Healthcare reform
 

Before we begin, I got special permission to create this thread so keep it civil and blah blah.

SO, what's everybody's opinion on this issue that seems to be everywhere (in the US)? I'm as confused as ever and tried looking it up and whatnot but still don't get what's going on, and if anything, it'll affect me a lot cuz I need to see a doctor every 4 weeks. So what's going on?

Your guess is as good as mine. I haven't been following it at all, but I went to research it the other day to see what all the hubbub was about, and couldn't make heads or tails about what all of these yahoos are babbling about. Everything I turn up is either conflicting, biased, or just plain nonsensical.

There's no money to be made solving this problem. Hence, it will never have a concrete resolution. My mom broke her arm last summer and the total bill was 12000 dollars, for a broken f*cking arm.

Do you think the swine that ended up getting that 12k are going to give their gravy train up without one hell of a fight? Hell no.

Too many crooked f*ckers making too much money off honest people. It will take more than a piece of paper to stop that. It's self sustaining at this point.

Free health care in the US will never happen, unfortunately.

So is that what this is about? Making healthcare free?

Is there any place in the world where it is free, except for some rich Arabic countries like Kuwait?

Canada... the UK, France, most developed nations with a semi liberal government.

The saddest part of this is... there are many many many Americans who DO NOT want free Health Care... If you can explain that one without sounding ridiculous... well I'll eat my shoe.

I was born in a nation where we take care of each other, and I don't care what anyone says about "higher taxes" or "wanting to pay for services they get"... I say bullsh!t.

There is no such thing as free health care.

Spoilers. This isn't going to end well.

I honestly don't see what's wrong with trying to reform healthcare the way they're going about it.

Alright, enlighten me. Why not?

Because even if you're not handing money over to the receptionist, you're still paying for it with taxes. Nothing's free.

I would rather pay a few extra dollars in taxes than thousands of f*cking dollars to get my arm in a cast while paying normal taxes on top of that.

That's fine, and easy enough to say, but that's essentially what the divide on the issue comes down to. Personally, I would rather pay for my own broken arm than collectively help pay for everyone else's.

I just did a quick google search to get these numbers, so I don't know their accuracy, but something like 95% of all income tax is paid by only he top 3% of income earners, and the lower 40% pay no tax, with a very large percent of them actually getting money back in the form of EIC credit and such.

So you're putting the bulk of the responsibility of the health of the nation on actually very few people. And that's in addition to all of the other services taxes already pay for. And for all of that we're something like $9 Trillion in debt?

I really don't want to debate people on the issue, I'm just presenting that side of it. I honestly know very little about the current deal that is being proposed, so I really can't speak of a specific opinion on it. I recognize the health care system we currently have is greatly flawed and there's a lot of room for improvement, but I do wish it wasn't something the President was trying to get passed ASAP. Right now it just feels to me like it's something he wants to get passed for the sake of getting it passed, rather than the sake of getting it right and really making the system better.

Those poor rich people. If only they had disposable income!

The entire reason taxes exist is to collectively pay for important things. I know not all taxes go to said causes, but if my few extra bucks are going to saving someone's life or livelyhood, I'm all for it. The karma might kick back in my favor some day.

I seriously have no mercy for the rich.

On another note. The whole system you lot are fighting so fiercly over has been reality over here for about ninety years. It's evolved into a sort of semi-privatized thing and it works pretty well. Over here, you get a bill at the end of the month and you pay that bill. It's not that much, really. And if you can't pay it, there's plenty of rich folks who pay way more and so you can still go to the doctors if you need it. However, I'd like to do it via taxes, to be honest, that would be really fair. But I suppose there wouldn't be profit in a fair system.

What's neat, too, is that the insurances get special discounts in hospitals, so while you'd pay $12000 to get your arm in a cast, the insurance has to pay considerably less, which once again shifts the baggage off the actual sick people.

Granted, Americans don't really like caring for each other, as voiced here and everywhere else, and they're apparently still afraid of communism, which is ridiculous, but it does work and it does a whole lot of good. And I'd be willing to say that a lot less people die because of it. And whatever keeps people alive is okay in my book.

Healthcare reform is needed baddly. I've had my share of experiences with it.

I'll tell you the bottom line, Cure. what they are wanting to do is reqire everyone in the country to have some form of health insurance so that no one is left with no means to pay. This will be achieved by requiring people who do not have health insurance to buy into one of several as yet determined options including the dreaded public option which is being deamonized in the town Hall meetings (around here anyway) Other ideas being insurance co-ops where large groups of people band together to buy private insurance at the same rate big corporations can.

There is a bill in congress which is HUGE and alot of really inflamitory press / commercials / general misinformation floating around making everyone really scared (from what I can tell.)

My disclaimer is that I am for the President's bill (but given that I am a Democrat, you guys probably knew that anyway)

People who are against the bill will give arguments like this will cause higher taxes, illegal immigrants will be covered, the whole "death panel" scare tactic. They say that a public option for low income people will cause employers to drop their company insurance in favor of making their employees take the public option. In a nut shell, higher taxes and the death of private insurance / private medicine.

People who are for the bill will give arguments such as the government "public option" alternative for low income people will provide competition to the big insurance companies and will drive prices down. (ie if they are losing customers to a cheaper public option they will have to provide lower cost products to retain customers and stay in business) In a nut shell. lower costs will occur with competition.


Here's my 2 cents. The US health care system is an abomination. Doctors work a'la carte in their practices meaning that they receive pay based on the number and types of transactions that they do. Alot of times if you go to multiple doctors you will have the same tests over and over as each does their due diligence and thereby causing the insurance companies to pay for redundant testing, which then drives prices up.

Insurance companies are able to refuse coverage to people that they deem too risky. (i. e. you have a "pre-existing condition") People with known medical problems are often excluded because the companies know they will have to spend more money on these people. They may also come back after you have been diagnosed with an illness and drop you because the illness might have existed before your coverage with them started.

If people do not have insurance and cannot afford to pay they will go to public hospitals to be treated. Public hospitals HAVE to treat you whether you pay or not, and if you don't pay they write off the charges causing prices to increase further. And these public hospitals are funded by taxes so if you pay taxes and you think you aren't already paying for uninsured people and illegal immigrants healthcare you 're living in a dream world.

I think they need to pass a bill that includes a public option (if for anythign else to track that stuff) require insurance company regulation and reform to get rid of their ability to arbitrarily choose who they will or will not cover, adopt a salary system for doctors who work in hospitals, and insurance cards which contain your medical history to eliminate redundant testing.

If I have to pay a little more in taxes to achieve this, so be it. I do believe changing some of the practices I spoke about will end up lowering overall costs, but if I can help people less fortunate than myself, I'm happy to do it.

:lol: So true. It's illegal to own a red flag in some states.

Hahaha wow... there are some long posts.

I want to make a few quick points and hopes that they are short enough for people to read them, because I think it is important for you to hear them... I hope that doesn't come off wrong, but I have a different point of view than most of you.

The fact that no health care is free, is more of less true yes, I pay for it with taxes. I also pay for roads, cops, fire, and other important things with taxes.

Here is the deal with that. I am 23, I live on my own I pay no income tax, I get it all back, because I don't make a hell of a lot in a year. We don't have much more sales tax than anyone else. So here I am, I have little to no extra taxation burden on me... if I break my arm, sprain my ankle, have a stuffy nose, or am about to die from blood loss, I can go any time any where for what ever I want to, to a hospital and I will get taken care of as needed. That beats paying 300 plus a month for health insurance with a stupid high deductible.

I am not saying the system is perfect here either. The debate about making it partially paid for, such as those who can afford it have to pay a little has been going on for a while up here. Making the rich pay more in taxes and or health care ACTUALLY makes sense in a stable economy. This however is a different argument, because the system of pushing the poor man down while the rich man gets richer is the system in place now and guess what... IT DOSN'T WORK!

Last note. Someone mentioned the idea of people caring for one another. As much as some of you may or may not like Mr. Moore the Documentary guy, he said something very interesting at a movie opening up here once. He pointed out that it is part of every Canadians being, that we are all in this together. If my taxes go to help someone who needs help and not in some rich insurance company pocket, GREAT! I want to help the other guy, because guess what! He is going to help me when I need it. This actually is something at the core of us which makes us different in day to day life. I am sorry, but it does. I can't really explain it fully or do it justice here on this post late at night, but maybe it can help some of you to look at it another way. But that's just the way it has always been up here.

Change is scary, but change is good!!

That's not free healthcare, everyone is charged with it every month.

True, I think it is a very good system, to pay a few dozens or even hundreds euros each months rather than a few thousands at once, and I'm going to defend it - but definitely the "free" part here is a lie. The only "free healthcare" is in those oil Arabic nations, where they sleep on petrodollars and governments literally pay for the citizens' health service.

The system we have in Europe is great even though it's not "free" health care per se. I can honestly not see how anyone would argue that.

Here's a reason why I'm so deeply invested in this debate.

I've been watching my Dad get jerked around by insurance companies for 20 years. He can't drop the crooked one he has because no other insurer would take him. He suffered from gout (a severe form or arthritis) his whole young life. In the past when he could work, they refused to pay for his gout medicine causing him to have to work on a pipeline in all kinds of weather with swollen and inflamed joints every day of his life in heinous pain. When he was in the fire accident many years back, their interference with his care almost killed him three times. He would have been dead on each of those occasions had my mother not been a nurse once upon a time and known what they were doing to him. Imagine a man covered from head to toe in third degree burns, then an insurance agent storms in the hospital room and demands that his inflatable airbed (that took pressure off of his bloody and blistered back) be taken away because "he can live without it". Then the doctors toss him onto a hard, flat hospital bed where he writhes and cries in pain for the next three month until the stress and strain causes him to have a stroke that took away his ability to speak. This is what insurance companies do to the sick without regulation. This is what they did to our powerless family. There are hundreds of thousands of stories around the nation from other powerless people with no voice that are just like mine. Its time to hold insurance companies accountable for their actions.

People are scared of this public "option" because they are misinformed and have no real idea what it is. That dumb cluck Sarah Palin started the death panel rumor (which is complete unmitigated bullsh*t) to scare people because she believes that its the sole role of the Church (rather than government) to provide charitable relief, and because she's just an ignorant retard (and for the record, that has nothing to do with her religion. She's just stuuupid). The only reason the rumor was never dispelled on a national level is because the damn media sensationalized it and never just told us the simple facts. That just shows the true failing of our media's lack of an ability to actually inform people. After the President's speech yesterday, all the newspapers wanted to talk about was the one disrespectful tool who heckled him. They had no interest in discussing the issues because a scared public makes for lots of news interest which equals profits. Our media is in a truly scary shape. Just looking at the slanted "journalists" on MSNBC and Faux News reminds me of this.

You want death panels? I'll tell you where to find them. Go look into the board rooms of any major insurance corporation. There you'll find the people who decide which subscribers get treatment and which don't. If some poor random nobody out there gets cancer and tries to get treatment, its very likely that the insurance company that he/she paid money to their entire lives for this occasion will drop them flat and refuse their treatment, thus leaving them to die or rather only agree to clear an inferior treatment that won't cure them, but rather prolong their futile misery. Who's going to help them? Who's going to care? Who's going to tell their story to prevent it from happening to somebody else? Nobody. This happens by the thousands every year because nobody keeps them in check. If you sue them to get the treatment (the usual course of action), it likely they'll use their army of lawyers to keep the case in the legal system until you just die off and get out of their hair.

The "public option" is a proposed national non-profit health care system that serves as an alternative to the existing private insurers. It doesn't put them out of business. It forces them to get competitive. The reason the public "option" is needed is simply to give those with no insurance a chance to get cheap insurance to protect themselves and their families. If you would rather stick with one of the established crooked existing private insurers, there's nothing in the bill that says you can't. Frankly, I don't think the public option insurance is enough. I would rather have socialized medicine. Shouldn't the health of our own bodies be considered as important as say, the police and fire department? These things are socialized. We don't wait for the fire fighters to come to our burning house, knock on the door and say, "Cash or credit". We don't expect a policeman to stop at the scene of a rape and ask the victim if she's been pre-approved for protection. But we aren't going to get that socialized medicine. Its too much too soon for this slow nation.


Obama's bill is nothing more than regulation that protects us from the horrors of what these people do without a watchdog and creates a low cost alternative that forces the private companies to get competitive again. There's a reason that Europe and Canada are healthier than us. Their system promotes wellness. We live in a society that makes money treating the sick rather than preventing the cause. Since this way of thinking makes money, we've had it for over a hundred years.


In the end, this bill we so desperately need will probably die either because the poor misinformed public shoot down their own well being, or because the crooked Republicans and Democrats in congress line their pockets with enough lobbyist money to bury their conscience.

I just can't understand what all the arguing is about

All the anti-people, are they all seriously just anti-paying a little more tax to help others and possibly themselves in the future.. Is that all there is to it?

Selfish and immature if you ask me

But then again I'm a socialist, so what would you expect me to think... :P

Should I also mention that a monthly medication my Dad takes (that he would die without) costs us $450 a month, but would only cost us only $6 in the UK? This status quot is what people are fighting to protect?

Yeah, see, the $444 a month have to go somewhere. Pair that up with the fact that people don't actually like helping each other, hell, $444 is awesome. Now imagine having a thousand people paying for the same meds. There's a huge amount of money rich people might lose.

And then there's the fact that America will turn into a bunch of dirty commie rats.

So...are you here to troll us, Anarky, or...?

Remember, guys. No bashing each other's countries. We're all in this together...kinda.

I agree with Rose wholeheartedly. I have no problem sounding like an ass when I say this, but I'm not going to pay for someone else's issues. I agree that prices are too high, and I'm sure people out there need help. On the whole though, there will be people taking advantage of it by not taking care of themselves (much like the US welfare system). I can sound like a capitalist all day, and I'm fine with that. I work hard and have worked hard to earn the money I'm making, and I'm not going to pay for someone who can't take care of themselves (because that's what a lot of that money will be going towards). If I can come from the upper lower class to now being the upper middle class, anyone else can too.

You can say I'm being selfish and don't know what I'm talking about because it's all just going to come from my taxes anyways and I'm doing it already with roads. Trust me, I know that. I work for a muncipal government as an engineer who puts together roadway projects. I know how the taxes and stuff work. There's a big difference between paying for someone who's going to continue to have health problems (for whatever reason, cigarettes, unhealthy eating, lack of exercise, etc) and paying for the roads that benefit us all to help us get where we need to.

Well other than you kinda contradict yourself at the end there, I can't change your mind. I can and will say that you are misinformed, however have valid points about helping others, valid but sad.

Earlier it was obvious that people didn't read my bigger post because they were quoting things I said previous and did not take my explanation into account.

This last persons argument also substantiates what I was saying about the core difference between our nations. I am not bashing anyone's country, I am simply saying there are certain methods of control and manipulation that have over generations forced you to believe putrid lies and ways of thinking to benefit the powers that be. Whether or not you actually believe under your own experiences that you do not want to help others is fine with me. You can not ignore however, the fact that this corrupt system benefits GREATLY from that point of view.

I will say that the overt capitalist point of view is not only selfish in nature, but very sad. I actually feel sorry for those who take this seriously. I am sad because it is blind ignorance to a way of life that would not only benefit others would DRAMATICALLY benefit yourself, and any capitalist should like that.

My thoughts also go out to the family of 'ThirdMarioBro' whos story is repeated over and over and over and over, and no one listens. I am sorry bro!

One last thing, this constant fear of communism is absolutely ridiculous. Not to bring religion into a political debate, but the right wing Christians who are more often then not hard core capitalists miss the biggest point of the book. Jesus was a socialist, plain and simple.

Not really trolling. I just thing it's bloody hilarious that there are actually educated, intelligent and clever people out there who still are scared of becoming communists. So, if anything, I'm being cynical about it.

Odu: The thing is, everyone can make it from poor to rich, given the chance or rather the ability to do so. If you're in bad health, there's no way you're going to get a decent job or that promotion you'd need to get further or being able to attend the classes or college if you want to. Basically, if the basis is screwed, you will never make it. So in many ways, this actually would be a huge step forward and in many ways more effective than the welfare system.

See, we've had it for years, and yes there is some abuse and everyone's all up in arms about it. That's why the insurance-people do their very best, working together with basically everyone they can to prevent it. And if they do catch someone abusing it, he has to pay everything back, plus a really, really hefty fee. It's not like it will be an instant free-for-all.

In the UK we get free healthcare

In no system are you "paying for other people's problems". That's just as ridiculous as "free health care". Thing is, the current American health care system is broken, and at least making an effort to fix things isn't likely to make it any worse.

Im young,im healthy,I've been payin healthcare for 20 yrs for NOTHING. I think i spent over 100K on this but i never ever went to hospital/doctor even once in my life time. If i got sick just get some medicines from the street for five bucks, i dont even see why the hell i need to pay for MYSELF.

Also, i think obama should make this tax payment an OPTION, not a requirement. Right now im paying over 35% tax and i DONT want my tax go higher than 40%. When that dude is on the stage all he does is to make us pay pay pay and make the economy down. 700 billion debt already on this country right now for holy mother's sake. WHO is gonna fill up that hole? We tax payers.

I refuse to pay a single dent on this, if you ask me my personal opinion,not my business.

If someone wanna save his dad go ahead, dont ask ME to pay for you in the form of increasing taxes!!!

I dont care if u think im selfish or not, i dont giv a S, leave my money alone.

Not everyone would go for a discount dimebag, buddy.

Wow, awesome attitude in here. "I refuse" this, "I want" that. Your government isn't asking you for a favor.

I've never really had any major health problems other than a few things which I take cheap medication for, so I can't really know if the healthcare system is in need of reform or not. The current health plan that I have right now is from my college, and it covers basically nothing except big stuff, like a car accident. I'm okay with that, though. Just gotta be careful, and weigh in every so often what I'm due for in terms of new glasses or whatever.

Yes it ****in did. I pay 35% for :
bombs,missles and guns which drop to other country to kill off innocent ppls
"poor" ppl who is freakin healthy and sounded,stay home did nothin but collect wellfares
ppl who have 10 kids and stay home doin nothin but collect government aids
born retards who spent 200k a yr just to keep alive
120 yrs old who is hospitalized for 20 yrs who spent another 200k a yr of us

I paid the government soooo much for nothin myself,and u talkin about government isnt "asking" me a favor? I beg at least 50% of the taxes we paid are not absolutely necessary.

We should have something like 20% the most on taxes, not 40.

Again, don't you realize that what you so quickly condemn works perfectly fine in most Western European countries? Why shouldn't it work in the USA?

This would be offensive if it wasn't so hilariously typed.

Alright, then stop paying them. See what happens.