I've changed my mind on ObamaCare (unemployment rate, salary, illegal, polls)
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Actually I reside here in Göteborg Sweden and they have drunks everywhere. Most are on government welfare rolls and don't pay a kronor in taxes because obviously they are too brain cell fried to hold down any type of responsible job. However, every one of them get the free health care and literally don't pay for it.
And everything is taxed to the Max here. Grocery (FOOD) is taxed at 25% sales tax. One of the biggest money makers for the government here is something that is government sponsored and promoted called Snus (a sort of tobacco paste, not chew). The bogus government scientific peer reviewed reports all insisted that though Snus contained way more nicotine than common everyday average cigarettes, it was'nt addictive and it would absolutely not cause cancer. Today all research shows that this was absolutely a bald faced lie. Think that taxes the healthcare system ???
Yeah, you betcha!!!
Well thats really a failing of the welfare system not the healthcare system. Just how much do you get on welfare in Sweden? You sure as hell can't afford much more than the basics here. I take it you're referring to tramps- they're hardly the typical drinker. You realise most have mental health problems and four out of five are war veterans?
Last edited by archineer; 09-28-2009 at 12:54 PM..
Well thats really a failing of the welfare system not the healthcare system. Just how much do you get on welfare in Sweden? You sure as hell can't afford much more than the basics here. I take it you're referring to tramps- they're hardly the typical drinker.
Yes, I was speaking of skidrow tramps. They're everywhere in the city I live in. Everyday along the Trolley stops they are just sitting around loittering, shootin the breeze and drinking like fish. Surprisingly many of them are women. Usually back in the states I mostly saw guys, but I guess I always knew there were homeless women. But these homeless actually get some kind of compensation for their lifestyle choices and the free medical. I will say there is one benefit, unlike the United States, their laws don't allow for a pregnant foreigner woman to come and have a kid at the hospital and instantly claim it as a citizen to benefit an entire string of family members to ride the benefits gravey train. They get sent back, unless they make a phony amnesty claim.
Considering that I was a weekly newspaper political columnist for over 10 years, it is obvious that your 'opinion' is based on emotional response... just as much of the reactions to discussions of health care politics are. Knock yourself out criticizing the poster instead of discussing the points; you display exactly what you are when you do so - just as I expected. Thanks for proving my point so perfectly.
Sorry, but my critique of your post was purely subjective. I am a great fan of satire, regardless of the political slant.
I wonder what newspaper you worked for because your attempt at satire was medicore at best. I am thinking you worked for some sort of local 10 cent claptrap rag. Your original post was predictable, devoid of irony, banal, and uninteresting; and not only because we seem to disagree on this issue. Au contraire, I am a fan of many a conservative columnist (for their writing style). When I think of great satire I get images of ruffled feathers and angry faces. I disagree with your position on healthcare, so your satirical post was supposed to make me feel uncomfortable somehow, get me to rethink my poition, or feel guilty. All your post did was to put the image in my mind of a smelly, sick, overweight, and ignorant person who has no idea how medicare/medicaid works. Hardly the aim of satire.
I already submitted a post explaining my position on socialized medicine. Why should I argue your "points?" Hit with with something a little more intelligent and interesting and then we can debate, otherwise I'll leave my argument as is.
Agreed. The experience I'm describing is actually myself. I didn't choose to be born with what I have, and it's very rare so there was no routine genetic testing for it when I was conceived. When I was diagnosed, it shed a lot of light on my family because I have had two family members that died and had symptoms of what I have now, and now we're pretty sure they didn't die of 'natural causes'.
I'm currently dealing with an 'insurance' issue because my insurance absolutely will not authorize me to see my specialist for my disorder, and instead referred me to a local doctor who has never even heard of what I have. How is that supposed to help? I even asked if I could pay cash and see him and they said if I did that nothing the doctor said or requested (I'm supposed to get MRIs, Dexa Scans and Xrays done soon because of recent complications) would be valid.
It really does hurt when I read and hear people say that if you can't afford the procedures that you should die...death would be long and painful for me. It would just be nice to have a public options for backup... luckily I have decent insurance right now, but who knows what the future holds?
I am glad you do have decent insurance. If not, the wonderful Republicans would like you to die a painful death without treatment, unless you can afford their wonderful "privatized" insurance. Trust me, it will not be long until there is a revolt against the current system, which is completely unfair.
I am glad you do have decent insurance. If not, the wonderful Republicans would like you to die a painful death without treatment, unless you can afford their wonderful "privatized" insurance. Trust me, it will not be long until there is a revolt against the current system, which is completely unfair.
Thanks . It hasn't always been good, though.... I've been through some pretty bad times with my meds.
I think I have a unique perspective on the healthcare argument because of all the crap I've been through during my life. I know what it's like to be denied insurance regularly, to fight and yell and scream at insurance agencies and to be told I wasn't worth giving medication to. I'm constantly on guard and have ALWAYS been involved in some sort of insurance squabble since I was 11 years old....I'm 25 now.
For all those people who don't want a form of national insurance coverage let me ask you this:
Would you tell your son, daughter, husband, wife, granddaughter etc. that they should die because they can't afford a procedure or coverage? I mean, they're just 'people' right? It's so much easier to take the human aspect out of it because you don't know me, or other people who have medical problems. We're faceless, nameless people until someone in your family comes down with something and doesn't have coverage....then you'll be screaming for a national plan.
Let me start by saying many of you have made some very good points about the faults of the system as it stands. And although I absolutely agree that health care administration is in shambles and that it needs some serious help, can someone please tell me why the first place everybody runs for help is the damned government? In my estimation, it’s like running to satan for help. EVERYTHING the federal government touches these days is immediately FUBAR. They have the Midas touch, except everything they touch does not turn to gold, it turns to s**t. If you want something done as inefficiently, expensively, and poorly as possible, bring in the federal government.
Why would anyone in their right mind wish to disassemble a ravenous corporate healthcare monopoly and reassemble it as a MANDITORY government imposed ravenous corporate healthcare monopoly? So then it’s just as jacked up as it was... but now you are FORCED to participate in it. Does that sound like an intelligent choice?
Let the government do what it is supposed to do... which is NOT to mandate when and how you wipe your **s. We need not involve the addled giant sloth that we have at the helm of the Titanic to restructure the healthcare system. There has to be a better way. You are NOT going to get what you think you are getting with this proposed healthcare plan. It is only another way for the government to get more of your money. And the proposed changes to the way insurance companies work are actually going to RAISE the cost of insurance.
Here is what I’m essentially getting when I hear or read of the proposal:
Ahhhhh yes... everyone needs healthcare! Everyone has the right to healthcare. Of course they do. Our solution? Oh, well, how about if we mandate that you all get insurance. Then you’ll all have healthcare, right?
Can you PLEASE tell me how that is any better than the present system? Everyone is bellyaching about the cost of insurance. Millions of people can't afford it. Now the government tells you that you HAVE to go out and buy it, whether you can afford it or not. How is this healthcare for everyone again? Hell, for that matter, if you want it done that way, how about everyone in the country go to their neighbor and ask if they have insurance. If they don’t, threaten to burn their house down unless they get it. Yes, indeed! That would be healthcare for everyone, wouldn’t it? It’s essentially what the government is saying: Can’t afford insurance? Buy it or else. Some f’n healthcare plan.
I can't understand why everyone assumes that the "public option" is an expense paid trip around the medical technology merry-go- round. I understood it to be an alternate payer system( with the government as the main group) underwritten by an insurer (private or non-profit insurer). This would be comparable to a member being a government employee only not as good. Granted this sounds like there will be shortfalls...Uncle Sam will have to take up the slack of lower premiums for members, but nonetheless, participants would still be paying something..not a free ride. Perhaps I have misread what few pages of the healthcare document I could force myself to get through.
I would prefer that people argue that actual points instead of generalized media expanded conjecture.
I can't understand why everyone assumes that the "public option" is an expense paid trip around the medical technology merry-go- round. I understood it to be an alternate payer system( with the government as the main group) underwritten by an insurer (private or non-profit insurer). This would be comparable to a member being a government employee only not as good. Granted this sounds like there will be shortfalls...Uncle Sam will have to take up the slack of lower premiums for members, but nonetheless, participants would still be paying something..not a free ride. Perhaps I have misread what few pages of the healthcare document I could force myself to get through.
I would prefer that people argue that actual points instead of generalized media expanded conjecture.
But that's just it. The latest version has no public option. With that gone, I really don't see how the original intent of the plan is addressed at all. Like it or not, the original intent was 'everyone gets healthcare, everyone pays higher tax to get it.' Now, we could debate that plan, but it doesn’t matter now. That is no longer the summary of the plan. The new summary goes something like this: you buy insurance whether you can afford it or not; otherwise the government is going to fine you. Tell me who this helps other than the insurance companies and the government. Most folks can't affort up to $1800 per month for insurance. Some people don’t even MAKE that much per month. But they will pay it somehow, unless they want to become criminals.
As I said, some f’n health care plan. But, I should have guessed: as usual, the only folks that will get any ‘health care’ out of this is the government’s treasury (and the insurance companies).
Well, here in Maine they tried a "government Plan". It is underwritten by a BC/BS subsidiary and the state government restricted consumers to only in-state private insurers to minimize the competition. The state coffers couldn't handle the market response so they closed enrollment. So people like me, outside of an employer program have only a few private insurers to choose from...none I can afford.
MA has a mandatory health insurance program that fines those that don't enroll in some kind of plan. I hear that the general cost of health insurance there is still so much higher than the penalty that many people simply pay the annual fine and "wing it". They can afford neither medical insurance nor repeated government penalties.
So many of us are left squeezing minimal health care out of the household budget of mortgage, groceries, utilities, gas, etc. I just hope to God my preventative med investments ward off any major concerns. And that gets harder and harder at 50.
Well, here in Maine they tried a "government Plan". It is underwritten by a BC/BS subsidiary and the state government restricted consumers to only in-state private insurers to minimize the competition. The state coffers couldn't handle the market response so they closed enrollment. So people like me, outside of an employer program have only a few private insurers to choose from...none I can afford.
MA has a mandatory health insurance program that fines those that don't enroll in some kind of plan. I hear that the general cost of health insurance there is still so much higher than the penalty that many people simply pay the annual fine and "wing it". They can afford neither medical insurance nor repeated government penalties.
So many of us are left squeezing minimal health care out of the household budget of mortgage, groceries, utilities, gas, etc. I just hope to God my preventative med investments ward off any major concerns. And that gets harder and harder at 50.
This is EXACTLY what I keep going on and on about. I'm afraid that this is what will happen on a national level. All of you folks who can affort health insurance will be sitting just fine. For the rest, they will be even less able to afford it with this government fine/scheme and they will still not have any sort of health coverage.
Please tell me how this solves the healthcare crisis??? It actually makes it WORSE. That's what I keep moaning and groaning about...
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If not, the wonderful Republicans would like you to die a painful death without treatment, unless you can afford their wonderful "privatized" insurance. Trust me, it will not be long until there is a revolt against the current system, which is completely unfair.
