Originally posted by: luigi1
We are currently paying for everybodys health care in ER. If any of it could avoid ER we would all save money. Thats the reality. If anyone would like to dispute that please do. That being said could we save money by treating these conditions before they require an ER visit? If you think so then national health care puts dollars in your pocket and reduces the suffering in america. Whats the down side here. Well besides opening your eyes and seeing. OMG you might see the truth. Dont look. Dont look.
Originally posted by: zendari
Originally posted by: EatSpam
Personally, I look forward to higher taxes and no health insurance premium. I'd rather my money go into government waste and employ workers on pork projects than into some anti-American exec's salary.
What's so anti-American about an exec or his salary?
Socialism is quite the anti-freedom attitude. Perhaps the government can give me a ticker, I can click it every time I run a mile for a tax refund under communist Hillarycare.
Originally posted by: Zebo
Originally posted by: totalcommand
Originally posted by: Zebo
Originally posted by: alent1234
nationalizing health insurance will do nothing but raise costs
the reason it's so expensive is that people think it's free and don't take costs into account when going to the doctor. a lot of people don't take care of themselves and then expect the insurance company to pay for the problems. nationalizing the system isn't going to make the costs go away, it'll just transfer them them to higher taxes.
So how is it someplace like Costa Rica which has less taxes, pay less per capita to insure people, and they insure everyone are able to do it? The math don't add. Half the cost per capita and everyone is covered. What is sucking us dry?
I've really been wanting to get to the bottom of this curundum since these HC debates started but have found nothing informative. Some people say we have better care for those who have it but those are annecdotal tales and orgs such as WHO say otherwise. Some people say Doctors are paid too much. Pfft MBA's make more with less loans and less demanding shedule and less demanding curriculum. That's not it either.
Because the quality of care is sh*t compared to here.
Prove it. No annecdotals. And it better be 3x as good since I'm sacrificing 3x as much for it.
I'm all about price/performance consumer models.
Originally posted by: Zebo
I've really been wanting to get to the bottom of this curundum since these HC debates started but have found nothing informative. Some people say we have better care for those who have it but those are annecdotal tales and orgs such as WHO say otherwise. Some people say Doctors are paid too much. Pfft MBA's make more with less loans and less demanding shedule and less demanding curriculum. That's not it either.
Originally posted by: zendari
What's so anti-American about an exec or his salary?
Socialism is quite the anti-freedom attitude. Perhaps the government can give me a ticker, I can click it every time I run a mile for a tax refund under communist Hillarycare.
Originally posted by: episodic
Half the problem is that health insurance is tied to a job. Get sick, can't work? No health insurance. Don't even say 'COBRA' 90% of Americans can't afford that crap.
Then you are out of work, no health insurance - might as well go ahead and die - especially with the bankruptcy reforms. All they need to do is legalize euthanasia, and they can get rid of those pesky people who have lost health insurance and are critically ill.
Originally posted by: 5LiterMustang
I too would like to know whats unamerican about a CEO's or Exec's Salary. The thing that is truly UNamerican is this BS business about nationalized health care...
Now I'm not exactly sure where I stand on the issue I can make a plausible argument either way, but its definately not the american way to have socialized medicine.
Now once again why shouldn't an exec or CEO get a salary? Furthurmore why shouldn't it be a large one?
Originally posted by: Taggart
Socialism is never the answer. Reform yes, socialism no. IMHO universal healthcare would be a huge mistake.
Originally posted by: alent1234
i heard french medical schools have like a 90% drop out rate after the first year
maybe we should just let anyone become doctors since all they do is scribble a few notes on a chart
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
The question is whether or not America is really still America or an amalgamation of what was the American free market combined with socialist markets elsewhere. When we merge our labor market with third world labor markets (foreign outsourcing, H-1B and L-1 visas, mass immigration) we are essentially merging our economic system with those economic systems, diluting the amount of capitalism in the market.
So, if a socialist nation like India ends up impoverishing its people, and if we then go and merge our labor market with it, it's like allowing the negative effects of the socialism to spill over the borders into the U.S.
In other words--question the CEO's high salaries and the profits the corporations are earning at the expense of looting the Ameican middle class, transferring the middle class's wealth to the rich. It isn't really capitalism because the negative effects of socialism are being imported, though sadly, many people who hold capitalism as a religious ideology will be too thick-headed and dogmatic to see it (as much as some Catholics still support the church in spite of its participation in the child abuse scandals).
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: Taggart
Socialism is never the answer. Reform yes, socialism no. IMHO universal healthcare would be a huge mistake.
Would you say that socialized roads and sewer systems are also a bad idea?
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: Taggart
Socialism is never the answer. Reform yes, socialism no. IMHO universal healthcare would be a huge mistake.
Would you say that socialized roads and sewer systems are also a bad idea?
Originally posted by: Taggart
You know what, it doesn't matter because it won't happen in this generation. You are wasting your time talking about it, especially on an internet message board. Step back and reflect on the reality of the situation. The GOP is in control and will never pass social legislation like universal healthcare
In a vaccuum Communism is great. In reality it is obviously a lousy system. On the surface universal healthcare looks great, but in reality it is inherently inefficient and will just be ruined by politicians.
Originally posted by: Taggart
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: Taggart
Socialism is never the answer. Reform yes, socialism no. IMHO universal healthcare would be a huge mistake.
Would you say that socialized roads and sewer systems are also a bad idea?
You know what, it doesn't matter because it won't happen in this generation. You are wasting your time talking about it, especially on an internet message board. Step back and reflect on the reality of the situation. The GOP is in control and will never pass social legislation like universal healthcare
In a vaccuum Communism is great. In reality it is obviously a lousy system. On the surface universal healthcare looks great, but in reality it is inherently inefficient and will just be ruined by politicians.
Originally posted by: 5LiterMustang
How is the American middle class being looted? Facts? Figures? ANYTHING at all to backup your ludicrous claims?
Fact - free trade does not diminish capitalism
Fact - manufacturing goods in multiple countries including socialist countries does NOT decrease capitalism
Fact - unemployment is at 5% and the middle class is making up the vast majority of jobs currently being hired for.
Fact - Median Salary position just over 38kFact - Median hrly wage just over 16/hr
Fact - The top 1% have 18% of the countries wealth
Fact - the top 1% had more than 30% of the countries wealth 30 years ago
404 looting not found
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
I'm not a scholar, so I can't really point you to hard facts other than to say "read the newspapers, read between the lines, and pay attention". Also, try to find out what kinds of "new jobs" are being created in the monthy job statistics. As I understand it, few of the jobs are in import-export related fields and few of them are high-value-added college-education-requiring jobs.
Much of that depends on what you mean when you say "capitalism". I'll actually agree with you--you can still have a relatively capitalist economy (real capitalism would be pure laissez-faire, btw, which we definitely do not have).
Where I disagree with you is your implicit assumption that capitalism necessarily means that most individuals' rational economic selfish interests are protected and that it is necessarily good for moral, hard-working people.
I agree that mass immigration, foreign outsourcing, H-1B and L-1 visas, and the trade deficit can co-exist with capitalism--and also that as a result of that kind of global labor arbitrage the result is that market forces will destroy the nation's middle class. (Remember economics 101? What happens when the supply of labor increases relative to the demand? The price point--wages--must decrease.)
That depends on how you define "unemployment". Does it also take into account severe underemployment? Does it account for people who reitred early but who wanted to work and couldn't find decent jobs? Does it account for people who dropped out of the job market from frustration?
If you want to be a dogmatist and defend your position that the current state of affairs is good, then you'd just say that unemployment is whatever the government defines it to be. But if you question those numbers you'll find that the real rate of unemployment and significant underemployment is much, much higher.
Have you actually tried looking for a job since 2000? If the economy is so wonderful, how do you account for the testimony of millions of people who live responsibly and who have good work ethics and even college educations who claim to be unemployed or severely underemployed?
Mean or median? Mean is the average. Median is where the person exactly in the middle is (50% are above, 50% are below).
If those numbers, of which I am skeptical, are accurate, I expect that they'll decrease in the near future. Why pay Americans to do things when foreigners will gladly do the same work for far less?
Keep your eyes open. The "looting" occurs when shareholders or at least CEOs and the wealthy shareholdes end up earning higher profits and higher percentages of the wealth created in the act of production as profit while middle class Americans find themselves laid off with their jobs going to foreigners. In the meantime, while labor costs have decreased, goods sell at nearly the same prices and profits rise. The middle class then pays those prices as it sees smaller and smaller incomes, taking on mortages and going into debt. It's a wealth transfer from the middle class to the wealthy--and why wouldn't it be? The logical result of a huge influx of relatively impoverished labor into the labor market is a decrease in wages.
I'm with you buddy--I know where you're coming from. I used to be a vocal advocate of laissez-faire capitalism and absolute individual rights. But then I graduated and experienced the reality of the employment market first hand, acquiring new data, and changed much of my political philsophy as a result. I tend to think that capitalism, locally, is a good thing but that it doesn't work well for international trade and some goods that are not really market items such as health care. (If you need an operation to save your life, you need it at any cost; you can't just walk away or find an alternative, thus it isn't really a market item.)
Of course, you know how evil and destructive socialism and communism are and you hate the idea of wealth being stolen from some people (who actually earned it) and given to lazy people who scream that they need it (the poor who didn't take care of themselves and had more babies than they could afford). And thus you tend to support capitalism dogmatically and emotionally.
I hear you buddy. I share much of that sentiment. "I swear by my life and love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." (That's a quote from...believe it or not...one of my two favorite novels, the other one being about an individualist architect.) But do try to keep from accepting capitalism as a religious dogma. Don't be afraid to ask tough questions, such as whether merging a capitalist nation's economy with a socialist nation's economy is detrimental to the well being of the capitalist nation. (Heck, there are advocates of laissez-faire out there who would call for a complete boycott of China since China doesn't protect individual rights.)
Another large issue is the issue of whether or not economic well being is based entirely on a nation's economic system. After all, it's possible to have capitalism but to also have the populace act in a self destructive manner, damaging the economy. So, social issues and culture also play a role in well being. (What if everyone had more children than they could afford? What if everyone did drugs? What if we opened our borders wide open and 1 billion poor people flooded into the country within one year? What if population growth exploded and the costs of land and resources increased dramatically?)
My message--don't take capitalism as a dogma. Question when and where it is good and open yourself to the possibility that in some situations it would be bad. Keep in mind that the best conditions for freedom and capitalism are when the economy and the nation, overall, are healthy and good. Thus, as paradoxical as it might seem, certain types of regulation might actually be pro-capitalism, or at least pro-freedom (in a very broad sense). (Ie--What good is your freedom if you're poor and/or if the nation is so heavily populated that you can't move without getting into another person's space?)
Originally posted by: ironwing
Originally posted by: Taggart
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: Taggart
Socialism is never the answer. Reform yes, socialism no. IMHO universal healthcare would be a huge mistake.
Would you say that socialized roads and sewer systems are also a bad idea?
You know what, it doesn't matter because it won't happen in this generation. You are wasting your time talking about it, especially on an internet message board. Step back and reflect on the reality of the situation. The GOP is in control and will never pass social legislation like universal healthcare
In a vaccuum Communism is great. In reality it is obviously a lousy system. On the surface universal healthcare looks great, but in reality it is inherently inefficient and will just be ruined by politicians.
IMHO corporations in industries other than healthcare will understand that it is in their interests to seek universal healthcare coverage. Companies with aging workforces would love to socialize the cost of providing healthcare.
As far as socialized healthcare being inefficient, the Medicare/Medicaid systems don't reflect that opinion. The overhead costs for private insurers are much higher than for the socialized programs.
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Here's are two great quotes from the article, assuming that they are true:
"Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world?s median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries.
The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year?or close to four hundred billion dollars?on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita.
Originally posted by: alent1234
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Here's are two great quotes from the article, assuming that they are true:
"Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world?s median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries.
The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year?or close to four hundred billion dollars?on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita.
private industry is already fixing the paperwork problem
there are also proposals for a central database of medical records, but a lot of people are fighting it on privacy grounds
Private industry is the SOURCE of the paperwork problem. Privacy is certainly an issue with regards to centralized, networked medical records. But there's also an issue of cost . . .Originally posted by: alent1234
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Here's are two great quotes from the article, assuming that they are true:
"Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world?s median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries.
The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year?or close to four hundred billion dollars?on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita.
[bprivate industry is already fixing the paperwork problem[/b]
there are also proposals for a central database of medical records, but a lot of people are fighting it on privacy grounds
I still support the idea but considering direct benefits to major players remains suspect, it's highly unlikely they would foot the bill.President Bush?s proposal to create a ?model? national health IT network would cost more than US$156 billion in initial capital investment and $48 billion in annual operating costs over the next five years, according to a study published in the Aug. 2 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The study was conducted by researchers at Brigham and Women?s Hospital (www.brighamandwomens.org) and Massachusetts General Hospital (www.mgh.harvard.edu) and funded jointly by the Harvard Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement and the Commonwealth Fund
The primary incentive the government has is tax subsidies, which is essentially "footing the bill." Again, most companies do NOT want to dump their legacy systems and they definitely don't want to pay for a new one.Lead author Rainu Kaushal, of Brigham and Women?s Hospital said, ?I don?t see [the government] as having to foot the bill,? adding, ?They can create incentives. Then the private sector can run with it.?
The current system evolved from private interests and that's the primary reason it's inefficient. The primary beneficiaries of this system are patients and direct healthcare providers. Unfortunately, they make few, if any decisions about healthcare infrastructure. The people making those decisions will NOT see a return on investment . . . that's the primary reason they haven't done it to date.National Health IT Coordinator Dr. David Brailer ? a panelist and one of the developers of the financial model used for the study ? said using government funds as the principal source of financing for the NHIN would be ?incredibly inefficient,? adding that using public funds ?comes with all kinds of strings attached and all kinds of rules and regulations that would stop us from achieving the goal? of interoperable electronic health records.