Originally posted by Wookiep
You may very well have some good points. When it comes to health care, I don't think there is any proposal on the table that is perfect. The
one thing I do know, is that I don't want my govt FORCING me to buy anything. It's the same way I feel about auto insurance. When people start
advocating more govt in to the decisions *I* make, it starts to bug me on an unprecedented level. If I'm forced to use our current health care
providers, my govt can shove it.
I agree - the mandate for insurance is insane. Know why it's there? because of profit motive. It's there because the insurance companies stood to lose
their record, ever-increasing profits (think about it; this is an industry that makes its money when it DOESN'T provide a service!) So they leveraged
their influence to insure that the proposal would not pass without their demands being met. And since the same people they leveraged were the ones
voting on the mess, guess what happened?
All because the private insurance company is out for private profits, and is using private money to influence PUBLIC policy.
Now. You want reduced costs and improved service in the private medical field. And you're right, competition will achieve that. Now the problem is...
they need to be competing against something. An untied, totally privatized system doesn't compete - it colludes. The only competion in the health care
industry, is doctors competing to have bigger houses and shinier cars than each other.
An actual public option - that is, a system where government provides medical care for its people (but still allowing private medical care - thus the
"option," rather than "mandate") - would force competition.Private doctors would have to cut costs to compete, but would also have to ensure their
service is above and beyond that given by the government. Think Canada, where health care can be free... if you wait. or health care can be
immediate... if you pay a reasonably-set price.
You may be somewhat educated on Ron Pauls policies, but I somehow doubt that you fully really are. When you start making accusations such as
"he's a self centered sociopath" it makes my blood boil. It's the same kind of rhetoric our buddies in the media try to pull on a daily basis.
Compared to other candidates on the right AND left when it comes to health-care, I feel it is totally unfair for you to make that judgment.
There are bigger things in the world that should make your blood boil than some dude on the internet badmouthing Ron Paul. Now. it's not just health
care. it's his
entire economic platform. Ron Paul is essentially just parroting the monetarist economic theories of Friedrich Hayek. These
theories have been tested repeatedly in many places around the world - most spectacularly in South America during the 70's. Pinochet, Branco, Videla,
Bordaberry... These names might be familiar to you. basically they forced Hayek's economics onto their nations (through violence, since the policies
kept failing in votes). The policies exploded poverty and created a very small minority of investors who pillages the nations. The same measures were
instituted (more peacefully) by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher... and resulted in sweeping unemployment, shrunken middle classes, and again, a
tiny, fabulously wealthy class of investors. When Russia "went capitalist," they oo adopted Hayek's theories... leading to massive unemployment, the
death of its nascent middle class, and - noticing a pattern - a clique of very, very, very rich investors.
Maybe Ron Paul's a really nice guy. But he's advocating an economic theory that is
proven to bring ruin to a nation. either this makes him a
very, very stupid man who just doesn't know, OR it makes him an advocate of the destruction this philosophy wreaks - essentially a sociopath. "I don't
care who's hurt, so long as I feel good."
And for the record, this doesn't make his competition any better - as I've said lots, he's the BEST the republicans offer here. Nor are the Democrats
shining paragons - most of them are Freemarketeer pirates, too.
Here's a decent description of Ron Paul's Health-Care policy from Wikipedia.
Tax credits. Tell me, Wookie. Do you think "tax credits" will work, all on their own? I don't. What I forsee happening is the medical industry simply
realizing they have a cash cow on their hands - they charge more, the government gives them the money (though it does make a pit stop.) Might as well
just use that money to pay for an actual public health care system - of course, Paul is a doctor, funded by doctors, so... again, profit motive is a
factor.
I don't see the whole "screw the poor they should die, Ron Paul is a self centered sociopath" comments being justified from what I see in that
policy.
That comes from the whole picture. What you've got here is a wealthy doctor looking for kickbacks for other wealthy doctors, and using the beleaguered
patient as a facade for that.
edit on 13/11/2011 by TheWalkingFox because: (no reason given)
Give me a
break. 
