Should the Government Provide Free Universal Health Care for All Americans?

Discussion in 'Health Care' started by Mitchell243, Jan 12, 2012.

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Should the Government Provide Free Universal Health Care for All Americans?

  1. Yes

    40.6%
  2. No

    59.4%
  1. GeneralZod

    GeneralZod New Member

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    A rational conclusion is reached if view it this way.

    Intelligent goverment using public funds for the good of the people.

    But the problem the usa always has is a mixture of fear and paranoia with their own goverment infrastruture and weird loyalty to corperations who they know will never treat them fairly.
     
  2. verystormy

    verystormy Active Member

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    But you pay for your healthcare now. Even if you get it via your employer, your employer is paying for it and taking that money from the same pot that you would have otherwise have recieved. But, at the same time it costs your employer time and effort to administer. So its bad for buisness as well. You are of course also paying for things like advertising and administration of claims - that was $15 billion recently for two heath care companies. Thats a lot of care that you could have had but will never get.

    Of course it is the politicians and wealthy that oppose it because they have shares in the system.

    It hits buisness in many other ways and is atrocious for the economy. The current system means that many people do not get care when they first become ill and at the time it would have been easy to treat because they cant afford it. Then if they become so sick they have to have treatment it is now a much more expensive option and is likely to result in lost time from work and a drain on the employer.

    Many countries in the world offer healthcare and none have ever abondoned it because it is a far cheaper and more efficient way of ensuring the nations health.

    It is better even for those who even have insurance. Do you think that a corporation has your health at its centre? Of course not. In fact it is arguable that it would be immoral for it to. The main function of a company is to make money. That is what it is legaly and morraly obliged to do. The result is that a lot of people think they have fantastic private health care. Not so many do when they get diagnosed with a long term illness that is going to be expensive to treat and find their insururer now pulling out.

    Any society that has a goverment that does not provide has to have a hard think about what it thinks it goverment should be doing.
     
  3. FxTrader

    FxTrader New Member

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    If you're talking specifically about the insurance industry, then I agree. My dad is a doctor and he 100% supports socialized medicine. The only reason medical care costs so much is because of the insurance companies. The system worked just fine until the insurance companies bullied the docs into doing business with them back in the 80's, and it's been spiraling out of control since. And the claim by some people that socialized medicine would cut down on doctor's salaries isn't true either. Here in Hawaii, specifically Kauai, the local system is largely socialized, yet my dad makes a HELL of a lot more here than he did working for a private practice back on the mainland.

    And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "Obamacare" just a mandate that people sign up for medicaid if they do not have or can't afford private insurance? If so, then what's the big deal? Why all the whoopla? Not exactly a huge victory, or a defeat. LOL
     
  4. That Guy

    That Guy New Member

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    I agree with those who believe private insurance is just a money making scam. Government insurance would be a non-profit insurance funded by taxes and would cost much less than private insurance while giving more coverage. This is fact. I have no issues paying taxes for healthcare. I would also like to see more preventative education and less catering toward unnecessary prescription medication. I believe having universal healthcare would give incentive for the government to fund more of these programs. I realize that the government is not perfect, but we do have the ability to change it through representation. I am not sure why people are so worried about the government who's interests are supposed to be for and by the people when large corporations who are in charge of so much in this country are only interested in the wallets of a few.
     
  5. Mr_Truth

    Mr_Truth Well-Known Member

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    Israel has health care coverage that is provided by USA taxpayers. If our tax dollars can be used to provide for others, then these same funds can be used to benefit Americans as well. It is only fair.
     
  6. lizarddust

    lizarddust Well-Known Member

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    Get it through your heads. The medical and pharmaceutical industries don't want Americans to be healthy. Imagine if no-one went to the doctor or bought medicines. They'd go broke in weeks.

    Who do you think is supporting the anti UHC lobby? Not the patients.
     
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  7. bclark

    bclark Well-Known Member

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    Rather than making up facts, why don't you look at what the people you pay to study this crud came up with. The nice folks at the CBO indicated that legal costs, and over regulation are the primary reasons for increased costs. Medicare costs less because taxpayers, and other patients subsidize the cost.

    http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/71xx/doc7174/04-28-MedicalMalpractice.pdf
     
  8. fifthofnovember

    fifthofnovember Well-Known Member

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    Couldn't vote yes or no on this one, because the question is nonsense. There is no such thing as "free" health care. Doctors will not work for free. Pharmaceuticals cannot be researched, manufactured, and distributed for free. All this costs money. Any the only money that the government has is money it takes from the taxpayers. So we pay, one way or another.
     
  9. markm

    markm New Member

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    quit giving our tax dollars 2 these foreign countris for aid,take care of americans with american tax dollars and start putting a cap on the charges these docs charge,
     
  10. Jebediah

    Jebediah Banned

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    Obviously you have no idea how much health care costs or how much foreign aid we give out. Your grammar isn't too hot either.
     
  11. Mr_Truth

    Mr_Truth Well-Known Member

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    That much is true. Big corporations, unlike small businesses, provide health care to their employees. Then, at the end of the year, they deduct the costs on their corporate tax returns. This means that ultimately, it is the taxpayer who is subsidizing these costs.

    So many of you here eagerly pay taxes that subsidize employees of big corporations, pro athletes whose employers also deduct costs for insurance, the HC costs for politicians, the HC costs for Israel, the Marshall Plan that allowed Europe to provide HC costs for its citizens --- you pay for all these people. Yet, you are willing to allow the poor in the USA to die because they have no UHC*.

    Somebody explain why.



    * http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSTRE58G6W520090917
     
  12. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    Conservatives and the extreem form of conservative (t-baggers), feel the gubment should not be involved or stop them from getting screwed over by insurance mogules and corporate profiteers.

    I say let them have at it. Allow the masses to be screwed over by insurance mogules like Mitt and his clan, and the entire medical industry.

    After all, US Public education geared the conservative movement up so they can be screwed over by corporate mogules.
     
  13. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    The USA will not just let th poor people die because they have no healthcare. The system allows the medical industry and the insurance industry to get paid from the taxpayer for the indegent. But the poor must be kept poor and helpless to the financial demands of the medical and insurance industrries. The only involvement of the government is paying the medical industry via tax payer money for the cost of treatment that the poor can't pay up.

    And with the new Obama/Romny bill, it is a sure profit for the medical industy and the medical insurance industry.
     
  14. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    Forigen aid is minor, and it is only given to countries to allow corporate access to infiltrate the untapped markets of countries around the world. Most recently, being that the USA is a broke waring country and is strongly affiliated with isreal and all the wars of isreal, most countries are declining US aid money because they do not want the isreal loyalist or jewish money to overtake their government and the control of their forigen governments.

    But you are correct, healthcare cost is out of control. And that is the way it is intended to be. After all, those money grubbing owners and managers of the medical industry of the USA are in it for corporate profit and corporate moneopolizing. The key is massive expansion, and to profit off someone(thing)that is making profit.

    Say hello to my little friend (capitalisim). gotta love it, and can't live without it, the american way.
     
  15. gamewell45

    gamewell45 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ok, who's fault is it that American's get cancer, have miscarriages, have kidney disease, are born with type I diabetes, are born with Downs Syndrome, have cystic fibrosis, are born with autism, are born blind, born with congenital heart defects, etc? How can you connect most them to an unborns lifestyle??

    The private insurance companies are nothing more the death panels out trying to make a buck; they decide what they'll pay for and what they won't. In fact its common knowledge that insurance companies often refuse to renew policies of those who've been with them for years if and when they get sick. With the right oversight the government would do a better job then private sector.
     
  16. driller80545

    driller80545 New Member

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    Uh, the government is broke. They can't afford to take care of you anymore. Better start thinking about your own self sufficiency.
     
  17. Makedde

    Makedde New Member Past Donor

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    Taxpayers are not the government. The taxpayer takes care of you, the government distributes the money.
     
  18. Angrytaxpayer

    Angrytaxpayer Banned

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    And that's the problem. They distribute it to everyone no questions asked.

    Now, I have no problem with a universal health care plan but you got to have the balls to say no to those that abuse the system. If you can't do that, which they can't, then government has no business running a massive program such as this.
     
  19. gamewell45

    gamewell45 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's not really true. You have to formally apply by filling out forms, meeting with a social worker and have to meet the established criteria, otherwise you'll get nothing.
     
  20. Wolverine

    Wolverine New Member Past Donor

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    Then are those who live lean lives and do not have the funds to pay for their own healthcare.

    Meh.

    Another right wing view of the poor.
     
  21. Angrytaxpayer

    Angrytaxpayer Banned

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    Sorry but unlike you who views the poor through liberal news outlets I've seen the poor and worked with the poor in my hospital for over 20 years and unfortunately savage-republicans view of the poor is dead on, for the majority of them. The very few minority that want to better themselves and have fallen on hard times are overshadowed by the majority.

    I have mothers who after 9 months of being pregnant finally inquire about formula for their babies AFTER they're born. Medicaid and WIC are engraved in their heads rather than preventative birth control and preparation for the future. What kills me is many of them are dressed to the 9's and have the latest smart phones. Some of them drive very nice SUV's. I know, I've buckled their newborns into them. Illegal immigrants are the worst and I'm not going to get into it.

    It's disturbing how you think hard working Americans owe abusers a living just on the basis that they're "poor." You need to move out of mommy and daddy's house for a bit and see how real life works.
     
  22. Wolverine

    Wolverine New Member Past Donor

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    Hmmmmm.... odd. I became a market socialist after living on my own.

    Imagine that.
     
  23. Angrytaxpayer

    Angrytaxpayer Banned

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    Interesting how you sidestepped the rest of my post to comment on the personalized part of it.
     
  24. diamond lil

    diamond lil Well-Known Member

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    What do you mean by abuse the system?
     
  25. spt5

    spt5 New Member

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    Only the Government can do it. How do you put an insurance model on something that will happen by 100 % certainty, such as geriatric illness and death? Private insurers have no choice but to write people off like writing cars off, or else they must price themselves out of the market.

    So yes, it must be the government. And it can't be a "health care" as we know it, it must be a "managed decline" management system.
     
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