So, I was thinking about this Healthcare debate

[spikedaddy99]

Key phrase being "news reports". I assume he means Katrina and it was New Orleans. The media is too slanted to report the truth. People were given notice to evacuate. While there certainly are "less fortunate" that need help, I'm sure many of those that stayed behind were capable of leaving. If they have a cell phone, hair/nails done monthly, "rims" on the car, and smoke a pack a day, they can afford health insurance, people just choose not to! Sheep, I believe was the word used earlier.

Mike

 

[Knotty Buoy]

Didn't read it. It was a TV news report covered by virtually all the channels.

 

[skibum]

This is plainly a sensitive issue for you. Our government are indeed a parcel of arrogant, thieving, cheeting liars and the tax that we pay is outragous more especially when you see some of the ridiculous things that it's spent on.
However news reports of the aftermath of the flood in Alabama showed people being treated on fold up beds in sports stadiums, not because there were no hospital beds available but because they had no health insurance. If that really is the best that the richest country in the word can do for the less fortunate of their own, then perhaps, amidst the constitutional retoric, you might try to remember the Christian values your country was built on.

The flood was in Louisiana. People were being treated in the Superdome because they were surrounded by water and no one could get to them. Circumstances like that are not typical.

As a rule, you should take any media coverage of American health care with a grain of salt. In Scotland, you will only see extreme examples of things that are not "normal". Our media has an agenda. No one is going to follow a typical American having a typical (good) experience with American health care, film or document it, and then send it to Scotland. You just are not going to see that.

If I need to see my doctor, I can call today and see the doc by tomorrow evening. I have never had to wait longer than 2 days to get scheduled for any test or procedure. I have been hospitalized twice in my life. In both circumstances, I was in a hospital bed within hours of the doctor determining that I needed to be there. The costs to me for both operations were less than replacing the engine in my boat would cost. So, where is the problem with US health care? I'll tell you... It is all in the heads of people who want something for free. That "problem" is... well... it isn't free right now.

The system we have now works, but it only works for people who play by the rules. Meaning that if you work, you will likely have insurance. If you don't work, you will not have insurance. One of our political parties is trying to make doing nothing as profitable as working or owning a business.

I am glad that you are happy with your state run health care system, but America was founded by, and is currently populated by, people who left countries with the same philosophy as yours because we wanted to do it a different way.

 

[comsnark]

As a rule, you should take any media coverage of American health care with a grain of salt. In Scotland, you will only see extreme examples of things that are not "normal". Our media has an agenda.

I would suggest that you take media coverage on ALL topics with a grain of salt. And I agree that the media has an agenda. The agenda varies predictably with the intended media audience.

As to the direct topic of this thread. . . . I see each political party pushing a distinct agenda. The agenda for both parties appears more dictated by political expediencies than actual good faith governance.

 

[giff1]

What British government controlled BBC channel did Knotty Buoy see the (Alabama) flood on? We may have slanted news media but it is not goverment controlled,look at FOX. As for government controlled health care,I think of the movie BraveHeart when the Scot William Wallace yelled FREEDOM.

 

[Four Suns]

I think basic food and shelter is a God given right also. I mean... it's not my fault I was born. Why the hell should I have to work hard for something I didn't even ask for. Ridiculous. I think everyone should be able to live in a nice place, get free food, free healthcare, and a 52 inch plasma TV... and stick it to the greedy bastards that are getting rich off of me.

 

[Pseudomind]

Time out. First off, health insurance is not a god given right. To have health insurance is the responsibility of the individual. If they can not afford it, there are other options. NOBODY in this country has ever been denied care due to lack of insurance. If you are injured, you go to an emergency room, insurance or not, you will get the care you need.

Our country was founded on Christian principals. I am not the greatest scholar on religion, however, I don't recall socialism being a part of sunday school. I do remember the part about personal responsibility and being accountable for your actions though.

Way back when, I didn't have health insurance, so you know what I did? I found a job that provided it, and guess what, 20 years later, I still have it. For those who can't work, there are other options, as I said. For the lazy, that is their own damn fault that they don't have it. I will not subsidize a person's laziness under the guise of social health care.

Touche I like, my sentiments exactly :smt038

If you don't work you don't eat...excluding the actual disabled and elderly..not the fat-a33, alcoholic, or drug addicted sleazy lazy a33e3.

:thumbsup:

 

[Turtlesboat]

I think insurance should also cover self medication. You know, pay for my beer and martini's.

 

[Jack F]

I think insurance should also cover self medication. You know, pay for my beer and martini's.

That's already covered by food stamp.

 

[giff1]

Due to heavy rain today,there is flooding in Alabama :huh::huh: :huh:

 

[Knotty Buoy]

""If I need to see my doctor, I can call today and see the doc by tomorrow evening. I have never had to wait longer than 2 days to get scheduled for any test or procedure. I have been hospitalized twice in my life. In both circumstances, I was in a hospital bed within hours of the doctor determining that I needed to be there. The costs to me for both operations were less than replacing the engine in my boat would cost. So, where is the problem with US health care? I'll tell you... It is all in the heads of people who want something for free. That "problem" is... well... it isn't free right now.

The system we have now works, but it only works for people who play by the rules. Meaning that if you work, you will likely have insurance. If you don't work, you will not have insurance. One of our political parties is trying to make doing nothing as profitable as working or owning a business.

I am glad that you are happy with your state run health care system, but America was founded by, and is currently populated by, people who left countries with the same philosophy as yours because we wanted to do it a different way.""

I take your point on the slant that the media put on reports to ensure they "sell" and I have no doubt for the vast majority of Americans the system works as does ours, I call the surgery and I get an appointment the same day. What I am taken aback by is the level of hostility to the notion of a parallel system to help the less fortunate.
I have been to America several times, Detroit and Conneticuit, and what struck me was how polite, well mannered and hospitable the people were. I'm sure you don't genuinely believe that everyone who is out of work deserves to be there.....tomorrow it could be you or I.
We have the same segment of "don't work, won't work" and our damned system seems to hand them everything and that gets right up my nose but it somehow the notion that every one is entitled to medical treatment dosn't. Those who want a quicker service have the option to buy into private health care but not many actually take it up and having work in the NHS I can see why. As I said, it's your country, your government, your decision and really none of my business but there's no debated if everyone takes the same view. :grin:

 

[limitedwave@gmail.com]

Knotty Buoy - Not all Americans are selfish and under-informed. Personally I cannot argue against a public-option being added to our system. A lot of Americans have a huge problem with adding an 'option'. Maybe they don't comprehend the word 'option'. I think its pretty sad that insured, hard working Americans, are getting treatments they need from mobile medical units and the like. Because they cannot afford it otherwise. These arguments I'm reading fail miserably, am I just reading a Fox News/Glenn Beck transcription? People should just slow down and think a little. If our system was better then the rest of the world's, then wouldn't the rest of the world be making strides to replicate our system? They aren't, cause it sucks. We get outranked by a lot of smaller nations and that's weak.

 

[ImpulseIII]

Knotty Buoy - Not all Americans are selfish and under-informed. Personally I cannot argue against a public-option being added to our system. A lot of Americans have a huge problem with adding an 'option'. Maybe they don't comprehend the word 'option'. I think its pretty sad that insured, hard working Americans, are getting treatments they need from mobile medical units and the like. Because they cannot afford it otherwise. These arguments I'm reading fail miserably, am I just reading a Fox News/Glenn Beck transcription? People should just slow down and think a little. If our system was better then the rest of the world's, then wouldn't the rest of the world be making strides to replicate our system? They aren't, cause it sucks. We get outranked by a lot of smaller nations and that's
weak.

You don't see a lot of people rushing to get out of this country to go somewhere else for medical treatments....do you? You do see LOT's of people coming here for treatment though... Heads of state, celebrities, business moguls, etc.

Whats wrong with Fox News or Glenn Beck ?

 

[ghuskin]

how many of those that "can't afford it" have cable tv? cell phones? HDTV's? eat like crap? over weight?

 

[Four Suns]

I saw a month or so ago a clip where a kid was talking about how he had student loans and a car payment (brand new red mustang) and said he couldn't afford health insurance.... Didn't understand why people would not want "free health care"....

 

[ronaldsndrs]

Flat Tax 35% business and personal and everyone is covered

 

[fc3]

Flat Tax 35% business and personal and everyone is covered

Not for long because costs of "free" service rapidly spiral out of control. And 35% represents a huge taking of weath. The current corporate tax already makes companies not competitive. So why give them more incentive to move off-shore?

From James Taranto's Best of the Web email column of 9 Sept 2009

If you ever find yourself traveling on the Liverpool Care Pathway, you've taken a wrong turn. London's Daily Telegraph explains:

Rosemary Munkenbeck says her father Eric Troake, who entered hospital after suffering a stroke, had fluid and drugs withdrawn and she claims doctors wanted to put him on morphine until he passed away under a scheme for dying patients called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP).
Mrs Munkenbeck, 56, from Bracknell, said her father, who previously said he wanted to live until he was 100, has now said he wants to die after being deprived of fluids for five days. . . .
Last week The Daily Telegraph reported a warning from experts that some patients with terminal illnesses were being wrongly put on the NHS scheme and allowed to die prematurely if they ticked "the right boxes."
London's Daily Mail, meanwhile, reports that the LCP is for very young patients as well as very old ones:

Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.
Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy--almost four months early.
They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.
And the Sunday Times of London reports on the British medical system's treatment of adults in the prime of life:

Parents are being threatened with having their children taken into care [state custody] after questioning doctors' diagnoses or objecting to their medical care.
John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, who campaigns to stop injustices in the family court, said: "Very often care proceedings are used as retaliation by local authorities against 'uppity' people who question the system."
Cases are emerging across the UK:
The mother of a 13-year-old girl who became partly paralysed after being given a cervical cancer vaccination says social workers have told her the child may be removed if she (the mother) continues to link her condition with the vaccination.
A couple had all six of their children removed from their care after they disputed the necessity of an invasive medical test on their eldest daughter. Doctors, who suspected she might have had a blood disease, called for social services to obtain an emergency protection order, although it was subsequently confirmed that she was not suffering from the condition. The parents were still considered unstable, and all their children were taken from them.
A single mother whose teenage son is terminally ill and confined to a wheelchair has been told he is to become the subject of a care order after she complained that her local authority's failure to provide bathroom facilities for him has left her struggling to maintain sanitary standards.
Putting all this in perspective is former Enron adviser Paul Krugman: "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false." Don't worry, be happy as you meander down the Liverpool Care Pathway.

Don't see how that system is better than what we have. Might as well just keep what we have and make minor adjustments to fix it for the very, very few who fall though the gaps.

 

[comsnark]

35% flat tax to pay for health care?

Is that an additional flat tax, or in place of the income tax we already have?

This question is of interest because I have always felt that the flat tax movement in this country have had interesting ways of doing math.

 

[Pseudomind]

Flat Tax 35% business and personal and everyone is covered

Okay you have a 35% flat tax,

Now what happens with all of the other "fees?" Access costs, usage rights etc. storm water runoff fee, vehicle registration license costs, to include hunting and fishing, property taxes, tolls, etc.

Is one naive enough to believe these will all go away? No one now currently has a 35% tax and yet all of the others, taxes, fees whatever name you chose are still there, to be increased at any Gov_Mint whim which comes along.

So now I am paying a flat 35% tax, what tax are the fata$$ too lazy to work paying? Lets see if I am living in subsidized housing , getting social security, SSI, so just what 35% tax will I be paying?

Puke.

 

[skibum]

Knotty Buoy - Not all Americans are selfish and under-informed. Personally I cannot argue against a public-option being added to our system. A lot of Americans have a huge problem with adding an 'option'. Maybe they don't comprehend the word 'option'. I think its pretty sad that insured, hard working Americans, are getting treatments they need from mobile medical units and the like. Because they cannot afford it otherwise. These arguments I'm reading fail miserably, am I just reading a Fox News/Glenn Beck transcription? People should just slow down and think a little. If our system was better then the rest of the world's, then wouldn't the rest of the world be making strides to replicate our system? They aren't, cause it sucks. We get outranked by a lot of smaller nations and that's weak.

Let me explains the reason that we get pissed off. "Have a huge problem with adding an option"... Really? Do we? Read the friggin' bill. I pasted one of the offending sections below in red.

• Note that section (a) states that only people currently enrolled in a plan when the law takes effect, get to keep the plan that they are on.

• Note that 1.)(A) states that any currently offered private health care plan in existence when the law takes effect will NOT be allowed to enroll anyone else on that plan after the date that the law takes effect. THIS MEANS THAT YOU WILL NO LONGER HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHOOSE OR ENROLL IN ANY OF THOSE PLANS AFTER THE LAW TAKES EFFECT. Obama lie #1, which he carefully describes as the "option" to keep your current plan "if you like it". Yeah, you can keep it, but if you move to another state or take a new job, you will not be allowed to enroll in ANY private plan because they (private insurers) are NOT ALLOWED to sell you their services.

• Note that BOTH (2) and (3) state that the insurance providers may not alter the benefits they provide or the price of any of their current plans. Obama lie #2, "this is about choice and competition". What would happen to any business that is not allowed to adjust to changing market conditions when it needs to? It goes out of business. No insurance plan in existence today will survive for more than 2-5 years because they will not be allowed to procure any new customers, adjust their current plans to allow for new treatments or procedures, or to adjust the price of thier plans to keep up with the "market" price of health services. Since no new private plans will be allowed to sign up any new customers, the "market price" becomes whatever the government wants to pay for that service. At that point, all the government needs to do is drive up the prices, and they can run all of the private plans bankrupt. This would force everyone to be stuck with the only "option", the government plan (which would be the only one "allowed" to sign new customers up).

SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE.

• (a) Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage Defined- Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term `grandfathered health insurance coverage' means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:

• • (1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT-

• • • (A) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.

• • • (B) DEPENDENT COVERAGE PERMITTED- Subparagraph (A) shall not affect the subsequent enrollment of a dependent of an individual who is covered as of such first day.

• • (2) LIMITATION ON CHANGES IN TERMS OR CONDITIONS- Subject to paragraph (3) and except as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing, from those in effect as of the day before the first day of Y1.

• • (3) RESTRICTIONS ON PREMIUM INCREASES- The issuer cannot vary the percentage increase in the premium for a risk group of enrollees in specific grandfathered health insurance coverage without changing the premium for all enrollees in the same risk group at the same rate, as specified by the Commissioner.

It is not about being selfish, or "under informed". It is about being lied to. Yeah, SOME people have a problem with health care, but NOT EVERYONE. This is a classic example of using a nuclear (nuk-u-lar :grin bomb when a hand grenade would be sufficient. Fix the problem areas, not the good parts. Why can't people understand this? Its the same as crushing a car into a little cube at the scrap yard because it got a flat tire.

All of this BS about Fox news and Glenn Beck gets thrown about without any facts to back them up. Don't like Beck and Fox news, fine. How about rebutting their version of the story with some facts? Then we'll talk. Just saying that "they suck" or "they lie" or "they're right wingers" isn't going to cut it. They wear their politics on their sleeves for all to see, but they do use factual information in their news stories. Hell, MSNBC is telling folks "we're fair" while giving Obama what amounts to unpaid advertising time on their shows. I'd watch them if they would for once just ask a damn question without first stating the liberal point of view as fact, discrediting the conservative position with just about any crap that they can think of, and then asking Obama (or whoever the liberal hack of the day is) if they agree with what they just said. How about they just ask a few simple, direct, relevant questions? Nope, that wouldn't sufficiently advance the liberal position.

So, if we don't have blind faith in the politicians, who everyone agrees lie, cheat, steal, and grab power, then we are "selfish and under informed". Oh, please... get over it...