I think you need to adjust your arguments.

For starters, I'd note that Medicare is completely insolvent and due to go bankrupt. How are we supposed to believe a government that can't even run a postal service in a profitable and economic way will be able to run the entire healthcare industry? They have to have laws against private companies competing for first class mail.

The ultimate result of the proposed program will be to add millions of users to the insurance rolls rather than letting them seek care at pay for service clinics or charity hospitals. Everyone already gets free emergency care. If you walk into a hospital with a gun shot wound, they must treat you no matter if you can pay or not.

If you add a whole shat load of users to a medical system that already has no market forces keeping costs down, it will wipe out the existing supply and spike costs. Not only will the proposed bill add millions of users to the system for routine care, it also wipes out private insurance. There will be no private options for anyone who isn't a rich bastard because it directly bars private insurers from acquiring new contracts as well as puts them at a huge competitive disadvantage by undercutting market costs.

This will result in direct price controls and rationing. It will strangle the private insurance market to death and give government total control over the medical industry. The proposed bills are the first step in a program of nationalization. First they make everyone dependent, then they remove alternatives, finally they nationalize it outright.

Rationing of care IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL of this healthcare proposal. The government wants it, it needs it, and its looking for ways to make rationing a reality. This is how they plan on dealing with the 50 trillion dollar unfunded Medicare liability. By simply not giving the care out to the elderly.

I don't care what arguments the Dems make claiming that rationed care will not happen, I say bullshat.

These are immutable laws of nature we are dealing with here. No law can stand in the way of mother nature.

When the government comes in and sets prices and subsidizes markets, the inevitable outcome of this intervention is that demand will exceed supply.

When demand exceeds supply in a price controlled situation, there is only one alternative left to government, and that is to ration the care.

This is not debatable.

This is not something that can be argued with.

This is not something that can be legislated away.

This is not something more government will be able to fix.

This is a fact - nay a LAW of economics that is as permanent a force as gravity and electricity. It has happened in EVERY COUNTRY that has socialized medical care.


The entire reason healthcare costs so much now is because:
1. Government mandates that insurance packages must cover all sorts of crap that most people don't need and don't want - this drives up insurance prices.

2. Government pours billions into the healthcare system through Medicare and other programs that are not priced according to market forces. Doctors are not setting prices based on market forces, they are setting prices based on what they can get away with charging Medicare.

3 Government creates incentives for employers to tie medical care to jobs through tax breaks, rather than allowing private individuals to retain their earnings and purchase insurance packages on their own in the private market. This further distorts insurance prices.

4. Because government mandates that insurance packages must cover damn near everything, they don't allow the market to work for routine care and drugs. There are no market forces at work in healthcare today. Insurance is supposed to be for big ticket items, not daily care. You don't buy car insurance and expect it to cover your oil changes. Most doctors don't even know how much their own services cost. There are no price lists in a doctors office for routine care.

5. Government reporting mandates are OUTRAGEOUS. The government has created a complete mess over something that should be a relatively minor part of patient care - administration. The reporting requirements involve doctors having to hire massive armies of accountants, record keepers, clerks, etc.. etc.. etc.. to ensure they meet all the reporting requirements. Anyone that fails to comply gets fined out the ying yang.


ALL of our medical problems today could be fixed if government got the hell out of the way and allowed market forces to work correctly. Just as we see with lasik eye surgery, prices would drop and quality would improve.

Just as we see with breast augmentation, prices would drop and quality would improve.

In fact in every market where government stays the hell out, prices drop and quality improves.



You want cheap high quality medical care? Tell the government to get the hell out.






[edit on 9-8-2009 by mnemeth1]

While I understand your sentiment, do you really think calling anyone who supports the bill an idiot is the best way to go about it?

Whatever happened to the days when a debate could actually be had without it falling into name calling and mud-slinging? It's now starting even before the conversation (I mean really, you called a LOT of people idiots right in your title).

I feel like the average IQ around here is on the decrease....

So, does calling your oppenents Idiots in the title actually fit in with the newly affirmed political discourse of the board?

On second thought, I'm derailing this thread with my nonsense.

I apologize OP, and follow posters.

~Keeper

[edit on 8/9/2009 by tothetenthpower]

I am 100% against the government legislating health care. We don't need health care, we need tort reform. Make harder fot patients to sue doctors. Make it harder for people to sue drug counpanies. That alone would save money.
Then instruct to insurance company to cut back on unnecessary test that doctors had to order, just to cover their butts.

The OP makes a lot of good points.

I am against Government Health Care Reform.

I am against the Government period!

I am pretty much against Health Care period!

I eat high cholesterol foods, smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day, immerse my self in stressful business practices...

Yet amazingly I ride my bicycle up to 25 miles a day, have no shortness of breath despite smoking for 32 years, and have low cholesterol and normal blood pressure.

The few times I have been to the Doctors in my life, and I wait until I feel like death warmed over for a prolonged period to go, the Doctors always tell me the same thing.

The truth!

You don't need a pill or a surgery you need to make this or that lifestyle correction. If you were this person or that person you would need a pill or a surgery, but since your mind actually functions as one, just do this instead it will correct it self in a few weeks.

Laugh out loud it always does.

Health Care and the Government are destined to go together after all misery loves company and water seeks its own level.

It really is all mind over matter.

Originally posted by kettlebellysmith
I am 100% against the government legislating health care. We don't need health care, we need tort reform. Make harder fot patients to sue doctors. Make it harder for people to sue drug counpanies. That alone would save money.
Then instruct to insurance company to cut back on unnecessary test that doctors had to order, just to cover their butts.

Um...come again? That is propaganda from the Bush administration. Blame the little guy. It is OUR fault that the costs are rising. If we never sued it wouldn't be. This is so chicken and egg. Tell that to the woman who went in for knee surgery and came out missing both breasts while the woman with cancer went weeks untreated. It capped out at $250K. Both breasts gone. Tell it to my friends mother whose HMO wouldn't support early detection tests out of cycle--oh wait! You can't. She's gone now.

Some malpractice awards are out of line, but if you ask your local doctor who and what is preventing them from practicing medicine the way they would choose they'll tell you HMOs, not fear of malpractice. Drug and device companies collude with insurance companies all the time. All the time. Tack on how many people that have pre-existing conditions and are forced to go to the emergency room for treatment and you have another good argument for why we're screwed.

Tort, is not the main reason. It is "a" reason.

I would gain a new level of respect for our President and members of congress if at some point they would come forward and announce that they are going to scrap this proposed health care reform bill, while keeping some key beneficial elements and rework a new plan, and give the American people time to review the new alternate plan before the house and senate vote on it.

But honestly, they seem hell bent at this point on ramming this bill through no matter how unpopular it is, or what it will cost. If they could have they would have passed this monstrosity before any of the public had time to see what was in it. It was opposition within their own party that stalled that vote... That should have been a red flag for any American citizen.

I'm sure after their summer break they will vote on this and it will pass the house.... If so, then there isn't much we can do about it until 2010 when we can collectively fire a lot of them.

They do not respond very well to pressure from the public, and apparently it is having an impact, so between now and then, if you have read through this bill, and are opposed to it, or any part of it, voice your opposition to it by contacting your elected reps and/or any other ways that you can. Keep the pressure on, and remind them who their boss really is.

[edit on 9-8-2009 by Walkswithfish]

At first i thought the health care plan was a good idea, until i found out that many Canadians were dying because some bureaucrats was calling the shots on life and death situations........and the ones that could afford health care would come to America to have their procedure done...........Could someone on this website ( that is from Canada) give me some more insite on this situation.

Unfortunately there are people out there who have no clue what is going on. They just know that Obama is for the plan, and that is good enough for them. Then some just see it as another handout, as long as they don't have to pay for it, it is just fine with them.