National Healthcare

[Thordic]

I have a lot of family in Canada, so I'll back what bornl33t says, socialized healthcare is ineffecient and provides a worse level of care across the board. You take a lot away from the average joe in order to be able to provide healthcare to the bottom 10%. Many of my family members have been negatively impacted by the Canadian healthcare system.

Also, using Medicare is a terrible example. Are you serious? If its so "well-run" and the government is so good at running it, why it is going to go bankrupt in 2020? The truth is, Medicare is a dying program. It is bleeding money and is only a temporary crutch at this point. No one under the age of 50 will ever see a dime from Medicare benefits unless there is massive reform.

At the end of the day, you better be ready to take care of your own *** post-retirement because counting on the government to take care of you is proving to be less and less of a good idea every day.

[teufelhunden]

Good thing no one is proposing that. Regardless, the government actually does a pretty good job with healthcare, it has far, far lower overhead than the private sector because it doesn't grub money, and care is not significantly compromised.

This is from firsthand experience; a close family member is medicare-eligible and I pay far, far, FAR and away more for my coverage and care, but it is not better in any way (in fact we go to many of the same doctors).

Obvious knee-jerk conservatism is obvious.

The reason that your family member receives equally good care for service as you do is not because of medicare, it's in spite of medicare. The open market is what has driven levels of service to where they are; so your relative is receiving open market quality care. However, take away said market and have a single payer, a governing body deciding what care you can and can not receive based on some actuarial cost/benefit tables, and a one price fits all payment scheme, and watch that type of care go away.

[teufelhunden]

I have a lot of family in Canada, so I'll back what bornl33t says, socialized healthcare is ineffecient and provides a worse level of care across the board. You take a lot away from the average joe in order to be able to provide healthcare to the bottom 10%. Many of my family members have been negatively impacted by the Canadian healthcare system.

Also, using Medicare is a terrible example. Are you serious? If its so "well-run" and the government is so good at running it, why it is going to go bankrupt in 2020? The truth is, Medicare is a dying program. It is bleeding money and is only a temporary crutch at this point. No one under the age of 50 will ever see a dime from Medicare benefits unless there is massive reform.

At the end of the day, you better be ready to take care of your own *** post-retirement because counting on the government to take care of you is proving to be less and less of a good idea every day.

And this. Medicare APPEARS well run because it is funded by 1.45% of YOUR wages (as well as your employer paying an additional 1.45%). It's just got a major cash bank... for now. Let's do some quick math:

In TY2006, the IRS collected $814,819,000,000 in FICA (from wikipedia, didn't bother looking elsewhere). FICA is comprised of two parts: social security taxes and medicare taxes - totaling 12.4% SS and 2.9% medicare. That is not going to be the actual makeup of that $814bn (because SS tax is capped, MC tax is not), but it'll be a good approximation (and it will be on the conservative side of MC revenues).

So, .124+.029=.153. .029/.153=~.18954248. .18954248*814,819,000,000=154,442,814,011. One hundred and fifty four billion, four hundred and forty two million, eight hundred and fourteen thousand, and eleven dollars. Those are your TY2006 medicare taxes... at least. In reality they're likely closer to $200bn.

Anything that takes in at least $154bn is going to look well run, because if a business took in $154bn, that would be awesome. Especially if you had a hard time finding their expenses. In the world, only 15 companies have more revenue than the low end #, and only 7 higher than the high end #. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ies_by_revenue

People think ExxonMobil, Walmart, RD Shell, BP, Toyota, Total S.A. (one of "Big Oil"), and Chevron are well run, so it holds that people would expect medicare is as well. Except, yeah, not sustainable or good or anything.

/ramble

[drg]

The reason that your family member receives equally good care for service as you do is not because of medicare, it's in spite of medicare. The open market is what has driven levels of service to where they are; so your relative is receiving open market quality care. However, take away said market and have a single payer, a governing body deciding what care you can and can not receive based on some actuarial cost/benefit tables, and a one price fits all payment scheme, and watch that type of care go away.

YET AGAIN, NOBODY is proposing that. How many times does that have to be pointed out before the straw men stop falling?

[Lohman446]

And this. Medicare APPEARS well run because it is funded by 1.45% of YOUR wages (as well as your employer paying an additional 1.45%). It's just got a major cash bank... for now. Let's do some quick math:

In TY2006, the IRS collected $814,819,000,000 in FICA (from wikipedia, didn't bother looking elsewhere). FICA is comprised of two parts: social security taxes and medicare taxes - totaling 12.4% SS and 2.9% medicare. That is not going to be the actual makeup of that $814bn (because SS tax is capped, MC tax is not), but it'll be a good approximation (and it will be on the conservative side of MC revenues).

So, .124+.029=.153. .029/.153=~.18954248. .18954248*814,819,000,000=154,442,814,011. One hundred and fifty four billion, four hundred and forty two million, eight hundred and fourteen thousand, and eleven dollars. Those are your TY2006 medicare taxes... at least. In reality they're likely closer to $200bn.

Anything that takes in at least $154bn is going to look well run, because if a business took in $154bn, that would be awesome. Especially if you had a hard time finding their expenses. In the world, only 15 companies have more revenue than the low end #, and only 7 higher than the high end #. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ies_by_revenue

People think ExxonMobil, Walmart, RD Shell, BP, Toyota, Total S.A. (one of "Big Oil"), and Chevron are well run, so it holds that people would expect medicare is as well. Except, yeah, not sustainable or good or anything.

/ramble

Wish insurance could be provided by 1.45% of my wages...

As for the "bankrupt by 2020 argument"... what are the odds of any single company being bankrupt by 2020 - I mean ten years ago would you have bet Chrysler or GM were near bankruptcy, or AIG, or Lehman brothers. The fact is those far reaching projections are not accurate or realistic.

Having destroyed both straw arguments (as has been pointed out) one would also point out that noone is suggesting a government run health care system. THe closest is the need for some regulation

[bornl33t]

OK, then tell me what the current administration is trying to do with health care cause it sure has allot of people pissed off? They want to get involved in health insurance? Cause if that's the case then no one has to propose national health care it's going to happen. Americans fail to grasp what happens with a dumb idea 20 years down the road.

[drg]

OK, then tell me what the current administration is trying to do with health care cause it sure has allot of people pissed off?

Don't you think you should know before you spout off about it? "allot of people" are ignorant.

[chafnerjr]

Wish insurance could be provided by 1.45% of my wages...

As for the "bankrupt by 2020 argument"... what are the odds of any single company being bankrupt by 2020 - I mean ten years ago would you have bet Chrysler or GM were near bankruptcy, or AIG, or Lehman brothers. The fact is those far reaching projections are not accurate or realistic.

Having destroyed both straw arguments (as has been pointed out) one would also point out that noone is suggesting a government run health care system. THe closest is the need for some regulation

Boy did I want to stay out of this argument... but, OK

Chrysler, GM are not good comparisons as they were totally private companies that should have gone into bankruptcy before we dumped well over a hundred billion dollars into them... just to let them go bankrupt 6 months later. Even if your a big Obama supporter he will tell you (now) that bankruptcy is their best option(and for a lot of good reasons). But unlike a failed universal medicare, there are many other companies that will fill in the void... I.E. We're not going to run out of cars because GM and Chrysler are going out of business as we know them today.

AIG acted maliciously in it's course of business (manipulation of the derivative ins. market) and helped allow the global destabilization of reality values... this was the critical failure point of this economic downturn... which was aided by two GSE's (Gov. sponsored enterprise) Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

My point is that if a car company dies, then another better one replaces it (That's capitalism!) If (when) medicare dies then millions of people that rely on it will be without option due to various regulations on the current health insurance market. (Some reg's are necessary, and some reg's have half destroyed the market here)... you see, we've already created and legislated a dependence on medicare! So we currently have a socialized health care system... it just has market competitors (notice I didn't say free market)

Now let's be fair, the gov. is currently taking over private companies left and right with the promise that they belong to the people (historically this would have been called socialist, but you can all call it what you will), that they will relinquished eventually. One of the major components of Obama's campaign was health care reform. People are just connecting the dot's between his administrations current actions with other troubled industries and Hillary Clinton's (sec. of state) years of proposing actual nationalized health care. Couple that with the new $80 billion medicare addition that was supposedly agreed upon this weekend in closed door meetings.

Even if the health care reform means creating a group plan with a "private" company (as is Obama's current proposal) that will handle all Americans who don't "opt" to get their own at their own expense, then they will probably end up being a GSE (Gov. Sponsored Enterprise) just like Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac. We've seen what happened there. Besides, even if that last piece doesn't happen there is little difference between gov. run healthcare and a private health provider that doesn't have any competition (operating under gov. regulation). Free markets have run this country for more than 200 years and we are the greatest country on this planet, with the best healthcare despite it's many flaws! Crazy economics of the past 20 years have led to some believing that the system is broken and needs to be totally replaced. However, under the surface you can track gov. regulation and deregulation of very specific parts to have caused many of the issues that we're still presented with here. We have nearly socialized health care as it is, but in the end this is what matters:

WHO CARES IF WE CALL THE SYSTEM SOCIALIZED OR NOT... LOOK AT WHAT HAS CURRENTLY BEEN REGULATED AT PRESENT, AND WHAT IS ACTUALLY BEING PROPOSED. WE'RE ALREADY SCREWED AND I DOUBT A CONGRESS WHO'S ONLY ACCOMPLISHMENT AS OF LATE IS TO SPEND A TRILLION AND A HALF DOLLARS TO CREATE/SAVE 500,000 JOBS, IS GOING TO FIX HEALTH CARE. LIKE OR HATE OBAMA AND THE ADMINISTRATION, WE'VE BEEN GETTING SCREWED SLOWLY SINCE THE 70'S (SEE COMMUNITY INVESTMENT AND RE-DEVELOPMENT ACT) AND THEY'VE ALL GOT US POINTING FINGERS AT EACH OTHER AS IF THE ISSUE IS TOTALLY BLACK AND WHITE. WE NEED TO ALL WAKE UP AND START THINKING OF ACTUAL SOLUTIONS BECAUSE OUR GOV. IS INCAPABLE OF FIXING THIS ISSUE

[drg]

WE'VE BEEN GETTING SCREWED SLOWLY SINCE THE 70'S (SEE COMMUNITY INVESTMENT AND RE-DEVELOPMENT ACT)

[Dark Side]

I lived in Europe for 14 years so I am qualified to say that national health care (aka socialized medicine) sucks beyond what Americans can imagine. If the government takes health insurance into it's own hands it will put private providers out of business then they can do what ever they please and we will foot the bill.

Some very wise men in our country say that once the process has started there it no way to reverse it and I agree with them.

As anyone who has been stationed there can also confirm. You are quite correct sir.


Too many people see it as a free ride and have no idea the problems that it will bring.

[Coralis]

Some of you guys need to go work in a hospital for awhile and then come back here and post.

[going_home]

Dear Leader

Nationalization of the whole private sector is absolutely on the agenda of our dear leader.

Theres no one that can stop him.

The health care domino will fall soon, its just a matter of time.
















Oh, and in before the lock heheh .

[chafnerjr]

OK... maybe I went a little too far back in bringing up legislation form the 70's but it was given teeth in 1995 leading to the major sub prime issues which bring us into today, and very oddly into the health care debate as we're now seeing it. I don't think I even made mention of it in my previous lengthy post until the end, sorry for getting on a soap box

[chafnerjr]

Some of you guys need to go work in a hospital for awhile and then come back here and post.

OK... what would we learn that isn't on the table here already? At least in regards to nationalized health care vs private health care. Not trying to be sarcastic, I'm just interested in what your opinion is or what info you have. Seeing as I'll never work in a hospital...

Nationalization of the whole private sector is absolutely on the agenda of our dear leader.

I don't know about the whole private sector... just the important parts

[Lohman446]

Just for the record, and those that know me should understand this:

I am not in support of nationalizing healthcare. However, the first few arguments that have been put up are substantially unsound, basically a joke.

I do beleive that there needs to be some regulation of the industry. It is out of hand.