It seems both Hillary and Obama are making Universal Healthcare their signature issues. What do you all think about "Universal Healthcare?"
I predict that Hillary and Obama will make a lot of vague statements about this concept and skillfully avoid spelling out any defininte concrete plan. A definite plan would have the disadvantage of being vulnerable to attacks such as "The plan as described would cost each tax payer $20,000 annually, which is clearly untenable. The plan as described would only cover citizens up until the age of 21, others are on their own. The plan as described would give illegal aliens a free ride on the overburdened US taxpayer and induce a tidal wave of additional illegal aliens to flow into our country." No details, hard to attack. No details, client voters will morph the plan to provide what it is they want and don't have now.
I am very alarmed about what can be meant by "National Healthcare." I am concerned that it not be deployed to illegal aliens. I am concerned that it not be used to fund formidably expensive procedures to marginally extend the lives of people who have brought themselves prematurely to death's doorstep as a result of their self-destructive choices (smoking, over eating, eating the wrong foods, not exercising, over drinking, over drugging). I would view these as poor choices for allocated limited public resources. It would be my opinion that rather than allocating limited public resources to provide healthcare to illegal aliens or fractionally extending the lives of people who repeatedly made poor lifestyle choices instead these public resources are better allocated to providing more educational assistance to those who can benefit from a college education, to providing better public schools.
Another concern of mine is the inability of elected officials to set limits. If you must have universal healthcare, what would be wrong in defining this to provide a minimal helathcare regime? For example, universal innoculations, universal bone setting for "normal" trauma, diagnosis and antibiotics for normal infections; sorry, the window is closed for paying for bypass operations and organ transplants -- you should have lived a cleaner life and took better care of the one body you were given at birth! How can an elected official draw such a line without being lambasted in the media as a cruel bean counter who is condemning somebody's hard working mother to an unnecessary death -- who would otherwise live if the expensive procedure available to others who have cadillac insurance policies!
Anyway, this is going to be a constant and major topic, it would seem, over the next two years leading up to the 2008 presidential election. What are your thoughts?
I am concerned that it not be used to fund formidably expensive procedures to marginally extend the lives of people who have brought themselves prematurely to death's doorstep as a result of their self-destructive choices (smoking, over eating, eating the wrong foods, not exercising, over drinking, over drugging). I would view these as poor choices for allocated limited public resources.
So what about the people who have brought premature death to them selves by not wearing a seat belt or were speeding or a host of other things that the government doesn't really want us to do. Where do you stop, it would just give the government another way to control us. I'm not real big for universal health care, but if they're going to do it you can't do it half @$$ed, it's not our position to judge other people, besides, the person who might be having a problem cause the eat to much my be someone like Bill Gates who has paid for the health care of others hundreds of times over and you're saying that they don't deserve to get their money's worth. What are you supposed to do, weigh someone in an ambulence and take their height to calculate their BMI and decided, well maybe we should work on this guy or maybe we shouldn't. Like I said before I don't necessarily like universal health care, but I know that if you have it full out you can't be picky about it. That being said, if the Gov't wants to help they should either 1) decide that they'll provide the preventive care and other stuff like that or 2) decide that they'll take care of the accidents that occur and other major things. Then let the people take care of the other part.
Health care is already out there, and it's the best in the world. I think people should get up and go get it.
Nationalized healthcare will end up keeping a bunch of people healthy who lack the skills and/or inclination to provide for themselves. The gene pool will suffer, and that's a crying shame. It just doens't make sense to give something for nothing. Rather, to give something for other people's money...
I don't see this issue dying. It's all too common in Europe and elsewhere, and as long as it's somewhere, politicians will try to bring it here. Offering something for nothing gets a lot of under-achievers to the polls.
I copied this from my post about Hillary Clinton. Universal Healthcare is not a good thing for the United States.....
My biggest fear is the socialized medicine. Not to long ago The Liar (Hillary) made an interesting statement to reporters in Washington. She said that "health care is coming back" and "it may be a bad dream for some."
Now just what does she mean by that? Bad dream? What kind of bad dream?
Does Hillary mean that after our government takes control of the delivery of medical services in this country that Americans will have to wait for months, even years, for elective surgery as people do in Canada and other countries with socialized medicine? Well .. .if that's the case, Hillary is right. That would be a bad dream.
Maybe Hillary is talking about what awaits any American who tries to use his or her own money to hire a doctor outside of the government medical scheme. Well, under the Hillarycare proposal she concocted in 1993, if a private individual used private funds to hire a doctor to perform a medical service outside of Hillarycare, then both the doctor and the patient could be arrested and jailed. Being jailed because you dared to hire your own doctor? Again, Hillary is right. That indeed would be a bad dream; not just for some, but for many.
There are many free market reforms that could be made to our health care system that would increase competition, expand availability and decrease costs ... but the problem is that they are free market reforms. Returning free market economics to our system of medical care doesn't enhance the power of politicians, and thus it is a non-starter. The political goal here is to make people dependent on the Imperial Federal Government for their medical care. Once that is accomplished you can almost write the Democrat campaign commercials for them. "Vote for Joe Republican and you're going to have to pay for your own medical care."
Socialized medicine in the United States is inevitable. There are two basic reasons: One, politicians want the power. Two, individual Americans don't want the responsibility. The great American love of freedom is now pretty much limited to freedoms not coupled to responsibility. Americans have been taught by the political class to believe that a person's health care is the primary responsibility of either the government or that person's employer.
Hillary also had some comments about other subjects of interest, such as trimming the federal deficit. Whenever you hear a Democrat talk about cutting the deficit, they never mean cutting spending. They mean raising taxes to cover the "shortfall." This is where you find out that there's no difference between modern-day Democrats and Republicans. One taxes and spends, the other borrows and spends.
The Hildabeast also mentioned reducing dependence on foreign oil. When a Democrat tells you this, it does not mean actually drilling for more oil here at home. It means raising the gas tax so as to make buying as much prohibitively expensive and it means pouring government money into programs for electric cars and hydrogen fuel cells. Those may be good ideas, but it's for the free market to decide, not the government.
Then she mentioned improving the image of the United States abroad. This is an easy one...this means appeasing Islamic terrorists and Euro-wimps. After all, where is our image tarnished abroad? In third-world Islamic countries where hatred of the United States is preached daily out of the loudspeakers of mosques. If you want to improve our image with these people, appeasement is the key.
Hillary's on the way, folks. You don't think the Republiwimps can stop her, do you? [:@]
__________________ "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it." -Thomas Paine
So I said "Do you love me?" & she said, "No, but that's a really nice ski mask."
If health care could be run efficiently then it's not a bad idea for the country because these people who don't have healthcare still get it. They just don't pay for it and in turn the hospitals and doctors have to up their prices for everyone else. Isn't it wierd that if you don't have insurance the hospitals and doctors will work with you to lower your bill, just so you'll pay, but if you do have insurance they don't give two craps. While overall health care would be a good thing, anyone that thinks the government could actually run in efficently is a moron and has obviously not paid attention since the new deal. That's the difference between idealists and realists. In economics everything reaches equilibrium in the long run, but as Keynes said "in the long run, we're all dead"
Where in the Constitution are you gauranteed health care benefits ?
I asked a military buddy of mine today what he though of it (and he's a Dem) and he said he had it before with the military version - no thanks, didn't want any part of it again.
This is one of those negatives that comes when HIllary gains control in 2008.
I am concerned that it not be used to fund formidably expensive procedures to marginally extend the lives of people who have brought themselves prematurely to death's doorstep as a result of their self-destructive choices (smoking, over eating, eating the wrong foods, not exercising, over drinking, over drugging). I would view these as poor choices for allocated limited public resources.
So what about the people who have brought premature death to them selves by not wearing a seat belt or were speeding or a host of other things that the government doesn't really want us to do. Where do you stop, it would just give the government another way to control us. I'm not real big for universal health care, but if they're going to do it you can't do it half @$$ed, it's not our position to judge other people, besides, the person who might be having a problem cause the eat to much my be someone like Bill Gates who has paid for the health care of others hundreds of times over and you're saying that they don't deserve to get their money's worth. What are you supposed to do, weigh someone in an ambulence and take their height to calculate their BMI and decided, well maybe we should work on this guy or maybe we shouldn't. Like I said before I don't necessarily like universal health care, but I know that if you have it full out you can't be picky about it. That being said, if the Gov't wants to help they should either 1) decide that they'll provide the preventive care and other stuff like that or 2) decide that they'll take care of the accidents that occur and other major things. Then let the people take care of the other part.
I'm cheered to see this topic being picked up. I hope this runs to many sheets like some of these threads do.
I see your point, but I haven't heard you address my point: how are rational limits applied to this thing to keep it from bleeding our pocketbooks dry. Medical technology has been developed which is simply not affordable for everyone who might want it. Further, with the passage of time even more radical treatments with yet higher price tags will become available and how do we draw the line in a democratic form of government? How do we prevent illegal aliens from tapping into the system?
There is de facto rationing by employer funded health insurance. Not every procedure is covered. There are maximum lifetime limits, I think, that apply. There are co-pay provisions that make those of us with employer provided health insurance stake holders and motivated to control the costs. Will this be a feature of "universal healthcare," or will that be viewed as an unacceptable barrier to the poor?
The argument that we as a society pay for this already is not well made. If you can't exclude illegal aliens from this system, the system WILL create an avalanche of illegal immigration, and the system is not currently paying for these folks. Additionally, the healthcare meted out to indigents currently is small in comparison to what would be served out in "heapin' helpin's of our hospitality" in the implementation of universal healthcare.
Hard as it may seem, if we get into a national healthcare system there are going to be a lot of people -- like me -- who are going to get in other people's faces who are blissfully indulging in self-destructive behavior thatour taxes are being confiscated to repair. Smoking KILLs. You better stop it. Carrying 40 extra pounds, or more, around your midsection KILLs, you better limit your eating and get some exercise. Thereare going to be a lot of busybodies like me that are going to want to see these issues addressed if it is coming out of my pocketbook. These personal, private weaknesses that are largely tolerated now are going to become condemned failings of virtue when it comes out of everyone's pocketbook, or so I think.
That is my opinion. I've been wrong before and will be wrong again in the future, I'm pretty sure!
I do not think healthcare is an essentialgovernment function. It is up to the individual to provide for themselves, and not the responsiblity of the government to care for the individuals.
If we continue enlarging government, making it the solution to everything, pretty soon we will not have a country. Only a government.
__________________
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I agree, I am not for universal healthcare I was just saying that that is a reason why we shouldn't have it, because it gives the government too much control over what you do. That being said, we have to do something, because like it or not, we're all paying for these people who don't have health care anyways, and with all of the rest of the countries going to socialzed medicine, it may not be as good, but it ends up costing their companies less, so it's hurting our companies. The bottom line is, you can't trust the government burocracy to run anything efficiently. I mean heck, if we had universal healthcare I would be a lot better off myself. My parents and I have worked hard to put me through school and my fiance is graduating and we're getting married. The chances that she's able to find a good job with benefits (especially in her field in our area since I can't move yet) aren't very good and we won't have healthcare for a while but it's still not the right thing for the country as a whole.
Alsatian do you not believe in supply and demand ?
Here is the simplicity of the problem of health care costs.
Bubba has health care with his company. His company pays a big chunk of his premium. Bubba has a small deductible and the insurance pics up the rest of his bill.
Bubba doesn't care if the hospital bill is $10,000 or $500 - he's only going to pay that $50 co-pay anyway.
The Hospitals know they can charge whatever they want to, because the insurances will pay.
Those caught in the system are those who don't have good health care. The costs are simply too high for a very low income person to afford.
Where does that leave them then ?
Its a problem for sure. This is a free country - you can be anything you want to be and the limits are limitless for what you can achieve. People are responsible for themselves, so my initial response is you know what ? If you can't afford the hospital bill, TOUGH. I earned my way towards a very good job with great benefits - I was from a poor home with parents who didn't graduate school and made what I've got today on my own. They can too.
Then a part of me also realizes that situations happen, all the time, its not an all inclusive thing for sure.But you can't have the govt paying for everything equally, its crazy to even think that, plus it destroys what I've got - which is the ability to choose any doctor I want to at anytime.
I can literally go to a specialist tommorrow morning of my choosing, with a small co-pay and have THE BEST medical care in the world.
Lets say I hurt my knee playing basketball tommorrow.
With my health care plan right now, I'm scheduling an appointment with Dr Knee in the morning and have an MRI. Small co-pay and its done.
With universal health care, how long will I wait ? What will the quality be ?
I can't believe it would pass, universal health care.
I will say that some bounds need to be made in the way the health care system works - its broke for sure.
Universal Healthcare
