BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 03:01 PM

I suspect, Carol, that Doctor Day was given substantial remuneration by American insurance company lobbyists after having been told exactly what kind of testimony would result in him receiving the promised rewards...and what NOT to say about the Canadian health care system. (meaning: the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 04:15 PM

CarolC: you NOT having health care available to you is inhuman, imo. Makes me sick to my stomach. In some ways I think that we take it for granted here. And we shouldn't. I really do think the only way to get it will be to have sit-ins in hospitals and clinics a la '60s. Cops carrying away thousands of people and court systems tied up like there's no tomorrow.

I have often mentioned Thomas Clement Douglas (Tommy Douglas in Canada, because he was always Tommy even when he was the Premier of saskatchewn or a Member of the House of Commons) who 'forced' Medicare on Canadians. He fought for it for years. Never gave up.

When my late nephew died (leukemia) there was no way his mom and dad could have handled the payment that would have been due were it not for Medicare. The final 'bill' (Quebec used to--and maybe still does--send out a bill with the amount owing as $0.00 regardless of the cost. That was also itemized on the bill. His treatments came to a little over $500,000 if I recall correctly.)

Asking ordinary people to come up with that kind of cash is unconscionable, as is the lack of Universal Health Care in the USA. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but people MUST firm their resolve and force the US Government to institute a Medicare program, free to those who cannot pay and maybe $1000/year to cover a family. I have heard complaints from single folks who say that having to pay about $700/year when families only pay about $1000 is unfair. That type of thinking usually doesn't last much longer than an illness. THEN the lights go on. In the course of my life I have paid about $20,000 in premiums for Medicare. Just looking at cost/benefit: The hip alone would have run me $7000. Three emergency surgeries at about $5000 each = $15000. Long stay in hospita about $3000. Various other visits including a few broken bones and a knife wound about $2000. I don't really need to do the math to see that either $700 or $1000/year is a bargain. For those who seldom use hospitals, well, they helped my nephew. And members of my family who didn't use theirs helped someone else.

I know you are fighing for it and I know you'll win. Eventually. Keep it up. It's right, and that's what really matters.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 05:57 PM

We paid about $12,000 in premiums the last year we had insurance. And that was for a policy with a high deductible and co-pay.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 06:10 PM

$12,000???? Good lord!

In Canada about 10% of our yearly federal budget covers health care. That means I paid about $750 in taxes last year to get FULL health coverage for a whole year under the Canadian system. I got all hospital, doctor, and medical care FREE for a year after paying just $750 out of my income tax for my share of national health care.

Compare that to the $12,000 Carol and JtS had to spend for a year's policy with a high deductible and co-pay in the USA.

And there, in a nutshell, is the difference. Americans are being robbed. (and a great many of them apparently don't even know it)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: steve in ottawa
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 06:42 PM

The opening weeks of the recent war in Iraq gave me my first glimpse of how the American media could be narrow-minded about some issues. 24 hour coverage, but it was weak, with many facts and points of view were utterly absent. It was the first time I ever noticed a startling difference between American, Canadian, and British television reporting of a major ongoing news story.

Health care? Face it: the billionaire owners of American news media don't want socialized health care. In most countries, that has led to single-tier systems that risk the lives of the wealthy and their dependents. Average Americans suspect it would be much better for most Americans, but when they hear, over and over again from the TV that it's somehow "risky" the average Joe begins to believe: hmmm...it's risky.

The quality of care that is available to rich people in the States is better than what is available to rich people in Canada. Period. Most recently, I heard a story about a CBC reporter who cut her leg in post-Katrina New Orleans and woke up in "a spa" - a near empty, beautifully appointed hospital that her health insurance could afford, but which refused to serve the multitude of injured just outside in the city. The care delivered, overall in Canada, is better AND much cheaper, but NOT for the rich people. Doctors here CANNOT charge extra for procedures that are covered by the public health plans. Yeah, I think it's rotten that we've forced our doctors to become civil servants, but if the alternative is the American system, well, I'd just as soon limit my country to doctors whose greatest goal in life wasn't to make as much money as possible.

Bureaucracy? The bureaucracy in a PRIVATE system can lead to $7+ charges to provide a single aspirin. And that DOESN'T include the cost of the middleman - the private insurance company. PUBLIC systems are simply MORE efficient. The billionaire-owned US media tries to say the reverse is true.

From Sept. 2009 Harper's Index:
Percentage change since 2002 in average premiums paid to large U.S. health-insurance companies : +87
Percentage change in the profits of the top ten insurance companies : +428
Chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance : 7 in 10
Portion of its membership that Washington State's subsidized health plan intends to lose this year : 1/3
Average percentage by which it is raising premiums in order to do so : 70

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: steve in ottawa
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 08:21 PM

I guess I should also mention: two of my uncles are doctors, both of whom were pissed off at being made into civil servants and both of whom eventually went down to the States. Each returned to Canada within two years of leaving (mostly for social reasons) and still practice medicine here.

Doctors DO make more money in America. But they make enough money in socialized Canadian medicine that their lives are pretty comfortable.

No country can afford to do all that is beneficial to the health of its citizens. But it's pretty obvious from all around the developed world that free basic healthcare is cheaper than the American system, and more effective.

Now if only a few countries had the gumption to demonstrate that protecting some local manufacturing was a good idea...

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 08:35 PM

As if Canadian doctors don't make enough money, for heaven's sake! It's still one of the best paid jobs you can get. I haven't seen a doctor yet around here who wasn't doing just fine financially, thank you very much.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 09:20 PM

Early in this thread I posted a suggestion that people rent and watch the movie "Sicko" because it addresses almost all of the concerns expressed. I fear that few followed that advice because arguments are long and repetitive and highly uninformed. On YouTube there are many parts of Sicko available for watching without any cost or much bother. In his movie Michael Moore gives deep and true insight
into the systems in Canada, The USA, Britain, Cuba, France etc.
Please take the time to view a few of them.

SICKO

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 09:26 PM

The people who care have probably all watched Sicko. Those who haven't watched it probably don't care. After all, they've got theirs, so why should they care?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 10:33 PM

But CarolC, one point that Moore stresses is that people who think that they have coverage are being cut off to maximize the corporate bottom line of the HMO's. If they can't find it in their heart to care for others they may at some point find themselves on the outside looking in as well!

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 11:02 PM

The real problem with healthcare reform in America remains unspoken. Older people see how their government has let them down when it came to stopping illegal immigration. Now they see the demographics changing, and they don't think a bunch of young Hispanics have any interest in supporting a bunch of old white people. It all goes back to Reagan's stupid 1986 amnesty bill. If he'd carried out the inforcement part of the program, we would not be here.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Aug 09 - 11:34 PM

Oh, we would definitely be here. If that weren't the case, we would have had universal health care long before immigration from Mexico was perceived as a problem in this country. The problem is that the insurance cartels make a lot of money off of denying care to those who need it and they don't want anyone cutting in on their action, and we don't have a free and independent media in this country, but rather media that is bought and paid for by big business. It's as simple as that.

On the subject of people who don't care - yes, a lot of them don't realize they very well may be next to lose their health care, although the individual on this thread who is benefiting from socialized health care in the form of medicare is probably not in any danger of losing his health care. Just goes to show that sometimes socialism does a much better job of getting peoples' needs met. The irony, of course, being that that individual believes that socialism is evil. This is especially ironic seeing as how that person has benefited greatly in his life from socialism in the form of at least one job he has held that was paid for by the taxpayers, and his social security and medicare. But brainwashing is a powerful tool, and big business really knows how to use it to help their bottom line.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 12:06 AM

As a Canadian who has lived most of his life under universal health care I can not comprehend why anyone would want a private insurance for hundreds of dollars a month. I have many American friends and relatives and know them to be an intelligent and compassionate people. Why are they so blindly stupid on this issue?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 12:09 AM

I would say the reason is the very powerful and effective propaganda machine we have here in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 01:48 AM

You're absolutely right, Carol, and there is your answer, Sandy.

The corporate-controlled mass media in the USA are in the business of moulding public opinion all the time. They do so by slanted and misleading coverage which creates a general impression in the minds of millions of Americans that any kind of "socialism" is dangerous and evil, and keeps them misinformed and ignorant of what is really happening to them and all around them.

It's very much like the society George Orwell envisioned in "1984", only it's being done through a vigorous capitalist marketing mode rather than a dour form of quasi-Stalinism. People can far more easily be snared through mass marketing by targeting their greed, their selfishness, and their self-indulgence.

Consumer marketing and the glitzy modern "news" shows are a far more effective means of brainwashing a people than having red flags hung all over the place, big military parades, and long lines waiting at a few stores for a miserably poor selection of goods. ;-)

That's why one corrupt system (Soviet Communism) eventually fell to another equally corrupt system (western mass marketing by increasingly enormous corporate entities in a few wealthy hands).

It's clever. You snare people through their own desires for convenience, shallow entertainment, sexual titillation, addictions, and lots of cheap consumer goods (made in China), and you feed them an endless diet of absolutely unreal views on their own society and the world.

You convince the monkey in the cage that there is no cage by giving him lots of food and lots of toys and plenty of distractions. You tell the monkey that OTHER monkeys in other places around the world are worse off than he is! (It's a lie, but he'll believe it, because he's PROUD to be an American monkey living in the "greatest country on Earth".) He wants to believe it.

You appeal to his patriotism and zenophobia and the self-doubts that lurk under his facade of proud certainty about his country being "the best in the world".

He is already eager to believe that no one else in the world could possibly have as good a health care system as the USA....so he will just get angry if he is presented with strong evidence of superior health care in Canada or the UK. He'll deny it. He'll change the channel and find some other program that tells him what he wants to hear, and that's all he'll listen to.

That's how the Nazis did it too. That's how they bamboozled millions of Germans into fighting most of the world. They just fed them a daily diet of super-patriotism, fear, and disinformation. That's how ANY such lying system does it. By a constant flow of disinformation through the mass media.

It works. The majority of people are fooled by such a propaganda program...until things get REALLY bad (as they did for the Germans from about mid-1944). Things have not yet gotten REALLY bad in the USA. Somewhat bad for a fairly large number of people, yes...REALLY bad for a minority of people...but not REALLY bad for just about everyone.

That is what it would take to wake the monkey up to the fact that he's been had, and THEN he'd see the bars and he'd realize he's living in a cage.

By then it would probably be too late. It certainly was for the Germans.

People who object to the above analogy because the USA at present is not equivalent to Nazi Germany will be missing my point entirely. I'm not saying it's equivalent to Nazi Germany. The analogy is not meant to be taken in literal all or nothing terms. It is an analogy of a certain harmful direction that any society can move in through a flow of false propaganada, that's all, and these things happen by degrees. They happen a bit at a time. And they don't necessarily happen exactly the same way as they did in some other historical case, because every situation is unique to its own time and circumstances.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 07:54 AM

Little Hawk, your analogy of a monkey in a cage is right on and more and more I find myself in agreement with CarolC. I also understand how a propaganda program can warp peoples minds. International borders are but artificial barriers to isolate people of the world. One reason that the monkey accepts and even welcomes the cage is a belief that the bars protect him from those on the outside. 911 scared the monkey into demanding an even stronger cage. Patriotism and religion have used similar tactics throughout the ages to control the populace, so brainwashing goes back for eons.
However, we are surely more intelligent than monkeys, but often I wonder........?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:30 AM

The other thing they appeal to is peoples' egos. That's a big part of it and is the reason people in this country are so attached to the idea that we have the best everything and are the best everything in the world. I would say that ego is probably even more powerful of a lever than greed or selfishness, and equally powerful as fear.

We may be more intelligent than monkeys, but we still have our little reptilian brain buried inside of the rest of our brain. The reptilian brain has the ability to override the more sophisticated brain in quite a lot of people, apparently, especially when our fears and our egos are being targeted. And it helps to start the brainwashing when we are very young. That way, people have no frame of reference other than that created by the brainwashing, so they don't even know that there are other possible ways of seeing things. All they know is what they've been brainwashed to think.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 11:21 AM

I just ran onto this article from the New York Times: (I added the bold type)


"Japan has about the lowest per capita health care costs among the advanced nations of the world, and its population is the healthiest. That is largely due to lifestyle factors, such as low rates of obesity and violence, but the widespread availability of high-quality health care is also important. Everyone in Japan is covered by insurance for medical and dental care and drugs. People pay premiums proportional to their income to join the insurance pool determined by their place of work or residence. Insurers do not compete, and they all cover the same services and drugs for the same price, so the paperwork is minimal. Patients freely choose their providers, and doctors freely choose the procedures, tests and medications for their patients.

Reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals are negotiated and set every two years. The fees are quite low, often one-third to one-half of prices in the United States. Relatively speaking, primary care is more profitable than highly specialized care, so Japanese doctors face different incentives than U.S. doctors. As a result, the Japanese are three times more likely than Americans to go to the doctor, but they receive many fewer surgical operations. "

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 11:25 AM

To be fair, there are some problems with the Japanese system in some areas....but the basic model seems like one that should be studied for general approach.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 11:35 AM

"Japan has about the lowest per capita health care costs among the advanced nations of the world, and its population is the healthiest."

                And Japan has very strict immigration restrictions.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 12:13 PM

Yes...I know this. What is the relevance? Are we supposed to intuit that 'strict immigration restrictions' are required for good health?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 12:39 PM

I suppose the fact that so few Americans ever go abroad is a factor in enabling people to believe the USA is "the greatest country on Earth", superior in every way.

Except that if they really did believe that to be the case I rather suspect there wouldn't be this touchiness about the suggestion that it ain't always the case. The response to any such suggestion would be one of amusement rather than anger.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 12:41 PM

No, we don't think that way here. We really do believe we're the best, and we consider anger the appropriate response to any challenges to that belief. And we have guns to back it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 12:43 PM

No, this immigration fixation is just his personal hobbyhorse. Perhaps he should re-establish the Know Nothing Party.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 01:36 PM

"Somebody summed up ObamaCare very neatly. In an e-mail that was forwarded to me, it said: "Let me get this straight. We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head said he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that didn't read it but exempts them from abiding by it, signed by a President who smokes and is also exempted, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and financed by a country that's nearly broke. What could possibly go wrong?" "

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/08/27/re-arranging-the-deck-chairs-on-the-titanic/

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 01:38 PM

Ok. I'm convinced. I'll continue to go without any access to health care and die an early death, but at least I won't be in any danger of anything going wrong with my health care. (!)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 01:40 PM

Health care reform is fine- BUT that does not mean that THIS health care reform is.

I'll wait for one that the people voting on it actually bother to read.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 01:48 PM

Well I can't wait! Those of us who don't have any access to health care don't have the luxury of waiting! And neither do the many thousands who have insurance that refuses to pay for needed care!

So try being a little less shortsighted and selfish and see that we need this reform now!

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 01:51 PM

And what, specifically, is in this bill that makes it a bad one? Please cite the actual portion of the bill where it appears.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 01:55 PM

The Japanese health care system sounds to me like about the best one I've heard of, Bill. It's clearly better than the Canadian one, because ours does not cover dental care nor does it cover the cost of many drugs.

The Cuban system is also extremely good...because everything is covered (treatment of all kinds, drugs, dental, and even veterinary care for pets!). The main problem the Cubans have with health care is that certain drugs and equipment are in short supply due to the American embargo, but they also have a very large number of well-trained doctors per capita in Cuba...so much so that they send Cuban doctors to many other countries where they are needed.

We could use some of them in Canada, I'm thinking. ;-) We have a shortage of family doctors in Ontario at present.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 01:58 PM

Oh, Carol...you are dead right that ego could be the biggest problem of all in regards to American knee-jerk patriotism. I hadn't thought of it, but that's it, all right.

The old expression: "My country, right or wrong!" What it really means is: "My WAY...right or wrong!" It's all about "me" (the defensive patriot) in other words...

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 02:14 PM

CarolC,

I would at least want the people voting FOR it to havce read it, which they state they have not.


The Germans in the 1930's NEEDED employment and a better life, but look what THEY got for not actually reading what they were buying into.

And why did you have no problem with Obama giving all those funds to AIG et al, if you don't think thay are doing a good job???

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 02:28 PM

Please provide some documentation for the assertion that the people who are voting for the bill have stated that they have not read it.

Please also provide some documentation for the assertion that I did not have any problem with Obama giving funds to AIG.

I consider the little side swipe about what the Germans did in the 1930s to be typical insurance industry propaganda that is parroted by selfish, unthinking people who really have no idea what they are talking about.

Every other industrialized country in the world has universal health care in one form or another. Only the US doesn't. It's working for the people in those other countries. We have more than ample evidence for this when we read what they have had to say right here in this thread. The real similarity that the US has with 1930s Germany in this context is the well developed propaganda machines of both countries that promote the agendas of powerful corporate entities that are contrary to the best interests of the general populations of both countries. In the case of Germany in the 1930s, those interests were the industrialists who persuaded the people of that country that fascism was the answer to their problems. In the case of the US those interests are the powerful insurance industry cabal that wants to be able to continue to make obscene amounts of money off the deaths and suffering of everyone else in this country.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 02:39 PM

Right on, Carol.

The reason you and BB are arguing here, Carol, is that he's beating a completely different horse, as it were. His main reason for even being in this discussion is simply to criticize the Obama administration...not to oppose health care reform. He's here to attack Barack Obama and the Democrats, while you are here to expose a very poor American health care system and argue for creating a better one.

Therefore you are talking, basically, at cross purposes. ;-)

This happens a lot in political discussions.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 02:48 PM

This shouldn't be a political discussion. It should be a discussion about how to provide adequate health care to everyone in what is supposed to be the richest country in the world. That is not political. Unfortunately, some people are willing to allow many tens of thousands of people to die every year because of their selfish need to make it a political discussion. The ultimate irony of that is that many of those people call themselves "pro-life". Hah!

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:08 PM

CNN has a page on their site about the Pro and Con "Ad Wars" now on television regarding health reform. Some of the ads being aired now are listed with who sponsors them and a description of the ad.
Click on "Balloon", "Mean for you", "After", "Drop it", etc. to read about each one.
Who's behind health care reform ad wars?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:13 PM

We really do believe we're the best, and we consider anger the appropriate response to any challenges to that belief

The term "inferiority complex" comes to mind.

"This shouldn't be a political discussion."   Well it should be, but it should be a political discussion between people with different ideas about how best to provide universal health care, which is what it would be in any other country. There are lots of different models - the British do it one way, the French another, the Germans, the Irish, teh Canadians - it's a long list. And there is room for arguing about the merits of doing it different ways.

But in any of those countries the suggestion of moving to a system in which millions of citizens were excluded from receiving the same helath care as other people wouldn't be the start of a politcal discussion. It'd just be seen as a sick joke, or an indication of poloyical and moral insanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:15 PM

We really do believe we're the best, and we consider anger the appropriate response to any challenges to that belief

The term "inferiority complex" comes to mind.
.........................................

"This shouldn't be a political discussion."   Well, it should be, but it should be a political discussion between people with different ideas about how best to provide universal health care, which is what it would be in any other country. There are lots of different models - the British do it one way, the French another, the Germans, the Irish, the Canadians - it's a long list. And there is room for arguing about the merits of doing it different ways.

But in any of those countries the suggestion of moving to a system in which millions of citizens were excluded from receiving the same health care as other people wouldn't be the start of a political discussion. It'd just be seen as a sick joke, or an indication of political and moral insanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:19 PM

The problem with that formulation is that those who oppose any changes whatever with the exception of making laws to give more money to the insurance companies (and such laws are currently being worked on in our Congress), are saying that they support health care reform and they say it's just a matter of working out the right plan, but those particular people really don't support any kind of health care reform at all, and they are just using the excuse that we have to wait for the right plan as a stalling tactic. They know if they can stall it long enough, they can effectively kill it entirely. If they succeed in doing that, they expect that they will be able to get a majority in the House and Senate in the next election in 2010 and use that majority to prevent the subject from being seriously considered in the future. They don't want change. They want the status quo only with more money for the insurance companies.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:48 PM

In other words, they are what most people (outside the USA anyway) would regard as politically and morally insane.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 04:44 PM

I think that's a charitable way of putting it.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 06:19 PM

LOL! Yeah, that about sums it up. Politically and morally insane.

(but with the "best of intentions", no doubt.....!)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 06:34 PM

"oppose any changes whatever "

No-one I know of in that group- it is THESE specific unfunded, poory defined, and highly questionable changes that I object to.

Still waiting for Obama to keep his promise to be Bipartisen.

No idea why, when the Dems have control of the House , and the Senate, they cannot even get what they want.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 07:16 PM

Specifically which aspects of the bills being considered are being characterized as unfunded, poory defined, and highly questionable? Let's have some specifics.

Obama has been totally bipartisan. Every time Republicans have made a specific objection, he has tried to bend over backwards to accommodate those objections, even at the expense of the wishes of the people who voted for him. But the Republicans have made it perfectly clear that they will not vote for any health care reform no matter what, so it's time for Obama and the Democrats in congress to start to serve the people who put them in office to make change.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 07:28 PM

Obama has always shown a willingness to be bipartisan. He has encountered no such willingness on the part of his Republican foes...and probably precious little on the part of most of the people in his own party either.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 07:36 PM

specifically- HOW is he funding it?

Not by "saving in Medicare, unless they have been ripping us off for the last two years of DEMOCRATIC control of the House and Seneate.



WHO is to be eligible for this health care- Obama has stated NOT illegal immigrants.

WHO will decide what medical procedures are covered? Who will ration the obviously limited benefits?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 07:39 PM

What would you like to see done, BB? For a reformed health care plan, I mean.

Would you like to see a system such as Canada or the UK or Japan has?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 07:55 PM

So what has stopped the Republican administrations which have been in power on the States for most of the past 50 years from introducing a system of universal health care which didn't involve the problems they claim to see with the present proposals?

Is there a way of doing it that some other country has developed which would be acceptable to the opponents? If there isn't, given the enormous variety of countries involved, and the wide range of options, that if they can't it does appear to prove that the aim is, as Carol claimed, to stop any reform which would make adequate health care available to all Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 08:18 PM

Their objective is to maximize corporate profits, reward their largest corporate sources of funding, and ensure that the rich elite in the USA have access to far better health care than the ordinary citizens do.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 08:28 PM

LH is correct. The Republican party line is that everything that they can privatize to for-profit businesses that the government now does should be turned over to private business. They worship the idol of capitalism. Ever since Ronnie Reagan said "government IS the problem", they act like our government is an enemy. As Grover Norquist said, he wants to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."