My "Liberal" opinion of UHC

[michiganFats]

I have two points to make about Universal Health Coverage.

The first point being that today we are trying to use a private system utilizing actuarial tables to set rates that will pay for treatment of diseases that can't be covered because they are too common and expensive. Cancer isn't rare anymore, and it is very expensive to treat. Heart disease is expensive, so is MS, another disease on the rise. Let's not forget Diabetes. If you believe the alarmists, Mad-Cow will be common soon. Maybe it won't be, but even if it isn't, you get my point. We've got a lot of medical expenses to deal with. If any significant minority of Americans will get sick in their lifetime, the money required to treat that will far exceed the ability of the individual policy-holder to pay.

I believe that when we have a problem that effects everyone in the nation and private means can't handle that problem, the Federal Government has an obligation to get involved. Like it or not, it's now a federal issue.

The second point being that we need a debate on this issue right now, but cannot have one because some people still refuse to use simple mathematics to work out the numbers, and they like to throw out words such as "socialist", "Marxist", "communist", in order to deflect attention away from the financial issues. To those people I can only say one thing, this is most likely your fault.

I think it's funny that the so called conservatives and republicans are the ones taking it upon themselves to fight the "evil" that is UHC, because their party is the one who brought it to us. In 1993, Hillary Clinton was vilified(rightly so in my opinion) for trying to establish UHC. It didn't exist at that point. Fast forward to 2008. Obama doesn't want to establish anything, he just wants to tie databases together. You know why? Previous Congresses and Administrations have already established UHC, the pieces just need to be tied together. What happened in that timeframe? Who was in charge? Own it bitches, because it's yours.

I think the real issue is what form the federal involvement takes. Will it be cradle to grave? Will it just be financing that leaves the doctors in charge of care? It would be nice to have this debate, but we can't. Too many "conservative" meatheads won't even acknowledge that we have a problem in the first place. So, when something is implemented(and it will be), don't cry about lack of debate.

[GetAClue]

I responded to you on this subject in another post, but see that you did not respond.
http://www.dcjunkies.com/showthread.php?t=8034&page=5

I will paste my original post on this subject here. Maybe you will respond to this one.


To your first point, yes I have been warning others of the move to the UHC. The problem however exists in that we have created a dependent class of people in this country that expect something for nothing. In years past, if your child had a cold, you fed them chicken soup, kept them home from school and let the cold run its course.

Now people are running to the doctor and getting prescriptions for antibiotics to alleviate the symptoms of the cold that would go away on its own. And to make matters worse, they claim that their Insurance provider should pay for it. But those same people start to complain when they cannot afford their insurance any more. Where to they think the money will come from. Washington’s answer is to nationalize it! That is part of BHO’s plan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022502826.html

To quote from the article: “Obama aims to make a "very substantial down payment" toward universal coverage by trimming tax breaks for the wealthy and squeezing payments to insurers, hospitals, doctors and drug manufacturers, a senior administration official said yesterday.”

You then ask a question, “Also, is that [socialism] an entirely bad thing?” My answer would be YES it is. Socialism as I understand it is when the State (government) controls the economy thru taking over ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange for the “Good” of the people. This philosophy “assumes” that the people in charge of this are doing it “solely” for the good of the people. But as we all know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. For evidence, see the U.S.S.R, Cuba, China, North Korea, etc.

And to your last point, I don’t care if you take my BHO is a socialist accusations seriously. While true that I have not laid out a ton of facts and references, I usually comment of the subject at hand, which by the time I get to it, is common knowledge. I also then write my views using logic and reason with said common knowledge to come to my conclusions. As of this point, I have not seen ANYONE argue effectively to disprove ANY of it. The usual response I get is the name calling and misdirection to change the subject to avoid any real discussion.

[michiganFats]

Get A Clue, before I respond to anything else, let's be honest. We've gone at it on more than one thread, not just the one you claimed. So, before I address anything else you've brought up (and I want to), drop the old "I tried to talk to you and you wouldn't respond" act. I started a brand new thread in order to respond to UHC, so don't play me as some kind of pussy. I did respond, this thread is my response, and you know it, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

The ball is in your court. You asked for civility and a rational argument. I'm willing to do that. I'm right here in front of you right now, in fact I'm willing to start another thread after class tonight about socialism. But, I don't see any reason to do that if you want to get into juvenile bullshit about who ran away from whom...because I quite obviously did not run from anyone.

[GetAClue]

Get A Clue, before I respond to anything else, let's be honest. We've gone at it on more than one thread, not just the one you claimed. So, before I address anything else you've brought up (and I want to), drop the old "I tried to talk to you and you wouldn't respond" act. I started a brand new thread in order to respond to UHC, so don't play me as some kind of pussy. I did respond, this thread is my response, and you know it, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

The ball is in your court. You asked for civility and a rational argument. I'm willing to do that. I'm right here in front of you right now, in fact I'm willing to start another thread after class tonight about socialism. But, I don't see any reason to do that if you want to get into juvenile bullshit about who ran away from whom...because I quite obviously did not run from anyone.

Fair enough. However, I was simply directing back to the original discussion for relavance to my answer. I was not trying to imply that you were running away and if you took it that way, I appologize.

But I will say that many on this forum tend to shy away from meaningful discussion and resort to name calling or changing the subject in an attempt to avoid it. If that is not you, then I welcome the opportunity to discuss these topics with you.

[BlackAsCoal]

I have two points to make about Universal Health Coverage.

The first point being that today we are trying to use a private system utilizing actuarial tables to set rates that will pay for treatment of diseases that can't be covered because they are too common and expensive. Cancer isn't rare anymore, and it is very expensive to treat. Heart disease is expensive, so is MS, another disease on the rise. Let's not forget Diabetes. If you believe the alarmists, Mad-Cow will be common soon. Maybe it won't be, but even if it isn't, you get my point. We've got a lot of medical expenses to deal with. If any significant minority of Americans will get sick in their lifetime, the money required to treat that will far exceed the ability of the individual policy-holder to pay.

I believe that when we have a problem that effects everyone in the nation and private means can't handle that problem, the Federal Government has an obligation to get involved. Like it or not, it's now a federal issue.

The second point being that we need a debate on this issue right now, but cannot have one because some people still refuse to use simple mathematics to work out the numbers, and they like to throw out words such as "socialist", "Marxist", "communist", in order to deflect attention away from the financial issues. To those people I can only say one thing, this is most likely your fault.

I think it's funny that the so called conservatives and republicans are the ones taking it upon themselves to fight the "evil" that is UHC, because their party is the one who brought it to us. In 1993, Hillary Clinton was vilified(rightly so in my opinion) for trying to establish UHC. It didn't exist at that point. Fast forward to 2008. Obama doesn't want to establish anything, he just wants to tie databases together. You know why? Previous Congresses and Administrations have already established UHC, the pieces just need to be tied together. What happened in that timeframe? Who was in charge? Own it bitches, because it's yours.

I think the real issue is what form the federal involvement takes. Will it be cradle to grave? Will it just be financing that leaves the doctors in charge of care? It would be nice to have this debate, but we can't. Too many "conservative" meatheads won't even acknowledge that we have a problem in the first place. So, when something is implemented(and it will be), don't cry about lack of debate.

Let me add a third point to your other very good points.

It would be the best stimulus to this economy that we could institute. A recent CNA study demonstrates that it would crete nearly 3 million new, long-term, non-exportable jobs as new hospitals, clinics, and facilities would have o be built and millions of healthcare workers would have to be hired. Education and training would boom, as would all manner of jobs would be created for suppliers and those who service the healthcare industry.

Healthcare for all Americans could be accomplished with the 62% of healthcare costs that US taxpayers already cover plus 6 times less than what we gave to CitiGroup and less than half of what we've given to AIG.

... and the majority of Americans favor nationalized healthcare. That has been consistent for the last 10 years.

[BlackAsCoal]

I responded to you on this subject in another post, but see that you did not respond.
http://www.dcjunkies.com/showthread.php?t=8034&page=5

I will paste my original post on this subject here. Maybe you will respond to this one.


To your first point, yes I have been warning others of the move to the UHC. The problem however exists in that we have created a dependent class of people in this country that expect something for nothing. In years past, if your child had a cold, you fed them chicken soup, kept them home from school and let the cold run its course.

Now people are running to the doctor and getting prescriptions for antibiotics to alleviate the symptoms of the cold that would go away on its own. And to make matters worse, they claim that their Insurance provider should pay for it. But those same people start to complain when they cannot afford their insurance any more. Where to they think the money will come from. Washington’s answer is to nationalize it! That is part of BHO’s plan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022502826.html

To quote from the article: “Obama aims to make a "very substantial down payment" toward universal coverage by trimming tax breaks for the wealthy and squeezing payments to insurers, hospitals, doctors and drug manufacturers, a senior administration official said yesterday.”

You then ask a question, “Also, is that [socialism] an entirely bad thing?” My answer would be YES it is. Socialism as I understand it is when the State (government) controls the economy thru taking over ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange for the “Good” of the people. This philosophy “assumes” that the people in charge of this are doing it “solely” for the good of the people. But as we all know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. For evidence, see the U.S.S.R, Cuba, China, North Korea, etc.

And to your last point, I don’t care if you take my BHO is a socialist accusations seriously. While true that I have not laid out a ton of facts and references, I usually comment of the subject at hand, which by the time I get to it, is common knowledge. I also then write my views using logic and reason with said common knowledge to come to my conclusions. As of this point, I have not seen ANYONE argue effectively to disprove ANY of it. The usual response I get is the name calling and misdirection to change the subject to avoid any real discussion.

a) Socialism is not new to the United States.

b) There is no logic, truth, or even common sense to the notion that Obama is a socialist .. just fear.

[Moby]

The problem however exists in that we have created a dependent class of people in this country that expect something for nothing. In years past, if your child had a cold, you fed them chicken soup, kept them home from school and let the cold run its course.

Now people are running to the doctor and getting prescriptions for antibiotics to alleviate the symptoms of the cold that would go away on its own. And to make matters worse, they claim that their Insurance provider should pay for it.
I agree with you that's a massive part of the problem.

The people that I know that run off to the doctor quickly get a large portion of their health care paid for by the government or consumers. More so government. I know teachers, government contractors, government employees that run top the doctor every chance they get.

Guess who pays for that? I do. If you're working then you do to.

These people have become dependant on government health care and we're paying for it.

I'm OK with taking it all away or finding a way for me to get the same coverage for the same price. I'm not a big fan of the "Elitist" idea that government employees deserve better benefits then us business owners.

Keep in mind, that universal health care and nationalizing health care are two very different things. The pundits just keep grouping them together.

[MintJulep]

I'm not a big fan of the "Elitist" idea that government employees deserve better benefits then us business owners.

How do you figure govt employees have "better" benefits than business owners?

[disrupter]

While one can easily object to individuals that become 'dependent' on government,

how about all the parasite corporations that are dependent on US government welfare for their profit streams?

Most notably drug companies & insurance companies.

I think that any government healthcare should try to be a direct partnership with individuals, where there are expectations of individuals as well as expectations of government. Doctors & other providers should not bear the burden of unreasonable cost cutting.

Insurance companies & other healthcare companies try to get in the way of this reciprocal relationship. Their goal is to confuse the issues & people.

Insurance companies & healthcare companies ARE the BARRIER to healthcare delivery.

Insurance companies love that employers cover healthcare, because that way their is no direct accountability between the retail customer [the individual] & the [supposed] service provider.
Because the end customer never directly confronts [or is confronted by] retail billing, they never do the scrutiny of billing.
The employer is busy running their own business & doesn't have the resources & time to scrutinize elaborate, complex & completely non-uniform, non-standardized expenses.

The only thing i ever heard that i agreed with GWB, is that when the end customer is completely out of touch with the actual costs/expenses of a service can not help but be a systematically ruinous problem.

For-profit healthcare is a disease on the healthcare delivery process.

Even those insurers who 'claim' to be non-profit are packing down big chunks of change in salaries, by denying patient's claims.

But if the US government is going to MANDATE that i be yoked & enslaved to the corrupt, for-profit insurance industry i will have their heads on a platter.

The ONLY system I will accept from the US government is a single payer system.
That system would only be well served if it places some well thought out & demonstrable responsibilities, burdens & expectations on the individual citizens who can receive care.
People at the very least should be required to look at the billing for any procedures they receive, so they are aware of how expensive it is.
They should be required to read & sign all billing. Perhaps stating the final total out loud & cosigned before a witness.

Prevention, & personal self-maintenance, & regular [cost-effective] testing for early stage disease should be a part of the system.

People who indulge in proven unhealthy habits should have that reflected in expenses. Perhaps heavy taxation of cigarettes & alcohol would catch some things on the front end most effectively. As for people who indulge in risky behavior & get injured thereby should have some kind of surcharge added to billing.

There should be broad & required education on how one maintains one's good health & also what things are seriously detrimental to health.
Good clinical research about what benefits as well as degrades health should be on going.

Single payer is the ONLY thing i will accept from government,
otherwise they should keep their dirty, corrupted hands off it altogether.

[disrupter]

Keep in mind these same villainous 'healthcare' companies will be cherry picking customers for maximum profit & minimum [ZERO] service.

here they are denying policies to people based on the results of genetic tests.
Melbourne (PTI): The first study in the world revealing genetic discrimination has found number of Australians being denied insurance protection because of their genetic make-up.http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/003200903100932.htm

Your very own DNA will be used against you by these evil company's avarice.

These are just evil nasty, lying cheating companies.
Murderous money sucking parasites.

Just how much more wicked could you get?