Yes, I do.

If someone's house burns down, they can't demand that other people pay to rebuild it when they don't have fire insurance. If someone crashes their car and they aren't insured, they can't force people to buy them a new one.

Why is health insurance any different? Do you think it's ethical to take people's money at gunpoint?

My mum has a friend, who is a doctor that lives in Canada
Hence: who has universal healthcare

and he quote, " No one really has no idea how bad of an idea it is"

That's all I can say

Plus that means more people per doctor, with less pay for them and there aren't enough employed doctors to care for everyone in the U.S

man i duno i was rooting for you but this really killed your argument. food isn't a necessity because some people in the US are fat? that's like the worst reason i've ever heard. i'm not fat. most people i know aren't fat. food is about 3567896545678 of a more immediate problem to my daily survival than health care insurance is.

most people in the US have food (not all), but likewise most people in the US have health insurance too.



i been reading about health care all morning, idk what i think still.


who regulates the rates? i don't know if i'm missing something. we have to buy insurance, but we can't regulate their rates so they can just keep bumping them up non stop? how is that different than what insurance companies have already been doing?

Well, the value of life =/= materialistic things

...which is innn CHINAAAA

great, more facts with no backup, you can't just throw random things you think is right

It has to do with something because its talking about health care and this topic is about health care.

Also did you guys hear it got sent back?

Yeah, it really got sent back

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8583350.stm

yes its regionally part of china and your point being is?


my point was that i think there isn't an immediate problem of lack of food in the usa, as opposed to the lack of healthcare for the public. last time i checked close to 15% of the population do not have proper health care insurance. correct me if i'm wrong?

i've read up more on the new health care reform, and im starting to see both sides to it. in the economic side, i can see that the reform can cause great deals of problems to insurance companies. it will likely unemployment in the insurance industry. insurance price will likely increase too. taxes will also increase, obviously, and im thinking that may be the main reason why some people are opposed to this reform?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/25/healt...sics/index.html

1. Health insurance companies can't discriminate against you because you have a pre-existing condition.

well i have mixed feelings about this one. i mean, if you were poor, had a pre-existing condition, then you were basically f*cked. however i guess the downside would be for the insurance companies, again, since having to cover high risk people must be damaging to their budget.

strange thing i still dont understand is how can the usa be the only one industrialized country that still hasn't adopted a universal health care system?

well...it did before. Of course i'm saying this like...2-3 days later.

So again I ask, what about the basic necessities of life then? Should the government give everyone free food? Clothing? Housing?

Keep in mind, the government's push to allow everyone to be a homeowner is a big part of why the economy collapsed.

While it's nice to want to give everyone healthcare, the government is not some magical man in a hot air balloon that can conjure wonderful things that it bestows upon the people of the land. The money to provide those things has to come from someone, and if the government needs money to provide things, it has to take it, usually from the most productive people in the country. Furthermore, even the wealthiest governments have trouble meeting the demands of their citizens. We are $12 trillion in debt, there is no hope for us to be able to provide everyone with healthcare.

That doesn't mean I don't give a shit about people's health. Personally, I'd like to see the government foster an environment were healthcare becomes so cheap that everyone can afford basic care. When costs go down, everyone wins.

Those are attainable things by the common person. Liver cancer isn't cured by going to your local 7/11

Housing is attainable by the common person?

Yeah, homeless shelters and up

Band-aids and Tylenol then.

Those don't help with Torn ACLs. You can keep denying it James, but we both know the physiological health > everything else

And that's exactly why I want government out of healthcare.

Then healthcare goes to only for those who can afford it. What happens when all surgeries become 100k+ to perform?

What happens when all surgeries become 100k+ to perform? OK, we'll try it your way. Everyone gets free healthcare. 60 million surgeries are performed every year, so multiply $100k * 60 million = $6 trillion. To put this in perspective, the GDP of the United States is about $14 Trillion.

That means about 40 cents from every dollar earned in this country would have to be taxed to pay for everyone's surgery alone. Of course, the GDP wouldn't stay that high because so much of everyone's money would be going towards healthcare rather than buying other shit. Also, if taxes had to be raised to pay for that, people would leave this country, and we'd sink pretty fast.

We can't afford any of this shit. Stop the wars, stop the welfare, stop the government.

OR if there weren't free healthcare, no one would be treated except for a few, and millions of people would die. So I guess we can agree on that being not a good option either way. But your whole pull-yourselfs-up-by-your-bootstraps ideology seems just a little too extreme for the non-privilege

oh im also in favor of money too so vote plz but your gonna have to come to CA
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/0...ource=feedblitz

it's not a pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps ideology as much as it is a let's not f*ck up our entire country by forcing us to pay for something we can't possibly hope to afford in a million years ideology.

also, you say a privileged few get surgery in a private system. yet, in countries with public healthcare, only a privileged few get treatment and the rest are left to die on waiting lists. supply is still limited; you can't fool the free market.

if the outcome is the same, i'd pick the choice where the country doesn't go bankrupt (or in our case, more bankrupt)

Isn't Hong Kong part of China though? Or at leat it has been since 1997.

i think you're taking her way too literal.

Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China, so while they are technically part of China, they have a great of autonomy from mainland China. If I was from Hong Kong, I'd want the distinction to be made between me and mainland Chinese. Taiwan is also part of China, but pretty much every Taiwanese person identifies as Taiwanese rather than just plain Chinese.

Hong Kong also is ranked #1 in the world for the freest economy, which contributes to their economic success.

I was just saying. Besides i don't think i was the only one saying that she lived in China.

and this matters because? you sound whiny when you say you're not the only one. dont be hating because we're the 2nd healthiest place in the world with a very well developed healthcare system.


quoted from wikipedia.

So? Rich Americans aren't dying.

K. You're sounding more whinier. And besides, i put a question mark making clear that i was unsure. I dont think that was me being whiny whatsoever. I'm not haiting because you're the "second healthiest place in the world with a very well developed healthcare system" honestly i dont give much of hoot.
I'm just saying this healthcare is going to cause a lot of trouble for Americans. Maybe not for you guys, but for us since its such a huge change.

http://www.visualeconomics.com/healthcare-...rld_2010-03-01/

The argument that food isn't as much a necessity because there are so many fatties and we could all use smaller portions anyways is really nonsensical. There are millions of homeless people in the United States. If you want to cite the juxtaposition between the supposed American standard of living versus the reality of the health care system then you cannot ignore the exact same dichotomy between the first part of that versus the reality of how many people go hungry here each day.

I'm for public health care but against calling it a right. A right isn't the defining delineation between what is and isn't necessary - there are lots of fundamental, basic services that aren't rights. Designating something a right, to me, should be reserved for innate paradigms that are transcendent in the philosophical sense. The corollary is also true; a right isn't always a necessity. I can certainly live a healthy, functional life without the right of free speech and expression.