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Status:
"Worship the Earth, Worship Love, not Imaginary Gods"
(set 7 days ago)
Location: Houston, TX/Detroit, MI
8,385 posts, read 5,545,507 times
Reputation: 12345
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MarshaBrady1968
I could live with that! Well, Wisco more so than Fla, but still, I'd settle for that
Im from California too and I dont want Texas to go that far to the left, but I also dont want it to be where it is now. Something in the range of Minnesota, Michigan, or Wisconsin is great.
I don't know that it is such an (insinuated fake) wonderland. Millions of Europeans live like that every day and have for decades. Plus, 300 years ago, no one thought a capitalist society would work, either, so why not??
Surely you are aware of the economic situation in Europe? It wasn't all that long ago people in Greece were lined up outside the banks trying to get their money out and they weren't happy at all.
Capitalism might not be the answer, but people are coming in droves trying to get into America. Do you ever wonder why?
Also the UK NHS is in serious financial trouble, which makes me wonder about some of the other major players over there. Spain was up the creek without a paddle recently. Are their bandaid solutions really going to work long term?
The EU governments lie to their citizens all the time (see Germany & Sweden), so what are they covering up?
Surely you are aware of the economic situation in Europe? It wasn't all that long ago people in Greece were lined up outside the banks trying to get their money out and they weren't happy at all.
Capitalism might not be the answer, but people are coming in droves trying to get into America. Do you ever wonder why?
Greece is for sure with it's issues.
I was thinking more along the lines of France (in the words of Michael Myers, "in the US we are afraid of government, In France, government is afraid of the citizens), Denmark, year over year the happiest country in the world, and Norway and Sweden which are right behind Denmark in the "happiness quotient".
I have not studied enough to *really* know what I am talking about from an economy standpoint but I do know that none of the countries I have mentioned have citizens clamoring to get out, and they have 5 weeks mandatory vacation and can go to the doctor anytime they want. Meanwhile, I am stuck behind a computer for 50 hours a week, have to fight to get any vacation time, and get one free dr visit per year. Cannot take any other free dr visits, even if they did exist, because of lack of time off. Sitting behind a computer for 50 hours per week is the new smoking in terms of the health ramifications. There just has to be a better way.
Plus, not great on the employers side either, because as you witness, here I am "playing" instead of working. The mind nor the body can take 9 hours of just sitting and staring. Not made that way.
Sounds like you're looking for your green acres place to be and hey, that's great. It's easy to read articles about places where they only highlight the good and that can be nice in that it's not pessimistic, but you have to consider all the facts to be truly knowledgeable. It's unfair to say everyone in France is on an equal basis - they are not. You could be just as unhappy with your life situation in France as you are with the one you have here in the US. There's a lot that hinges on these things. Life is what you make of it. It should not consist of a series of endless days of wishing for greener grass on the other side of the fence.
You might want to research the OECD. Here is one link that might give you a little more insight on the situation.
Although I provided a link and a suggestion to read up on this, I will say you cannot believe everything you read on the internet. If you know anyone where you can get information straight from the horse's mouth would be nice but even then it could be slanted, but I tend to believe it over some internet article. I knew a gal from MI whose aunt lived in Canada and they were not impressed by Canada's health care at all and wished they didn't have it. I have a friend who works over at the stockyards in Fort Worth during the cutting horse shows and the rodeo and he told me about a gentleman who was down here one year from Canada working the cutting horse show who had a stroke during the course of the show. They rushed him to the hospital and he made it through. He told my friend if he had been back home in Canada, he would have died. I was already aware of things like that happening in Canada but my friend brought up something I had not given any thought to. He said the man from Canada told him it took a year just to see a dentist. That you made an appointment and a year later you got in to see him. Of course, this is hearsay, but something I'd want to check out if I were so inclined to move to Canada (for instance) in search for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I know a person who voted for Obama simply because of the health care issue. He had cherry picked through articles on the internet and read just what he wanted to hear about how people in countries with socialized medicine could just walk in and see any doctor at any time for free, they could just go down to the corner drugstore and pick up their prescriptions for free. I was not the only person to tell him he better do a little more research on it and try and find someone from (say Canada) to actually talk to about it. All he would say is, oh I know there are some people saying or writing negative things, but you're always going to see that - it doesn't mean anything. Well, okey, dokey, I guess.
All I'm saying is - it's not always greener on the other side of the fence.
The US has both the best healthcare in the world yet the worst access to healthcare in the developed world.
We need to ask ourselves, what should be the goal of healthcare? Should it be to maximize profit, or should it be to serve the most people? How does pricing affect the demand of healthcare? Here’s my understanding with a simple supply/demand doodle:
You can substitute “government subsidy” with “collective bargaining” as well.
The demand for healthcare is such that people are willing to pay up to the maximum they can afford (the steep part of the demand) before forgoing healthcare altogether (the shallow part of the demand curve). The demand for healthcare is pretty universal no matter the supply, so the supply is the variable when it comes to healthcare policy.
In a free market, the most profitable margins don’t involve serving the most people. It involves maximizing revenue (price x quantity). But is that really what we want from healthcare? Sure, the higher cost of healthcare in the US does pay for some quality, but because the demand for healthcare is so steep, quite a bit of that cost is really just gouging because they can. We have less people with access while paying four times more than the next most expensive healthcare in the world (Australia).
There’s a better balance than the one we have now. The US does a lot of things right, but the grass is greener elsewhere when it comes to healthcare.
Both Lonestar and Westerner make good points, though (shock!) I tend to agree with westerner.
However, the overwhelmingly biggest problem that no one has touched on is this: We have CAUSED the issues with health care through not being healthy. 90% of emergency room visits are for conditions that were caused by some sort of negligence of health in the person: smoking, overweight, drugs, poor nutrition, drinking, etc etc. We want to be able to eat whatever and how much- ever we want, smoke, not exercise, not select foods we should be eating, on and on and on....then we have heart, lung, liver, circulatory....we have an over all lack of health causing us to fall down and be hurt instead of popping right back up, or be more likely for other injuries due to accidents....the list goes on and on, but the thing is, we have to be rushed to the emergency room for this.
Insurance or no insurance, there is a subsequent bill of some type which most people cannot pay.
Then when hospitals/doctors are forced to charge $35 for an aspirin, we want to blame the hospitals for trying to maintain their own bottom line. We blame health insurance for not allowing us to have tests or specialty care that actually we may not have needed had we tried the preventative health of food, exercise, etc.
Those of us who have selected a lifetime of healthy habits then are forced to pay the same huge fees caused by those who did not make those lifestyle choices.
The healthcare companies and the doctors are going to get their money- it's a business! If it were state sponsored, that cost would fall back to the citizens in taxes, I do realize, so perhaps the grass is not greener. But if it were state sponsored, would there be more of a watchdog over our food resources being healthier so that we did not create the expensive situation in the first place? And how about tobacco? Opioids? List goes on....
Now all of a sudden EVERYTHING is regulated and people completely freak out- I do understand that. But regulating for ONE thing and one thing only- MONEY - has caused these problems. Tobacco makes money. GMO foods make money. Big fat over-grown chicken breasts make money.
Long yes, but actually edited much shorter than my original. Sorry- very much a hot button issue for me - hugs!
I understand poor habits/excess, etc. makes for poor lifestyle, but I am 100% against more government regulations. Dear God, the government has invaded our lives and been watchdog for too long now. So, having said that, it is hard to come up with answers. I'm for letting the adults suffer for their own outrageous lack of common sense regarding their obligations to a healthy lifestyle, but then there are the children who do not know any better because they have never been taught. Not a simple solution for sure.
I know from experience how expensive a hospital/doctor can be w/o insurance. I was use to the old days when you could go to your doctor for a $20.00 office call. A hospital stay was a few hundred dollars. Those days have long gone. Why? I realize things get more expensive with time, but still, wow. A little insight into at least one reason that I had experience with was when my daughter was thrown from a horse and broke her arm. Like I said, I did not have insurance on either of us at the time. I took her to an emergency clinic (it happened on a Saturday afternoon) and they recommended taking her to Cook's Children in Fort Worth. It ended up being quite a few visits there and over the course of time I kept noticing all these Hispanic people there (lots of them). They could not speak English (that or they chose not to). I started asking questions and I found out they also paid nothing. I asked the doctor who was treating my daughter about this and why I was being charged so much (it was ridiculous what they charged me). He just looked at me and said "Somebody's got to pay". Yep, and I was one of the somebodys.
I understand poor habits/excess, etc. makes for poor lifestyle, but I am 100% against more government regulations. Dear God, the government has invaded our lives and been watchdog for too long now. So, having said that, it is hard to come up with answers. I'm for letting the adults suffer for their own outrageous lack of common sense regarding their obligations to a healthy lifestyle, but then there are the children who do not know any better because they have never been taught. Not a simple solution for sure.
I know from experience how expensive a hospital/doctor can be w/o insurance. I was use to the old days when you could go to your doctor for a $20.00 office call. A hospital stay was a few hundred dollars. Those days have long gone. Why? I realize things get more expensive with time, but still, wow. A little insight into at least one reason that I had experience with was when my daughter was thrown from a horse and broke her arm. Like I said, I did not have insurance on either of us at the time. I took her to an emergency clinic (it happened on a Saturday afternoon) and they recommended taking her to Cook's Children in Fort Worth. It ended up being quite a few visits there and over the course of time I kept noticing all these Hispanic people there (lots of them). They could not speak English (that or they chose not to). I started asking questions and I found out they also paid nothing. I asked the doctor who was treating my daughter about this and why I was being charged so much (it was ridiculous what they charged me). He just looked at me and said "Somebody's got to pay". Yep, and I was one of the somebodys.
It was expensive because insurance inserted themselves as needless middlemen who jacked up the prices, and now they have themselves enshrined into law. It’s not because you unwisely didn’t have insurance the same time as some immigrant families scrubbing toilets for $7/hour.
We have CAUSED the issues with health care through not being healthy. 90% of emergency room visits are for conditions that were caused by some sort of negligence of health in the person: smoking, overweight, drugs, poor nutrition, drinking, etc etc.
Can we have a reference for this statistic, please?
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