World Politics

[Hugh Januss]

Answer? I don't believe this to be true.

I had an epiphany with LA based on evidence. Not based in feelings. Have you never heard of the lack of cancer care in Canada, the end of life panels in the UK, the incredible wait times for pediatric care in both countries?

You are diluting yourself if you think big govt is the answer. Let's just look at how well social security, or medicare is managed. This govt is already into healthcare and medicare is near insolvency. Why would you suppose this is?

We already have all of those problems here they are just administered by for profit corporations that we have no choice but to deal with and which charge us more for an inferior product.

 

[ruamruam]

Round and round we go...

Keep this in mind. Whatever any Govt "gives" to one has been "taken" from another. I understand the need for govt. The question is how much do we take and from whom do we take in order for everyone to be looked after?

It's round and round we go because you refuse to answer any questions. You just repeat the mantra that government is bad.

I will ask for the final time, can someone in the US who is not insured and cannot afford to pay for medical treatment get proper treatment for serious medical issues? Yes or no?

 

[Anonymous]

You could very well be the "Britsh Pro Cycling" of social issues.

what does that mean?

 

[Anonymous]

It's round and round we go because you refuse to answer any questions. You just repeat the mantra that government is bad.

I will ask for the final time, can someone in the US who is not insured and cannot afford to pay for medical treatment get proper treatment for serious medical issues? Yes or no?

Also, is there a real world example of a Libertarian government that is a major economic force in the world?

 

[Anonymous]

It's round and round we go because you refuse to answer any questions. You just repeat the mantra that government is bad.

I will ask for the final time, can someone in the US who is not insured and cannot afford to pay for medical treatment get proper treatment for serious medical issues? Yes or no?

I will answer ......I have no clue because the evil oil industry provides for my health care at the moment. If I was out on my azzz with no health care insurance and had medical issues then I would be better equipped to answer your question.

From what I read the answer is No and Yes. Yes you can go into an emergency room and get treatment for an medical problem. No I doubt if your medical problem is not severe they would go out of their way to provide you with treatment.

Also even if your treated there is that little problem called medication. How can you get it if you do not have insurance or some serious deeeeeeep pockets.

remember keep it cool.

 

[Hugh Januss]

what does that mean?

Since you ask.....It means I think your "debating style" consists of short nonsensical statements structured more to try to get a rise out of folks than to present any sort of reasoned point of view. Is that any clearer?

 

[ruamruam]

I will answer ......I have no clue because the evil oil industry provides for my health care at the moment. If I was out on my azzz with no health care insurance and had medical issues then I would be better equipped to answer your question.

From what I read the answer is No and Yes. Yes you can go into an emergency room and get treatment for an medical problem. No I doubt if your medical problem is not severe they would go out of their way to provide you with treatment.

Also even if your treated there is that little problem called medication. How can you get it if you do not have insurance or some serious deeeeeeep pockets.

remember keep it cool.

If I spend over (I forgot the exact figure around €50 $70) a month everything over the €50 is paid for by the department of health. My taxes pay for this.

 

[Anonymous]

I have reached a point where I THINK I need to move on. I see a merry-go-round of discourse that I don't see changing.

Let me then end by saying that my biggest fear is that the anger and hateful rhetoric being batted about in the US is frightening in some serious ways. I can promise you this, to a REAL socialist, Obama looks like a raving Capitalist in most of his positions, and those that are trying to label him and call him "Hitler" are entering into a type of discourse that may not turn out the way they believe it will. Historically, there is precedent to back that up. We will survive President Obama. The pendulum will swing back and forth the way it always has, and was intended to. Fatalists are not thinking with their heads, but their fears, and that is never a good thing.

 

[Anonymous]

Since you ask.....It means I think your "debating style" consists of short nonsensical statements structured more to try to get a rise out of folks than to present any sort of reasoned point of view. Is that any clearer?

Well your wrong about my "debating style".

But I do get your point.

anyone can be long winded like a bag of farts but do they actually say anything that will change anything.

This TFF guy seems to be a well balanced thinker, even if he is from tar hill country.

 

[Anonymous]

If I spend over (I forgot the exact figure around €50 $70) a month everything over the €50 is paid for by the department of health. My taxes pay for this.

At this time we do not have such a system here in the USA.

I think we will have sometime soon but hey that just a hunch based on the facts …..US Congress and the Senate is controlled by the Democratic party.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Well your wrong about my "debating style".

But I do get your point.

anyone can be long winded like a bag of farts but do they actually say anything that will change anything.

This TFF guy seems to be a well balanced thinker, even if he is from tar hill country.

Yep, he's pretty dang sharp for a cracker. And any perceived criticism leveled at you by me was at least 49% in jest.

 

[Anonymous]

Well your wrong about my "debating style".

But I do get your point.

anyone can be long winded like a bag of farts but do they actually say anything that will change anything.

This TFF guy seems to be a well balanced thinker, even if he is from tar hill country.

I think if you knew that I had "RESTRAINT" tattooed in reverse on my chest so it is the first thing I see in the morning (yes I get the irony), you would not have used the word "balanced" in any context associated with my name...

As for Hugh, man, you know it was 51%...

 

[Anonymous]

Yep, he's pretty dang sharp for a cracker. And any perceived criticism leveled at you by me was at least 49% in jest.

just 49%???

 

[scribe]

TRDean - From your post you sound like a reasonable hardworking type person and I'm sorry your wife got sick and that you have a financial burden from that.

If the USA could manage to get universal health care like we have here in Canada, your wife would have had her surgery and your hospital bill would be zero dollars because the cost is spread around through everyone's taxes.

It is too bad that a procedure that takes a rather minuscule amount of 'man-hours' might take someone years to chip away at to pay off. In case anyone is mistaken, no one is exempt from paying for their health services if they are uninsured. It sticks with you forever and can take everything you have worked for.

 

[scribe]

Not that anything I have to say will persuade you... in the US, no one is turned away needing medical care including millions of folks that are not citizens and in many cases not legally residing in this country.

The US is one of the least poor friendly countries in the world? I'd sure appreciate reading something to support this claim.

No one can be denied emergency procedure necessary to sustain life. Preventative procedures are not necessarily mandatory. Paying for any of this is not optional for the patient either, under the current health care structure.

 

[Bala Verde]

If big(ger) government isn't the answer in the US, are big(ger) corporations?

It seems that there is a schism between those who distrust government and those that distrust corporations. Both seem to be arguing that they restrict or create freedom, in one way or another.

Freedom restrictions with Univ HC:
- Income is taxed (more) and a government service is created, either through a public option or a Dutch/Swiss system with private insurers and gvmt subsidies for the poorest.
- To control costs, some options would likely be stripped from what is currently covered, like brand drugs, or direct access (without referals) to top doctors.

Freedom creation under Univ HC:
- Those without (sufficient) income would see additional choices, that weren't realistic options before.

So the argument that big(ger) government would only restrict individual freedom is false. It trades off the freedom in certain areas of some, recalibrates and creates it for others.

In the HC case, it's either big government or big corporations that affect people's freedom. So the choice is about what type of freedom I value more, and who will realize/protect that type best.

 

[rhubroma]

Well we just disagree. I'm a free market guy. I don't belive in over-regulation. I don't believe any system is perfect. I believe in an educated population that has the tools needed to make good decisions. I believe in the marketplace of ideas. I believe in helping those that need it. I believe in attempting to build a better mousetrap. I believe there are fewer good politicians than clean cyclists. I have a monumental distrust of Government although I know one is needed on many levels. I can't think of anything the Govt of the US does efficiently and effectively. So why this country is running as fast as we can to Govt solutions is lost on me.

What has the free market got to do with how taxes are spent?

Government is a concept, that has nothing to do with the politicians who make it up. Thus we can go from the res-publica (of Plato and the Romans), to the medieval feudal states, to strong monarchies to the end of the tyranny of the ancien regime, to the petit bourgeois reigns of the industrial revolution to stalinist comunism to deregulated capitalism...

And a better mousetrap is always welcome, so long as it is indeed better.

I think people have too many misconceptions of what has happened historically. For example it was mentioned by someone how America was founded by "courageous pioneers," who were no doubt just as virtuous in their deeds as courageous. The reality is unfortunately to the contrary: namely that they were all too often bands of ruffians whose courage came from the fact that they knew they were moving into hostile territory that wasn't there own to take it away from an indigenous population that had lived there for thousands of years. Which they did without scrupples or moral reservation. And if you read accounts form the time, what was often the justifying principle for this? Religion. For the indians were savages who worshiped false idols.

By today's standards such a rational would be condemned internationally without reservation. Yet at that time society hadn't evolved enough, was still quite barbaric in its instincts, just as it was appalingly hypocritical in its justifications.

That politicians are constantly held to popular criticism, is a conquest of democracy which has unfortunately far to often not been exercised by the voting public. Because they are ever sheep in search of a strong pastor and thus unworhty of the democratic state that they have inherited?

In any case government per se is not the issue, nor the problem, but the political culture upon which it rests. And as society is in constant evolution, so too are the political responses to it. It is thus up to everyone to contribute to making government, and therefore politics, an instrument of public service and not simply one that exclusively upholds the interests of the strongest elements in it. But for that to happen, society itself needs to firmly believe in the virtue of a collective well-being.

So far this has not occured in the history of civilization, though this is not a governmetal issue so much as a social one.

 

[usedtobefast]

wow, i just read 7 pages of todays posts and some very intense ones they are.
i grew up in the 1950's in texas. i saw first hand institutionalized racial discrimination. whites only this and that. everything you read about in books.
it was the way things were. the colored people were over there and we white folks had our better place. they got the crumbs, we got the cake.
my christian upbringing told me this is not what we are supposed to do.
the healthcare issue is very much the same thing. the time has come for
everyone to benefit from quality healthcare, not just a privileged class.
not some watered down "compromise" or "just go to the er dude", but healthcare for all. freemarket??? please. nothing free about it.

 

[Anonymous]

!

I must say, I find the development of the thread much better than expected. As long as we can be civil, it should be fine to slam one another with arguments. A thread with only liberals, would be like - as we say in the Netherlands - preaching to ones own parish. To put things into perspective, I think many US Democrats would be (slightly) right-winged liberals or right winged centrists in the Netherlands.

As someone who only recently moved to the US, coming from Europe, and having lived in several different European countries, I must say that I am somewhat amused by the politics, the themes and the arguments put forth in this country.

What I always find interesting is the way 'socialism' is defined (ie lacking any definition, it just connotates pure evil) and introduced into the debate, in such a way as if many are still under the influence of the evil system embodied by the Russian Red Bear, looming across Palin's Alaska. This threat seems to be invoked whenever possible, just to defuse all arguments for better or more goverment operations.

I also chuckle when I hear the term 'tax-payers' money. As if citizens are only consumers who spend money, or put negatively, tax payers whose consumption patterns are negatively affected by taxes. Indicative perhaps, the DC metro asks 'customers' to make way for people who exit the trains, while in the UK, those same people are referred to as 'passengers'.

Obviously I am biased, and most of all, European countries are all (slightly) different in how they achieve their goals and 'take care of their citizens', but I can't fathom the way certain things work in the US. I mean, where I am it looks a bit like this:

Health Care: mixed private/public; everyone is required to purchase their own HC, selection from different insurance companies who have to accept you; gov subsidizes those who live below a minimum income. I reckon it costs around 120E per month, with a 250E deductible/out of pocket. General practicioners serve as gatekeepers, so referals are generally needed to go to hospitals, preventing the 'emergency room' overload. Unless of course, you have an immediate emergency.

Public education: College, 1500-2000E tuition fee per year, government at this point still, guarantees a basic scholarship per year of 300E per month for living expenses. Government loans for additional funding are accesible to anyone, but depends on your parent's income and amount of support they can give you. So parents rich - no/low loan available, assuming they can help you out. Designated vocational schools for people who won't pursue a college degree. Quality standards to ensure that education (high school; secondary etc.) is identical 'country wide', which allows for easy transfers and better access to college (No such thing as a GRE or LSAT that tests your ability to memorize tips and tricks to identify the best answer; what good is that in college anyway?)

Work: 36-40 hrs work week; 2 holidays per month, almost 24 days minimum per year (excluding official holidays like christmas), as opposed to 10 in the US. Some companies even have 'moving days' if you move to another appartment; % traveling expenses reimbursed for your daily commute (train tickets/metro/bus or fuel). Maternal leave and child care provisions are what I thought quite advanced. Although Germany seems to top the bill with paternal leave (?).

Strong consumer protection: goverment, or the EU, has set minimum standards for production. That means that the cereal that contains asbestos or other carcineogenics never reaches the shelves, so that you don't have to read all the fine print on each and every product you purchase to see if it'll harm you.

And that's in the Netherlands, while many would even say that Scandinavian countries are the heavenly places to live. Obviously there are still lots of things that could be changed/improved/tweaked, otherwise we would not need politicians anymore, but I always felt the arrangement works out quite well. And guess what, many of these 'socialist countries' are still quite productive. How's that possible with 36-40 hrs work week and 24-30 days off per year, do Europeans just work more efficiently?

And yes, the tax rates are a little steeper, but then again, you don't have to waste time making 'free and informed decisions' from choice overload, and you can spend most of your freedom 'living it'.

On top of that, you also pay less 'out of pocket' for many things, because taxes have paid for it already.

An interesting article about the so acclaimed American 'consumer freedom' User-friendliness; the Economist. Although, the telecom cartel run by Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile locking your type of hardwear (your phone) to a similarly priced contract doesn't really shout consumer freedom...

USA would do well to copy and incorporate certain ideas, and improve them or tailor them to the US culture/market/government... As LA said, 'lots to learn'?

That is a damn fine post! I laugh every time I hear someone throw out the "Socialist" barb. I have asked many of them what socialism is, and thus far, I have not gotten a correct response. Then again, not every kid read the Communist Manifesto when they were 16 as did I. Most also have no idea that we have had socialist principles incorporated into our economic system for over 100 years.

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting reading;

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/hl856.cfm

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg1973.cfm

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2381.cfm

And this one supports my biggest concern;

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Healthcare/bg2197.cfm


In the end everyone is concerned. Which is the best way forward with healthcare? I dunno... You guys decide, let me know and I'll call the White House..

 

[titan_90]

Interesting reading;

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/hl856.cfm

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg1973.cfm

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2381.cfm

And this one supports my biggest concern;

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Healthcare/bg2197.cfm


In the end everyone is concerned. Which is the best way forward with healthcare? I dunno... You guys decide, let me know and I'll call the White House..

The Heriatge Foundation huh?
They are a non-biased Conservative Right Wing think tank, correct
Just fear mongering propaganda.

 

[Anonymous]

The Heriatge Foundation huh?
They are a non-biased Conservative Right Wing think tank, correct
Just fear mongering propaganda.

Spoken like someone who objectively wants to understand all sides of the agrument and reach a rational conclusion.

The papers are heavily notated and written by doctors and policy analysts. I guess that is only important if one agrees with the conclusions reached, otherwise it's just back to the name calling.

 

[titan_90]

Spoken like someone who objectively wants to understand all sides of the agrument and reach a rational conclusion.

The papers are heavily notated and written by doctors and policy analysts. I guess that is only important if one agrees with the conclusions reached, otherwise it's just back to the name calling.

I have read every comment on this thread and have considered everyone's opinions. I also read the articles that you linked. I did see issues they brought up that are worth discussing but the rest is conservative PR.

I support a single payer system based on the European models. I understand that these models are not perfect nor will they ever be. But they provide better care to everyone in their countries compared to the system we have here currently.

Bottom line for me is that 45,000 people are dying every year in this country because they don't have health care(one person is one too many). Is that something as an American or even as a human being you are proud of? As an American I am embarrassed and as a human being I find this abhorrent.

Our political leaders and citizens need to get off their lazy asses and start making the hard decisions for the future of this country.

 

[usedtobefast]

to be honest i don't care who "runs" healthcare. who does "run" healthcare?
it seems some very big corporations profit from healthcare. the government
controls licensing and regulation, for docs and drugs. do we need
health insurance companies? for what? to come between you and your
healthcare. medical insurance billing has been a growth job category for years. why is that? is that a helpful thing?
what if we had no running water, except for those were of a special class?
what if we had no trash collection, unless you paid someone yourself?
sounds like the dark ages to me.

 

[scribe]

The hope is that one day, we can look back on all this and wonder why we didn't nationalize it sooner. Lots of functions in society are nationalized that we hardly notice much less feel threatened by.