Sure would love national health careFollow

Preventing social unrest. We aren't going to go back to the 19th century. If you deprive people of basic needs and they have no way of obtaining those needs, they will obtain it illegally.

Dude, I totally agree. Let's abort every baby that would be born into poverty while we're at it. Better yet, let's just sterilize anyone who falls below a certain economic line. That'll stop their inferiority from poisoning the gene pool.

You know you don't have to 'outweird' MonxTwat, right?

Edited to remove a redundant 'dude'.



Edited, Feb 28th 2007 3:27pm by Barkingturtle

Yeah all that booze getting watered down.

Health care is a tough question.

Firstly, I'm resistant to referring to it as a "right" in the traditional sense. Legitimate right are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. Rights ought not to impose obligations on other people, other than the negative obligation to leave you alone. The basic rights - life, liberty & pursuit of happiness follow this model. You don't literally have to have these things, you need only not have these rights interfered with by other people. If health care is a "right", then rights must be redefined, as it necessarily implies getting something for nothing. (That's not to say we can't, or shouldn't provide it, just that calling it a "right" is somewhat irritating).

Honestly, I believe that the current costs of health care are a result of consumers being shielded from the costs at all levels (preventative to emergency care). Under the current insurance system, there is no incentive for the consumer to seek out less expensive care, and therefore no incentive for the doctors and clinics to attempt to provide it. This seems to me to be the real reason health insurance costs are spiraling out of control.

The other reason being direct government manipulation in the form of insurance mandates. It would be nice if somebody without insurance could buy a simple high-deductible policy for the unlikely catastrophic event, but most states mandate that insurance cover things most people would never buy if they were paying the cost openly, things like Viagra and substance abuse counseling. Thus, the most logical use of insurance - to cheaply cover extremely unlikely catastrophic events only - is prohibited by law in the case of health insurance. Think auto insurance. What would happen if insurance was suddenly required by law to cover repainting a car (or any other optional service/maintenance). Many people have no need for this. The guy trying to buy car insurance while living on $20,000 a year sure isn't. But it will result in a higher cost for him to obtain what he really needs, catastrophic coverage. This may price him out of the market, and add one more uninsured motorist to the roads.


Now, the US health care system is already messed up. I don't think that restructuring health care insurance to look like the catastrophic-only insurance that car and house insurance already is would fix the existing problem, though it would ease costs for that narrow section of the population trying to buy minimal coverage for themselves. The base problem is that the US system isn't efficient enough. I can envision some forms of universal health care that address both that problem as well as getting health care to more people, but I don't think single-payer system would address efficiency. It perpetuates the problem of shielding the customers from the costs, it just changes the mechanism of paying the doctors. If some form of universal health care could be dreamed up that would shield the lowest wage-earners, while exposing the vast majority of the population to some percentage of the costs, then I'd support that, as it would improve both the cause and the symptoms of the current health crisis.

Good dream, huh? Back to reality with me now. US healthcare is ******* and its not gonna get any better in my lifetime, whether it is changed or not.

This thread has denegrated into name calling and insults and I am going to have to lock it.

K, I just have one more question and then I'll return to my corner of Alla. Is MonxDot crazy? Or is he putting me on?

It is likely to be tried within a few years in the US. I expect it will be a very rough start and lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Republicans have a lot to loose if it works - as with social security it likely will be passed with virtually no help from them.

However, no matter how bad it is, I think once passed it will (a) be far better then what we have now and (b) it will become a sacred cow, like social security, in that attacking it will be political suicide.

Odiforous cUnt.

MonxDoT

I believe the word you're looking for when you talk about "Nazification of language" is Orwellian language. By the way, taxes for healthcare=/= violence. Please lay off the bottle. That is all.