72% of Americans support government run healthcare

[Chris]

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.

The only benefit is lower cost? How about the fact that 60% of all bankruptcies are healthcare cost related? How about the fact that doctors will be able to be doctors instead of spending half their time fighting with 150 insurance companies over paperwork? How about the fact that millions of Americans will have access to healthcare that can't afford it now? How about the fact that people with cancer won't have to worry about paying for their insurance premiums while they go through chemotherapy? How about the fact that American businesses will now be able to compete worldwide because they will no longer have to pay for healthcare? How about the fact that with a single payer system, the government can negotiate drug costs with the drug companies? How about the fact that there will be fewer medical lawsuits because people won't go bankrupt because of medical costs? How about the fact that liability insurance will be lower for this reason?

How about the fact that taking care of the sick people in our society is just the right thing to do???

 

[Yukon]

It never fails to amaze me how well the Health Care Insurance Companies have done in BRAINWASHING you poor people. How sad, how pitiful, how really American.

 

[Bern80]

The only benefit is lower cost? How about the fact that 60% of all bankruptcies are healthcare cost related?

So then your assertion must be that no one should go bankrupt having to pay for healthcare costs? That goal does not necessitate that government run the system Chris. THAT is what I don't want. My problem with isn't that you want to change the system, cause lord know it ain't perfect (but it is the best one out there). My problem with you (and liberals in gerneral) is that you have so little imagination. Government is a liberals solution to everything. What is so amazingly mind boggling about you is that healthcare is kind of an important thing. And you want OUR government, with it's inefficiency, its beauracracy, its wastefulness running that part of your life.

How about the fact that doctors will be able to be doctors instead of spending half their time fighting with 150 insurance companies over paperwork?

This highlights one problem with the current system and where an actual free market solution would help. In reality this is not true. They only have to deal with a few because currently only so many imsueance providers can operate within an area, usually a couple of states. As was suggested in another thread make health insureance providers part of insterstate commerce, then they would have to compete which would mean lower premiums for individuals.

How about the fact that millions of Americans will have access to healthcare that can't afford it now?

This one is simply false. It will simply be a different million (or more) not receiving care. Again Chris, what is the basic problem and/or goal. To me the argument seems to be this: If not but for cost than more people would utilize healthcare. Neccessarily that would mean with cost not being a major barrier there will be increased demand on the system. Which will mean more waiting.

How about the fact that people with cancer won't have to worry about paying for their insurance premiums while they go through chemotherapy?

This goes back to a more fundamental principle and one I can speak personally about. I HAVE had cancer and have had chemotherapy. Obviously there was no fault on my part in getting cancer. So give me an argument here. Even though I had no responsibility in acquiring my condition, why does that make it okay for me to obligate someone else (the taxpayer), who's never even heard of me, let alone bear any responsibility for me, the expenses of my illness?

Admittedly I don't really see where you're going with this in terms if the system you envision. It seems to me you believe the system would be some flat yearly tax, where that is all one would have to pay regardless of the medical problems that may befall someone, minor or catastrophic. Personally I don't see how you can justify paying the same thing for chemotherapy as the common cold. You will have to explain how see that working out on practical and ethical basis.

How about the fact that American businesses will now be able to compete worldwide because they will no longer have to pay for healthcare?

That would be great. But again accomplishing that does not neccessitate government being the single payee. There are many solution that could be implemented to make insurance coverage more affordable to the consumer.

How about the fact that with a single payer system, the government can negotiate drug costs with the drug companies? How about the fact that there will be fewer medical

Government is already in bed with the drug companies. How can you be so blind as to not see the level of corruption that would take place here. Speaking of single payer, what is your opinion of monopolies. Kind of thought those weren't a good thing. I can think of no worse institution than our government having one.

lawsuits because people won't go bankrupt because of medical costs? How about the fact that liability insurance will be lower for this reason?

Again solution does require that government be the single payer. It has been the right side of the aisle that has proposed reregulation of malpractice insureance (as noted by one of Bush's more memorable quotes) Of course you know that is a big part of the reason why medical costs are so high, because malpractice insurance is so high.

How about the fact that taking care of the sick people in our society is just the right thing to do???

What an absolute crock of shit this one is. You're going to try to guilt people into paying for other people's problems now? Is that the 'right thing to do' Chris? This is why I can't stand libs. Npt only is government your solution to everything. The individual bears no responsibility for the solution either. You would not believe the problems that could be solved if only, when looking for a solution to anything, the first thing people asked was 'what can I do about this'? But they don't. It simply isn't human nature. Human nature is to take personal credit for successes and blame others for problems. Why should I (the taxpayer) have to pay for your heart transplant because you ate McDonalds at lunch every day for 20 years? Or your lung transplant because you were a pack a day person? Our medical costs would go down astronomically if you took the responsibility of simply taking care of yourself. It isn't fair to say taking care of sick people is the right thing to do. Because that isn't the whole picture. Making me pay for your sins is most definately NOT the right thing to do.

 

[Bern80]

It never fails to amaze me how well the Health Care Insurance Companies have done in BRAINWASHING you poor people. How sad, how pitiful, how really American.

It is rather obtuse to translate not wanting the government to run health care into liking the medical insurance industry.

 

[Cecilie1200]

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? Seriously?

 

[Cecilie1200]

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.

Oh, WELL. He's a politician. THAT certainly makes him trustworthy and credible.

Three words for you, Mensa Girl: Senator Edward Kennedy.

 

[jreeves]

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!

Sure Chrissy...
Obamacare meets the reality of nationalized health care: Rationing and long lines | Washington Examiner
President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the legions of liberal political activists trying to ramrod nationalized health care through Congress face an insurmountable obstacle in the Internet. There are mountains of data available today regarding the decades of experience with similar systems in Canada, Great Britain and elsewhere, and the facts about that data are within a few mouse clicks of every American. As the debate in Congress and the nation’s public policy forums heats up, key facts gleaned from that abundance of data are becoming ever more prominent.

Take, for example, the report out last week from the Wait Time Alliance (WTA), a group of 13 Canadian medical groups, including the Canadian Medical Association. For cancer patients, the report found that “the median wait time for radiation therapy was almost seven weeks.” That figure exceeded the recommended maximum wait time of one month. Note, too, that as a median figure, there were just as many patients who waited longer than seven weeks as who waited less than seven weeks. The WTA report also found unacceptably long delays for people seeking emergency room treatment, with an average of nine hours for patients who were treated and released. The average for patients who needed to be treated and admitted to the hospital was 24 hours! And patients needing psychiatric care for major depression are being forced to wait up to six weeks before starting treatment, according to the WTA report.

Long waits for critical treatment are inevitable in government-run health care systems for one simple reason: Making health care “free” creates an infinite demand for medical services. But no country can satisfy an infinite demand, so government bureaucrats always end up rationing health care. Long lines of people waiting for services are the result. It’s the same process that produced long waiting lines for decades in the Soviet Union for basic necessities like bread and housing.

Obamacare advocates can only hope their friends in the mainstream media do a better job of carrying their water for them in the weeks ahead than The New York Times and CBS with their latest poll. Using a sample with exactly twice as many Obama voters as McCain voters, the Times/CBS pollsters got a result in which 57 percent of their respondents said they would pay higher taxes “so that all Americans have health insurance that they can’t lose no matter what.” But, as anybody who has taken a basic statistics course knows, a warped sample and an “apples-to-oranges” comparison has zero credibility.

 

[Care4all]

Sounds like Canada UNDERESTIMATED Demand....which is causing delays....they need to increase their SUPPLY to solve the problem correctly NOT cut services.

They need more hospitals, and Doctors and Nurses, and Medical Schools, Nursing schools, and Medical Technology schools so that the Demand for such, is serviced imo.....

And of course, easier said than done...

 

[Care4all]

When you have a long wait at a restaurant because they don't have enough cooks or waitresses on hand, the next night you staff with more cooks and waitresses so that you can serve the demand....

If you have too few tables available for the crowd, you enlarge your restaurant and add more tables, if that can't be done, someone buys the commercial lot next to you and opens another restaurant to serve the demand.

Why don't hospitals work in the same capitalistic manner?

 

[Old Rocks]

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.

I see. Longer life expectancy, much lower infant mortality rate, and healthier old age are not benefits? You fellows are pitiful in your lies!

 

[Old Rocks]

It never fails to amaze me how well the Health Care Insurance Companies have done in BRAINWASHING you poor people. How sad, how pitiful, how really American.

It is rather obtuse to translate not wanting the government to run health care into liking the medical insurance industry.

Now that is a load of BS. And you know full well that there are a number of differant kinds of single payer systems out there that are working better than the broken system we have. You are lying in your support of the present ripoff artists that are running our present system.

Here is where you can learn how five of them work;FRONTLINE: sick around the world | PBS

 

[Old Rocks]

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!

Sure Chrissy...
Obamacare meets the reality of nationalized health care: Rationing and long lines | Washington Examiner
President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the legions of liberal political activists trying to ramrod nationalized health care through Congress face an insurmountable obstacle in the Internet. There are mountains of data available today regarding the decades of experience with similar systems in Canada, Great Britain and elsewhere, and the facts about that data are within a few mouse clicks of every American. As the debate in Congress and the nation’s public policy forums heats up, key facts gleaned from that abundance of data are becoming ever more prominent.

Take, for example, the report out last week from the Wait Time Alliance (WTA), a group of 13 Canadian medical groups, including the Canadian Medical Association. For cancer patients, the report found that “the median wait time for radiation therapy was almost seven weeks.” That figure exceeded the recommended maximum wait time of one month. Note, too, that as a median figure, there were just as many patients who waited longer than seven weeks as who waited less than seven weeks. The WTA report also found unacceptably long delays for people seeking emergency room treatment, with an average of nine hours for patients who were treated and released. The average for patients who needed to be treated and admitted to the hospital was 24 hours! And patients needing psychiatric care for major depression are being forced to wait up to six weeks before starting treatment, according to the WTA report.

Long waits for critical treatment are inevitable in government-run health care systems for one simple reason: Making health care “free” creates an infinite demand for medical services. But no country can satisfy an infinite demand, so government bureaucrats always end up rationing health care. Long lines of people waiting for services are the result. It’s the same process that produced long waiting lines for decades in the Soviet Union for basic necessities like bread and housing.

Obamacare advocates can only hope their friends in the mainstream media do a better job of carrying their water for them in the weeks ahead than The New York Times and CBS with their latest poll. Using a sample with exactly twice as many Obama voters as McCain voters, the Times/CBS pollsters got a result in which 57 percent of their respondents said they would pay higher taxes “so that all Americans have health insurance that they can’t lose no matter what.” But, as anybody who has taken a basic statistics course knows, a warped sample and an “apples-to-oranges” comparison has zero credibility.

There are 50 million Americans that do not have to worry about wait times. They don't have medical insurance, so they go to the emergency room after the situation is out of hand.

No, it is not a warped sample. As more people have the experiance of being unemployed and uninsured, that number will rise. Not only that, when people change jobs, and suddenly find themselves paying extra for pre-existing conditions, they will learn the reality of how much our present system sucks.

 

[editec]

Certainly, as Old Rocks suggests, as more and more people find themselves no longer having HC insurance thansk to the employment picture, the pressure from the public to cover the HC of the uninsured will continue to get stronger.

Those of you paying attention know of my reservations about creating single payer insurance and socializing medicine, too, but I suspect that the political pressure to solve this problem is going to overhwelm the pressure from the insurance companies not to put them completely out of business.

 

[Bern80]

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.

I see. Longer life expectancy, much lower infant mortality rate, and healthier old age are not benefits? You fellows are pitiful in your lies!

No you're the pitiful one's again I'm afraid. Another obtuse liberal who needs to gloss over the fact that I don't know, maybe our lifestyle choices play the largest role in those things? Not our health care system.

 

[Care4all]

Certainly, as Old Rocks suggests, as more and more people find themselves no longer having HC insurance thansk to the employment picture, the pressure from the public to cover the HC of the uninsured will continue to get stronger.

Those of you paying attention know of my reservations about creating single payer insurance and socializing medicine, too, but I suspect that the political pressure to solve this problem is going to overhwelm the pressure from the insurance companies not to put them completely out of business.

The thing is, they may not be put out of business even if the country went to a single payer plan.... In France, for example, there is their universal gvt plan and there is also a business for SUPPLEMENTAL Insurance, which covers things the gvt may not cover under their basic coverage plan....

There are sooooo many universal plan options out there to choose from for our basic health care....and we don't have to choose any of them and can make up our own plan to solve our own problems, we are not stuck picking one of the many other country's plan....

I agree with you that a single payer universal government plan may not be the way to go, but I don't think Obama's plan using the insurance companies, is the most efficient and cost effective plan either...

I think this needs a lot of thought and analysis and number crunching and speculation of what the end results will be, before we make a move on this....

We can fix this problem, if we put our opened minds to it....

 

[Bern80]

Now that is a load of BS. And you know full well that there are a number of differant kinds of single payer systems out there that are working better than the broken system we have.

This goes back to the ridiculous, 'it works there so it will work here' argument. Yes it does seem to be working well in Fance (accept for that minor hemorhaging money thing). But we aren't France. We don't know the doctors per capita that they for starts. If we choose a system we have to evaluate whether it will work for US. And single payer is simply another term for a monopoly rocks. No one has stepped up to the plate and answered this yet. WHY do you want OUR government, with it's wastefullness, it's susceptibility to special interest, it's politics, to have a monopoly on the health care industry.

You are lying in your support of the present ripoff artists that are running our present system.

You're reduced to calling people liars as argument for your health care plan? That says a bit more about you than it does me. I have had more head aches with health insurance companies than you wil ever have in your life. Again, that doesn't mean I want our equally, if not more so, pathetic government running the system.

 

[Barb]

When you have a long wait at a restaurant because they don't have enough cooks or waitresses on hand, the next night you staff with more cooks and waitresses so that you can serve the demand....

If you have too few tables available for the crowd, you enlarge your restaurant and add more tables, if that can't be done, someone buys the commercial lot next to you and opens another restaurant to serve the demand.

Why don't hospitals work in the same capitalistic manner?

Because the market is not an efficient allocator of public good. There isn't do re MEEEE to be made in doing the proper thing for human well being. That's for political and social organizations. The problem is, the market stuck its nose in our political and social business instead of producing things. They want a fee for allocation. They suck at it, their ad agencies aren't so hot, but they only have to play three chords here in the US and almost half the pop thinks its the harps of angels. I was wondering when they'd resurrect Harry and Louise.

 

[editec]

Because the market is not an efficient allocator of public good.

Right on sister.

Certainly that's true in the business of HC. And for those interested in a fact based approcah tpo this problem, that is obvious if one studies the dollars spend per capita and the morbity and mortality stats of this nation of ours versus nearly any other industrialized nation on earth (and some third world nations, too, amazing as that seems to most of us!)

 

[Bern80]

Because the market is not an efficient allocator of public good.

Right on sister.

Certainly that's true in the business of HC. And for those interested in a fact based approcah tpo this problem, that is obvious if one studies the dollars spend per capita and the morbity and mortality stats of this nation of ours versus nearly any other industrialized nation on earth (and some third world nations, too, amazing as that seems to most of us!)

Not quite. What you are saying here in terms of morbity and mortality rests on the presumption that health care system is wholly or mostly responsible for it. They aren't. is the healthcare system to blame for all of the overweight American's that end up having complications as a result, who directly impact morbity and mortality? Of course not. Typical liberal again. You bare absolutely no responsibility for the problem whatsoever.

 

[Bern80]

When you have a long wait at a restaurant because they don't have enough cooks or waitresses on hand, the next night you staff with more cooks and waitresses so that you can serve the demand....

If you have too few tables available for the crowd, you enlarge your restaurant and add more tables, if that can't be done, someone buys the commercial lot next to you and opens another restaurant to serve the demand.

Why don't hospitals work in the same capitalistic manner?

Because the market is not an efficient allocator of public good. There isn't do re MEEEE to be made in doing the proper thing for human well being. That's for political and social organizations. The problem is, the market stuck its nose in our political and social business instead of producing things. They want a fee for allocation. They suck at it, their ad agencies aren't so hot, but they only have to play three chords here in the US and almost half the pop thinks its the harps of angels. I was wondering when they'd resurrect Harry and Louise.

Same question I ask everyone else. Why do you have the right to obligate me to pay for your health care needs?