Should all taxpayer based health care be eliminated?

Heya ATSers.
I was considering how we have gone through a year of people moaning about governmental health care. Well, turns out there is no public option anyhow, so it was a bit of a waste of chatting.

I am wondering though, Why do we have any government healthcare in the first place...
Why do politicians have taxpayer paid for health care...or police, city workers, etc...

Do you favor removing any and all health care plans for all governmental agencys with the exception of active military? Let them get healthcare like the rest of us schmucks that dont have a milti-million member organization to fall into...

I wonder also if the tone of politicians would change if indeed they had to spring for their own health care verses just soak up the taxpayers healthcare...

Wanted to add:
I say active military only because it would be difficult for someone overseas fighting to use a plan by a insurance company should they get shot up...simple logic would show that we would need to help them out there...but once inactive or out, then sorry, find your own insurance...no more of that free healthcare for life for being in the military for a few years.

I would choose for all, including politicians, POTUS, SCOTUS, etc. to be on the identical health care system as the people. I think health care should be taxpayer-paid for the military, and should include excellent aftercare for LIFE, including immediate family of same.

Then, we could talk about how the military could conduct repairs to the infrastructure in peacetimes, should that condition ever occur.

I think so. Except for active military only, that I could see as being apart of the military, for the reasons of security and such. Such as special forces and stuff their medical records should be sealed and out of the private sector, until they retire.

This is the way I see it, the government sucks at running their own affairs. By the time the money filters through the bureaucracy there really isn't much left to go to whatever the taxes are supposed to be paying. I was talking to somebody in government and they were telling me how it costs $0.75 out of every dollar collected in taxes just to run the government. That leaves $0.25 out of dollar to be spent on schools, roads, fire, police, etc.

Example, the school system. There are a lot of schools that are closing down because they aren't funded, because the states have overspent, and the One Child Left behind act, has caused even more funding to go away from funding those schools.

Look at Social Security, it's going to pay out more than it takes in this year. Medicare that's all screwed up.

My position is this, if the government could actually run a program better than a private company then we could talk about the pro's and con's of the government running a business. The problem is everything they touch they screw up.

So excluding fire, police, military, roads, etc.(necessary items) the fed government needs to get out of all private sector affairs. I don't disagree with some safety nets, such as welfare and unemployment, but health care, the government needs to get out of it, they have screwed it up enough already.

i favor non government run health care because

the government has run medicaid for a long time now and look at that

i've been through it first hand

i had a private psychiatrist for 8 or more years and when i turned 21 i got off my parents insurance and switched to the government run medicaid

which is a good idea in itself, because not everyone can afford the treatments they need

but let's just leave it at now i don't take any medication ( totaly unrelated but actually i feel better now in every way possible.. weird how fate turned out so positive in my case )

but anyways ron paul has made this comment before also

Until you as a person or family member loses his or her job and don't have a way to get insurance. And with taxpayer based health care eliminated you wouldn't be able to get medicare/medicade like much of the US do now. You would die in a ditch somewhere with your family because their would be no organization that would be able to help you. You could go into an emergency room thinking that they by law can't force you away, and thats right for now. But what if they do get their way and are exactly like the people who want no govt. health care and say if you don't have insurance or paid for the health care given to you, you don't get help. Thats cold, but it's just as cold as not supporting people in your country that have nowhere or no one to help them either. It's all fun and games while your on top of the moutain, but when your down at the base it's not so much fun.

reply to post by hoghead cheese


Oh please, get off of it. "Most of America" I hardly consider 30 million people,(in actuality about 12 million) "Most of America".

I wonder what all those people did before medicare and medicaid came along.

I see your point. Why should anybody be considered "worthy" of a free ride is kind of the thinking. Why make them better than us or something along those lines.

But, then what about the 9/11 responders? Many of them are suffering long-term affects from trying to save "us". I would think that this warrants "us" taking care of them should something happen while saving us?

I would hate to think that they would hesitate based on fear of being saddled with hefty medical bills should something go wrong. Or would this fall under workman's comp anyway? Just thinking out loud....

Maybe 9/11 was a bad one to pick since I don't want to turn this into a debate about the "event" or anything.

[edit on 15-4-2010 by lpowell0627]

Originally posted by lpowell0627

Maybe 9/11 was a bad one to pick since I don't want to turn this into a debate about the "event" or anything.

[edit on 15-4-2010 by lpowell0627]

Fine fine fine...active firemen, active police (beat cops, not the desk jockey types), and military...anyone whom either can catch fire or be shot while doing their job...otherwise, stuff the rest...find a insurance company just like the rest of us.

And then, with all those people looking for health care from the public sector, you can be damn sure there would be some serious clampdown regulations and large pools going on in the insurance industry...

If they are going to deny the public a public option, then lets take away the public options to those whom denied us to begin with

reply to post by lpowell0627


If the government got out of the Health Care system, then there wouldn't be outrageous medical bills. Doctors and hospitals would have to be competitive. As it stands right now they don't have to be and when the government is saying they will only pay x amount for a procedure when they are charging a higher amount then the rest of the people take up the slack.

If we could actually price shop for health care then things would be way cheaper especially if the government wasn't screwing doctors over with paying the price that they set.

Health care would also naturally get cheaper because doctors and hospitals wouldn't need an army of people just to fill out paperwork.

Originally posted by Light of Night

I wonder what all those people did before medicare and medicaid came along.

Died...

Thats sorta why it came along...whatever charity organizations couldn't handle, vultures handled.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Hrmm, what do those people do now with medicare and medicaid? Oh yea they die too.

Medicare and Medicaid came along because it was a part of the progressive agenda that never got passed until the 60's. It had nothing to do with costs, costs were right in line with the rest of the world when those programs came along.

I hate to burst your bubble. So people
who have jobs where they could be shot
should get public healthcare?
Does that mean pizza delivery people
and grocery clerks and bank tellers?

I know just by your post that you do not
care for military people but I have to get
clarification.

In your world a person gets shot while in
the military but is not entitled to V.A treat-
ment. Instead they get charged more because
the last I checked, bullet holes are a pre
existing condition.

In case you are unaware, the VA is not a
new organization. It was actually started by
Lincoln, but I guess your 19th century thinking
is in line with lack of respect.

Hello

Many people would be happy to see all the non-deserving poor die.
It would be quite an economic relief, wouldn't it?

Any health care that is available to one, should be available to all. My view is that costs need to be reeled in. It's not the doctors so much as it is the hospitals. There is a hospital in my town that is supposed to be "non-profit", but in the last few years they have bought three other hospitals that I'm aware of. How did they manage that, I wonder, if they are not raking in a huge profit? Hospitals don't come cheaply. Outrageous.

Hospitals have been overcharging Medicaid and Medicare for years. If there are any existent checks and balances, they aren't working.

And medications are preposterously exorbitant, along with CT scans, MRI's, and all this technology HAS to be paid for, by now. A PET scan is $20,000? What?

I'm not sure what the solution is in getting these costs under control.
But therein lies the problem.

In the meantime, being sick and suffering is a terrible, terrible thing.
If there is available treatment, all people should have access to it, not just the wealthy. It's a human to human obligation. It's the right thing to do. Sometimes we have to do things just because it's the right thing to do.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


An interesting thing you point out is that many hospitals and other health care providers are "non-profits." I find it ironic that health care industry lobbyists are kicking and screaming about government "subsidized" healthcare, when the fact of the matter is our current healthcare system is highly subsidized in the form of tax breaks for "non-profits."

A hospital or any other healthcare provider can qualify as a non-profit under 501(c)(3) if they have an emergency room which treats all patients regardless of their ability to pay. This means hospitals get treated like charities for tax purposes if they slap a band-aid on a homeless person every now and then even though they may charge everybody else an arm and a leg for treatment.