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Forboding Angel wrote:

AF wrote:The public system does not prevent private companies doing what they already do

Private companies cannot possibly compete with the government. Before you immediately spring load to the "I Disagree" position, think about what competing with the government entails, it is not a simple black and white answer.

They seem to be doing fine here.

Noruas wrote:I do must say, all those websites you posted are left wing media controlled in America lol, heck you included CBS, thats like almost secretly ran by the government now, since all they do is kiss the presidents toes, lick the legs, and fill in the blank.
I think our health care is great, I haven't gotten sick and if I do I plan do die immediately.
Just like the banks, healthcare just needed alittle bit more regulation rather than a true open market. Government has and will fail because they go too extreme, they do too much, or not enough, and this case its a bit much, Obama only won with 51-53 percent of the vote of the population, and hes acting absolute like he was voted in by 80-100 percent of the population. All of these left wing media sources agree with Obama because they want to jump aboard a "Historical victory against Racism and the First Black President" and make him a great man even if hes radical, also he just so happens to be left winged like the media that wants Bush and Cheney tried for ridiculous torture on captives.

I here have the secret Democratic Plan:
1. Get healthcare Insurance, you must have it, at least the government healthcare Insurance.
2. If you make money over a certain percent and do not pay your government healthcare insurance even though you may have enough money not to need healthcare insurance, we will jail you and fine you for 2000-4000 dollars.
3. When you reach age 65 or get an expensive problem, we will not cover you, but will still in fact make you pay for healthcare insurance as they try and tell you it is not worth living anymore.
4. Profit???

I guess I'll stop responding seriously now.

PS: In any country with FPTP voting and a third party, the ruling party will never even get a majority; here, the winning part got 35% and the second got 32%. Doesn't mean they don't get to decide policy.

Forboding Angel wrote:

AF wrote:The public system does not prevent private companies doing what they already do

Private companies cannot possibly compete with the government. Before you immediately spring load to the "I Disagree" position, think about what competing with the government entails, it is not a simple black and white answer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MDP0Mc9gxQ

Companies like Bupa, compete against the NHS, and make profits in the UK and have done for decades. If they cna do it in the UK they can do it in America.

And even if public healthcare was so good it pushed them out, why would you be complaining about an improved healthcare system?

And Tombom... People with enough money in the US are FAR from suffering.

fixed

Oh my.

I just agreed with every word of an AF post.

The fact is BUPA et. al make even bigger profits because the NHS does all the doctor training.

(The robbing bastards.)

Forboding Angel wrote:Republican health care plan: Open up the market so that private insurance can insure anyone from any part of the country. Put a stop to frivolous malpractice suits. Have a choice of shopping around for health insurance and comparing quotes and rates (as you can do right now with car insurance).

The above Republican health care plan describing precisely what we've "had" since the eighties. Which has never worked, because our insurance industries practice covert collusion and fix the market rates, because money shouldn't be the deciding factor on baseline health care yet is, because malpractice has continued to grow under this doctrine throughout the above-mentioned period...

Hey, I'm not a fan of either plan articulated in our ineffective two-party system.

I recall when my mother snapped her achilles tendon in the states the first question she got asked in the hospital was whether she had a credit card...

There seemed to be something wrong with that scenario for me.

Something else I never understood about all-private health care is what happens to people who have some crappy disease/condition and arent covered for that at the moment of the diagnosis. I assume no private company will let you take out a policy with them if you have been diagnosed with cancer or suchlike (not for a realistic cost anyway).

Then again, I don't wish to tell you people what system you should be living in. It's just fun and sad at the same time to watch some of the arguments against. And I never tire of the way Americans misuse the terms communism and socialism and Marx's name.

Peet wrote:

^^These were hardcore democrats...^^

AF, I am far from "well to do" or being "well off", and I'm doing just fine. At what point did you guys get the idea that it's Somalia over here?

LoL America!

for a country that identifies itself as 75% religious, how is that surprising?

I'm not saying I'm surprised. I'm saying your obscurantism makes me laugh.

Forboding Angel wrote:

Peet wrote:

^^These were hardcore democrats...^^

It's all the same crap.

woo hoo I like to point fingers.

I saw very nice graph plotting

on Y healthcare spending % of GDP
on X life expectancy

and it was over time for several countries..

Basically for USA it was going straight up exponentially while having lowest life expectancy and like 3x higher spending than compared countries (Japan, Canada, some EU countries)

Health businesses already spent about 380 000 000$ on campaigns against reforms ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oc ... are-reform ) and with the craziness I'm hearing about it has no chance to succeed so tens of millions will still live without health insurance..

I really don't understand what people hate about free healthcare :)

Licho wrote:I really don't understand what people hate about free healthcare :)

Paying for it.

Its much much cheaper as you can check from graphs and much more cost effective..
Only downside is that for example doctors have very small wages..

Here if your net income is above certain level, you pay percentage of it .. i think its about 5-10% of profit not sure..

But no matter how much you pay you get equal services as anyone else - for free and no matter what happens to you.

Only some things cost money - like if there are several prescription medications available one might have less side effects but cost more. Or if you want extra vaccination against say tropical illness which isn't here you have to pay something for it, but its not full cost.

The thoughts against it licho are fears about:

Quality
Choice of doctor
The government trying to do a one-size-fits all solution
Paying for deadbeats
Having to pay MORE taxes with a dollar inflation already going on
Big government is not something "conservatives" like to see
Companies will stop offering insurance plans if the gov supplies one.

The thoughts for it are:

Better than having nothing
Better than no doctor
Most people who DO have insurance have shit insurance
A lot of people go without because they lose their job.
You can always get secondary private insurance.
Companies that are worth a shit will take better care for their employees.

Forboding Angel wrote:Private companies cannot possibly compete with the government.

People in the US are FAR from suffering.

FA... you're a smart guy, are you sure you don't want to revise these statements? It makes me sad to see that Fox & co have actually influenced public opinion this much.

I'm not an American, so no, I can't say I have first-hand knowledge of any facts. What I can say is that I have knowledge of how a public health care system REALLY works, not how Fox News wants you to think it works. I have also read news articles which, to me, seem to be fair to both sides of the argument, and are well-sourced. I've seen news reports, and I like to watch The Daily Show, which is frankly a more trustworthy source than Fox News nowadays. They frequently comment on the realities of the American health care system, and while I take everything I see on that show with a heavy dose of salt, there is some obvious truth to a lot of the things they say. Statistics don't lie, and while they can be twisted for almost any agenda, the anti-healthcare position seems to be virtually indefensible.

Insurance companies' premiums keep going up, along with their profits. It's not unheard of for people to lose their insurance as a result of getting sick. If you're already sick you have a very difficult time getting insurance, if you can get it at all, and it will be prohibitively expensive. Not to mention that, as Obama has pointed out on many occasions, American health care spending is astronomical and yet their results are not in line with what you'd expect from such a developed nation.

That one Fox News tit, what's his name, the blond guy that can't shut up - how do you like the way that he shat all over health care when he was actually in the system (I believe they were extracting something from his ass, his head perhaps?), then when Fox News decided bullshit was more marketable suddenly "AMERICA HAS THE BEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD GO BACK TO RUSSIA YOU FILTHY SOCIALIST, MARXIST, COMMUNIST, FASCIST, CAPITALI-- ER, UH, YOU ASSHOLE!!!"

edit: it's Glenn Beck. I figured it out by going to Youtube and searching for "fox news asshole". This guy has serious problems. Call it "liberal reporting" if you want, but the guy's own words aren't being distorted somehow. He's just crazy. And this is the guy what's the savior of america.

As for people "not suffering", how about the people who have to make the decision: bankrupt myself and get better for sure, or try to fight off this infection on my own?

There's no counter-argument to this except "well too bad, they should've been born into a family with money." If people suffering because they can't afford insurance or they lose their insurance doesn't bother you, fine, but in my view that's a disgusting outlook. I thought Americans were supposed to at least care about other Americans, even if they didn't give a damn about the million dead unarmed Iraqi civilians (well they ARE brown after all, right?).

~~~~~

Incidentally. I recently read on the internet that a certain uncommon genetic disorder matches symptoms I've had. It's unlikely to be the cause but I thought, hey, why not ask about it. It's not a serious health problem, just a quality-of-life thing.

So you know what I did? I went to the local clinic. I arrived at 5:00, two hours after it opened, and there were a dozen people ahead of me. I presented my health card and asked to see a doctor. I took a seat. I'd brought my DS. At 6:30 I was taken to an office and interviewed by a nurse. A doctor came to see me about 15 minutes later and we discussed my theory. He said, "Well, it's possible. But I think it could also be <this>, or <this>. Just to be safe, I'll order a test for all three and general bloodwork. He left, came back with a form, filled it out, and said, "Take this downstairs." I thanked him and left.

Downstairs I presented the bloodwork form to another receptionist. I took a number. About 45 minutes later I was called. A nurse took 4 blood samples, very professionally. When she was done, I thanked her and left.

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.

WHERE IS MY DEATH PANEL PLEASE?

re: smoth quality concerns..

If you are concerned about quality you can always save in private and pay in private or even do it in another country. But I don't know anyone doing so. I just know some people from abroad, like from Austria come here for cheaper dentists.

One more thing to add.

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.

It vaguely reminds me of people who don't like being taxed heavily for tobacco. They fail to remember that they are contributing to a massive health care strain later in their life when they're begging for someone to extend their lives a few months.

Yes, you're going to be paying a little more for immigrants and other non-citizens, but hey, on the flip side you'll be less likely to get sick from one, which will have a geometric impact on the amount of sickness nationally.

It's like, "Hey I live in my mother's basement and I never go outside, why do I have to pay for things like roads and water when I never drive or shower?" Well, surprise asshole, without all the people that DO have a life, none of the things you DO use would exist.

Licho wrote:people from abroad, like from Austria come here for cheaper dentists.

Dentists?! I think dentists are the one thing I'd be willing to pay a premium for to make sure I got a REALLY, REALLY GOOD ONE. Terrifying. Drills. Hooks. Files. Needles. *shudder*

Please America, take this as a warning.

Do not socialize your healthcare.

Here in Canada, the liberal-controlled news media says our healthcare system is awesome. In reality it is horrifying beyond words.

Our wait times are terrible. When my son was born they made my poor pregnant ex-girlfriend wait atleast 30 seconds before they readied a room for her to give birth in.

When my mother developed a brain tumour and had to undergo barrages of MRIs, catscans, tests and procedures, our evil communist government heartlessly paid all of her bills, despite the fact that said brain tumour savaged her brain and made her lose her job.

My aunt developed pancreatic cancer, too, and had to undergo chemo therapy. Today she is healthy as a horse. How could they? And as if the government were specifically targeting my family for their horrifying experiments, they paid for all of her medical expenses, too.

When I was 11 I got appendicitus(sp) and needed surgery. Spent several days in a hospital. Afterwards, our heartless commie nazi government decided they'd pay for all of my medical expenses. My little preteen heart was crushed under the brutal regime of this socialist nightmare.

We're forced to make all of our own decisions. Hospitals and clinics are forced to be privately owned and operated and the population has no choice but to make their own choice about where and when they want to seek treatment. The government says all they're doing is paying for all medical expenses, not actually controlling the system of healthcare. But they're lying! They actually made us choose our child's pediatrician, out of hundreds of different possibilities!

And that's not all. Throughout the country there are bastions of communist social control; the so-called 'Health and Social Services" centers spread throughout the city where innocent people can go and be brutally informed about health and social services ranging from parenting classes, pre-natal checkups, mental health services, medication aquirements, vaccination and blood donor clinics, social workers, the list goes on.

Even outside of healthcare, our government just won't stop its tyranny. Public unemployment insurance is a terror I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Our unemployed are ruthlessly given monthly paychecks, given terrible access to myriads of employment services, have their medication, dental and other non-covered costs visciously torn from them and paid for by the government. Several days every week non-profit organizations send vans of terror throughout the city, rounding up the jobless and homeless and forcing them to eat free hot meals, with the backdoor support of our criminal government. Unemployed persons who wish to go back to school or undergo trades skill training are brutally given even more money for school and transportation expenses.

Please, if you've never listened to anything I say, listen to me now. Do not let evil communist fascism into your country. Millions of people going bankrupt due to soul-crushing medical expenses and millions more going without treatment is a small, small price to pay for your freedom. I have to go now. The government is probably watching this. Any minute now government militia will come to my door to offer me a selection of late-night snacks, ranging from buttered popcorn to cake and pie with ice cream. Please, heed my warning.

God Bless America.