Why Not National Healthcare?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Blackjack, Nov 12, 2007.


  1. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    Why not national healthcare for all?

    Cut out the insurance companies, and socialize our healthcare system.

    In an ideal situation, we wouldn't need it, but we aren't in an ideal situation , are we? We are controlled by the corporations, big pharma, and the insurance companies. Most of us here agree on that.

    Now before I get flamed, let me say..... It's as much of a question on my part than a stance, but I have been leaning a lot farther that direction (it's funny how not having coverage will do that).


    1) Yes it's socialized...... so are police and fire services, should those services only be provided to those who can afford it?

    2) So many people in the US die every year for no other reason than they don't have enough money to live because the corporations are protecting their profits. I'm sorry, that's wrong. I personally knew a woman who died because she couldn't afford treatment. She was a good person, and it's a shame.

    3) (hypothetical) If a forum member here was dying and we could all chip in some money to save them, wouldn't we? So why not do it nationally?

    4) The best healthcare I've ever had was in the military, and that's socialized. Or should we privatize the military's healthcare too?

    5) Yes taxes would go up some, but when you cut out all the unnecessary overhead, they don't have to go up that much.

    6) MANY coutries have wonderful, socialized medicine, and somehow they still seem to function well enough. We are the ONLY industrialized nation without it, and we are the wealthiest...... somethings wrong there.

    7) Yes..... I have recently watched "Sicko" from Michael Moore. There have been many things I disagreed with him about, but I'm in total agreement with him on this one. If you haven't seen Sicko... You Need To!!


    If you think you're safe because you have insurance.... think again!



    So tell me then.... Why Not?
     
  2. AlterEgo

    AlterEgo Monkey+++

    BlackJack I not going to flame anyone who is bright enough to see that it is a sound concept. But then so is a Constitutional Republic, and look what happened with it when power is in control.

    I happen to be in south fla and every year Canadians come down here for medical care that they can't get up there cause of the waiting list, or the services are not provided. BTW they buy their own health care here so they are not freeloading.

    From what I have seen with my mother, when a doctor finds out that the elderly have Medicare they run every test under the sun (their buddys always own the testing co's.) because Medicare pays for it whether the person needs it or not.

    It would be a great thing, better than what we have now, but the sick would not benefit one bit, just the looters.

    AE
     
  3. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I'm glad that you received the best healthcare you've ever had when you were in the military. Not everyone does. In the military, you are seen by staff - some good, some not so great but you have to take what you get. Remember, not every Dr. graduated at the top of their class. I worked in Montreal for many years and I can guarantee you their healthcare is adequate - not great and when you visit the clinic, you had best pack a lunch because you might be there for a long time before you can be seen.

    I look at healthcare as a consumer. If I'm getting good service, the Dr. gets my business. Otherwise, I take my business elsewhere. When we remove the free enterprise concept from healthcare, our choices are limited. If you were forced to buy your products from only one grocery store and that store had second rate goods, you wouldn't be very happy.

    I'm not saying that insurance companies don't control the level of care available to us. My grandson broke a bone in his hand the other day. Since my daughter works for a medical group, they e-rayed his hand and put a put it in a cast - no charge but they recommended he see an orthopedist. The nearest on accepted by my daughter's insurance co. is at the UCONN medical school, a good hour and a half away. Luckily, one of the orthopedists in her own building looked at the x-rays as a courtesy and told her everything would be fine.

    I don't have any answers - only questions. thanks for opening the discussion Blackjack
     
  4. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    I've seen this issue with medicaire as well, but I have to believe that we could implement a system that minimized this aspect of it.

    I guarantee you just said what the main problem with it (or anything in this country) is.... corruption.
     
  5. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    I've heard a lot of people warn that this will happen here if it's socialized, but from what I've seen...... it's already here. Now I get seen quickly because I live in a very small town but......

    A trip to the ER in Springfield Mo was always 3 to 4 hours before you're seen. I experienced that myself on a few occasions.

    The hospital I worked at in Louisville regularly (daily) had people waiting 8 to 12 hours to be seen.
     
  6. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    I tend to look at things this way also, but in the US, if you can't afford food at the grocery store, you will not starve, we will feed you. Nobody starves to death in the US.

    But if you can't pay for the doctor to treat your cancer..... you die, and we don't care.
     
  7. ozarkgoatman

    ozarkgoatman Resident goat herder

     
  8. Blackjack

    Blackjack Monkey+++

    You got me there, and if it was a level playing field I would agree with not having it solely on those grounds (here's praying for R Paul). But it's not level.... the gov gives the corporations a huge advantage and breaks the constitution doing it.


    I guess for me it's either RP gets in office, or I turn socialist.... If you can't beat'em.... get what you can from 'em.
     
  9. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Therewould be several reasons NOT to have socalized medicine. Some of them that top the list have already been mentioned like its not constitutionaly allowed, and if we got the Fed OUT of the stuff they are not allowed in instead of into more we wouldnt need it. Basicly get them out of requireing permission slips for us to get meds and get them out of protecting the drug companies by saying noone can make a generic for 10 years or whatever and the meds are affordable and the Dr is not absolutely required anymore for most things since you can do your own research (if you choose to get/take meds WITHOUT doing apropriate research and without a Drs advice and poison yourself then that falls under Darwinism cleaning out stupid and is a good thing) so the Drs are no longer able to extort people for such high fees since the demand goes WAY down when they dont get to wright permission slips (perscriptions) anymore.

    An other BIG reason is that the quality of healthcare goes WAY down then. While some folks here die because they are uninsured and cant get medical care a lot of folks with socialized medical care die because the waiting lists are to long. If you go in to the Dr in Canada with cancer in its early stages you arent treated because the folks near death with cancer have to be treated first and by the time you get to the top of the list you are generaly terminal and die.

    Its also not JUST a time frame issue but a quality issue. I know that is REAL clear in KC. They have a hospital that is a welfare hospital (aka socialized med hospital) and they have other hospitals. I took Tina to (at her insistance) the welfare hospital one time when we lived up there and she was exibiting all the symptoms of a heart attack. They took her name (through the bullet proof glass) and even after we told them what was going on they told us to go sit in the waiting room and they would call us back. After about an hour or more they had still not even triaged her yet let alone had her see a Dr. Tina, realizeing I was about to create a hostage situation and GET her seen or produce more patients, finaly agreed to let me take her to a hospital that WASNT socialized. We ran about 10-12 miles away to a different hospital and as we aproached the check in desk (no bullet proof booth) the lady asked what the problem was and we mentioned she was short of breath and haveing chest pain and before we could even name the rest of the symptoms she was calling the back and before the phone was hung up 2 nurses came out with a wheelchair and they asked if I could give some info to get her signed in while they triaged her. It turned out to be no big deal but based on available info to that point BOTH hospitals would have had to asume she was haveing a heart attack. That same socialized hospital several years earlier had a guy I had gone to school with walk in (and he even had EXCELENT insurance but was closest to there) after being shot in the gut. They told him to sit in the waiting room also and a few hours later when they went to call him back found his body where he had bleed to death waiting to be seen. Its also the same hospital my best friend was a a couple years ago when he died in their parking lot 10 minutes after they released him and they took over 30 minutes after being informed they had a code blue in the parking lot for them to come out. In a nut shell, you socialize medicine and the quality and availability gets even worse AND you have to pay for it a gun point.

    Dont get me wrong I do sympathize as I havent really had insurance to speak of for about 8 years (had REAL crappy and expensive insurance through the convenience store for a while but it was worthless) and when I get sick I have to go to the livestock supply store and get meds, when I get a broken bone I have to set it and imobilize it as best I can (or just deal if its a minor bone like ribsor hands and such) and if I get cut and its not seriously critical I get to either bandage it or sew it at home with no pain killers since I cant get a permission slip for it. I just know that socialized medicine also isnt the anwser, getting the gov LESS involved would do a LOT to help though.
     
  10. Evenglischatiest

    Evenglischatiest Monkey+++

    The first, and in my opinion, most important reason we shouldn't have a national health care system is simple. The Constitution doesn't give the federal government that power. While I'm not in favor of a state level health care system, I'd have no such legal objections to one.

    But since our government no longer recognizes any limits to it's own powers, a rational debate as to the merits of such a system seems necessary. The most powerful argument I'm currently aware of comes from the British system. There have been several stories recently about services being refused to people who ignore the state's "advice" as to living healthy lives:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...e_id=411964&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ct=5

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5296200.stm

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/4462310.stm

    Once the government has a financial obligation, they can make a solid legal argument for regulating everything that affects that obligation. Smokers WILL be first. Then drinkers and/or the obese. Then there's eating fast food, driving fast cars, dating fast women... It's an amazingly short walk down that road before someone brings up guns. Like it or not, it's an established fact that a person who owns a gun is more likely to be shot than someone who doesn't. (I expect the causal relationship goes the opposite direction, but that's just my opinion) So an argument could easily be made that owning a gun costs the rest of us money, and should therefore be illegal.

    That same financial obligation would likely allow the government to MANDATE care. Edwards has already said that his plan would include one or two mandatory exams every year. Clinton has also hinted at that. If the exam is mandatory, I'd assume the treatment will be as well. In the Army, if you're told to take a shot, pill, etc, you simply do it. You have no choice. But at least our soldiers volunteered to serve. Every last one of them, individually, was given the opportunity to opt out, by simply not opting in. With a national health care system, we won't even get to vote on it. We'll just be told, "This is what your masters have decided is best for you." And they won't just tell us what we MUST do. They'll tell us what we CAN'T do. If you prefer herbal medicines, a lot of them will interfere with the "correct" (as determined by the government) treatments. As such, they'll likely become illegal. That's why things like opium and steroids are already illegal.

    Then comes the scariest problem. Presumably this health care system will include mental health. We live in a country where five year old boys are routinely diagnosed with a mental defect (ADHD) for simply acting like five year old boys, and soldiers are declared mentally defective for having nightmares about getting shot. We're not at all far from "hate thought" being declared a mental defect as well. And, thanks to our good friends at the NRA, anyone ever declared to be a mental defective is about to permanently loose his second amendment rights. Do we really want universal, likely mandatory, mental health screenings? Do we really want MANDATORY psychotropic drugs for everyone the government deems to need medicating?

    The argument about the efficiency of health care in the military is based on a somewhat flawed premise. A soldier can't generally sue for malpractice. Doctors are assumed to be doing the best they can, and it's understood that mistakes occasionally happen. If that mentality could be restored to the civilian sector, (all of it, not just health care) costs would plummet.

    And then there's the most fundamental question. Do you want your health care controlled by the same people who've given us socialized education, Amtrak, the "federal" reserve, and the BATFE? And can anyone name a single industry, anywhere in the world, that became more efficient and productive after being nationalized? I'm sincerely curious on that one, because I can't think of one. Perhaps we are the only industrialized country without socialized medicine. But we're also the country responsible for the overwhelming majority of the world's medical advances. I don't see that as a coincidence.

    And finally, we can never forget the most fundamental truth of government. It's power ALWAYS increases. It NEVER cedes power, once it's been usurped. The decision to nationalize health care, or anything else, is permanent. If we don't like the results, the only way to go back will be through violent revolution. Actually, now that I think of it that way...
     
  11. ozarkgoatman

    ozarkgoatman Resident goat herder

    Two wrongs don't make a right. To me it is more important to fight the wrongs even if they are heavy handed, than to get what ever I can get. Due to our income level I'm sure we could get alot of .gov hand outs, but to me thats just stealing from others, WG and I won't do it. I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning.

    OGM
     
  12. ozarkgoatman

    ozarkgoatman Resident goat herder

    I'm not reilgous but AMEN BROTHER. [beer]

    OGM
     
  13. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    Damn good thread, I hear ya blackjack..So lets analyze the problem: why the long waits in the waiting room? and how do/could we change that?

    1) not enough qualified Dr's? How much incentive do perspective drs need? Its gotta be the highest paid and respected profession there is( besides big money investor)...Medical schooling IS expensive..fewer malpractice suits/less malpractice insurance.?

    2) too many people seeking health care in the ER? I think completely free health care would only make it worse More folks would show up at the ER to get their toe nails scraped.

    3)Triage system bass-ackward( starts at the top)?
    any others?

    Like to see "sicko" but my wife staunchly refuses to fund michael fatahz moore..
    So we are boycotting his silly stuff...
     
  14. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    Excellant reply Evenglischatiest (hadn't thought about mandatory care and regulating what's good for us; man,thats got Hilliary written all over it! ):shock:
     
  15. Tracy

    Tracy Insatiably Curious Moderator Founding Member

    Yes.

    I know some folks who, if they can't get an appointment with their Dr., just go into the ER. "It's quicker than waiting for an appointment.":rolleyes: Egads.
     
  16. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    I have a remote relative that is a neurosurgeon. His malpractice premiums last year were $356,000. That is NOT a misprint or typo.
     
  17. <exile>

    <exile> Padawan Learner

    Blackjack, good thread to bring up and get people's thoughts on the virtual table.

    Personally the whole concept of insurance is problematic to me. Insurance and healthcare are two titans battling out with you being the battlefield. An insurance company's goal is to increase profits while healthcare wants to give you the best care (which can costs $$).

    Do we have it, yes, although the CEO at my main gig (couldn't get them to 1099 me) has heard me on more than one occasion talk about offering a stipend and completely doing away with their 80% contribution. They're seeing premiums increase 25-50% annually yet they won't talk with me or entertain other thoughts, they just keep sucking it up.

    My recommendation is to not have employers match at all but instead put the premium and financial responsibility in the citizens hands, no more paperwork or significant forms hoops. It was amazing when we were self insured, we practically had to fist fight doctors to start thinking about the financial aspects of what they were doing. Plus it really made us analyze what was best for us, we'd find out about labs that might be cheaper or we would choose the one that was the best because the price difference was negligible and in some cases they were considered cheap and good. However much of that wouldn't have been necessary if all of their patients were doing the same because they'd know which ones were the cheapest and/or best because their patients would demand it. The bureaucracy has reached such a heightened state that supposedly no one can change it yet most are constrained by it.
     
  18. oil pan 4

    oil pan 4 Monkey+++

    Well almost 10 years later after the passing of Obama care health care is more expensive than ever and the number one reason people go bankrupt because of health care costs.
    Good job democrats.
    And you think passing gun laws is going to keep us all safe?
    Democrats are great at creating the opposite of what they say their goal is.
    I wish it would have worked.
    Nope just another Obama dumpster fire.
     
    Alf60 and 3cyl like this.
  19. Merkun

    Merkun furious dreamer

    Holy thread resurrection!! See? Zerocare works for threads!!
     
  20. Pre-Obama-care we were paying my Step-daughter's health insurance. It was not cheap but we were able to cover it. Post Obama-care that company dropped health care, my daughter's costs sky-rocketed for less coverage., We covered it but it hurt more. A year ago Angie got sick,saw doctor, got x-rays, got scrip, wouldn't go to hospital (against my wishes) 'cause she thought it would be too expensive. Next morning she was dead. I will always blame OBAMACARE for her death.
     
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