While some conservatives claim that Obama wants to kill your granny I hesitate to accept that as Obamas sole reason for pushing the health care reform.
From the private insurers point of view it makes perfect sense to oppose the reform ... if they didn't, they'd face an immense decline in profits if either the government option provides better care or if regulations bar insurers from avoiding costs by their current methods.
But it's a bit too simplicistic to merely claim that one party acts out of altruism (or a loathing of old ladies) and the other out of greed.
So, what do you think are the driving motives in this dispute ?
(Note that I don't ask you what you think is the better solution.)
Pro (Motives of the health care reform advocates):
Con (Motives of the health care reform opponents):
Two key issues that make the health care reform necessary in the eyes of the proponents are quailty and cost.
Quality has been discussed to death and information (and misinformation) is freely available.
Cost is harder to estimate - one simply can't understand what estimated costs of trillions of dollars over decades means for your paycheck. So I started a different thread where I want to compare the personal average cost of health care in different countries.
For example: German average gross income is about €2,500. After deductions (including health insurance) a single person without kids gets to keep about €1,500.
And what can germans do with that money in germany? Why, buy beer, of course. €1,500 get you 1,200 litre of high quality Pilsener beer - twice as much if you don't care about quality and go for the cheap labels.
Health care costs: €185 per month (currently $264)
Cheers!
If you have nothing to say then don't.
But I have two questions for you:
Um, how about this...
Keep the poor "not dead" by allowing them to become not poor. Duh!
There must be a means to further oneself financially. This is what made America such a great power in the 19th and 20th centuries. There was massive innovation, greatly increased overall wealth of individuals, and a increase in power of the country. This is what made America great, NOT the Government. People need the opportunity to further themselves, and punishing achievement (the rich) is not the way to do it.
Now I'm not saying that government regulation and law isn't needed (see the great dipression, fraud, ect.). But this is to be handled by the judictial system, not the legislative system. Also, the federal government has no jurisdiction in this matter, only STATE Law should have grounds here. It is the United STATES of America... the Feds should not be involved.
The poor will always exist, but we can constantly improve their chances by giving them the means to further themselves. If they chose to be lazy bastards, then they will stay poor
Use your brains, not your emotions -
Lugh,
There are so many issues one could take with your above statement I don't know where to start except to point out how blatantly false it is.
The system in Canada works for the purpose of its intent, which is to say we "the Canadian Taxpayer" happily provide (at the very least) the basic healthcare for each and every one of our citizens (yes....even the abusers of said system). Is it the very BEST treatment (ie. drugs, machines, technology, etc.) known to man? No. But it keeps the many healthy, while the few (ie. rare blood diseases, other rare conditions) are left out.
Of course there are many in Canada (including myself) that are all for a 2-tier system whereby we "the Canadian Taxpayer" would still happily provide the basic level of healthcare for all citizens and if you had read my post on page 1 you'd see in my second case I would have opted to go to a "paying clinic", received my treatment and left. Something wrong with that?
The entire populace paying TAXES making sure the next generation gets educated is a GOOD thing.
The entire populace paying TAXES making sure everyone gets basic healthcare is a GOOD thing.
These are things which help a country survive when the sins of purely capitalist thinking catch up with it. Look around you, sure your CAPATALISM made things attainable that wouldn't otherwise be there. How are you planning to enjoy those things when the fabric of your nation (ie. the people) are sick and dying? A smart nation, combines capitalism and socialism. You need the competitiveness bred through capitalism to build a nation up, but you also need the backbone of socialism in order to survive the hard times.
When I hear "the right to bear arms" spoken south of the border with more conviction and determination than what one might now refer to as "the right to being alive" I feel nothing but sad for you....
the Monk
Obstructionist, are those the same people Nancy Pelosi was saying she loved in 2006?
I liked the Ehrlichman quote ^^I'm a bit confused, though. How do you reconcile some of the comments here with, say, the Credit Card Legislation which passed with barely a murmur in May? Remember that bill? According to a few of the talking points I'm reading here - we should trust the Free Market and Big Government is A Bad Thing. Right? So where was all the conservative fire and vinegar about the deplorable, completely unnecessary, and Big Brotheresque government takeover of Credit Card Oversight in May?
Oh right. That's different.
First off - it's simple, everyone gets the shaft and the wolves never really bothered to put on sheep's clothes.
Second, it's popular - you can't really argue against mediating credit cards (no matter how much special interests pay you) because you will be crucified and then lose your precious seat at Congress or as a Pundit Plastic.
Third - the government isn't threatening to *gasp* "socialize" Credit Cards, there is no Public credit being extended to Americans, so we have no Pavlovian McCarthy-era key words to proc off of.
So let's take stock: hard to polarize or motivate a constituency against it, so our small government/anti-regulation Principles seem to silently melt away...funny how that works, no? Sort of like how Moral Values apply to Other People, maybe?
Health Care, though - well that's more complicated, right? We can debate that, we can finesse it, and the wolves do a better job of paying us
Never mind, for example, that a country America has done everything possible to keep from progressing beyond the Stone Age has better healthcare index performance than we do. (Rather be ded than red, though, right?)
We can afford to ignore the rest of the world and talk about our Principles again!
1. Fear of Big Government - Big Brother has truly turned Canada into a Police State, eh? Especially compared to everyone's favorite Conservative small government President - Mr. Bush - who managed to revoke Posse Comitatus after 128 years and did more damage to civil rights and the checks and balances of government than any President, ever - oh but he's been disowned, right? Officially not a Republican, nope. And his actions are nothing compared to the Threat From Kenya, right?
Domestic NSA warrantless wiretapping and flexible revocation of Habeus Corpus are far less invasive, threatening, and Orwellian than Government-sponsored health care, as we all know. WE IS IN UR HOSPITALZ, KONTROLING UR MORFINE DRIPZ!!
Yes, that conspiracy theory has legs! Oh, I know, let's give it a class and race twist per Lugh and this guy - not only will we create a Welfare Nation but it will be run by Illegal Mexicans!! (Don't worry, you can spot them when they perform terrorist fist jabs)
2. The Desirability of a Unregulated Free Market Economy: which has been proven successful by recent events, clearly - the Vampire Squid is a figment of your imagination, the recession was Clinton's fault, and Phil Gramm can do no wrong.
I'm happy to debate the pros and cons of a given healthcare system - Switzerland's, for example, which is what Obama's plan would most approximate. But we should pull our heads out of the sand and actually look at the documents being discussed, rather than repeating whatever mediocre sound bites or half-baked and hypocritical political philosophies the zeitgeist has graced us with this week. Thanks for reading, Kestrel
OK, you people really need to stop already. I am getting just a bit tired of this whole ridiculous claim that somehow those opposing Obama's reform, not reform, Obama's reform, care more about their guns than the lives of their own citizens. This is not about life or death situations, this about providing basic medical needs. Americans are not dying by the thousands because they do not have insurance. Even with insurance and the best medical treatment some still die due to their illnesses. You people need to stop confusing one thing with another. This country already provides basic medical care to all of it's citizens and there are plenty of insurance companies that provide affordable healthcare insurance, not to mention that no one will ever be denied medical treatment for lack of money.
Let's be realistic here. The only real reason people want Univeral Healthcare is because they think it's free. But there is no such thing as free, someone has to pay for it and while some may want to believe that only the rich will foot the bill, once we realize how massive this concept will really be they will have to figure where to get the rest of the money that will be needed and guess what, Obama will have to break his promise of not taxes middle and lower class citizens.
We can't even afford to maintain Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Social Security, Cash For Clunkers, etc, what makes you think we can somehow throw yet another expense of this magnitude onto ourselves?
There's so much bullshit dancing around the subject with inane platitudes here, anything to avoid discussing the actual issues.
(I won't bother to wait for the inevitable: so why bother to comment, right?)
That's OK. There's a difference between not proving an answer and not accepting it as one. It's your article and I am in no position to make you take or even understand my point. It's not my fault you are not making an effort to get it. If you don't understand the meaning of control then there is nothinfg I can say or do to make any sense to you. You don't see a power grab in this administration and I can't make you see something you don't believe is there so at this point it's pointless to continue you argue this point with you. This is not a debate, this is a "it's still my article" argument.
If you say so. As you can see I have yet to dismiss any of your comments or describe them as stupid. My goal is to simply respond to a, at this point, pointless question for there is no anwer that will satisfy or even peek your interest unless it is what you want to hear. Again, this is not a debate, this is a townhall meeting where you pay $25 to get in and be told you are a disruptor, unAmerican and you don't care about other people. BTW, remember about what I said about control? Take a look at how you have been running your own article. It's called control, what you like gets a pass, what you don't gets the title of "stupid" attached to it. And here I thought you didn't understand control.
Why would it be a burden? To who? The Gov't bares no burden of any kind. The Gov't does not make money, it takes it from it's citizens and distributes it according to how they believe is the best way to soend it. If you believe healthcare is such a burden then why is the Gov't seeking to control it, something you keep claiming they are not trying to do? Why did the Gov't burden themselves with cash for clunkers, the stimulus package, cap and trade? Why take it upon themselves to fix all these "problems"?
BTW, the reason our financial markets went belly up was because of Gov't interference or did you forget Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac?
If you don't know the answer to this question then I can't help you here. There is not a single thing I can say to someone who somehow believes the Gov't does not want control of any kind all while that same Gov't took control of banks, CEO payroll, the auto industry, credit cards and now want control,over healthcare and cap and trade. This power grab that you seem so blind to makes the Monopoly Here and Now Edition look like Chutes and Ladders.
yea, some here have forgotten the meaning of the word debate. They see a comment that goes against they belief and instead of debating it all you get is "that was stupid", "you are selfish", "the right doesn't care", "our system is better", "the US sucks" type of comments.
It's like when you ask someone "why is he/she stupid?" and their response is "because they are".
This is the third time in this thread where you try to inflame others with short, senseless posts, while ignoring what others write. You are obviously trolling because you can't come up with logical arguments.
Please stop posting here unless you wish to debate earnestly.
As someone whose family has been bleed dry by Medicare, I can promise you that government-operated healthcare will destroy specialists in this country. If you want good healthcare, screwing your clinicians is a poor means of achieving it.
Healthcare is not a right, it is a luxury for which you must pay. If you think otherwise, you do not understand the costs of 21st century medicine. Medical training, house staff, technology acquisition, legal costs (why is there not tort reform in this bill?), referrals, laboratory work/testing, record keeping, HIPAA compliance, office lease/hospital maintenance, and yes, valuable physicians' time all contribute to the cost of healthcare. Who do you expect to pay for all these things, so that "everyone" can have health coverage? Hospitals and doctors lose billions every year because they provide free care in emergency rooms and reduced rates in walk-in clinics. There has always been care available to those who seek it, but elective procedures are expensive and someone has to pay. I think it fair that those who need costly medical treatment pay for said medical treatment.
It is expensive to provide life-extending care for chronic conditions. Treating acute illnesses and infectious disease is relatively cheap, but in a new age of medical advancements, those whose lives nature wishes to claim rightfully belong to nature, and it is but a luxury for us to defy our ends.
I apologize, my answer to you was inappropriate. And won't claim that I used an unfortunate phrasing - I actually meant it like you perceived it when I wrote it and that was arrogance on my part.
To clarify my genuine puzzlement on your opinion: Americans accepted the PATRIOT act and, like Ke5strel pointed out, the revoking of the Posse Comitatus Act without much fuss. This means that the federal government may deploy army forces inside the USA to "restore order" in case of "a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition...".
The level of control you disaprove which is supposedly the goal of Obamas health care reform can't compare to anything the Bush administration tried and did to you.
Point taken. Again a result of my displayed arrogance.
I remember enough about it that it was a lack of regulatory oversight that built up the housing bubble which popped as a result of coorporate greed. Something about granting housing credits to anyone and their mother which couldn't be paid back in case of job loss, medical bills or a sudden interest raise. And since the debts were sold to banks and fonds without checking the reliability of that financial product, everyone got to enjoy the financial collapse of the american housing market, kickstarting the whole financial crisis.
It's generally accepted that the systematic dismantling of federal regulations for the financial market promoted the development of this mess.
So in fact this is a point for more government.
No, come on, humor me. Why would they want control over health care? Because they want to make things better or worse? Because they can blackmail you into doing what they want unless you are happy without hospital access?
By the way, in Germany we have private and public health care. It doesn't matter which you take: you get to choose whatever doctor or hospital you want and there are no special clinics for privately insured patients. And yet the private insurers thrive because "Privatpatienten" enjoy some perks the others don't:
For one, private insurers pay proscribed treatments and hospital beds without a fuss while the government pays only a set amount for each diagnosed ailment to the doctor or hospital - say 8,000€ for mending a broken arm. This means that docs make a profit by treating a patient as cost effective as possible (usually without risking out lives or health). For example, instead of letting you rest in a hospital bed for 3 weeks the doctor determines that it's sufficient to stay for 1 week and rest 2 weeks at home with weekly checkups.
Privatpatienten can stay the whole 3 weeks because the insurer will pay.
I won't deny that this system has it's exploitable weaknesses, too. But it works good, cheap and reliable.
Then stop pretending yours is the only thread debating this 'earnestly.'
EDIT:
PS - Props to you for #87. You've given me hope that debating 'earnestly' here might be worthwhile.
I'll think about it.
time for some google searching so we can do some "further reading." Let's search for "health care system comparisons" shall we?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997469 (can compare US to many other countries)
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34175_20070917.pdf
on spending: "The United States spends more money on health care than any other country inthe Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECDconsists of 30 democracies, most of which are considered the most economicallyadvanced countries in the world. According to OECD data, the United States spent$6,102 per capita on health care in 2004 — more than double the OECD average"
http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=psc_working_papers
on life expectancy: "The United States falls well behind the world’s leaders in lifeexpectancy at birth. Some of the discrepancy is attributable to relativelyhigh infant mortality and some to high mortality from violence among youngadults. But the bulk of the discrepancy is attributable to mortality aboveage 50, an age to which 93.7% of newborns in the United States will surviveaccording to the US life table of 2005 (National Center for HealthStatistics, 2008). Life expectancy at age 50 in the United States ranks 29thhighest in the world according to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2008)."
need more evidence proving that the US pays more per capita to get a lower average quality health care? let me know. or just google it yourself
All cities in the United States disagree with you. If someone were to get hit by a drunk driver and had to go to the hospital as a result, it doesn't matter how rich I am, I still get treatment. Why? I have a right to life. There's no one in the ER that says, "let his blood drain out, he's on social welfare." And guess who pays for the ambulance ride and ER? Taxpayers.
Do you want to stop giving treatment out to those in the ER who don't have health insurance because they don't deserve the "luxury"?
PS. my props to Ke5trel for the impressive amount of links. What's a good debate without healthy sources?
Here you're out in a day and you can forget about the weekly checkups even with the most expensive of health insurance plans. Now if you wish to donate enough money for a new wing of the hospital or perhaps a new MRI machine then exceptions can be made but short of that, stabilize them and get them out the door.
The same thing with doctors visits. My insurance pays $276 per office visit for me to see my primay care physician, plus the $20 co-pay of course. You go to the office and they have you stacked up like cordwood in dozens of examination rooms per doctor. The length of time the doctor spends with you doesn't matter. If he can squeeze in 10 patients per hour then the office makes $2,760 per hour. The doctor has a significant financial incentive to spend as little time as possible with each patient. Six minutes per patient is generous, most times it's closer to 30 seconds.
Plus get this. I have an ingrown toenail. Now I've had a number of ingrown toenails in my life and I think by now I know what one is and when I need it taken care of, however I can't just go to a podiatrist, I first have to go to my primary care physician and give him his $276 office visit plus $20 copay for him to "refer" me to a podiatrist. My primary care physician doesn't even look at my toe. Why would he, when it allows him to get on to the next patient that much sooner. Nothing goes on without the primary care physician taking his "cut".
$276 a visit?!?! Please tell me where you live... I'll relocate my practice there in a heartbeat.
Sounds like you could use a system with less bureaucracy & more consumer choice.
thank you for those numbers, it's always good to have a sound factual basis for agreement. I also see that here finally my country's numbers are in too. Austria is - as I expected - close to Germany with some 9.6% cost in terms of GPD. and let me tell you, from a service point of view it absolutely rocks and is generally regarded as one of the best world-wide. so, for me culturally, a system of mandatory government-provided health insurance is logical and a good thing and it works they way it is intended to. employer and employee pay ~ 10% of wage each and with that you're in. and trust me, there is almost nothing medically necessary and beneficial that you would not get paid, a co-payment for any medication of less than 5€ per packet and so on.
but I think that is beside the point. I think there is a fairly fundamental difference in attitude and opinion here. some said healthcare is not a right, but a luxury, which is a statement I strongly reject. I guess it's something you cannot really argue for, it's just a sentiment and opinion. I'll just never understand Americans deep mistrust for everything state and taking so-called decisions away. if the private market cannot handle it, then the government should try to step in and make it better.
Shadowhal -
Get ready for the influx - 300 million Americans headin' your way.
(Ooh, gonna be a tight fit)
yeah. and if we tell them it's the country from sound of music they'll even pay to get in. on the other hand, good talent is always appreciated. it would be an ironic pleasure to lure off americans here and create our very own little melting pot of nations. global dominance here we come again.
to also add something at least somewhat on topic: let's not drift off into the financial crisis, as some hints show. that's really another topic altogether.
I'm from Spain, and I totally agree to this, healthcare (any type, from simple to horribly complex and expensive) is a right.
Thomas Sowell has done a nice job, much more eloquently and succinctly than I could, of getting at the essence of the 'death panel' issue and the ethos of UHC in a two-part column -
#1 here and #2 here.
wait, not again! the last time an Austian strived for world domination it went terribly wrong and everybody is blaming us Germans ^^
but btt: From a German point of view I might add this little story: Some of you Americans complain that you would have to pay everybodys wellbeing with your taxes. Here in Good Old Germany our government passed a law some time ago, which forced every patient to just pay additional 10€ per quarter (!) the first time he or she visited a doctor in that quarter and there was a public outrage that we suddenly had to bring along money when we visit a doctor. So the same way you want to pay everything by yourself, we are accustomed to not having to pay anything (cash) for basic healthcare. Granted, we have to pay 5-10€ for prescribed medication and 10€/day (max280€/year) for clinical treatment, but that doesn't lead to bankruptcy. Furthermore there are hardship regulations.
on the other hand (and now I just referring what I have heard, because it doesn't affect me, sadly enough^^), if you earn more than 49000€/year for at least 3 years in a row or work as a freelancer/civil servant and some other professions, you are allowed to leave the public health insurance and enter a privat (more expensive but better and more all-embracing) one. These insurances have prices per month based on your health, age and sex and no %-quota of your income, but you get single rooms in hospitals, you can choose your clinic, you get more services for free like glasses or first classdental prostheses and stuff like that.
To me, this system seems great: Everybody get basic health care (and you get much more than a smile and a band-aid) and those who have given much to the system because of a high income may leave it and get better treatment at higher prices.
In principle, this is not an unreasonable approach. The devil is always in the details, of course.
In the US, we've always had a hybrid system of private health insurance and a public safety net. What has changed, beginning with the passage of Medicare in 1964 (which they swore - swore - would be cheap and not lead to socialized medicine) is the progressive infiltration of government into every nook & cranny of the healthcare industry, culminating in this push to eliminate private health insurance & put everybody (except the dissemblers writing the law, who can't possibly subject themselves to their own laws) into the public safety net.
Morons. You don't have a right to someone elses time. Health care is a product provided by the work of others, just like any other. You're all a bunch of fascist fucks and you don't even know it. The right to life does not excuse you from providing for yourself, it simply bars someone else from actively taking it from you.
Ke5trel, wonderfully misinformed post, you liberal misanthrope. Switzerland doesn't have public health insurance. Switzerland has compulsory health insurance, from private insurance companies. Since there's a non-profit requirement, they're losing them in droves too. It's weird how facts get in the way of things, huh? Compulsory insurance actually does cut costs, by, you know, compelling people to get insurance.
Inaccurate, incomplete links don't mean you have a clue. I'd shred the rest of it, but I've already met my quota for off topic posting, and you're too stupid to learn from it in any case.
@daiwa
Why don't you want the government in every nook & cranny of the healthcare industry? If your taxes get used to keep you healthy and alive then there's no problem, no?
And what is socialized medizine anyway? As far as I know it's just a swear word invented to encourage people to think it's a communist attack on america.
You're all a bunch of fascist fucks and you don't even know it.
...
Ke5trel, wonderfully misinformed post, you liberal misanthrope.
You should look up what fascist means. I'm pretty sure you have no clue. Also look up misanthrope, because you got that wrong, too. I have to ask Ke5strel if you got the "liberal" right, but even then you got it only by accident because you probably think it's just a swear word.
Like "fucks".
You should probably look that up, too, in case mum didn't give you The Talk yet.
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