You'd be surprised at how little we actually know about different diseases and health care problems.SwiftSpear wrote: The reality is, you would have to be a professor to make an intelligent decision, so have the Government hire a professor to do just that.
We're talking about an issue of basic health and well being here, It's a right to live, and a right to not have to compete beyond reasonable means to simply stay alive in my opinion. Anything less is destruction of the lower class, and unethical for ANY society, under my judgement anyways.
Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Moderator: Moderators
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Forboding, sorry if I offended you, I'm not trying to force my opinion on you. I am ignorant of the many inner workings of your political process and health care system, but I don't think that this prevents me from commenting on the issues I am aware of. One does not need to go to law school to determine that shooting somone is a bad thing.
What I wanted to express was that sooner or later, even if it's not you yourself, someone you know will get sick. They will need a service to be provided in order for them to keep on living, and they will either lose everything they have in order to keep living, or suffer and/or die unnecessarily. Restricting one's mere ability to stay alive is, to my limited knowledge, something that would be deemed "un-American".
To me, there is no amount of "freedom and liberty" rhetoric that can address the fact that one cannot use their hard-earned freedom and liberty if they're dead. If a person becomes seriously ill, freedom is a worthless concept. Whether you're dying while in the chains of slavery or dying while being burned at the stake, you're still dying. Where's the freedom come in? Where is the justice and liberty in letting someone die because they decided to buy food that month instead of paying the ever-rising insurance bill? Or they were born with a disorder that raises their mortality rate, disqualifying them from even purchasing insurance in the first place?
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I think the idea of passing one monolithic reform bill was a mistake. It's like when you're submitting a bug report: You submit each bug individually so that they can be addressed and organized individually.
Instead it's all-or-nothing with the crap getting grouped in with the good, giving the... let's say, media personalities, ammunition to say that an entire idea is good or bad.
The bill, in its current form, has many improvements, but I would be happier for my American friends if the whole thing was taken back to formula. "What can we actually agree is a good idea?" and go from there, make a series of bills gradually patching the problem.
Unfortunately, it is much more politically savvy to say "look at this amazing huge thing I just did!" than "look at this huge project we started, probably two presidents down the line (HE MIGHT BE A DIRTY REPUBLICAN AND TAKE CREDIT FOR ALL OUR WORK, THAT HYPOTHETICAL BASTARD!!) things will really start to take shape."
Fixing problems is so much simpler in Fallout 3. And with that, I'm off to look into the history of Rivet City. Spoiler: I'm on a boat.
What I wanted to express was that sooner or later, even if it's not you yourself, someone you know will get sick. They will need a service to be provided in order for them to keep on living, and they will either lose everything they have in order to keep living, or suffer and/or die unnecessarily. Restricting one's mere ability to stay alive is, to my limited knowledge, something that would be deemed "un-American".
To me, there is no amount of "freedom and liberty" rhetoric that can address the fact that one cannot use their hard-earned freedom and liberty if they're dead. If a person becomes seriously ill, freedom is a worthless concept. Whether you're dying while in the chains of slavery or dying while being burned at the stake, you're still dying. Where's the freedom come in? Where is the justice and liberty in letting someone die because they decided to buy food that month instead of paying the ever-rising insurance bill? Or they were born with a disorder that raises their mortality rate, disqualifying them from even purchasing insurance in the first place?
---
I think the idea of passing one monolithic reform bill was a mistake. It's like when you're submitting a bug report: You submit each bug individually so that they can be addressed and organized individually.
Instead it's all-or-nothing with the crap getting grouped in with the good, giving the... let's say, media personalities, ammunition to say that an entire idea is good or bad.
The bill, in its current form, has many improvements, but I would be happier for my American friends if the whole thing was taken back to formula. "What can we actually agree is a good idea?" and go from there, make a series of bills gradually patching the problem.
Unfortunately, it is much more politically savvy to say "look at this amazing huge thing I just did!" than "look at this huge project we started, probably two presidents down the line (HE MIGHT BE A DIRTY REPUBLICAN AND TAKE CREDIT FOR ALL OUR WORK, THAT HYPOTHETICAL BASTARD!!) things will really start to take shape."
Fixing problems is so much simpler in Fallout 3. And with that, I'm off to look into the history of Rivet City. Spoiler: I'm on a boat.
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Forb is an American and if he,as an american,says he is willing to not have a universal healthcare system for the sake of personal freedom and the freedom to choose how much to pay for medical care than "freedom rhetoric" does matter.Caydr wrote:post
It is problematic for people unaware of how exactly the current system works and people who don't know all the issues and problems to judge what is better on the short and long term.
The points you made MIGHT be too simplistic and are obviously uneducated in a way compared to people more versed in the finer details of both concepts and their actual implementation.
There might be advantages and disadvantages that you cannot even think of both long term and short term.
You might say that professionals and inside people should make these choices on their own but are they,aside from being professionals also trying to be as objective as possible or are they biased for one reason or another?
On the other hand should the educated(on the subject) masses make choices that might effect people's lives?
and of course there are also unknowns.
Issues that will surface after making changes or in the process of trying to make the changes that cannot be foreseen by even those of us who understand the current and planned systems very well.
A country works as a whole and everything is connected.
An excellent plan in theory might fail badly if implemented in a country with other parts of it being fined tuned to work with the older system.
also,breaking down everything into smaller problems cannot be marketed to the layman.
an idea must be marketable or it will be hard to gather political support for it.
Regular people,like us,need a general concept to rout or object.
I think the more important issues are the people who want to make the change,those that decide on the small details and hose that will implement it.
The biggest problem in both systems is efficiency and exploitation by individuals,companies/corporations and politicians.
i think its more important not to discuss the pros and cons of the 2 systems but the people behind the bill and the processes of making the descisions and implementing them.
I think that if we are unable to do that than the result of any change in terms of better or worse will be random and completely out of the regular person's control.
Last edited by Gota on 29 Dec 2009, 17:29, edited 1 time in total.
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1v0ry_k1ng
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Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
america is a nazi furnace, next
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
I think the american health care system is heavily exploiting the bug in peoples brains, that our sub-conscieous trys to forget about ilness and times of despair as fast as possible, call it the "It-wont-hit-me" disease. If people could actually realistically plan (no dreamin allowed, its disease & death) for the future and look out for themselves (like upper-classers can because they have the funds left at the end of the day) and the state would be there only to judging quality and seal it as neutral referree- even then, the whole thing wouldnt work out, because the poor (instant-loan) consumers would put every penny left into health insurrencas, making the economics collapse like a card house.
Oh, that happens right now, savings go up in the US, so look out of the window Forb, at the unemployment line - like the view?
Oh, that happens right now, savings go up in the US, so look out of the window Forb, at the unemployment line - like the view?
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
just a reminder that regardless of the merits and demerits of single payer systems, the current reform bill is nothing like single payer and with minimum government involvement. it's basically a massive subsidy to health insurance companies + some additional pointless bureaucracy that has little power. the senate version doesn't even have the (horrid) public option of the house one.
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
In time, no upward slope line is immune to dramatic collapse. It's too bad the methods of slowing the approach to that collapse that were previously being used (of the economy or people's ability to save, etc.) are currently not working so well. I think it would help if people were more healthy, but good health doesn't often come from so many people looking for quick fixes.PicassoCT wrote:If people could actually realistically plan (no dreamin allowed, its disease & death) for the future and look out for themselves (like upper-classers can because they have the funds left at the end of the day) and the state would be there only to judging quality and seal it as neutral referree- even then, the whole thing wouldnt work out, because the poor (instant-loan) consumers would put every penny left into health insurrencas, making the economics collapse like a card house.
Oh, that happens right now, savings go up in the US, so look out of the window Forb, at the unemployment line - like the view?
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
But Gota, you're talking like universal health care is a hypothetical, untested situation. I respectfully remind you that "you don't live here, your opinion is skewed" goes both ways. I don't know a lot about health care systems around the world but I don't think Canada is the only country that offers some basic protection to all of its citizens when the need for life-saving treatment arises.
Yes, the system is flawed. There are delays there might not otherwise be and people suffer with conditions for months or years as they wait in queue for non-critical treatments. There is a constant "brain drain" as educated people move elsewhere (namely U.S.) to get better pay because they can't charge ridiculous amounts and get away with it up here.
But the bottom line is, anything that can be treated with medicine is available to you within hours if not minutes. Anything that needs the care of a specialist or surgeon is available within a year at the most for even the most obscure problem, and within a few months for anything else. And if you have a problem that needs immediate treatment, there is no wait whatsoever. I live each day with the knowledge, backed by personal experience, that no sickness that there's a treatment for will take my life or cause me undue suffering. I very much prefer this proven reality to the American one.
Yes, the system is flawed. There are delays there might not otherwise be and people suffer with conditions for months or years as they wait in queue for non-critical treatments. There is a constant "brain drain" as educated people move elsewhere (namely U.S.) to get better pay because they can't charge ridiculous amounts and get away with it up here.
But the bottom line is, anything that can be treated with medicine is available to you within hours if not minutes. Anything that needs the care of a specialist or surgeon is available within a year at the most for even the most obscure problem, and within a few months for anything else. And if you have a problem that needs immediate treatment, there is no wait whatsoever. I live each day with the knowledge, backed by personal experience, that no sickness that there's a treatment for will take my life or cause me undue suffering. I very much prefer this proven reality to the American one.
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
okCaydr wrote:But Gota, you're talking like universal health care is a hypothetical, untested situation. I respectfully remind you that "you don't live here, your opinion is skewed" goes both ways. I don't know a lot about health care systems around the world but I don't think Canada is the only country that offers some basic protection to all of its citizens when the need for life-saving treatment arises.
Yes, the system is flawed. There are delays there might not otherwise be and people suffer with conditions for months or years as they wait in queue for non-critical treatments. There is a constant "brain drain" as educated people move elsewhere (namely U.S.) to get better pay because they can't charge ridiculous amounts and get away with it up here.
But the bottom line is, anything that can be treated with medicine is available to you within hours if not minutes. Anything that needs the care of a specialist or surgeon is available within a year at the most for even the most obscure problem, and within a few months for anything else. And if you have a problem that needs immediate treatment, there is no wait whatsoever. I live each day with the knowledge, backed by personal experience, that no sickness that there's a treatment for will take my life or cause me undue suffering. I very much prefer this proven reality to the American one.
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
otoh people sometimes go the other way to live in a country where they won't end up destitute due to health misfortuneCaydr wrote:There is a constant "brain drain" as educated people move elsewhere (namely U.S.) to get better pay because they can't charge ridiculous amounts and get away with it up here.
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Okay, why do we (Americans) give a damn what non-Americans think? Why should we? ITS OUR COUNTRY, not theirs. We Americans tell our government what to do (or we're supposed to). Why do Americans LISTEN to non-Americans? Its our country. If we don't want socialist health care, by God, we ain't getting Socialist health care. So listen here, and listen real good, please. Take your socialist healthcare, and shove it where the sun don't shine. (I am saying this to those who try and tell Americans how "great free healthcare is") We'll run our country, not you. 
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Look, we got ourselves a live stereotype here.America74 wrote:Okay, why do we (Americans) give a damn what non-Americans think? Why should we? ITS OUR COUNTRY, not theirs. We Americans tell our government what to do (or we're supposed to). Why do Americans LISTEN to non-Americans? Its our country. If we don't want socialist health care, by God, we ain't getting Socialist health care. So listen here, and listen real good, please. Take your socialist healthcare, and shove it where the sun don't shine. (I am saying this to those who try and tell Americans how "great free healthcare is") We'll run our country, not you.
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Are there no examples of companies competing with government ran establishments and actively winning the fight? Or has this situation never arose in US history?
Regardless of whether the bill incorporates public healthcare, some of the things US Health insurance companies do are downright evil, such as withdrawing insurance when you become ill? What was the point of havign it if the moment you attempt to claim on it your insurance is withdrawn =s
Regardless of whether the bill incorporates public healthcare, some of the things US Health insurance companies do are downright evil, such as withdrawing insurance when you become ill? What was the point of havign it if the moment you attempt to claim on it your insurance is withdrawn =s
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Q: Define socialistAmerica74 wrote:Okay, why do we (Americans) give a damn what non-Americans think? Why should we? ITS OUR COUNTRY, not theirs. We Americans tell our government what to do (or we're supposed to). Why do Americans LISTEN to non-Americans? Its our country. If we don't want socialist health care, by God, we ain't getting Socialist health care. So listen here, and listen real good, please. Take your socialist healthcare, and shove it where the sun don't shine. (I am saying this to those who try and tell Americans how "great free healthcare is") We'll run our country, not you.
If you had any idea you would realize that a public healthcare service is not socialist.
A public healthcare system that bans commercial operations and absorbs existing systems is socialist
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
My definition of socialism is as follows: government control, overtaking, or any "administrative control". Government does ONE thing and ONE thing ALONE! And that is DEFEND the country from any hostile forces. That is the ONLY, I repeat ONLY thing a government is supposed to do. Not administrate health care, not regulate gun control, not limit freedoms of speech, religion, or the pursuit of property and happiness. Any democratic government that does more than defend the people they serve (which is... well.. almost all of them) is not doing what is what originally created to do.
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." -Thomas Jefferson
"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." -R. Reagan
"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them." -R. Reagan
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." -Thomas Jefferson
"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." -R. Reagan
"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them." -R. Reagan
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
The purpose of American government is to protect the rights of the people. Go back to school.America74 wrote:My definition of socialism is as follows: government control, overtaking, or any "administrative control". Government does ONE thing and ONE thing ALONE! And that is DEFEND the country from any hostile forces. That is the ONLY, I repeat ONLY thing a government is supposed to do. Not administrate health care, not regulate gun control, not limit freedoms of speech, religion, or the pursuit of property and happiness. Any democratic government that does more than defend the people they serve (which is... well.. almost all of them) is not doing what is what originally created to do.
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." -Thomas Jefferson
"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." -R. Reagan
"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them." -R. Reagan
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
That's what I said. To defend the people. To defend from hostile forces. o.O What didn't you get? lol. 
Hostile forces include people WITHIN the country. Not just outside.
Hostile forces include people WITHIN the country. Not just outside.
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Ha Ha Ha!America74 wrote:Okay, why do we (Americans) give a damn what non-Americans think? Why should we? ITS OUR COUNTRY, not theirs. We Americans tell our government what to do (or we're supposed to). Why do Americans LISTEN to non-Americans? Its our country. If we don't want socialist health care, by God, we ain't getting Socialist health care. So listen here, and listen real good, please. Take your socialist healthcare, and shove it where the sun don't shine. (I am saying this to those who try and tell Americans how "great free healthcare is") We'll run our country, not you.
You think you run your country? You think there's a difference between rep/dem? The evidence is overwhelming that government policy is decided at $1000-a-plate luncheons and via FOX news. By all means go and lobby congress to get what YOU want. See how far that gets you. Write your congressman! Ha ha ha!
Government policy is decided by people ONLY when the government fears or respects the people. GWB neutralised the fear by turning Americans against the Middle East when what they should have feared was Haliburton and Raytheons grip on the reigns of power and their control over America's military priorities and the fraudulent elections run by the rep-sponsored Diebold Systems.
Other countries don't control Americas destiny (except Israel and China of course). What controls America is corporations. Your vote isn't worth shit until you bring them to heel. You can't do that until you sever the umbilical that feeds politicians from the womb of mega-corporate lobbying.
The ultimate proof Congress is corrupt? GWB denies Florida a few million is essential funds to build the wall that would have protected it from Katrina. Thousands die after a half-arsed emergency response. Wall Street suffers a crisis, suddenly TRILLIONS of dollars are found to bail out rich bankers and investors.
You want to knock subsidised health? Did you stop to think that bailing out Wall Street IS socialism?
Screw you. Other countries laugh at America because you fool yourselves that you live in democratic paradise - but we know better.
Why should you listen to non-americans? Because your education and news just feed back the same lies you tell yourselves. The media outside the US does not suffer the same sickening patriotism that colours your opinions of world events. You want to be the "good guys", you want to police the world. Fuck you, you aren't even capable of controlling yourselves or living up to your own rhetoric.
YOUR CIA is responsible for half the dictators and terrorist groups you condemn. YOU kept Hussein in power. YOU fed Al-Qaeda for 10 years and invaded Muslim holy places. YOU started and fed the drug war that keeps South America and Afghanistan paralysed in civil wars and kidnappings. YOU created the anti-US sentiment that put Chavez in power. YOU constantly interfere in elections and fund civil wars around the world.
Frankly there are many good Americans, but they largely have no control over policy. Other countries don't hate Americans, we hate your policies. Sort your shit out before putting yourselves on such a grand fucking pedestal.
Anyway, my girlfriend recently broke her arm. The state covered the majority of costs at a time when working would be difficult. That's what 'socialist' medicine is. I don't see what all the fuss is about. You'll bail out bankers, but not the sick?
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Troll posting in a thoughtful thread posted with trolling subtext which has long since become a trolling thread pretending to thoughtful supertext.
Re: Republican health care plan, step 1: don't get sick
Trolling / politics. What's the difference? Emotional hyperbole passed off as educated opinion over-simplified and fed to ignorant mushrooms.