MovingTarget
Diamond Member
- Jun 22, 2003
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Originally posted by: AreaCode707
Originally posted by: senseamp
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01....html?_r=1&ref=opinion
This should have been done before bailing out banks. I have friends who got laid off and can't afford COBRA payments, where is their bail out? We can't allow a temporary economic disaster turn into a health care disaster that is going to do permanent damage to people's health and lives.
Fortunately if you believe the whiners on the right, there is progress being made on this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123327719403931465.html
Your friend can go work for McDonalds or Safeway 32 hours a week, get health care and have a small paycheck to take home to boot. It is ALWAYS possible to get health care for yourself unless you are flat out bedridden. It is not the government's problem that your friend is unwilling to work a low-paying blue collar job to provide one of the essentials in his life while he looks for better work.
I have a medical condition that requires nearly $50k in treatment every year to allow me to keep walking and using my hands. It is not the government's job to provide that for me; it's my responsibility to do whatever I need to do to have premium health care. Now the UK, on the other hand, who provides health care to their citizens, recently decided that if you don't show immediate improvement on my treatment (which is unusual) then you don't get a second shot at it. Yeah, give me privatized health care ANY DAY over somebody making a decision like that for me.
Not all UHC systems are equivalent. You can't simply say that the UK model is bad, therefore all UHC models are bad. There is in fact quite a range of implementations and iidealogies governing it. Besides, our economy could actually benefit from some form of UHC simply because it would allow companies to not have that in their direct labor costs, which the way it is right now puts our companies at a severe disadvantage to other first world countries.
As far as the low-wage job thing goes, I think that nobody is above working at a grocery store, washing dished, cooking, picking crops, cleaning bathrooms, or mowing grass. NOBODY. That being said, if you don't live in an area with reliable public transportation (or any at all), most of what you make will be eaten up simply by food and transport (car, maintenance, insurance, gas, tags, etc.). Even so, a lot of those jobs are nonexistent in areas they once were because of the illegal immigration problem (flooded labor pool). There is most definitely a structural problem with our economy/society here. You used to be able to provide for yourself quite comfortably if you were willing to work hard, but in many cases that is no longer enough....