Politics
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- ukit0
And BTW, in addition to being the only country without universal coverage, we also have the highest health care costs already
- tommyo0
One solution to healthcare... ?
Just a thought but as TBO points out, big procedures are rare and expensive. Why doesn't our insurance system JUST cover the big unforeseen stuff? Why is it also covering preventative?
If it were more like car insurance maybe that's a solution? It would allow people to see their doctors directly. Doctors could decide treatments 1 on 1 with their patients, without insurance company influence. It would allow the doctor more leverage in working with patients who have less income. And insurance companies would be regulated to the big 'what if' shit.
Just a thought. Seems like it covers a lot of the issues.
- lower middle class can't afford it.DrBombay
- And in reality this is already an option, insurance isn't mandatory, you can get just catastrophic insurance.DrBombay
- I have it through my employer.DrBombay
- But... isn't your point that it's the insurance companies who have driven up prices? This would cut them out.tommyo
- I don't understand how this is getting rid of insurance companies.DrBombay
- Depends. That works for say people in their 20's 30's. Children and older people would need different coverage ranges I think.TheBlueOne
- You have it exactly backwards. More preventative care will save money.ukit
- But this would give more access to preventative care without HAVING to have insurance. Win wintommyo
- Not sure how it gives more access.DrBombay
- CUTTING OUT INSURANCE GIVES MORE ACCESS.tommyo
- I don't understand how, explain how. I'm not trying to be a prick Tommy, I just don't get it.DrBombay
- Okay just answer this one question.. what is the reason some people don't have access to medical care?tommyo
- and I'm sorry for screaming, I thought you were trying to be a prick.tommyo
- MoneyDrBombay
- Okay so if the cost for health care is doctor + insurance and we cut insurance out of the picture for the small things liketommyo
- colds and flus and allergies and all the other non life threatening issues, then wouldn't it make sense that it would allow peopletommyo
- who can't afford the preventative stuff access to health care? The big stuff you'd need coverage for, but it would cost less now.tommyo
- I think the problem is much worse than people getting theraflu and robitussin.DrBombay
- Oh I know that. But if say 95% of the stuff you see doctors for is non-life threatening... makes sense.tommyo
- I'm listening. :)DrBombay
- This works out awesome when you try to think about things instead of saying you hate government.DrBombay
- Does this mean we're friends again?tommyo
- we'll see ;)DrBombay
- ukit0
Cost per person/ year (2009 numbers)
France: $3,449 USD
Great Britain: $2,760 USD
Canada: $3,678 USD
U.S.: $6,714 USDU.S. life expectancy rate: ranked 50th in the world
- TheBlueOne0
Look, and maybe I'm extreme here, or some kind of wacky "leftist" or whatever, but I think that as much as I am a huge proponent of individual freedom I think there has to be a reciprocal sense of responsibility to the larger society from the individual as well. This was a huge part of the Greek and Roma Republican equation as much as individual freedom was. It's a sense I think we have lost.
It seems like we have equated lifestyle choices with the concept individual freedom and I think it sullies and undignifies the whole thing. I mean, I look at the struggle these kids are putting out in Iran, puttin ghteir lives and livelihoods on the line just to make sure their fucking vote is counted. Facing bullets, batons and torture for that right. Here, Americans somehow think that being told that, Hey, you know, maybe smoking or that sedentary lifestyle or whatever is a bad thing and it's like "Fuck you man, I'm expressing my individual freedom." Are you? Is your free choice as a consumer equal to your ability as a free individual to express yourself safely and rightfully in an open political system? I mean, did our grandfathers die on the beaches of Normandy so you no one could pry that diet coke from your hands unless they were cold and dead? I mean, isn't their a responsibility of the citizen of a free nation to be able to, if called upon, protect that society and keep it healthy overall?
Their was a civic pride in Sparta, Athens, Thebes, Rome, of being able to be able to vote in a public election and then don some armor and take to the battlefield and protect the nation. And those that let themselves go were considered failing in their duties. In Athens the wealthy would fund great public works not just for influence, but because it was required of them, and they took great pride in doing it.
That sense has come and gone throughout US history, but I feel we have really lost it these days. It saddens me.
- If anything consider myself an old school enlightenment conservative, but under Bush I became a flaming liberal...weird how that happened.TheBlueOne
- how that happened.TheBlueOne
- yeah I kinda had the same thing happen. Bush fucked up my political identity forever.tommyo
- Only noblemen could vote back then. The others were just ordered around. It's far better as it is believe me.Corvo2
- TBO your my heroJonnyPompa
- TheBlueOne0
Look at ukit's chart above - like I said before, just ram through free healthcare for everyone age 0-18. It's a small percentage of the overall spending, but it would dramatically influence the health of society overall..biggest Return on Investment over time.
It secondly gives us a real world test of how to manage a universal system of that type. It'd be poltically popular..works on both sides of the aisle..plays to bleeding heart liberals and family value conservatives..and removes a huge existential slice of angst from working parents.
- lazerbass0
Good choices can only be made when they are given.
- tommyo0
It's not that being told not to do something is an attack on our individual freedoms. Fine, tell me not to do it and I'll think about it. What I have a problem with is the notion that gov is allowed to tax me on these things, and justify their doing so by telling me that I need to now pay them for my choices. Here, how about this. Gov can tax me for the sins they determine and 100% of that tax goes directly to the nearest hospital where I bought a pack of smokes. I'm fine with that system. That sort of system makes sense because it actually goes back to helping the common good. But this levy of taxes on a pack of cigarettes that then goes into all sorts of bullshit programs that have nothing to do with their justification of the tax in the first place is, well, basically, stealing.
- The evil is in the spending and not so much the collecting (to a point) than.TheBlueOne
- Well both, but yeah do you think politicians would keep adding taxes to shit if they knew they weren't going to control it?tommyo
- I just want to know what exactly these use taxes are going to. If your reason is because it effects health, then I want mytommyo
- taxes put toward health. Not building a museum 500 miles away.tommyo
- You'd still bitch about taxes :DDrBombay
- I would because it's unconstitutional.tommyo
- But if I HAVE to pay it.. do it so it makes sense.tommyo
- ukit0
What Obama's original plan proposed by the way, isn't even universal healthcare.
It's to set up a "public option" for insurance to run as an alternative to private health insurance. So you would be able to have insurance at a lower, government rate, and they wouldn't drop you for cost control reasons like private insurers do.
They have done several polls on this, and this kind of plan is supported by generally around 70-80% of the public.
However, that plan, was deemed "not feasible" by a Democrat controlled House and Senate! Well, mainly by the Senate, where Max Baucus, the guy in charge of reform, is raking in $1,500/ day from the health care industry.
And this is what they call "Marxism."
- It's fuckign humorous how that word gets misused...TheBlueOne
- And it was humorous how making the very richest people pay taxes would effect the whole. Now look at us.tommyo
- Slippery slopes. Again, exactly how much power do you want these guys to ultimately have.tommyo
- PonyBoy0
you fucks figure this shit out yet?
- GeorgesII0
is the reporter retarded?
- BonSeff0
i loved colbert's comments about socialized medicine.. in that we would loose that "human touch" of those mom and pop HMO's and PPO's.. haha - brilliant
- DrBombay0
People always talk about "do you want to have to deal with a bureaucrat when you need to see a doctor?"
Ever had to deal with an insurance company?
- I say kill both of them.tommyo
- I have had more problems with Insurance companies than I have EVER had with the Gov.DrBombay
- And the fact that it was gov who put them in the position they're in to begin with carries no weight with you? I think it should.tommyo
- Take a trip down memory lane with me Rick: http://www.cchconlin…tommyo
- Gov basically sold us and our health off to HMO's to begin with.. now they want to 'fix' it for us again.tommyo
- Profit of 10 largest insurance companies increased 420% in 7 years. Those companies are for profit.DrBombay
- We disagree on the source of the problem.DrBombay
- No we don't. I agree that insurance companies are the source, we disagree that gov is the solution.tommyo
- So what is? You never really say.DrBombay
- Should we get a celebrity to ask them nicely to lower rates?DrBombay
- Remember that thread of comments up there a bit.. a solution I offered.tommyo
- It's a start...DrBombay
- But it doesn't do anything to insurance companies.DrBombay
- The people you cover with that don't have insurance anyway.DrBombay
- Well see I'm a designer, I don't actually write policy. Just offering up a scenario that I think works on a few differenttommyo
- levels. Especially at reducing the stranglehold of the insurance companies. It was just an idea.tommyo
- You're fucking impossible.DrBombay
- I think you just like to fight. I've basically agreed with you on everything. Go be an ass to someone who wants to play.tommyo
- bliznutty0
If passed, not only could the $1.5 TRILLION federal government takeover of healthcare be the last straw to bankrupt our country, but it would also:
*** Hand control of our healthcare industry to an unelected federal board who will take charge of deciding who gets medical care -- and who doesn’t;
*** End medical privacy by establishing a nationwide Medical Record Database, allowing virtually anyone in the medical-industrial complex -- even those in foreign countries -- to access your personal medical records WITHOUT your consent;
*** End private health insurance by herding hardworking Americans into a government-sanctioned health insurance boondoggle;
*** Dramatically raise taxes by counting health benefits as “income,” or by forcing businesses and uninsured workers to pay for officially sanctioned insurance.
*** Allow for even more government intrusion into our personal lives by paving the way for bureaucrats to tell us what we can and can’t eat, drink and smoke, like New York City’s ban on smoking and “unapproved” fats in food.
- Someone else is a fan of C4L I see. ;)
Let's hug.tommyo - Any company as in debt as the U.S. would long have been bankrupted.IRNlun6
- It's because they have indentured customers.tommyo
- I thought the global warming bill was the last strawukit
- No it was the the last straw in Spring, now we move on to the straws of Summer.tommyo
- Someone else is a fan of C4L I see. ;)
- ********0
... meanwhile, tomorrow the state of California is set to begin handing out IOUs. Students, state contractors, etc. Hmmm, last I checked, you can't eat an IOU, can you? Oh, I think McDonalds might redeem them though. Yes, the end looms closer and closer.
Oh, what happens when oil hits $100+/barrel next year? Should be fun.
- It's pretty perverted this sick sense of joy you get from bad news.DrBombay
- yet another example of a runaway gov.. this state is in shambles and they have the 5th largest economy in the world?tommyo
- When you have high unemployment and less tax revenues this is what happens.DrBombay
- They have less tax income because they've all but made it impossible to run a business here. Reap what you sow.tommyo
- Businesses leave, then people leave. Gov here has made it very hard to live and down the tubes they go.tommyo
- Unemployment is high everywhere, Tommy.DrBombay
- Hey Capt obvious, I know that, even you pointed out that CA has an abnormal amount of unemployment didnt you?tommyo
- I'm just telling you the cause of that abnormality here in CA because I live here. When 35% of your paycheck goes straighttommyo
- to the gov, it starts making NV a lot more attractive. Know what I mean?tommyo
- BattleAxe0
where I work our Health Insurance is self funded , we have over 9,000 employees and are able to fund our own health insurance. The fact that we need an administrator to handle all of this just ads to the expense.
In a country with a workforce of over 130 million people, we know the money is there, it is the management that makes it go to shit
I dont care if I get taxed $300 for my Health insurance , it beats $1100 any day
