Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Forgive my misreading, then. All your post seemed to contain was references to Bush, and a highly partisan link.
Like I said, this is hardly the first screwball administration. And judging from the woeful choices we will likely have in 2008, it won't be the last: which is all the more reason to be highly skeptical of handing over healthcare to a bunch of liars and cheats.
I never said this is the first screwball administration. But it is the current one, so I stick to that one....I am quite sure the next one won't be a whole lot better, looking at the current candidates with a chance of actually winning. I do believe we live in a country run by corporations and their intrests, not the interest of the people. The two are fundamentally opposed.
Coporations single goal is to maximise profit, at the expense of their workers and the populaton as a whole.
Link #1 - The person lost their job because he/she was ill. Not surprised they had financial hardship - same could (probably would) happen here in the US - except that once their job was gone so too (after the COBRA period) could be their health care (if they had any to begin with). In any event the financial strain would almost certainly be even worse here - if for no other reason that the fact that they'd have to pay high insurance premiums themselves at a time when they had no job.
Socialized medicine still doesn't keep you from losing your job...and if you lose your job and go into arrears, foreclosure, and bankruptcy it doesn't matter where your debts came from or how big they are...100k vs 1,000,000...bankrupt is bankrupt.
Quote:
Link #2 - This quotes an average cost for cancer patients of £2,000, but one woman spent £12,000, which included buying a car to get to hospital. Yeah, if you buy a car, it can be expensive. If someone here in the US did that they could end up in financial trouble too - but for those millions of Americans without adequate medical coverage, their hospital bill would be a WHOLE lot more than £2,000. Again, socialized medicine isn't going to save everyone from financial hardship, just make it easier.
I wish I could find the article from the UK that stated that you were as likely to go bankrupt in the UK as in the US if you had cancer. A serious illness is easily financially devastating in the UK, even without the medical bills.
Quote:
Link #3 - Has nothing to do with socialized medicine at all - merely talks about folks who go bankrupt because of too much credit card debt etc. No one is saying socialized medicine will pay your credit card bills or help you be a better money manager.
If you'd read the entire article instead of skimming it, you'd have seen that "illness" is among the more popular reasons for bankruptcy filings in the UK.
Quote:
What is the point of your post? So folks go broke in Britain - that has nothing to do with the debate on medical reform.
I never said this is the first screwball administration. But it is the current one, so I stick to that one....I am quite sure the next one won't be a whole lot better, looking at the current candidates with a chance of actually winning. I do believe we live in a country run by corporations and their intrests, not the interest of the people. The two are fundamentally opposed.
Coporations single goal is to maximise profit, at the expense of their workers and the populaton as a whole.
And government's single goal is to retain power by redistributing money from one group to another. Otherwise known as theft.
I harp on it because I used it and paid into it for many years. It's the socialized system that I am most familiar with.
so you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater? There are countries that health care systems that work a lot better than the US system or the UK system. It's not about NHS vs. US, there are so many possibilities!
And government's single goal is to retain power by redistributing money from one group to another. Otherwise known as theft.
The US spends more on health care, per head than any other country and yet still has 45 million uninsured. If we adopted another system, we could spend less money and have everyone insured, sounds like a win-win situation to me. You will pay, one way or another, you end up paying more for goods and services because you are also paying for all those with no insurance or the ones that are now bankrupt.
so you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater? There are countries that health care systems that work a lot better than the US system or the UK system. It's not about NHS vs. US, there are so many possibilities!
Do you read what I post, or do you just pull assumptions out of thin air?
Cut and paste and show me where I said I did NOT support the idea of universal access. Go on.
I share my experiences with the NHS and my opinions of it overall because I do NOT want that system repeated over here. It sucks, it's not fit for purpose, and it would be worse than what we have here now. Given the choice between status quo or NHS, I'd go with the status quo each and every time.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
