Obama Health care plan.

[mrstickball]

Lord Flashheart said:

TheRealMafoo said:

NJ5 said:
Lord Flashheart brought up a very good point. If the government is responsible for the physical safety of the population, why shouldn't it also be responsible for health?

As far as I can see, much more people die from bad health than from external threats that the military takes care of...

Government does have the FDA. There is a difference between protecting people, and providing for people.

I am all for the government making sure doctors will not kill me because they are incompetent, or the FDA making sure a meat processing does not poison me.

These are ways government protects the health of it's people. Paying for a healthcare service however, is not the same thing.

If there was some magical way the government could provide healthcare to everyone, and it not mean someone is not forced to work in the service of others, I would be for it.

The government makes nothing. For them to provide for someone, first they have to take it away from someone else. That, I will never be for.

So you would rather people go without help and be put in debt or jail for not being able to cover the cost or hope some charitable soul helps them is better than say diverting funds away from your armed forces to provide basic healthcare?

In a natural disaster if someone is injured does your government not help them? or do they have to show their insurance details first?

Depends on the natural disaster. In 90% of disasters (mainly hurricanes, floods, ect), the insurance companies help with payments and local churches help with recovery efforts. The government is not needed in most cases. Or in your country, did the government come out and have to pay for snow removal around your house earlier this year when it snowed a lot?

A health country is a more productive country. How can you say peoploe should be forced to find their own health care but not the same for education? or the roads. Maybe everyone should pay for the upkeep of the road outside their house and if they don't want to then fine.

Actually, Mafoo and I agree that people should find their own education too. Our education system in the US sucks as well, because there is no competition among teachers and schools, and we have wound up paying more money for less education than most other countries.

I don't understand how people can say a basic human need, health, is up to the person and not essential and the gov should stay out of, my taxes are better spent elsewhere but then quite happily have the gov pay for something you don't really need like roads with your money?

Human need is a matter of perspective. We did not even have a tenth of the healthcare services in 1900 that we do today. What is a person entitled to? A 100 year lifespan, no matter what?

Education, health, food and a home are essentials for people to survive and if someone has problems with that then there should be some way of getting it. If there is a broken system or no system in place then it's down to the gov to do their job and provide it or put it in place for the population.

Yet for two of those four, the government does not control 100% of the services (food, homes), do they? Yet you are arguing that they do that for health in America. See, here is the problem:

The government does not fix food prices, nor home prices, because it is a good that has rapidly reduced in price over the past 100 years. 100 years ago, food costs made up 40-50% of a households annual budget. Due to revolutions in agriculture, that percentage has reduced to 10-15%. Homes can be in a similar situation - free markets allow supply and demand to be met, and everyone wins. However, with healthcare and education, prices and quality can suffer immensely under government control. In America, our education system costs more than almost any other country in the world, and we rank in the top 30s for math and sciences. Therefore, we get a horrible return on investment.

You do not understand our system. We have government health care. Medicare has about 40 million recipients, at a cost of $7,500 per person. That is almost twice the national average for private health care insurance (which is about $4,500 per person). If the government expands its role in health care, it will be enrolling new people at the $7,500 rate, not the $4,500 rate.

Nothing in the governments new health care bills addresses that issue. Health care costs are not expensive because the government does not run it, but because there are many issues surrounding the industry. I have outlined them before in this threat (AFAIK), and will gladly do it again.

So if the government does force its hand in making more people enrolled in a public system, our costs will go up not down. When that happens, more money will be taken away from everyone - rich, poor, middle class. We may have to pay out 25% of our annual GDP in health care, just to cover a system where everyone has health care. Simply because the system is broken and needs fixed.

Mafoo does not advocate that we do nothing. There are very practical fixes that can reduce the cost for people to get health care - government and public sectors included. We both want health care reform. We want them to reduce the costs of care, so more people can afford it first. Once the cost has dropped down, then we can look at how best to handle mandatory health care, or other systems. For example, in America, we require everyone that drives to have auto insurance. However, the insurance is cheap, readily available, and incredibly competitive. No one complains about the system, because it works fantastically. We could do the same with health care if we fixed it FIRST, then looked at how best to take care of those that need health care.

Of course no-one here will ever be homeless, hungry, out of work for a long time or seriously unhealthy over an extende period with no insurancw.

Given your immense debts to foreign creditors, I wonder how long you can sustain that.

That just doesn't happen.

Americans have a piss poor system which isn't working unless you're rich and are objecting to a possible alternative using fox news excuses to justify it.

We are not objecting to a better system. We are objecting to a worse system, which has been proposed by the democrats in congress, and backed by the president.

It boggles the mind. I've seen this before when govs don't want to bring in a change which could possibly help and they feed propagander to the masses who lap it up and repeat it verbatum.

You know, Hugo Chavez said the same thing about food distributions to the poor in their country. Look how well that went. Not every government controlled sector is benevolent.

I'm not saying that the new system will work I'm just questioning the attitudes of the american public. No-one has given a good enough reason why having the gov change the system is bad. Are you all telling me that the current system was not put in place by the gov? and they had no hand in it?

I do not think your well informed about the American public. The public has seen what congress is trying to do with the bill - load it with a lot of crap, and favors - and distains the bill. They want something simpler, and more malleable to work with, which is totally understandable. The American public absolutely wants health care reform - why do you think the Dems have been working on it? However, the American people do not want a 2,700 page overhaul of the system, changing virtually everything. They want a 10 page bill that gets the ball rolling on reducing costs. The American people never wanted universal health care, government take overs, or mandatory insurance. They just want to pay less for health care - and they are not getting that with the bills that are currently being circulated through congress.

Please help me to understand your attitudes. I really want to thats why I'm asking.

Hopefully that helps your understanding