Socialised Healthcare - American Views Needed

Originally posted by jam321
I am not against healthcare for everyone.

Excellent post and IMPORTANT distinction between health care for all and "socialized" health care. The latter is just a piece of fear-mongering. That's not what Obama wants to do.

It's not scary for everyone to have health care.

You know, there is an alternative to Government-run health care. That is, have a group set up through the government of several large health care insurance providers. Many people don't realize that the group rates are based upon the number of people that enroll. By setting up a group, but not controlling that group, Americans could be provided with insurance that would be much more affordable. By allowing insurance companies to compete for those groups, rates would go down drastically. It is a simple matter of supply and demand. One thing that should be done, however, is to require people with pre-existing conditions to be covered, with limitations to coverage for the pre-existing conditions. Of course, none of this will happen, because the insurance companies just are too powerful, and they are happy with the way things are today.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


NO. What is scary is the how are we going to do it/pay for it? Who will get regulated and who will rape and pillage our system? Well judging from other "healthcare for all" nations, it will not be the doctors. They are poorly salaried slaves of the government instead of stewards and servants of their patients.

What Obama has in mind doesn't sound so much like Socialized health care to me

Exploding costs of health care are also causing a serious strain on American families and the economy. Currently, 47 million Americans have no health insurance. Obama’s plan will address the uninsured and the exploding costs. He has said that he will maintain the employer-based system and even expand it by providing tax incentives to businesses that provide health care to their employees. To combat the number of uninsured Americans, Obama will provide a tax credit to those individuals seeking insurance to help them cope with the costs. In addition, he would mandate coverage for all children, but has not said what the penalty would be if your children were left uninsured. He has also said that by expanding the number of people with health care it would make it easier to negotiate with insurance companies for lower premiums.

People forget that in this nation 47 million Americans has not insurance and most of them are children.

www.economyincrisis.org...





[edit on 6-11-2008 by marg6043]

reply to post by Cairowoman


Sorry to bring this to you, but, tax payer still pay for the cost in this nation that have no insurance.

And if we can allow our own government to bail out with tax payer the global elites then we should have no problem bailing out the uninsured in this nation.

Originally posted by Cairowoman
NO. What is scary is the how are we going to do it/pay for it?

I'm willing to pay taxes for health care for the children of our country. If I weren't, I'd be sorely ashamed of myself. Maybe if we weren't sinking so much money into Iraq, we'd have plenty to go for health care.

Marg, you are just WAY too smart!

[edit on 6-11-2008 by Benevolent Heretic]

reply to post by marg6043


Yeah. I have one word for you MEDICARE. We have it for the elderly and with all the taxes we already pay --OOOOPSSS we still cant afford it!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic

Originally posted by Cairowoman
NO. What is scary is the how are we going to do it/pay for it?

I'm willing to pay taxes for health care for the children of our country. If I weren't, I'd be sorely ashamed of myself. Maybe if we weren't sinking so much money into Iraq, we'd have plenty to go for health care.

Marg, you are just WAY too smart!

[edit on 6-11-2008 by Benevolent Heretic]

Please dont bring innocent kids into this. Yes! Let's keep them healthy so they can work later in life. They will be paying 80% taxes because of all this national debt that we will have from the war on terror, the bailouts, and now healthcare for all, etc. and not to mention all of our other obligations.
Your taxes that you will pay now will be a drop in the proverbial bucket!!!!!!!

[edit on 6-11-2008 by Cairowoman]

Originally posted by Cairowoman
Please dont bring innocent kids into this.

I didn't. Have you READ Obama's plan?

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


Yes. Any plan that plans on doing NOTHING to BIG insurance companies and their policies does not get my vote. See most people do not understand that Obamas plan is his and not Congress'. They have more sinister versions that his plan probably will have to mesh with to get passed.

Originally posted by Cairowoman
reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

 

Well judging from other "healthcare for all" nations, it will not be the doctors. They are poorly salaried slaves of the government instead of stewards and servants of their patients.

You're kidding right? An experienced GP in the UK can earn £250,000, that's nearly 400,000 Us dollars. A starting doctor in the NHS, newly qualified earns around 50k, that's approx 80,000 us dollars. Are you seriously telling me that government employed doctors get paid a poor salary?

Maybe you need to actually read about these systems before denouncing them.

It's nice to see some americans out there see the advantages of a social healthcare system. It tends to lead to better health for all, which leads to all sort of positive societal knock on effects.

So to those of you who have some caring for others.

reply to post by Cairowoman


Well you are right there, but guess what, do you know where our tax payermoney is going right now since our own corporate ridden government gave away our treasury department to the global elites?

Yes, our tax payer, is now going to nations so their elites can survive the Global meltdown.

Where is the outrage on that?

Is billions of dollars going to two unnecessary wars so the corporate donor base of the present administration can make profits.

Is billions going into the most wealthy in this nation thanks to a bail out.

And people dare to be outrage because tax payer money could help the needy in the nation?

!!!!!!!!!Incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like I say the ones that live in Richistan America can get the best health care they can afford but the uninsured in this nation mostly children have to wait until they are so sick and even dying to seek medical care because they are afraid of the cost.

I guess I think beyond the propaganda first.



[edit on 6-11-2008 by marg6043]

I certainly would rather see our tax dollars go towards:
Health Care for All
Improved Education
than:
More wars of attrition
Bailing Out thieving bankers and brokers
Bailing out the auto companies that make bad decisions

A healthy, well educated populace is our best defense against poverty and other social ills.

Is that so difficult to accept?

Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984

Originally posted by Cairowoman
reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

 

Well judging from other "healthcare for all" nations, it will not be the doctors. They are poorly salaried slaves of the government instead of stewards and servants of their patients.

You're kidding right? An experienced GP in the UK can earn £250,000, that's nearly 400,000 Us dollars. A starting doctor in the NHS, newly qualified earns around 50k, that's approx 80,000 us dollars. Are you seriously telling me that government employed doctors get paid a poor salary?

Maybe you need to actually read about these systems before denouncing them.

It's nice to see some americans out there see the advantages of a social healthcare system. It tends to lead to better health for all, which leads to all sort of positive societal knock on effects.

So

to those of you who have some caring for others.

$80,000? After I pay my taxes, my malpractice and my student loans it will be less than 2000/month are you serious? What will attract new doctors to the profession? Education and malpractice costs are going up not down.

How long would I have to work before I get to and how many patients would I have to push through to get my 400,000?

Sallie Mae only gives you 6 months after you get out of school to pay your 2000/month back and you must be insured before you practice.

Now if they paid for all that, then maybe i would agree with you.

[nevermind]

[edit on 11/7/08 by GirlNextDoor]

reply to post by Cairowoman


Under a socialized program every expense of the doctors would be paid for. You show up for work, do a decent job and you get your paycheck. They goverment talkes care of your staff, your equipment, your insurance, your officeand they also pay your way through school as long as you agree to work for them for some length of time.

I would actually prefer socialized healthcare to obama's plan which is not socialized medicine by any definition. There should be no room for profit in healthcare, but that said all healthcare providers should recieve a fair salary equal to the quality of care they give and their level of education. How many patients you can run through office daily would no longe rbe the biggest concern. It would put the focus on quality of care instead of running a profitable business. The doctors already are getting rich off of our tax and insurance dollars.

If the NHS is so great, why are there private doctors in the UK?

I visited my grandfather in an NHS hospital. It reminded me of pictures that I saw of WW1 hospital ward rooms.

Why did my great aunt die waiting for a hip replacement for 10 years (in pain)?
Answer, she was too old and was put on the 'waiting list' & she couldn't pay for a private procedure.

[edit on 11/7/08 by wookiee]

reply to post by Cairowoman


I agree with you, I understand where you come from, I have a college student graduate and now rather than enjoying the fruits of her education she has to pay for all the loans she took to complete her education even when we ran all her living expenses.

I know exactly how it is with young graduates this days.

But when I was in college it was not such thing as students loans and college education was very affordable.

But only for those that where selected by their achievement, I went to college will all expenses pay no because I was poor but because I earned.

Guess what changed since then

Then the private colleges started to sprout all over offering education for anybody as long as you could pay for

Greedy bastards that decided that education cost should be raised so they could make money out of those that didn't have cash for their education.

What is going on in this nation is the corruption of a system that is all for profits first and screw the rest of the nation.

That included anybody that wants to have a degree.

reply to post by wookiee


I was weary about the UK health care system at first. Now that I have used it though I am impressed. Sure it's not as shiny as the US healthcare system, but here if I need to see a doctor I don't have to worry about not being able to afford it.

The NHS isn't perfect, there's lots of waste but my life has been personally enriched because I have no questions asked access to healthcare.

Basically the argument of socialized healthcare comes down to whether or not one man should pay for, or help pay for the treatment of another man.

The premise is that if a man gets sick, he has been dealt a poor hand in life and he may be a good man who gets mired in debt as a result of needing treatment.

The key points here are that the man cannot afford to provide for himself? Why? Was he born into an abusive family? Was he born into a low income family and attended a sub par school?

The second point is why did this man get ill. Was he truly the victim of bad luck? In the UK, there is an epidemic of drink related hospitalizations. Visit any major A&E in a UK city on a friday night and you'll see drunken louts with injuries being treated on the NHS. And how about those who smoke and bring lung cancer upon themselves? And those who eat too much and bring on diabetes, heart disease and obesity?

You see socialized healthcare is a noble premise to consider mentally, because it paints a picture of the struggling working class man who through no fault of his own got ill and is now in trouble with debt. In reality, this may well not be the case.

Forcibly extracting money from taxpayers (and due to progressive taxation this means taking wealth away from the wealth creators and employers), to pay for the healthcare provisions of other people is itself a controversial idea. Why must one man be penalised if another has had bad luck? Personally I don't think this should be the case, but even if we work on the assumption that it is moral to take money forcibly from one man to pay for medicine for another man, we hit a wall.

Why must my hard earned money be taken from me to pay for treatment for an illness brought on by the patient? If a smoker develops lung cancer, why the hell must I be penalised to provide chemotherapy for him?

I balk at this concept. I am repulsed by its premise, which seeks to idealise the conditions of the poor and makes excuses for those who cannot even provide for themselves.

I have seen great things done by many men who have come from beginnings and conditions more humble than you can even imagine. I have met men who have ascended from tiny, impoverished rural villages in third world countries and are now multimillionaires through their own ability and determination.

You show me a poor man and I will show you how he keeps himself in his condition. Providing all the necessities in life to such people will only result in their reliance upon the state and result in them becoming a burden on other taxpayers.

The incentive of LIFE is enough to spur people to better their own condition in terms of their income; or to lead a healthier lifestyle. Take away this incentive and you will create the benefits class (who currently exist in the UK), devoid of character, devoid of ambition and devoid of vision.

The buck has to stop somewhere. Someone has to pay for treatment, regardless of the case. Using euphemisms like "socialized healthcare" really conceal the true fact : that those who cannot pay for their own lives will seek to force others to pay for it.

It is almost unthinkable for British people to concieve of the notion that each man is responsible for himself, but is that not the basis of life? If a man has bad luck, so be it; perhaps he should have saved up some money for a rainy day... a concept that is largely lost on most people today. If most people can afford BMW 3 series cars (most common car in Britain), then why can't people afford to pay for the basics of life? If people choose to spend money on stupidly prices shoes and clothes, racking up massive amounts of credit card debt (£6000 per person average), then why cant they be made to pay for their own medicine.

You see handouts almost invariably work like that. The sum effect is that the affluent end up paying for (indirectly) the creature comforts for the lower class. Its the same if you give a hobo some change, only for him to spend it on alcohol; or if you are forced to pay for someone's medication while they buy a new car.

Yes, the NHS works to a large extent. But it is funded in the most immoral, plundering manner I can imagine. However I can see the logic of asking for a change of funding from other sectors (military) to healthcare. I would like to see a much lower rate of taxation overall, which would mean reduced expenditure overall, but that isn't likely to happen thanks to the degree of reliance that people have built up on the "government" (aka the affluent).

The safety net will always turn into a hammock. That is the nature of man. Denying it will only result in the higher segments of society being pulled down while the lower segments are left reliant and without ambition.

[edit on 7-11-2008 by 44soulslayer]