthcare is a good idea. Delivering mail and examining Cheerios for Vitamin A content cannot be compared to the money and health of millions of people. Just because one thing done by the government kind of works doesn’t mean everything will. Just because Gyarados top cuts at tournaments across the nation does not mean that a Tentacool deck will win worlds just because they are both of the water type. I appreciate your need to voice your opinion, especially in a way that did not insult or belittle anyone, but that does not stop your stance (also the stance of many others) from being uninformed and incorrect. Socialized medicine will fail the people of the United States, just as it has failed many other people in many different countries

 

[Cyrus]

Haven't posted in this thread for many weeks - many even a month or two. However, after much time to reflect on the issue, I agree with Ryan: the ball rolling will ultimately be a good thing.

My reason for believing this might be different, though, since I am confident that when Republicans make their gains in the House and the Senate this November, the 2010 Health Care bill will be edited in a majorly good way.

Give me substantive tort reform, as well as elimination of the most absurd measures (e.g., the ones that literally buy off the support of congessmen), and you've got much of the "real" problem solved already.

 

[pat460]

@charizardguy- Sure, just because government does some things right, it does not mean that they will do everything right. Thats not why I think public healthcare is a good idea. you say that the government is not a source of innovation, but we arent trying to innovate anything. We are trying to imitate other country's successful public healthcare systems, though it will take a while to get there.

My basic thoughts on it the issue, before I even really looked into it or learned about it still stands, and that is that private healthcare failed, so we should try public. If it fails worse, we can just go back to private, or maybe meet in the middle or something.

 

[SLOW DECK]

If it fails worse, we can just go back to private, or maybe meet in the middle or something.

Wow, that is so wrong. What country has ever gone backwards on entitlements, absent of revolution or bankruptcy. The current plan isn't a single payer plan, but it set ups the future to be very difficult for private plans to succeed.

My crystal ball makes me think that The current health care bill is structured to put the private insurance plans in a financial untolerable situation. It starts with higher costs to those plans, insufficient "federal" subsidies to those plans for high risk patients, then "federal" goverment "denial" of premium increases to cover higher costs, then bankruptcy of the insurance plans and market failure, (Ala mortgage crisis) then there will be suggested only solution to health care is the single payer goverment health care. The only thing the democrats don't have control over is that they won't be in power when this meltdown will occur. But the melt down has been scripted.

 

[pat460]

Wow, that is so wrong. What country has ever gone backwards on entitlements, absent of revolution or bankruptcy. The current plan isn't a single payer plan, but it set ups the future to be very difficult for private plans to succeed.

Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't, but I do see what you mean. It would be hard to do.

 

[NoPoke]

Wow, that is so wrong. What country has ever gone backwards on entitlements, absent of revolution or bankruptcy. The current plan isn't a single payer plan, but it set ups the future to be very difficult for private plans to succeed.

err.. in Europe. Healthcare used to be fully private. State sponsored health reforms eventually led to the introduction of universal healthcare funded out of taxes (insurance payments) Some time later a private healthcare system grows up that short circuits the state system to provide a faster service for the less serious cases. The private healthcare system cherry picks and dumps the hard and expensive healthcare on the National service. I don't damn private healthcare for that, it has a role to play just as state healthcare has demonstrated that it too serves a valuable role. Healthcare costs have increased as the population demands and expects more, so the initial insurance based model had to be supplemented with monies from general taxation.

Both systems (in the UK) are now under a lot of financial stress due in no small part to increased levels of litigation. The lawyers will be the death of us

 

[Lucario-Master]

Also, we need to elect a 3rd party to office because the Ds and the Rs are way too comfortable right now.

There are other partys but they are mostly crazy and even the ones that make sense will most certinly never get into power because america is too stupid to look at things other then 2 sides, black and white (no pun intended) or at least there parts as white (good) and the other as black(evil) and no Obama is not evil.
Now I do beleave that there should be a 3rd major party like in many other counterts (canada) so that there is a left side, a middle and a right, instead of just extream one way or extream the other, then again all of canadas partys act like they are in the middle to please everyone but nothing ever gets done in a minority government because the french cant vote for someone who isn't french and they take up alot of votes.
So maybe just 2 sides are good but then again when the power shifts from one side to the other most of the time the side in power will just waste its time getting rid of everything the other party left behind, AND even when obama is in power and is suppost to be helping the normal every day people he isn't doing anything because the rich republicins on wall street have soo many connections that if he dosn't do what they say then $@*! will start hitting the fan and it will be blamed all on him.
So in conclution if you want to get anything done and solve the problem of money issues with the middle/lower and health care we should get rid of obama and institute a communist dictator, heck it wont be that hard to do, we can just borrow some ideas from our friends right next to us called Cuba:biggrin:
All in Favor say "I":thumb: