Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick

[Noruas]

I wonder: why do people actually give a shit if America reforms its health care and suddenly lots of illegal immigrants and foreigners start using it? If they're in your country, and they get sick, they're going to spread it to other people IN YOUR COUNTRY. And if they're so outlandishly rich they can afford a plane fare just to get a procedure done, be assured there won't be very many of them dragging the system down so stop being so damn selfish just for the sake of being selfish.

I can't believe what I just read, moving on.

I arrived at 5, and left at 8. Three hours. I'll have results back in a week and a half. The only thing that ever came out of my wallet was a health card.

Wow, your bragging about that? Psh. Anyone else want to tell their selfish little story of how God saved their lives? Whoopie!

Study by the Commonwealth Fund found that 57% of Canadians reported waiting 4 weeks or more to see a specialist, broadly in line with the current official statisitics; 24% of Canadians waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room. Thats terrible!

Canadian government also predicts that they will spend an average of 5,170 U.S. dollars on each person and rising while as of now they pay about 54 dollars per month for their health care card! In one year you will spend 648 American Dollars, so in 50 years you will pay 32,400 dollars which is not even the life expectancy. You would still lose 27,000 dollars. Why the huge excess per person? isn't that overkill?
That doesn't even bring in Canadians going to America or Mexico, or other private industries to spend more money to elimate waiting times.

As for what Licho said, free healthcare, there ain't such thing as a free meal. You don't know what you are talking about.


I rather die eating all the good shit I want than live a few years longer working for someone else.

[tombom]

compare individual spending on health and government spending on health

Here, I'll make it easier for you. Individual spending:
US: $3371
Australia: $1017
Canada: $916
Sweden: $532
United Kingdom: $397

Government spending on healthcare:
US: $2887
Australia: $2106
Canada: $2338
Sweden: $2468
United Kingdom: $2372

Yes, you really get a great deal.

Also FA is you get cancer or something expensive like that I'm pretty sure your insurance company would drop you, or at least wouldn't pay out. (Unless you're really lucky and work for a select few companies)

[SpikedHelmet]

Wow, your bragging about that? Psh. Anyone else want to tell their selfish little story of how God saved their lives? Whoopie!

God had nothing to do with it. It was all Karl Marx.

[Noruas]

I'm tired of trying to argue, its not my job, so instead I'll try a different tactic to make you understand.

Meet Ron Paul, if you never heard of him, hes your worse nightmare.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul566.html

[Forboding Angel]

a bunch of stuff I didn't read

I stopped reading when you said fox news because, I don't watch fox news nor listen to it either. I don't care for large media outlets such as tv news or newspapers. Generally if I want news I'll listen to the news on the radio.

Seriously, why does everyone who thinks that socalized medicine is a good idea try to paint everyone who disagrees with them as a nutjob?

Free is never free. Freedom isn't free, and neither is free health care. Also, it made national new the other day (read abc nbc etc) that the obama administration did a survey which came back with worse results on national healthcare than the heritage foundation's results. What did the freedom of information democrats do? Cover it up. That is until that pesky freedom of information act forced them to release it. Gotta hate that pesky bugger. Funny enough, after it was reported, it was buried very quickly.

[KDR_11k]

Wow, your bragging about that? Psh. Anyone else want to tell their selfish little story of how God saved their lives? Whoopie!

God had nothing to do with it. It was all Karl Marx.

Don't be silly, it was Otto von Bismarck.

[Das Bruce]

Otto von Bismarck was Hitlers half brother!

[Licho]

Re wait times:

It probably depends..
For some specialists there are waiting times too, but depending on the severity you skip queues. When I had cancer suspicious issues they always sent me in first not having to wait at all.

If its something common, like worse eyesight you always have 2 choices - you either order with specialist (then you can wait even weeks depending how busy given person is) or you just walk there and wait in place (which is more annoying but many people still do so).

As for emergency room - I never had any issue there, I went to emergency 3x and there were no waiting times at all.

And I don't see how privatised healthcare makes it any better.. It just depends on the number of doctors you have and that depends on overal country spending not on whether its privatised/state.

[Caydr]

Oh no, some portion of your tax money will go to reduce the number of people who die needlessly, WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE SAVE THE CHILDREN?! (wait, I think that's the point actually)

4 weeks to see a specialist? In what scenario? I had to wait that long or longer when I went to see a dermatologist when I was like 13 or something, big deal. If you're actually in any kind of risk, you get prioritized. My mother has a condition she's had to wait months to see a specialist for because it's so rare. It was worsening so she went to see our family doctor again and she told him she felt it was urgent, he agreed, she saw the specialist two days later. She's not exactly a shining example of health either, and yet there was no death panel either.

And 4 hours in the emergency room? What do you think these "emergency" cases are? More often than not, people who go to "emergency" just people who don't have a free clinic in their area, or else it's after hours. There's not a life-and-death situation. If there WAS any risk to the individual they would be taken care of much more quickly. So you wait 4 hours because you have an earache. Big deal. What's important is that you aren't questioning yourself, "is it worth going to the doctor or should I just hope it goes away on its own?"

I apologize for pointing out stereotypes, but perhaps you are confusing the kind of "emergency room" cases you might see more often in an American city with the ones that you see more often in Canadian cities. Our crime rate makes yours look like there's been a nonstop nationwide civil war for the last hundred years. It's a bad day in Canada when someone has a runny nose. The last time someone had a cold we flew all our flags at half-mast for 7 years. It's a garden utopia. I'm exaggerating slightly - the garden is actually permafrost for 9/10 of the country.

"Socialized" is a word kind of like "Pro-Life" or "Pro-Choice". It associates a stigma with a concept to make people who can't be bothered to research the subject think that it's somehow much worse or better than it really is. Anyone can say they're "Pro-Choice", it's easier to say that than "I WANT KILL BABIEZ!!!11". The hardcore Ron Paul types (yes, I was familiar with him previously and I actually agree with him in a few ways), as well as fear-mongers like Fox News and other 24 hour "manufactured news" networks like to use these kinds of words a lot.

So let's give the "I WANT KILL BABIEZ!!!1" definition of socialized health care: Everyone chips in so less people get sick and die.

So what are you, "Pro-Death" or a dirty "Socialist"?

~~~~

Taking another approach, I would like to point out that even Ron Paul thinks that some things need to be government-run - the military for example. Presumably he also wants education to be part of the state. And perhaps he would feel it wise to have some regulations in effect to prevent the US from turning into China in terms of the environment, pollution, drinking water safety, etc.

If that seems reasonable to you, then why is drinking water considered a necessity but not the most basic medical care? Some people just can't afford to finance insurance executives the way you apparently can, the same way that not everyone can just dig a well and get their own clean water.

You need a military to protect your citizens and your sovereignty. You need safe food and water. You need education. But health is too much? Can you please tell me how you justify this position? As a person who has lived under what are apparently horrific conditions all my life, I am - seriously - taken aback by the skepticism about public health care, and I would like to hear your reasoning, backed by verifiable research, that your position is more cost-effective and beneficial for the citizenry at large.

I apologize if you felt I was implying you were dumb or something when I compared your views to those which are publicized by Fox News, but... frankly the stuff the "anti-healthcare" people here are saying is like tuning in to Glenn Beck or some other doofus.

Public health care is something that is in place in many developed countries, it's not a new concept or one that's been demonstrated to be anything but beneficial. The American health care system spends more money per citizen on health care than most any other country in the world, and yet simultaneously its citizens ALSO spend more on health care than any other country in the world. To top it all off, American insurance companies obscenely profitable and continually raise their premiums. What part of this spells out "best in the world" to you, or "not in need of reform"?

[KDR_11k]

To elaborate, Otto von Bismarck was decidedly anti-socialist, he was a liberal who even passed laws that banned socialist parties and such but mounting pressure saw him realize that the social programs may be necessary and he picked them carefully to make sure they maximize productivity. It's kinda funny to me that the current US is even more right-wing (anti-social pressure from the population?) than the German Empire.

[Caydr]

Seriously can we have a few real in-depth posts from the opposing view please? It's absolutely true that I haven't heard the other side of the story as much as I probably should, given how sure I am that it's wrong.

Also, something just occurred to me. Perhaps some of you are against public health care because you haven't considered that the health insurance you get through your work is, in fact, costing you money even though you're not actually "paying" for it. A big chunk of money comes off your paycheck to give you that insurance, but it's transparent to you because one employer might offer $20 an hour with no benefits while another might offer $17.50 an hour with benefits. And while that other employer might give you a raise to $21 at one point in time, the other employer might not be able to afford to give you a raise because your health care premium just went up again.

Just throwing that out there... in case maybe it hasn't been thought of.

~~~~

KDR: You have stuck with that avatar for a very long time and I am proud of you.

[JohannesH]

To elaborate, Otto von Bismarck was decidedly anti-socialist, he was a liberal who even passed laws that banned socialist parties and such but mounting pressure saw him realize that the social programs may be necessary and he picked them carefully to make sure they maximize productivity. It's kinda funny to me that the current US is even more right-wing (anti-social pressure from the population?) than the German Empire.

He didnt do them to maximize productivity, plan was to gain popularity and make people more dependent on government iirc.

[SpikedHelmet]

So what are you, "Pro-Death" or a dirty "Socialist"?

Communists are both!

[tombom]

To elaborate, Otto von Bismarck was decidedly anti-socialist, he was a liberal who even passed laws that banned socialist parties and such but mounting pressure saw him realize that the social programs may be necessary and he picked them carefully to make sure they maximize productivity. It's kinda funny to me that the current US is even more right-wing (anti-social pressure from the population?) than the German Empire.

To expand on this, many of the more radical left wing consider FDR a really evil person because he prevented capitalism collapsing due to lack of confidence during the great depression. Capitalism and socialism are different economic systems, pretty much every western country is decidedly capitalist.

Communists are both!

haha i love you spiked

[BaNa]

In what context can Bismark be called a liberal?

Wasnt he more like... ultra-conservative?

To elaborate, Otto von Bismarck was decidedly anti-socialist, he was a liberal

[Caydr]

You're forgetting that in Germany, "Liberal" and "Conservative" are apparently interchangeable. Germany has two main political parties, the Liberal-Conservative party (commie trash) and the Conservative-Liberal party (right-wing lunatics).

[Peet]

http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.23357

[Caydr]

http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10544

[Das Bruce]

In what context can Bismark be called a liberal?

Wasnt he more like... ultra-conservative?

To elaborate, Otto von Bismarck was decidedly anti-socialist, he was a liberal

America has it's own magical system of naming political stances to have barely any relevence to what they are.

[BaNa]

In what context can Bismark be called a liberal?

Wasnt he more like... ultra-conservative?

To elaborate, Otto von Bismarck was decidedly anti-socialist, he was a liberal

America has it's own magical system of naming political stances to have barely any relevence to what they are.

thing is, kdr is german...