OK, here's a question...

[Bob the Builder]

Shouldn't you be asking a congressman/woman about that?

​

I have, and 2 of the 3 have the same opinion that I do, it's none of the governments business, which is why they have continually opposed it. The third is up for re-election next year, and it's not looking good for him.

 

[Bob the Builder]

The biggest proof of what's wrong with government handling healthcare comes straight out of the OMB, where they've estimated that it would cost $1.6 TRILLION dollars to cover only 1/3 of those who have no health insurance. Given that there are an estimated 48 million people in the US with no health insurance (the vast majority of them being ILLEGALS), that means that by using simple mathematics that it would cost $4.8 TRILLION dollars to cover all 48 million uninsured, or $100,000 per person to cover the uninsured. Now, given that the cost is supposed to be over a 10 year period, that's still $10,000 per person, per year, for the government to cover their healthcare insurance.

Now, maybe it's just me, but the last time I priced it out, the average healthcare policy cost an average of $200.00 a month, or $2,400 a year per person ($5,000.00 deductible), so once again the government has proven that they not only cannot compete with the free market, they can't even do it for more than 4 times the cost! You can even get a $250 deductible, $0 co-insurance from Coventry for just over $500 a month, which is still $4,000 a year less than what the government can do it for!

Hells Bells, if the government is going to insist on "doing something" (regardless of how stupid or unconstitutional it may be), why don't they just give everyone in the country a $2,500 a year tax write off and let people buy their own damned insurance!

 

[Pandora]

Hells Bells, if the government is going to insist on "doing something" (regardless of how stupid or unconstitutional it may be), why don't they just give everyone in the country a $2,500 a year tax write off and let people buy their own damned insurance!

That is actually a good idea… if they insisted on getting involved, and they should not. But it’s not what they want to do. They want to redistribute wealth. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need... as the government sees fit.

Giving a write off is helpful to you and I who are willing to pay our bills but it doesn’t give someone something for free… Those who get things for free are the votes they count on to get reelected.

So even though it’s a good idea it won’t happen.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

I'm often puzzled by the lack of interest in the welfare of one's fellows. It isn't like any one of us lives in a vacuum and has no contact with the general public. You go to restaurants, grocery stores, malls, etc. You food is packaged by people you don't know in places you've never been. Isn't the health of all those people an issue? Yeah, it is. Think about TB.

Tuberculosis is a nasty disease, but used to be controlled with antibiotics. Now there is a least one strain of antibiotic resistant TB--where does a thing like that come from anyway? Here's one way that we know it can happen. A person without medical care ends up with TB, they don't get it treated at first because they aren't really that sick. It has been shown that people without medical insurance soldier-on even when they're sick because many of them don't have the money to spend on doctors. Eventually the TB becomes acute and the person collapses or is forced to go to an emergency room. They are treated until they are functional--but the TB requires a long term antibiotic treatment--and then turned out with the admonishment "to buy more medicine and continue taking it for the prescribed time period." They don't have the money often times and since they're feeling better they finish up the pills the hospital gave them and call it good.

The TB reasserts itself a few months or a year later because only the antibiotic susceptible bugs were killed, the ones left over are stronger and more resistant to drugs. This is one basic process for breeding drug-resistant germs, over-use of anti-baterial soaps and cleaners is another, and the worst offender is probably sub-clinical doses of antibiotics fed to livestock.

All the people who cannot/do not get adequate medical care are a pool of incipient disease vectors and they are a danger. Universal health care is is just good insurance for all of us. We should be looking at the other end of the problem: how to make it affordable for everyone, rather than how to exclude people to save money.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Mare Said: All the people who cannot/do not get adequate medical care are a pool of incipient disease vectors and they are a danger. Universal health care is is just good insurance for all of us. We should be looking at the other end of the problem: how to make it affordable for everyone, rather than how to exclude people to save money.

But then where and when would the 'raciest rabid righteous right wing nut jobs' have a platform to spew from??? If they aren't complaining about having to help the less fortunate among us, they are constantly trying to dictate how and what we'll be able to do with our freedoms!

See, even now 'BOOB' has started spewing about the 'Illegals' as though that is and has been the problem for 100 of years, LMAO Sure makes you wonder what 'BLUE BLOOD' Mayflower ship his ancestors came over on...JEEZ LOUISE

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

But then where and when would the 'raciest rabid righteous right wing nut jobs' have a platform to spew from??? If they aren't complaining about having to help the less fortunate among us, they are constantly trying to dictate how and what we'll be able to do with our freedoms!

See, even now 'BOOB' has started spewing about the 'Illegals' as though that is and has been the problem for 100 of years, LMAO Sure makes you wonder what 'BLUE BLOOD' Mayflower ship his ancestors came over on...JEEZ LOUISE

Don't sugar-coat it, tell us what you think!

 

[Bob the Builder]

I'm often puzzled by the lack of interest in the welfare of one's fellows. It isn't like any one of us lives in a vacuum and has no contact with the general public. You go to restaurants, grocery stores, malls, etc. You food is packaged by people you don't know in places you've never been. Isn't the health of all those people an issue? Yeah, it is. Think about TB.

You miss the point entirely MT. Communicable diseases have always been the purview of the government, which is why I fully support the CDC. But that's not what we're talking about here, now is it? We're talking about the government, through our tax dollars, paying for people to go to the doctor because they've got the creeping crud, or whatever other illness they may have that our parents and grandparents generations took care of by staying home, in bed, drinking plenty of fluids, and sweating it out. Why do you think that there are so many 'weak blooded', can't fight off a common cold people today? Because every time they get the damned sniffles, they go running off to the doctor and get ramped up on all kinds of antibiotics instead of allowing their own immune system handle it!

All of that aside, you have still failed to answer the salient question, and that being why should I, or anyone else for that matter, pay for your health insurance? If you want insurance, pay for it yourself! If you don't (and I don't carry any), then don't, and you can pay for your doctors visits out of your own pocket.

Nobody pays your mortgage/rent for you do they? Nobody makes your car payment for you do they? Nodoby pays for your automobile insurance for you do they? Nobody pays your electric bill for you do they? Nobody pays for your grocieries do they? Nobody gives you a clothing allowance do they? Do we all not need a shelter over our heads, food on our tables, clothes on our backs, and a way to get to and from work? Are these things not far more important that going to see the doctor once a year, if that often? Yes they are! All of this "healthcare" nonsense is nothing but another in a long line of intellectually flawed distractions, foisted upon us as a means of separating us from our own liberty by "Big Brother", so that they can exercise more control over We The People, and some of you have fallen for it hook, line and sinker!

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

You miss the point entirely MT. Communicable diseases have always been the purview of the government, which is why I fully support the CDC. But that's not what we're talking about here, now is it? We're talking about the government, through our tax dollars, paying for people to go to the doctor because they've got the creeping crud, or whatever other illness they may have that our parents and grandparents generations took care of by staying home, in bed, drinking plenty of fluids, and sweating it out. Why do you think that there are so many 'weak blooded', can't fight off a common cold people today? Because every time they get the damned sniffles, they go running off to the doctor and get ramped up on all kinds of antibiotics instead of allowing their own immune system handle it!

All of that aside, you have still failed to answer the salient question, and that being why should I, or anyone else for that matter, pay for your health insurance? If you want insurance, pay for it yourself! If you don't (and I don't carry any), then don't, and you can pay for your doctors visits out of your own pocket.

The CDC does nothing to address the pool of potential disease carrying people in this country who have inadequate access to medical care. Only adequate medical care for everyone will address this problem. I think that your "good ol' days" view of illness is not supported by the facts. People didn't stay home and sweat it out because they were tough or wanted to save tax money, they did it because there was little that doctors could do for them--and many of them died of simple infections that today are easily treated.

If no one helps me pay my electric bill and my lights go out, no one is harmed very much, but if the person working for minimum wage in the salad packing plant or butcher section of your grocery store is coughing up lungers or has hepatitis, then that's a different story--to me anyway, you may feel differently. I think that it's a healthy thing for the country to provide medical care for its citizenry.

The law requires that I have insurance on my car and we all pay into a fund for reimbursement to people who are in an accident with someone driving without insurance.

I'm not particularly happy with the billions being spent to kill people in the Middle East for no discernible reason. It isn't that we don't have the money to make sure everyone is cared for, but rather that the money is spent on other things. Obie is right now giving away more than enough money to pay for national medical care--and he's giving it to a lot of very rich people. What we end up with is socialism for the rich (too big to fail) and capitalism for the rest of us.

 

[samsara15]

You miss the point entirely MT. Communicable diseases have always been the purview of the government, which is why I fully support the CDC. But that's not what we're talking about here, now is it? We're talking about the government, through our tax dollars, paying for people to go to the doctor because they've got the creeping crud, or whatever other illness they may have that our parents and grandparents generations took care of by staying home, in bed, drinking plenty of fluids, and sweating it out. Why do you think that there are so many 'weak blooded', can't fight off a common cold people today? Because every time they get the damned sniffles, they go running off to the doctor and get ramped up on all kinds of antibiotics instead of allowing their own immune system handle it!

All of that aside, you have still failed to answer the salient question, and that being why should I, or anyone else for that matter, pay for your health insurance? If you want insurance, pay for it yourself! If you don't (and I don't carry any), then don't, and you can pay for your doctors visits out of your own pocket.

Nobody pays your mortgage/rent for you do they? Nobody makes your car payment for you do they? Nodoby pays for your automobile insurance for you do they? Nobody pays your electric bill for you do they? Nobody pays for your grocieries do they? Nobody gives you a clothing allowance do they? Do we all not need a shelter over our heads, food on our tables, clothes on our backs, and a way to get to and from work? Are these things not far more important that going to see the doctor once a year, if that often? Yes they are! All of this "healthcare" nonsense is nothing but another in a long line of intellectually flawed distractions, foisted upon us as a means of separating us from our own liberty by "Big Brother", so that they can exercise more control over We The People, and some of you have fallen for it hook, line and sinker!

If we continue to follow our present path of increases in the costs of heath care, we will all learn to stay home and die, Bobby, because the costs of heath care will rise out of the reach of most of us, if present trends continue.

If you want to be free to die, that option is always available, as long as you can stay out of reach of any and all who might call an ambulance. Unfortunately, Conservatives also want to take the right to die, and die cheaply, away from us, and are opposed to voluntary euthanasia. So if an ambulance reaches you, there went your money.

 

[Bob the Builder]

The CDC does nothing to address the pool of potential disease carrying people in this country who have inadequate access to medical care.

Complete misdirection. The CDC addresses ALL communicable diseases, regardless of who may or may not be infected!

Only adequate medical care for everyone will address this problem. I think that your "good ol' days" view of illness is not supported by the facts. People didn't stay home and sweat it out because they were tough or wanted to save tax money, they did it because there was little that doctors could do for them--and many of them died of simple infections that today are easily treated.

No, many people died of infections that they still die from today, the only difference is that today a doctor gets to buy a nice house in the Hamptons and make the payments on his Mercades off of the insurance company!

If no one helps me pay my electric bill and my lights go out, no one is harmed very much, but if the person working for minimum wage in the salad packing plant or butcher section of your grocery store is coughing up lungers or has hepatitis, then that's a different story--to me anyway, you may feel differently. I think that it's a healthy thing for the country to provide medical care for its citizenry.

More misdirection. If an employer ALLOWS an employee to work while they're coughing up lungers, or who has hepatitis, then the employer stands liable, and they don't want to make that kind of a payment, which is why any time someone is sick like that, they're SENT HOME! I won't even let someone work around me who is sick like that, much less around anyone else!

The law requires that I have insurance on my car and we all pay into a fund for reimbursement to people who are in an accident with someone driving without insurance.

So using your own logic, everyone should just stop carrying their own auto insurance and let the government pay for it? I don't think so!

I'm not particularly happy with the billions being spent to kill people in the Middle East for no discernible reason. It isn't that we don't have the money to make sure everyone is cared for, but rather that the money is spent on other things. Obie is right now giving away more than enough money to pay for national medical care--and he's giving it to a lot of very rich people. What we end up with is socialism for the rich (too big to fail) and capitalism for the rest of us.

Ah yes, the so very old, and totally debunked "the war is taking all of the money that we could be spending on healthcare" canard. In case you missed it, even with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the entire defense department budget accounts for less than 20% of the national budget, while nearly 70% is being spent on give-a-way programs that benefit less than 20% of the population! For the record, I was against the first stimulus package under Bush (but what are you going to do with a Democrat Congress?), and I'm equally against Obama spending our great-grandchildrens money for more of the same crap! For all the yelling and screaming I heard for 8 years about Bush not being "fiscally responsible", I haven't heard anything from the left about Obama spending 1000 time MORE than Bush ever thought about spending!

 

[Bob the Builder]

If we continue to follow our present path of increases in the costs of heath care, we will all learn to stay home and die, Bobby, because the costs of heath care will rise out of the reach of most of us, if present trends continue.

And if Obama and the Democrats have their way, we'll all have "healthcare" insurance that won't cover anything, that you'll have to wait 6 months, if not a year to be able to see a doctor, and then be told that "it's not covered" just like they have in Canada! Using that system, you get to die broke, but you had "coverage".

If you want to be free to die, that option is always available, as long as you can stay out of reach of any and all who might call an ambulance. Unfortunately, Conservatives also want to take the right to die, and die cheaply, away from us, and are opposed to voluntary euthanasia. So if an ambulance reaches you, there went your money.

This isn't about conservative v liberal, it's about common sense v irrationality. Oh, and as far as voluntary euthanasia, I've already said I'm a Libertarian, which means that I support voluntary euthanasia! If you want to die, that's your business, not mine. In fact, there are a whole lot of people that I know that I wish WOULD elect to off themselves!

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Ah, Bob, I don't think the quote below is mine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mare Tranquillity
If you want to be free to die, that option is always available, as long as you can stay out of reach of any and all who might call an ambulance. Unfortunately, Conservatives also want to take the right to die, and die cheaply, away from us, and are opposed to voluntary euthanasia. So if an ambulance reaches you, there went your money.

This isn't about conservative v liberal, it's about common sense v irrationality. Oh, and as far as voluntary euthanasia, I've already said I'm a Libertarian, which means that I support voluntary euthanasia! If you want to die, that's your business, not mine. In fact, there are a whole lot of people that I know that I wish WOULD elect to off themselves!

 

[Pandora]

In fact, there are a whole lot of people that I know that I wish WOULD elect to off themselves!

Now there is a type of abortion I can really rally behind, the type where you elect to off your self instead of someone else electing to off you!

A few months back one of the hags on the view asked Ann Coulter if she wanted to be water boarded since she believed in it so much. I loved her reply... she said no! do you want to be aborted

It shut the old hag up quickly!!

 

[Andy]

I'm often puzzled by the lack of interest in the welfare of one's fellows. It isn't like any one of us lives in a vacuum and has no contact with the general public. You go to restaurants, grocery stores, malls, etc. You food is packaged by people you don't know in places you've never been. Isn't the health of all those people an issue? Yeah, it is. Think about TB.

Tuberculosis is a nasty disease, but used to be controlled with antibiotics. Now there is a least one strain of antibiotic resistant TB--where does a thing like that come from anyway? Here's one way that we know it can happen. A person without medical care ends up with TB, they don't get it treated at first because they aren't really that sick. It has been shown that people without medical insurance soldier-on even when they're sick because many of them don't have the money to spend on doctors. Eventually the TB becomes acute and the person collapses or is forced to go to an emergency room. They are treated until they are functional--but the TB requires a long term antibiotic treatment--and then turned out with the admonishment "to buy more medicine and continue taking it for the prescribed time period." They don't have the money often times and since they're feeling better they finish up the pills the hospital gave them and call it good.

The TB reasserts itself a few months or a year later because only the antibiotic susceptible bugs were killed, the ones left over are stronger and more resistant to drugs. This is one basic process for breeding drug-resistant germs, over-use of anti-baterial soaps and cleaners is another, and the worst offender is probably sub-clinical doses of antibiotics fed to livestock.

All the people who cannot/do not get adequate medical care are a pool of incipient disease vectors and they are a danger. Universal health care is is just good insurance for all of us. We should be looking at the other end of the problem: how to make it affordable for everyone, rather than how to exclude people to save money.

I love this post because it seems honest. But I disagree with the presuppositions. For example, from our perspective, because we care about our fellow man, is exactly why we are against Universal Health Care. We believe, based on the evidence and research we have available, that Universal Care will cause massive problems that will effect everyone.

Further, we do not believe that Universal Health care is "benevolent". To illustrate our view, consider the following:
1. You need money for a prescription drug, and I earning only $20K a year, give you $400 for the drugs you need.
2. You need money for a prescription drug, and I earning only $20K a year, steal money from someone else, and/or elect someone to steal from someone else, to give you $400 for drugs.

Which is being benevolent and caring? Obviously the first is because I am sacrificially giving of myself. The second is not because I'm merely giving you what was stolen from someone else, giving nothing of myself at all. This is what Universal Health care is, as illustrated by this cartoon.

Beyond that, you seem confused as to why we are not in favor of Universal Health care, and you would be right to wonder. Why are we not in favor of it? I'm a human no different than you, right? I have bills to pay just like you, right? I have things I wish to buy, and need money saved for retirement like any other person, right?

Logically, I would want to get free health care like any other. Who wouldn't want an extra $100 to $200 a month in savings from not having an insurance premium? And that's true. If I believed it would work, of course I'd want one less bill every month! Makes complete logical sense!

So if I am still against it, there must be a reason. You either have to assume that I am clinically insane and enjoy paying bills, or there is something that perhaps I know that you do not yet? The flat out answer is... it doesn't work. Look around the world. The socialized care systems are failing. Canadians sued their own government in order to get pay-for-service capitalist health care. The UK is cutting out services because of massive deficits. France has put in co-pays and fees. People risk death to escape Cuban socialism.

Of course we'd all like to save money, and have one less bill a month. But it simply doesn't work.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Complete misdirection. The CDC addresses ALL communicable diseases, regardless of who may or may not be infected!

They study the diseases and try to control them but do not supply any money or care for the general indigent population. Or do they? Have you a source to show that the CDC is providing indigent care for the general population somewhere?

Ah yes, the so very old, and totally debunked "the war is taking all of the money that we could be spending on healthcare" canard. In case you missed it, even with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the entire defense department budget accounts for less than 20% of the national budget, while nearly 70% is being spent on give-a-way programs that benefit less than 20% of the population! For the record, I was against the first stimulus package under Bush (but what are you going to do with a Democrat Congress?), and I'm equally against Obama spending our great-grandchildrens money for more of the same crap!

And where does the 70% go to? The 20% gets it, right? If it was the poor people of this country who were receiving 70% of the Federal Budget, then there would be no poor people in the US. Do the math. Where is the money really going?

For all the yelling and screaming I heard for 8 years about Bush not being "fiscally responsible", I haven't heard anything from the left about Obama spending 1000 time MORE than Bush ever thought about spending!

Yes, you have, I posted it in my last post to you. I object, am I on the left? Well, people accuse me of it, but then people accuse me of being on the right too, so maybe I'm just another complex American citizen who isn't a "left" or "right" cardboard cutout.