72% of Americans support government run healthcare

[Political Junky]

this just in, 72% of americans are idiots, and have no clue how bad socialized medicine is or 100% would be against it

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans strongly support fundamental changes to the healthcare system and a move to create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published on Saturday.

The poll came amid mounting opposition to plans by the Obama administration and its allies in the Democratic-controlled Congress to push through the most sweeping restructuring of the U.S. healthcare system since the end of World War Two.

Republicans and some centrist Democrats oppose increasing the government's role in healthcare -- it already runs the Medicare and Medicaid systems for the elderly and indigent -- fearing it would require vast public funds and reduce the quality of care.

But the Times/CBS poll found 85 percent of respondents wanted major healthcare reforms and most would be willing to pay higher taxes to ensure everyone had health insurance. An estimated 46 million Americans currently have no coverage.

Seventy-two percent of those questioned said they backed a government-administered insurance plan similar to Medicare for those under 65 that would compete for customers with the private sector. Twenty percent said they were opposed.

Wide support for government health plan: poll | Reuters

That's your opinion ... anything to back it up?

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

this just in, 72% of americans are idiots, and have no clue how bad socialized medicine is or 100% would be against it

You missed my earlier post. 80% of respondants to this poll being quoted were registered democrats. It skewes the results of the poll a lot. Typical NYTimes stuff there.


WTF is the global warming discussion doing in the health care thread? Dont we have a bazillion global warming/climate change threads?

My apologies to everyone for putting in a response to a comment made about *wingnuts* as it applies to people who happen to hold a different view than the so called main stream. It can also apply to the healthcare debate when it comes to these so called reports comming from the NYT, WHO and others that tend to dismiss those who disagree with them and label those groups, when the point was to show that sometimes people who disagree could hardly be considered a group of wingnuts and the same applies with the healthcare debate.

I dont think you need to apologize for your post above.


@ politicaljunky, its his opinion as you said .

Again this poll is garbage as the respondants were heavily skewed to people registered as democrats. If it was heavily skewed toward republicans you would have probably got the exact opposite result.

That being said. I think our health care system, especially the insurance companies, need a lot of improvement.

 

[Soaring]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans strongly support fundamental changes to the healthcare system and a move to create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published on Saturday.

The poll came amid mounting opposition to plans by the Obama administration and its allies in the Democratic-controlled Congress to push through the most sweeping restructuring of the U.S. healthcare system since the end of World War Two.

Republicans and some centrist Democrats oppose increasing the government's role in healthcare -- it already runs the Medicare and Medicaid systems for the elderly and indigent -- fearing it would require vast public funds and reduce the quality of care.

But the Times/CBS poll found 85 percent of respondents wanted major healthcare reforms and most would be willing to pay higher taxes to ensure everyone had health insurance. An estimated 46 million Americans currently have no coverage.

Seventy-two percent of those questioned said they backed a government-administered insurance plan similar to Medicare for those under 65 that would compete for customers with the private sector. Twenty percent said they were opposed.

Wide support for government health plan: poll | Reuters

Yeah, they support it until they find out how much it will cost them. In a few years, Medicare will go broke and by some counts Medicare now has $30 trillion in future unfunded liabilities and this is a result of government mismanagement and allowing politics and not economic reality determine what the taxes, premiums, that are supposed to pay for Medicare should be. In a few years, to keep Medicare afloat, voters will either have to pay higher taxes, see larger deficits or suffer reduced coverage.

How is Medicare mismanaged? Its overhead costs are very low vis-a-vis private insurers and it's participants consistently rate higher levels of satisfaction than the privately insured.

Whatever else one may choose to say about it, it doesn't appear to be mismanaged.

I agree. How is medicare mismanaged? Spreading untrue rumors will get your tongue cut out young man. Show me where medicare is mismanaged. You can't, because it is only a rumor. I have medicare and backed up with private insurance, and medicare takes most of the cost of any medical procedure I may have. I paid into the system for 50 years, and it has proven to be my medical savior.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Yeah, they support it until they find out how much it will cost them. In a few years, Medicare will go broke and by some counts Medicare now has $30 trillion in future unfunded liabilities and this is a result of government mismanagement and allowing politics and not economic reality determine what the taxes, premiums, that are supposed to pay for Medicare should be. In a few years, to keep Medicare afloat, voters will either have to pay higher taxes, see larger deficits or suffer reduced coverage.

How is Medicare mismanaged? Its overhead costs are very low vis-a-vis private insurers and it's participants consistently rate higher levels of satisfaction than the privately insured.

Whatever else one may choose to say about it, it doesn't appear to be mismanaged.

I agree. How is medicare mismanaged? Spreading untrue rumors will get your tongue cut out young man. Show me where medicare is mismanaged. You can't, because it is only a rumor. I have medicare and backed up with private insurance, and medicare takes most of the cost of any medical procedure I may have. I paid into the system for 50 years, and it has proven to be my medical savior.

You DO know that Medicare is about to go bankrupt, right? It's running budget deficits in the hundreds of billions, and a 2001 report by the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that Medicare payment errors cost taxpayers $11.9 billion a year.

When Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act (H.R. 1) in November 2003, 75 percent of Medicare’s 40 million beneficiaries already had some form of prescription drug coverage; one-third of eligible retirees had coverage through their former employer’s private insurance. Now those seniors are being herded onto Medicare, whether they want to go or not.

Even the continuation of private coverage is now costing taxpayers money. To subsidize private employers to continue covering their retirees, Medicare will spend $71 billion over the next eight years.

I think that trumps your "But I really love having someone else pay my bills" argument.

 

[johnrocks]

Yeah,it's true BUT only IF it's free and doesn't cost them anything.

 

[Chris]

That's because welfare recipients are generally, by definition, lazy, dependent fuckers without the gumption to come in out of the rain. Although I personally know quite a few who aren't exactly all sunshine and puppies about dealing with government bureaucracy.

It's not that hard at all, however, to find Medicare recipients who are seriously pissed off at having to deal with the government's red tape. If you can't find any, that begs the serious question of where the hell you're looking.

A single payer system is more efficient because it eliminates red tape and overhead for 150 different insurance companies. That is why the rest of the world pays HALF per capita what we pay for healthcare and covers everyone.

yep and why they wait for MRI's and CT scans too...

You have to wait for those here as well. And if you have cancer and can't work, how are you going to pay for health insurance?

 

[Meister]

A single payer system is more efficient because it eliminates red tape and overhead for 150 different insurance companies. That is why the rest of the world pays HALF per capita what we pay for healthcare and covers everyone.

yep and why they wait for MRI's and CT scans too...

You have to wait for those here as well. And if you have cancer and can't work, how are you going to pay for health insurance?

I can get an MRI in 4 days here. My wife waited a week for a CT scan, Chris. Canada waits 4 to 8 weeks.
4-8 weeks wait and you have cancer or a bad heart in Canada...well I'll let you do the math Chris.

 

[Barb]

yep and why they wait for MRI's and CT scans too...

You have to wait for those here as well. And if you have cancer and can't work, how are you going to pay for health insurance?

I can get an MRI in 4 days here. My wife waited a week for a CT scan, Chris. Canada waits 4 to 8 weeks.
4-8 weeks wait and you have cancer or a bad heart in Canada...well I'll let you do the math Chris.

Dennis Kucinich Pummels Right Wing Dr. On Canadian Healthcare System | Crooks and Liars

 

[Meister]

You have to wait for those here as well. And if you have cancer and can't work, how are you going to pay for health insurance?

I can get an MRI in 4 days here. My wife waited a week for a CT scan, Chris. Canada waits 4 to 8 weeks.
4-8 weeks wait and you have cancer or a bad heart in Canada...well I'll let you do the math Chris.

Dennis Kucinich Pummels Right Wing Dr. On Canadian Healthcare System | Crooks and Liars

Dennis Kucinich? I have to wonder where your borders lay on the left Barb. I'm beginning to think you haven't any. But, I digress....

Please note that I took the NY Time article, and a pro universal healthcare site. Nothing as biased as your Dennis Kucinich.

Private clinics are spreading like bad weeds across the country, welcomed by a federal government that is content to look the other way while these for-profit ventures offer health care for a price.Last weekend, health coalitions, citizens’ groups and other organizations that support public health care confronted the federal government’s abandonment of the public health care system. People across the country raised a united voice to say that these private clinics continue to pose a real threat to the future of public health care in Canada.
It may seem easy to dismiss the clinics merely as service providers, filling a niche where people can pay money if they want to access surgeries, medical procedures and even family doctors. If people have the extra money, why shouldn’t they be able to pay for something as personal and essential as health care?
The fact is that Canada does not have enough trained doctors, surgeons, specialists, nurses or other health care providers. The professionals who practise in private clinics are spending their time away from the public system where there are arguably more people with greater needs – including the elderly, the disabled and the chronically ill. Private clinics may be able to help some, but they are the advantaged few. Everyone else is left with even longer waiting times or without access to family doctors.
http://www.canadians.org/media/council/2008/7-May-08.html
Here is another good read for you, Barb.

Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years before receiving treatment.But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees.
But most Canadians agree that current wait times are not acceptable.

The median wait time between a referral by a family doctor and an appointment with a specialist has increased to 8.3 weeks last year from 3.7 weeks in 1993, according to a recent study by The Fraser Institute, a conservative research group. Meanwhile the median wait between an appointment with a specialist and treatment has increased to 9.4 weeks from 5.6 weeks over the same period.
Average wait times between referral by a family doctor and treatment range from 5.5 weeks for oncology to 40 weeks for orthopedic surgery, according to the study.
Average wait times between referral by a family doctor and treatment range from 5.5 weeks for oncology to 40 weeks for orthopedic surgery, according to the study.

Last December, provincial health ministers unveiled new targets for cutting wait times, including four weeks for radiation therapy for cancer patients beginning when doctors consider them ready for treatment and 26 weeks for hip replacements.

But few experts think that will stop the trend toward privatization
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/in...ewanted=1&_r=1

.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by Meister; 07-07-2009 at 10:43 AM.

 

[Barb]

Oh hell, everyone's biased. Kucinich is a US Congressman, sits on the Committee on domestic policy, and might have some better information than the NY Times does at their disposal. The Dr. he was questioning in the vid had NO answers (if he had any information to refute with he would have, he didn't) to the stats Kucinich quoted.

 

[Meister]

Oh hell, everyone's biased. Kucinich is a US Congressman, sits on the Committee on domestic policy, and might have some better information than the NY Times does at their disposal. The Dr. he was questioning in the vid had NO answers (if he had any information to refute with he would have, he didn't) to the stats Kucinich quoted.

Hey...you have your sources and I used mine. The sources I used certainly weren't bent to the right at all, they were just stating the facts. Private clinics are on the comeback, and there is a reason why. I really wasn't trying to sway you, because I knew I couldn't, Barb. Like I said, I just don't think you have any borders on the left.

 

[Barb]

Oh hell, everyone's biased. Kucinich is a US Congressman, sits on the Committee on domestic policy, and might have some better information than the NY Times does at their disposal. The Dr. he was questioning in the vid had NO answers (if he had any information to refute with he would have, he didn't) to the stats Kucinich quoted.

Hey...you have your sources and I used mine. The sources I used certainly weren't bent to the right at all, they were just stating the facts. Private clinics are on the comeback, and there is a reason why. I really wasn't trying to sway you, because I knew I couldn't, Barb. Like I said, I just don't think you have any borders on the left.

In all honesty Meister, I don't have any borders in either direction. It depends. For instance, I don't see the NY Times as s bastion of the left, especially during a Republican administration. And a 2006 article isn't exactly current either.

 

[Political Junky]

You have to wait for those here as well. And if you have cancer and can't work, how are you going to pay for health insurance?

I can get an MRI in 4 days here. My wife waited a week for a CT scan, Chris. Canada waits 4 to 8 weeks.
4-8 weeks wait and you have cancer or a bad heart in Canada...well I'll let you do the math Chris.

Dennis Kucinich Pummels Right Wing Dr. On Canadian Healthcare System | Crooks and Liars

OMG, Dennis Kucinich made that doctor look like a fool that he is. The good doctor was prepared with propaganda answers/lies.

 

[Chris]

yep and why they wait for MRI's and CT scans too...

You have to wait for those here as well. And if you have cancer and can't work, how are you going to pay for health insurance?

I can get an MRI in 4 days here. My wife waited a week for a CT scan, Chris. Canada waits 4 to 8 weeks.
4-8 weeks wait and you have cancer or a bad heart in Canada...well I'll let you do the math Chris.

Bullshit.

Life threatening cases get MRIs immediately in Canada.

And if you can't afford healthcare, you NEVER GET AN MRI!

 

[del]

You have to wait for those here as well. And if you have cancer and can't work, how are you going to pay for health insurance?

I can get an MRI in 4 days here. My wife waited a week for a CT scan, Chris. Canada waits 4 to 8 weeks.
4-8 weeks wait and you have cancer or a bad heart in Canada...well I'll let you do the math Chris.

Bullshit.

Life threatening cases get MRIs immediately in Canada.

And if you can't afford healthcare, you NEVER GET AN MRI!

MRIs are diagnostic; how would they know before the MRI that the case was life threatening, kirkie?

back on the short bus.

 

[Meister]

I can get an MRI in 4 days here. My wife waited a week for a CT scan, Chris. Canada waits 4 to 8 weeks.
4-8 weeks wait and you have cancer or a bad heart in Canada...well I'll let you do the math Chris.

Bullshit.

Life threatening cases get MRIs immediately in Canada.

And if you can't afford healthcare, you NEVER GET AN MRI!

MRIs are diagnostic; how would they know before the MRI that the case was life threatening, kirkie?

back on the short bus.

You beat me to the twit, Del. Thanks

I just wanted to add the wait time for radiation treatments in Canada. I guess Chris would consider that "life threatening"?...Maybe not, though.

For cancer patients, the study found that the median wait time for radiation therapy was almost seven weeks, exceeding the benchmark of four weeks

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=1709117

 

[Political Junky]

Bullshit.

Life threatening cases get MRIs immediately in Canada.

And if you can't afford healthcare, you NEVER GET AN MRI!

MRIs are diagnostic; how would they know before the MRI that the case was life threatening, kirkie?

back on the short bus.

You beat me to the twit, Del. Thanks

I just wanted to add the wait time for radiation treatments in Canada. I guess Chris would consider that "life threatening"?...Maybe not, though.

For cancer patients, the study found that the median wait time for radiation therapy was almost seven weeks, exceeding the benchmark of four weeks

Little improvement in medical wait times: report

Dennis Kucinich Pummels Right Wing Dr. On Canadian Healthcare System | Crooks and Liars
If you click a link at this site you can see the entire hearing.

 

[Chris]

Bullshit.

Life threatening cases get MRIs immediately in Canada.

And if you can't afford healthcare, you NEVER GET AN MRI!

MRIs are diagnostic; how would they know before the MRI that the case was life threatening, kirkie?

back on the short bus.

You beat me to the twit, Del. Thanks

I just wanted to add the wait time for radiation treatments in Canada. I guess Chris would consider that "life threatening"?...Maybe not, though.

For cancer patients, the study found that the median wait time for radiation therapy was almost seven weeks, exceeding the benchmark of four weeks

Little improvement in medical wait times: report

Once again, how long will a single mother with cancer who can't afford health insurance have to wait for an MRI?

 

[Chris]

I can get an MRI in 4 days here. My wife waited a week for a CT scan, Chris. Canada waits 4 to 8 weeks.
4-8 weeks wait and you have cancer or a bad heart in Canada...well I'll let you do the math Chris.

Bullshit.

Life threatening cases get MRIs immediately in Canada.

And if you can't afford healthcare, you NEVER GET AN MRI!

MRIs are diagnostic; how would they know before the MRI that the case was life threatening, kirkie?

back on the short bus.

Your posts are nothing but personal insults that say more about you than they do about me.

Every other Western democracy has national health insurance and the pay HALF per capita what we pay from healthcare and cover everyone. Their systems are cheaper, more fair, and better for society, no question.

America is finally waking up to this fact. Maybe one day you will wake up too.

 

[Bern80]

Bullshit.

Life threatening cases get MRIs immediately in Canada.

And if you can't afford healthcare, you NEVER GET AN MRI!

MRIs are diagnostic; how would they know before the MRI that the case was life threatening, kirkie?

back on the short bus.

Your posts are nothing but personal insults that say more about you than they do about me.

Every other Western democracy has national health insurance and the pay HALF per capita what we pay from healthcare and cover everyone. Their systems are cheaper, more fair, and better for society, no question.

America is finally waking up to this fact. Maybe one day you will wake up too.

No American's aren't waking up. They are blindly following a leader because he promises them outrageous shit that sounds good on paper. Stop using the 'all other westernized countries' argument. it simply doesn't hold water. All it does is show how obtuse you are and your blatant refusal to take into account the differing factors between our country and others. Factors that will play a key rold in whether or not such a system would be effective here or not.

The only benefit one can objectively point to at this point is the lower cost. Minor problem with that: Low cost healthcare does not equal quality healthcare. Tape it on a wall and bash your head against it for an hour cause apparently it aint sinking into your gray matter all that well.