http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070917/pl_nm/...KFNUOPsd.oE1vAI Wow, just wow. Raise taxes on one group to pay for a benefit of another group. Maybe she needs a new campaign slogan: While we're at it, lets clean up the homeless problem. Rich people have extra bedrooms. They can house the homeless too.
So....you would prefer poor people die on ER floors. We have been (more or less) a civilization held together by our common bonds ever since the question "Am I my brother's keeper?" was answered in the affirmative. I'm definitely not saying her plan is perfect or even doable, but it's obvious that some attention needs to be paid to our health care system.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoid @ Sep 17 2007, 02:51 PM) [snapback]513914[/snapback]</div> It's better than the last one but I still think I like John Edwards plan better. Just take Health Care Coverage away from Congress and what the heck Retirement benefits also until they fix Health Care and Social Security. Wildkow p.s. Let them do their work in Iraq maybe they will come up with a better solution than surrender.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoid @ Sep 17 2007, 04:51 PM) [snapback]513914[/snapback]</div> Don't knock it; it worked in Doctor Zhivago.
I believe we need national health insurance available for every citizen. I think it should be required. If you can't prove your citizenship to enroll, you don't get it, and you don't get care.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(patrickindallas @ Sep 17 2007, 03:01 PM) [snapback]513922[/snapback]</div> I never said I wanted people to die on ER floors. But this Robin Hood mentality of steal from the rich and give to the poor is just robbery and won't fix it. Throwing money at problems is just a waste. There is nothing in our constitution that says the federal government is responsible for health care. We cry about increasing government budgets and then add programs like this. If a state wants to do this, go ahead, but I'm not excited about the government getting into the health care industry.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoid @ Sep 17 2007, 05:19 PM) [snapback]513933[/snapback]</div> Yeah, I did extrapolate. But that's the kind of gruesome situations that tend to arise when "the parts" don't want to work together to make "the whole" more robust. I totally agree with your idea of keeping it out of the government's hands. I've obviously been so darn indoctrinated by federalism that the idea never occurred to me. Again, excellent idea!
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoid @ Sep 17 2007, 04:51 PM) [snapback]513914[/snapback]</div> Do you resent the fact that there are people who don't pay taxes yet still receive services from firemen when their homes burn and from policemen and EMS when they are shot?
people often can't or won't see the trees through the forest. healthy people work more. people who work more pay more taxes. affordable healthcare means that a greater percentage of hospital bills get paid, which means that they don't have to jack up prices more. it breaks a nasty cycle. people lose their productive lives, their careers, their possessions, their credit to an unexpected medical crisis that may not even be their fault or under their control. that hurt spreads out further than you'd think.
The real problem is that the percapita expenditure for heath care in the US of A (including the uninsured) is extremely high in comparison to other countries with universal health care and our health care outcomes are no where near the best in the world. We can do much better with less money and a different system. Why shouldn't we do it if we can? Edit: As usual, galaxee is right on!
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Sep 17 2007, 03:56 PM) [snapback]513957[/snapback]</div> I think everybody should pay some sort of tax. If they're not paying, than they don't have the incentive to elect people with financial responsibility.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Sep 17 2007, 04:30 PM) [snapback]513977[/snapback]</div> You'll get no argument from me there. My argument is the take from Peter to pay for Paul approach of the federal government. The concept of insurance is we pay a premium for someone else to take a risk. You pay a premium for auto insurance in case you have an accident. Same with health insurance. Have you ever tried filing a small claim on your homeowners policy? Your agent will suggest not doing it because the insurance company might jack up your rates. Claims cost money to process, no matter how small. As insurance covers more and more, we find that our rates skyrocket! I really believe we would all be better off with catastrophic health insurance. When the insurance company gets involved in all the little bills, that just raises rates for everybody. And people who pay cash for services should get better rates. I don't understand why my insurance company, who makes the lab fill out lots of paperwork and to wait for their money gets better rates for me, who could pay cash. I really don't think that adding a government insurance program from increased taxes is in our best interest. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Allannde @ Sep 17 2007, 04:33 PM) [snapback]513980[/snapback]</div> I agree that we spend too much money, but I don't want to wait long for my health care. I tore the ACL in my knee and got an MRI within a week. Try getting that done in Canada.
I think we are wasting our time so long as the health care industry is substantially a profit engine for the already mega rich. Health care dollars need to go for HEALTH CARE.
Why not a tax on junk food and extreme sports to pay for extra health care? The wealthy pay more tax because they get more from the society than poor people do. I don't see a problem. Poor people get sick more, they dont choose to they just do. It isn't wrong for the government to be compassionate towards less well off people is it? By the way I'm serious about the junk food tax.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Spoid @ Sep 17 2007, 08:15 PM) [snapback]513999[/snapback]</div> what, by letting tax CUTS (ie, exceptions to the rule, right?) expire and go back to the norm? well, uh, i can relate in the car insurance area anyway. i agree, premiums are rising at an insane rate. but i see them finding more and more things they don't want to pay for. coverages are getting worse and deductibles are increasing. DH's former employee health plan had a $1750 deductible and paid 70% afterward. and the list of non-covered things was 4 pages long in small type. the thing is, the little things add up quickly. start seeing a regular doctor for back pain and 18 months later you've spent a significant portion of your annual income for a "well you could spring $15k for this operation not covered by any insurance company... otherwise i'm sorry." i hesitate at bigger government too. but i also don't know of a better solution right now. and we need to protect our own people from this kind of mess. it's not that i'm interested in someone bailing me out of these bills, mind you, but the majority of americans simply could not bounce back from this kind of hit. if our life circumstances had been a little different we would have been totally screwed, rather than just forced to live in a sketchy home and wait on a number of life plans until i graduate. and again, this hurts all of us somehow. we don't have money to go spend and help the economy. we pay less in taxes because we've made less money, so someone else will have to pay more to support the services we all use. we're less productive, when we could be pretty good contributors to society. let's say my experience was slightly different, and had the potential to be a little more life threatening.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Allannde @ Sep 17 2007, 05:36 PM) [snapback]514015[/snapback]</div> I'm trying to figure out who are the mega rich you speak of. My GP? Probably makes close to 200k. That's rich, but not mega. Certainly not anybody on his staff, but he does employ about 5 people, so that's cool for them. Insurance executives? Yeah, they might make multi-millions, but compared to the revenue of the company, that's small potatoes. But those executives make it possible for thousands to have jobs. Perhaps the cardiologists? Yeah, they can make the big bucks, but they're good and can command a high price. I don't want a budget cardiologist to work on me. I do agree that lots of money gets wasted. Malpractice insurance rates have gone through the roof for example. That's it, lets get rid of the lawyers! <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Sep 17 2007, 06:02 PM) [snapback]514024[/snapback]</div> Uh, no, I think you know what I mean. Healthier people are good for the country. So you don't like the tax cuts. What should the highest rate be? 70% like before Regan? or how about 91% like before Kennedy? Tax rates have been all over the map, so there is no norm.
A heart attack, a stroke, serious cancer, a serious car accident, a serious head injury, a serious burn or just living longer than usual can consume more than the average person's total llfetime income and the costs are climbing rapidly. Some of us will have more than one of these events. This is in addition to normal health maintenance. By the time you may need such care, the cost could be several times more. Insurance works when the likelihood of loss is a small percent of the group. But most of us will have terminal expenses and we all have at least some health care costs. We are approaching the possibility that each of our health care budgets will be close to the average lifetime income. The rich can handle that. The middle to lower income people will just be excluded from health care. Insurance (personal responsibility) can no longer be the answer. Collective responsibility is the only hope. Those who are arguing for maintaining the status quo are leading us into a bottomless pit. The time has past to quit bickering over details and put our shoulder to the wheel and come up with a workable Health Care alternative or we all are going to take on a duty to die before our time. This is not hypothetical. It just hasn't hit a critical mass of us yet. But it soon will.
First of all, requiring Americans to have Health Insurance is like requiring Americans to have a house/apartment/place to live. If you legislate this what are you going to do with the 'lawbreakers'? Throw them in jail where they'll get free healthcare and a 'home'? Yeah, great solution, that'll take care of making sure they have healthcare. Legislating healthcare is dumbest idea ever, and just pads the pockets of the insurance company executives... they can't wait to have a politician push to fund this idea. Who the heck thinks that profitable insurance companies = quality doctors/surgeons/cardiologists?? That is ridiculous... those profiteers are pilfering our pockets with the higher premiums, and then putting the squeeze on your quality cardiologist by paying him less... then taking those 'profits', skimming the top 70% for their own pockets and divvying up the rest amongst the shareholders. As long as there is an incentive to profit from healthcare, you won't have the money going where it needs to go: to HEALTH CARE! to building more hospitals! to hiring more doctors and setting up more clinics so people are not tying up the emergency rooms! People are so 'down' on socialized medicine, the higher taxes to fund that, etc. Haha, you don't think you're already paying a higher tax?? You are... it's just a secret tax called Medicaid, Medical, etc. Oh, and premiums. Your risiing premiums are in direct relationship to the number of uninsured people and illegal aliens receiving healthcare. What's that 10 hour wait in the ER worth to you when you're sitting there bleeding from the mouth, short of breath, flitting in and out of consciousness, when beds are lining the hallways and people are sitting on the floor? Tack that on to your secret tax. How about when your relative dies because they couldn't operate on her fast enough because the ER doctor was busy diagnosing the bozo who called 911 and rode the 'taxi' (ambulance) in to get 'premium' service. Yeah, lots of hidden taxes. And people, dumb as they are, just nodding right along with the insurance companies that 'yeah, we don't want socialized medicine'. Same dumb people who said '4 more years' in 2004. Which country has the best health care and how is that figured out? An analysis is done on the average height of the population. The tallest people in the world (as a nation) are from the Netherlands, a country with socialized medicine. Second? Denmark. Little piddly tiny countries with socialized medicine, and the reason they are #1 and #2? Excellent neonatal, infant, and child healthcare provided by a socialized system. United States falls to a measly third, the (supposedly) richest, most advanced health care country in the world falls behind dozens of countries in producing healthy babies, in infant survival rate, and in infant birth weights. Oh, and before someone pipes in 'America gets more short immigrants, that's why our average country height is lower.' Sorry, doesn't cut it... that's already been taken into consideration. Google it, you'll see. Someone already said it... there's a national interest in keeping people healthy... it means more workers, more stability, more taxes paid to the government, more possibilities. The Europeans and Scandinavians are lightyears ahead of us on this.
I have no problem with an insurance company dropping a driver who's had more than his fair share of accidents. A rational insurance company protects their profits by avoiding bad risks. However, this same rational behavior suggests that medical insurance companies should also avoid their high risk customers - sick people! This is exactly what happens in the USA - people who get sick for no fault of their own can find themselves being dropped or denied coverage, sometimes by insurance companies using legal but unethical methods. Together with the fact that a large fraction of the insurance premiums go on risk management, with perhaps only 60% or so going to medical care, this suggests to me that insurance is not the best way to provide health care coverage. Hillary might not have the perfect idea, but we have to find a way to do better. Mike
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Allannde @ Sep 17 2007, 06:33 PM) [snapback]513980[/snapback]</div> You might want to read this, as a counter to your argument that universal healthcare is better. Kind of long but good points... http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_cana...healthcare.html
