Change of heart on socialized medicine

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Royal Archer, do you think it’s possible that you could lose your insurance?

I don’t think most people believe it’s possible that such a thing could happen to them.

I’ve been reading a book - started it this morning - called “Sick;The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis - And The People Who Pay The Price.” By Jonathan Cohn. It’s a sobering read. One interesting early part of the book is a history of health insurance in the United States.

I recommend it.
 
aspawloski4th said:
Your idea od personal responsibility goes much further than any philosepher or theologin in Christianity will ever go. With the way you are implying the definition of personal responsibility, the rape victim is resposible because she wore a bit of a short skirt. The little kid who got beat up by the bully is responsible for not fighting the bully strong enough. There is a word in the English lanuage called can’t, a word you need to relearn sir. No one of ligitimate language authority is looking to take it out. There happens to be some things that some CAN’T do, whether can’t is in you vocabulary or not. You have to get off the stupid mindset that anyone can do anything. Everyone has things they are able to do and things they are not able to do. I can forcast severe weather as a degreed meteorologist with the best of them, but I couldn’t sing or dance if my life depnded on it. Some people are more disabled than others, I went to school around many disabled children, but you’d leave them out in the cold because no one will employthem one they becaome adult. The specific cause of Pathia’s problems may be rare, but there are many her age with other kinds of problems just as bad. What about someone who gets Lou Gehrig’s disiease? What about someone who gets altzheimers in their 40’s? What about my wife having psoriatic arthraitis? Iv’e woken up in the middle of the night more times thean I care to count from her screaming from severe pain, but you’d say she has to work, which would kill her likely sooner rather than later.
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Why does the government need to “help” these people? What about charity from one person to another? It is not a coincidence that Americans are the biggest charitable givers on Earth. Do you want government to take the role of charity - (if so just wait for the rise in Godlessness)?
 
mpi said:
Why does the government need to “help” these people? What about charity from one person to another? It is not a coincidence that Americans are the biggest charitable givers on Earth. Do you want government to take the role of charity - (if so just wait for the rise in Godlessness)?
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I’m not talking charity, I’m talking fixing a system that is broke because of greed. If I was to depend on one person to another, I’d be a widower for sure. She has medicare. The rise in Godlessness is not concted to that and is going to rise no matter what happens. In the mean time my concern is my wife more than any American trend.
 
mpi said:
Why does the government need to “help” these people? What about charity from one person to another? It is not a coincidence that Americans are the biggest charitable givers on Earth. Do you want government to take the role of charity - (if so just wait for the rise in Godlessness)?
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The last time I sought charity was when I was sick(turned out to be pneumonia) and homeless, I was turned away from three or four shelters run by religious folks wandering around an inner city in winter. Eventually the only shelter that took me in, was run by ‘Godless’ liberals.
 
The government has screwed things up time after time, but now they say, trust us and we can fix this.
 
fultonfish said:
The government has screwed things up time after time, but now they say, trust us and we can fix this.
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Anyone who is honest intellectually has to admit the governemt has both falures ans successes, a mixed record. Right now private insurance has a record that gives the word abismal a bad name. We need to do something new.
 
At the risk of repeating myself:

To quote some anonymous person at one of the town hall meetings:

Social Security is broke.

Medicare is broke.

Medicaid is broke.

The post office is broke.

Fannie Mae is broke.

Freddie Mac is broke.

Cash for Clunkers is broke.

The government controls everything and screws it up. Government is the REASON we are in so much trouble.

And now you want the government to take over health care with its one-size-fits-all approach administered by the world’s largest bureaucracy; what do you take us for.

Let us run our own lives.

Get the government off our backs.

Let us have the private sector compete interstate without mandates and we can have better, cheaper, faster health care than any government bureaucracy can possibly provide.

If I want to use government bureaucratic health care, I can always visit my nearest Indian reservation. There are probably around 500 of them.

[Now there’s an idea !!! We already have government health care. Those legislators in favor of nationalized health care should just order everyone to report to their nearest Indian reservation.]
 
fultonfish said:
Let us have the private sector compete interstate without mandates and we can have better, cheaper, faster health care than any government bureaucracy can possibly provide.
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Will this reduce current premiums by 60-75%? That’s the only way I could ever afford coverage.
 
aspawloski4th said:
Iv’e got to say I never thought I’d see some many so stridently defending eveil greedy insurance comapnies as I have seen in this thread. Makes me wonder if someone isn’t being paid a few bones to make an evil industry sound incocent, in the current climate. I know people in all parts of the political spectrum, but no one I know would defending health insurance comapanies like they are being defended here. Something is rotten in Denmark, I smell a rat.
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Do you have any idea how paranoid you sound? Someone can only have a different opinion than you if they are being paid off? That’s not arrogant.
 
Arwen037 said:
Do you have any idea how paranoid you sound? Someone can only have a different opinion than you if they are being paid off? That’s not arrogant.
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Maam. You defend an industry wrought with greed and responsible for tons of deaths in the name of money. Trust is not something I grant. It has to be earned from me. By defending the health isurance industry you are doing something that has no logic to it whatsoever, and you do it extremely stridently. it funny how your side says the end doesn’t justify the mean, until it has something with corporations making profits, then that end justifys any mean. Actually if I had my ultimate way I wouldn’t have whats being proposed, but have all decision making people of all the health insurance companys be tried and convicted of murder and fraud. But thats not going to happen so I’m being pragmatic. I’m more interested in getting things done than priniples that somehow make me look good to some. I’m a getting done mode person, If something does’t work I try another way promptly. I don’t care about doing things a certain way, all I care about is results. It was expected out of me all of my life, by reciprocity I expect it out of others, or I move on.
 
I just think that the government will be worse. Politicians can make all the promises they want, but they rarely live up to it. I also think that the government should not take the money of hard workers to pay for other people. I have never said that the insurance companies are perfect. I have never said I agree with their policies. I just think this is the better choice. And the government is wrought with greed.
 
Arwen037 said:
I just think that the government will be worse. Politicians can make all the promises they want, but they rarely live up to it. I also think that the government should not take the money of hard workers to pay for other people. I have never said that the insurance companies are perfect. I have never said I agree with their policies. I just think this is the better choice. And the government is wrought with greed.
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Yes the government has corruption and greed but nevertheless its track record is better than the private sector. Corporations are not accountable. You and I have little to no say in their policies. Government officials however, we can fire.

Corporations in this country have a long history of trying to get away with every sort of underhanded scheme that is imaginable, and ironically enough its always had to be the government that stepped in to straiten them out. Indeed many of the problems that the government gets blamed for were encouraged by the private sector.

While it is healthy to keep an eye on the government we need to remember a few things. One Capitalism != Democracy. Two, it is our system of government that made America something special and unique NOT our corporations. We are a land of laws setup by our fore fathers to protect the citizenry from the depravations of the powerful. We exercise our power through our votes in the democratic process, not in loyalty to corporate interests. America has sacrificed its ideals on the alter of greed, and have giving our power over to a plutocracy because we were fed a lie that their success equaled “liberty”.
 
fultonfish said:
At the risk of repeating myself:

To quote some anonymous person at one of the town hall meetings:

Social Security is broke.

Medicare is broke.

Medicaid is broke.

The post office is broke.

Fannie Mae is broke.

Freddie Mac is broke.

Cash for Clunkers is broke.

The government controls everything and screws it up. Government is the REASON we are in so much trouble.

And now you want the government to take over health care with its one-size-fits-all approach administered by the world’s largest bureaucracy; what do you take us for.

Let us run our own lives.

Get the government off our backs.

Let us have the private sector compete interstate without mandates and we can have better, cheaper, faster health care than any government bureaucracy can possibly provide.

If I want to use government bureaucratic health care, I can always visit my nearest Indian reservation. There are probably around 500 of them.

[Now there’s an idea !!! We already have government health care. Those legislators in favor of nationalized health care should just order everyone to report to their nearest Indian reservation.]
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Goverment run healthcare programs are comparitvely poor, this very well may be the case. But for far to many people in this country, the alternative would be nothing at all.
 
apromisemade said:
Goverment run healthcare programs are comparitvely poor, this very well may be the case. But for far to many people in this country, the alternative would be nothing at all.
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Hmmm. Government run healthcare programs in France and Germany are excellent.

The second part of your statement is true. - an alternative of nothing at all is pretty pitiful, isn’t it.
 
I have a question that came up as a major argument against health care back in the 90s. The argument was about being forced to take care of irresponsible people.

Commercials classically present us with the little girl or grown adult who through no fault of their own developed a disease or a broken leg from an accident. Of course, this sounds like something every caring person would want taken care of.

What about the guy next door who sleeps around and drinks all night? He occasionally becomes ill via an STD or an injury from his drunken state. He is warned by doctors and everyone else to stop doing these activities. Not surprisingly, he continues his destructive behavior and a serious health condition arrives costing him a ton of money.

At some point, do we not expect people to reap what they sow? I realize it sounds cruel and not particularly charitable, but there is only so much of the public pie (money) to go around.

The woman with breast cancer did nothing wrong. The drunken guy knowingly destroyed himself. This was one of the dominant arguments during the 90s, but it seems to have disappeared today without being addressed.

Running parallel to this is the decision about who is acting responsibly. It would appear that government or a group of insurance companies will be determining this question. It also conjures up issues like freedom concerning your eating habits and lifestyle.
 
What about the guy next door who sleeps around and drinks all night? He occasionally becomes ill via an STD or an injury from his drunken state. He is warned by doctors and everyone else to stop doing these activities. Not surprisingly, he continues his destructive behavior and a serious health condition arrives costing him a ton of money.
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At some point, do we not expect people to reap what they sow? I realize it sounds cruel and not particularly charitable, but there is only so much of the public pie (money) to go around.
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The woman with breast cancer did nothing wrong. The drunken guy knowingly destroyed himself. This was one of the dominant arguments during the 90s, but it seems to have disappeared today without being addressed.
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I don’t know about you but the number of stories I have heard about honest, hard working people that are simply the victim of circumstances far outweighs those I have heard of those who abuse the system. And getting healthcare coverage is different from getting a monthly welfare check. To counter your analogy with an analogy that I believe another poster used, to say a man who drinks deserves to go without healthcare coverage is like saying a woman who dresses provacatively deserves to get raped.
 
apromisemade said:
I don’t know about you but the number of stories I have heard about honest, hard working people that are simply the victim of circumstances far outweighs those I have heard of those who abuse the system. And getting healthcare coverage is different from getting a monthly welfare check. To counter your analogy with an analogy that I believe another poster used, to say a man who drinks deserves to go without healthcare coverage is like saying a woman who dresses provacatively deserves to get raped.
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Except the gov’t is forcing me to pay for it. The current bill will also force me to purchase insurance to pay for other people.

Also, the raped woman is still the victim of another’s human being’s action. The drinking is the sole doing of the drinker.

Why not get rid of all insurance and then see what the actual prices really are? Then we can talk about meeting the costs. Instead, we have this useless middleman that takes our money just in case we get sick. If, like me, someone doesn’t use it, that person never gains any value from all those years of paying.
 
Why do we think the government always knows what is best for us? If we let the government regulate morality, boy, are we in trouble!! I guess most states would get bonuses, after all it is big government that wants to impose rules that require we teach young children about homosexuality, tolerence to every sinful situation that arises and refuse to let prayer, faith or God into public places! By upholding those principles a state would probably be considered highly moral!:eek:
 
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