BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 04:58 PM

Don: Nope, I didn't rely on anyone at Fox News when I used the term, fiasco, I thought it up all by myself. If one's measure of success is the number of people who took a tax payer hand out to purchase a car for perhaps 25% less than they normally would have to pay for it, then I guess it was successful. I'd like a boat. When might I expect my hand out of $4,500 of YOUR dollars to help me by it. A condo here in Durango, CO, would be nice too! When might I expect to receive my government hand out so that I can purchase one?

Congress, with this clunker deal, did what it does best: spend tax payer's money.

I wonder, Don, why do you trust your government to be more fair than Aetna Insurance Company is?

Incidentally, today's edition of the Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial on the "clunker" fiasco today. I agree with every word in it.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 05:10 PM

I think that I may finally understand DougR's misgivings. His saying: "I wonder, Don, why do you trust your government to be more fair than Aetna Insurance Company is?" made me realise that that he thinks people in other countries - specifically countries that have nationalized health insurance - are superior to people in the US.

For shame, Doug! Where is your patriotism? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 05:52 PM

Regarding your "fiasco," Doug:

The "Cash for Clunkers" accomplished a number of things. First, it helped reduce the number of older, gas-thirsty, smog-emitting cars on the road. That's a plus for the environment. It reduces this country's dependency on foreign oil, and reduces the amount of pollutants being poured into the atmosphere (that's fairly important to people with respiratory problems). And secondly, rather than "bailing out" the auto industry by giving taxpayer's money to the auto companies (so the senior executives can vote themselves raises and bonuses), it gives the money to people who will go out and spend it right away (in fact, if they don't spend it, they don't get it). So it does stimulate auto sales, without which the auto companies (not to mention dealerships) are bloody well dead.

"I wonder, Don, why do you trust your government to be more fair than Aetna Insurance Company is?"

Granted government bureaucrats can be major stumble-bums, I would trust them to have my interests at heart far more than I would trust health insurance company bureaucrats who have an established record of attempting to maximize company profits by finding excuses to deny benefits to their clients, including, on more than one occasion, my wife and me.

There is no reason that single payer, government financed health service in the United States can't be as good as the same as that in other industrialized countries in the world, such as the U.K., Canada, France, the Scandinavian countries, et al, where, contrary to right wing propaganda, the citizens of those countries seem to be pretty well satisfied with the health care service they are receiving (note above posts to that effect from British and Canadian Mudcatters).

Or as Ebbie asks, is it that you don't believe Americans are up to the challenge? We can't handle it? Are we, unlike all those other countries, so bereft of honest government officials that any attempt Americans make to implement such a program is doomed from the start?

I have more faith in this country than that, Doug!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:17 PM

OT cars

I don't have an opinion one way or the other on this..honest..but I bet most of the clunkers have been sitting in someone's driveway and are not out on the roads. What is the number of people who can both produce an older car (isn't in 1985 or older) and qualify for new financing? Maybe a lot...people who are forced by poverty to drive the really old cars I would think couldn't get qualified...don't know. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:26 PM

I guess, Don and Ebbie, that I just have less confidence in federal bureaucrats than you do. With a private company, if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company. If you are in a single payer government run program, you are up the creek without a paddle.

I wish you would check out the Heritage Foundation website and take a look at the evaluation of the proposed government health care plans they commissioned. You well may view the proposed government programs in a different light. I would supply a blue clicky but never learned how to do one.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:26 PM

Don & Ebbie, I would urge caution about conflating the words "Doug" and "think" . That way lies madness. And futility.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:36 PM

With a private company, if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company.

Can you actually do that if you are covered as an employee of a firm that has set up a deal with an insurance company? Doesn't that mean you automatically dependent on that particular company?

That's a real question, not a rhetorical one. In principle it would be perfectly possible to have a system under which individuals woudl pick their own preferred insurance and the firm employing them would pick up the bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:45 PM

There is no single-payer government run program anywhere in any proposal. President Obama says he opposes single-payer. What is the purpose of ponting in alarm at a non-existent program? I looked at the Heritage Foundation's "evaluation" of health care plans....they do something very similar. That is, they describe a "plan" that exists only in their imagination and analyze its deficiencies.   

I hate to sound repetitious, but, at the present time, THERE IS NO PLAN. There are a number of different proposals that must be voted upon, reconciled, and voted upon again. Right now, NOBODY KNOWS what, if anything, will finally be submitted for the President's signature.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:19 PM

There is one single payer program that is being discussed in the House, but that one is not being taken very seriously. The resolution that has just passed out of committee in the House, and the one being worked on in the Senate are not single payer plans. No matter how many times a certain poster on this thread keeps harping on single payer plans, the plans that are being seriously considered in both the House and the Senate are not single payer plans.

Personally, I think it's extremely dishonest to keep trying to characterize the health care plans that are being seriously considered as "single payer", when that is absolutely not the case.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:22 PM

And to answer a question upthread, people who get insurance through their employers do not get to chose which insurance company will provide their care. That choice is made for them, and they are stuck with it. They can get a different job, maybe, but the choice will still be made for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:25 PM

". . . if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company."

McGrath is exactly right.

If we had to buy health insurance directly, we simply couldn't afford it. It comes as one of the benefits from my wife's job. That is, partially. The Seattle Public Library pays part of the monthly premium, and they deduct the rest from my wife's paycheck. So—the option to simply change companies is not open to us. Nor is it open to the vast majority of people in this country who have health insurance for the same reason. Doug, you—and most conservatives I have met—are simply not living in the real world. Sorry, but there it is!

And Art is also right. Unless I missed it, there is no government run single payer health insurance program on the agenda. Basically, what I have seen offered is a whole smorgasbord of partial plans that could come together under the definition of "camel:   a horse designed by a committee." They're trying to please everybody, and there's no way that's going to work.

I give Obama marks for bringing the matter up at all, but I wish he'd show a little courage and go straight for a government run single payer program. It'll be one helluva battle against the Forces of Darkness, but that's the only way health CARE coverage in the United States will ever come up to that in the rest of the civilized world.

The flaw in Obama's approach is the same as the one in the Clintons' abortive attempt. As long as the insurance companies are at the table, it will either not happen at all (their preference) or it will manifest itself as a plumber's nightmare.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:28 PM

Cross posted. Carol, too, is right on the money.

Don Firth

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

At least in my state job we can choose from a number of plans, various agencies, especially in larger cities. mg

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

Once again, the government does a better job of providing health care, in this case, to its employees.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: mg
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 10:32 PM

true...and I have been in job lock for some time and will always be so I can get benefits and state retirement. That is what they say they will put on some people's graves..she had state retirement...my biggest accomplishment to date.    mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 02:13 AM

It's only a great many Americans' gross ignorance of what is actually going on in the rest of the developed world that lets the American private insurance companies and their lobbyists pull the wool over so many people's eyes in the USA and scare them with the boogeyman stuff about government-run health insurance coverage.

(Clearly, many here at Mudcat are not ignorant about it...but the insurance companies are depending on those USA citizens who are...)

Man, it is amazing to watch from the outside, it really is. Private industry, and I mean BIG corporate private industry, has got your government in its greedy grasp, and your society pays the price for it. What a sad situation.

I hear they got ONE Canadian woman to testify to Congress about how our public health system didn't help her...

Well, for heaven's sake, they could have gotten 50,000 other Canadian women to testify about how our public health insurance system DID help them...but they weren't looking for that kind of testimony to put in front of Congress, were they? Of course not. It would not be to their financial advantage for people in the USA to learn the truth about Canada's public health system....and the truth is that it's the most strongly publicly supported institution there is in this country, it's the one thing that our politicians do not DARE to dismantle...so far...because our public would be absolutely furious at them if they tried to take our government-sponsored health coverage away.

That's because we've already had it. When you've already had something good and you KNOW it's good, you don't let someone take it away, do you?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 08:19 AM

Single payer, yes, is the goal but it looks as if just getting a "public option" will be hard enough to achieve...

This August recess is going to wreck havoc on the cahnces of that... Seems that the insurance companies are now organizing goon squads to disrupt town meeting all over the country...

I think it's time for Obama to make a statement that governors should be prepared to use the police to maintain some civility in town meetings... This is getting out of hand... Reminds me of the 2000 election with paid goons trying to disrupt the recount...

A month of letting the insurance companies and goons control the converstaion and there won't be a "public option"... You can take that to the bank...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 12:12 PM

I hear they got ONE Canadian woman to testify to Congress...

Who is "they"? Do the insurance companies have a stranglehold on who is called to testify to Congress and who is not?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 12:30 PM

Lobbyists, McGrath. Lobbyists are professional people paid to represent private industry and influence legislators, and they are paid VERY well. It's their fulltime job. They siphon money to legislators, and arrange all kinds of contracts and perks, and they apply pressure to get legislation passed that will benefit the private industries who have employed the lobbyists, but NOT the general public. They are THE signficant factor in steering legislation in the US Congress, in the various state legislatures, and no doubt in the Canadian government as well, because they represent the most powerful financial entities in the society. The voice of the public is not much compared to the voice of the corporate lobbyists in Washington. The public is too distracted, too divided, and too busy with their ordinary lives....but the lobbyist has a fulltime job to bribe, influence, and cajole Congressmen into doing what the big corporate players want done. And he has the MONEY to buy their votes.

So they went looking for someone, ANYONE they could find from Canada who had a personal beef of some kind about our Medicare system. Well, someone like that can always be found...it doesn't matter where you go. There's always someone who has a beef against a system. They may be only one person in 100,000 people, but you can find them.

My point is, they did not go looking for the millions of Canadians who LIKE our medicare system and support it. If they had, they could have found millions of them to testify at Congress if they had paid them for their time and trouble to do it, but they were not paid to find someone who likes our medicare system. They were paid to find someone who doesn't like it.

I'd say she represents about 1% of the people up here in Canada...but Congress won't hear that part of the story, will they? And Fox won't report it. And the Republicans will never know about it. They will see and hear only what they already wish to see and hear. Thus is the monkey kept happy inside his cage, never mindful of the bars that surround him.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 12:45 PM

Single Payer may not be in the existing Bills in Congress, but it sure is lurking in the shadows. Likely it is not memorialized in writing in the Bills because the writers are aware that the Bills would sink faster than the Titanic.

Bobert: I find it strange that you cannot accept the fact that the majority of U.S. citizens do not approve of Obama's plans for providing health care in this country. Folks attending Town Halls on the subject are exercising their right to protest those plans just as you folks, who attend similar meetings to protest things you do not approve of, enjoy those same rights!

Republicans are regularly criticized because they are "againers" only and never offer alternatives to Bills they oppose. If you are interested enough, Google The Wall Street Journal and check out the health care plan proposed by Arthur Laffer, a Republican, who served, I believe in, as Kendall loves to point out, "The Actor's" administration. His plan is one I would support 100%. His column, in the opinion section of today's edition makes sense to me. It would supply everything most of the posters to this thread want, and keeps the government out of our health care lives.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 12:45 PM

"With a private company, if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company."

Sure..if you don't have a pre-existing condition that your present company is handling so poorly that you want to switch.

Doug, I ask again: As someone who seems to be very happy with his Nationalized single-payer healthcare system, administered by bureaucrats (Medicare and VA), why do you say that the Government couldn't do a good job of administering healhcare?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:05 PM

I read the piece in the WSJ by Mr. Laffer. He says we would have to spend more on health care if Obama's health care proposals became law. We know he's lying because the reality in the countries that have the kind health care systems he describes proves it. They are paying far less for the health care in those countries than what the US spends on health care each year, not more. I don't trust people who lie to me on behalf of those who want to make a profit off of me.

The HSA insurance option is only good for the insurance companies. It is not good for the people who need adequate access to health care. I know, because I have checked them out to see if JtS and I could get insured that way. There are several problems with them. First of all, they don't want to cover pre-existing conditions. We were not able to find any insurers who would cover both of us for an amount we can afford.

Secondly, the HSAs don't solve the problems of insurance companies denying care to enhance their bottom line. This is just as much of a problem with the HSAs as it is with other forms of private health insurance.

The only thing the HSAs do that other kinds of insurance don't do is force consumers to pay a lot more for their health care than they would otherwise have to do, and they increase the insurance companies profits. Would any of the people who are saying they want to keep their current coverage want to change that coverage to an HSA? I rather doubt it. But that is what they will be forced to do if Obama's health care proposals fail, because according to the industry insider in the interview posted earlier, that is exactly what the insurance companies plan to force everyone to do. (Except those who are benefiting from our excellent government run health care - for now, at least, until the insurance industry succeeds in eliminating those programs as well.)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:08 PM

One other problem with HSAs is that they discourage people from getting preventive care. And that causes health care costs to increase dramatically because people tend to wait until problems are much more expensive to treat before getting care.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:26 PM

Those who keep making excuses to not change our methods of health care delivery in the way that Obama and most of the Democrats are trying to do don't seem to understand that for most people who currently don't have insurance, and many who do who are underinsured, if there was a good option available at this time we would take that option and we wouldn't be uninsured or underinsured.

We're not stupid. If there was a good option available to us, we would take it!

Subject: RE: BS: Nationu alized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:33 PM

Dick: I never said thyat the administration of Medicare or the VA was perfect. They are existing available programs (though the longevity of Medicare is questionable)that I qualify for and I have been satisfied with the service they offer to date.

My main objection to government take-over of health care is that is not the role of government. If you don't believe me, check out the Constitution. No where does it say health care is the responsibility of the United States government.

That does not mean that I oppose laws that require existing insurance companies to accept patients with pre-existing conditions. I favor that. There are probably other absurdities in the current system that could be corrected by legislation.

Kevin: Sorry I didn't address your question. Other posters have truthfully reported that if you are employed by a company that provides employees health care plans, you have little choice. You are pretty well stuck with that program.

Carol C: I seriously doubt, even if Obama's plan is signed into law, you will find a satisfactory answer to your and Jack's situation. The only place you will find what you are looking for is another country like Canada, or one of the other countries who DO provide government health care.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:36 PM

"Pre-existing conditions" - as genetic science and medica; technoogy progresses its probably going to become evident that most of the ills that affect us are down to "pre-existing conditions".

Cancers, heart disease, strokes, most things apart from accidents and infectious disease - and you can guarantee that there'll be private insurance companies who will use such advances in genetic science and medical technology not to imnprove health care, but to exclude people who need health care.
.......................

I noticed that Doug ignored completely the coments on his assertion "With a private company, if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company."

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:46 PM

It's not true that under Obama's plan JtS and I would not be able to find a good alternative. Under Obama's plan, we will be able to get our health care needs met under the public option. Under the public option, people who are currently denied care due to pre-existing conditions will be able to get affordable insurance.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:47 PM

And that, by the way, is the whole point of the public option.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 02:20 PM

And by the way, I take the suggestion that JtS and I and the millions of other people in the US who face the same problems in getting access to adequate health care can only be helped in countries that have single payer health care systems, to be an admission that single payer health care systems are superior to all other health care systems.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 02:29 PM

quote

The Constitution of the United States of America

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America....


Promotion of the general welfare (health, which is a life and death issue) IS in the constitution. It IS the job of our government.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 02:48 PM

Some people argue that the general welfare applies to only the state, not the citizens, but I think it is clear it applies to both, as the founding fathers went on to write "ourselves and our posterity".

What would the right-wingers want us to do? Abolish government fire departments, schools, universities, water systems, highways systems, sewer systems, garbage collection, disease control, and make everyone who can afford it buy insurance to cover these services and damn the population who can't?

It still amazes me that people who think the government can administer wars but they don't want government administering anything else... sounds like they'd rather pay more to someone who is taking a profit. There is a role for government and a role for business and I believe that protecting the health of our citizens is a basic role for government.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 03:44 PM

Single Payer may not be in the existing Bills in Congress, but it sure is lurking in the shadows.

Yup, and Commies are lurking under the bed.

I never said thyat the administration of Medicare or the VA was perfect.

But the insurance companies are.

check out the Constitution

Which, as with most other documents he cites, he's never read. No need to.

...absurdities in the current system that could be corrected...

The main absurdity of the current system is that it purpose is solely to make money at the expense of providing adequate health care.

Jesus, its worse than trying to debate a Flat-Earther or a Holocaust Denier. Their perception is NOT reality. All it does is legitimize their idiocy.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 04:35 PM

I know it gets frustrating when the weight of evidence and argument seems so overwhelming, but throwingup hands in horror and labelling people who are still unconvinced "idiots" doesn't really move things forward.

It's not really that different from crying out "socialized medicine" instead of arguing the case.

I'm sure there are arguments for the present health system in America, just as there were arguments for the slave system. Not sound arguments perhaps, but arguments that are evidently seen as convoncing by a good many Americans, and deserve to be addressed and unwrapped and dismantled.

Obviously there is a very rational argument from the point of view of the insurance companies who recognise that they would be faced by real pressures to behave better if they are to survive in a new system.   

Evidently there are medical professionals who believe that they will lose out - in the same way as their fellow professionals had similar fears in Britain in 1948, for exampel, and found that these were completely unfounded, turning them into some of the strongest defenders of the NHS.

But the ordinary punters who are against change are harder to understand, and yet they are the ones who matter. Doug is satisfied with his own medical care, provided by the government, but is fearful that if everyone else were able to opt for something analogous things would spiral down to disaster.

It seems to me that the only way to put the puzzle together is to take it that American society is seen by such people as uniquely disqualified from following the example of all other advanced countries in this matter.

Any administration in the USA, it appears, is bound to drive down standards to the lowest possible level, and voters are never going to insist that this does not happen, since public services are necessarily seen as a target for economies to keep taxes as low as possible, which will allow at least some hope of paying for escalating payments for private health insurance...

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 06:12 PM

McGrath: I thought I addressed your question in my last post. I'll try again, and use myself as an example: I currently have Medicare administered by a private company (Health Net). Medicare provides the money, Health Net and my private doctor make medical decisions regarding my health care needs. If I am not satisfied with the way Health Net treats me, I can enroll with another private company, like CIGNA, or any other Medicare provider approved by Medicare. And I can assure you, Kevin, I am not a voice in the wilderness. Latest polls show that the majority of Americans do not want the kind of health care program you have in your country.

Alice: Since I am not a lawyer specializing in Constitutional law, I won't argue your point. I believe, however, if you are correct, we would have had a single payer program like GB and Canada and many other countries have, many, many years ago.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 07:06 PM

That's as may be McGrath, but reasoned dialog, facts and proof beyond a reasonable doubt have been even LESS successful in "moving things forward". How would you characterise someone who continually refuses to accept that which has been conclusively proven to be a fact?? But perhaps "idiot" IS to harsh. How about "moron"?

1. polls show that the majority of Americans do not want the kind of health care program you have in [Britain].

Absolutely false. More disinformation.

2. . I believe, however, if you are correct, we would have had a single payer program like GB and Canada and many other countries have, many, many years ago.

Also, absolutely false. Nothing to do with Constitutionality. The reason we don't have decent health care like the rest of the world is the shibboleth of "Socialized Medicine" scaring the crap out of the ignorant and lobbying by the AMA and Insurance interests that has gone on non-stop since the 1930's.

How believe that nonsense in the face of conclusive proof to the contrary is a source of perpetual wonderment to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Rowan
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 07:08 PM

"Pre-existing conditions" - as genetic science and medica; technoogy progresses its probably going to become evident that most of the ills that affect us are down to "pre-existing conditions".

This is going to be a real nightmare. Although it could be possible to argue that "susceptibility to or vulnerability to" developing any particular condition is not the same as "having the pre-existing condition", attempts by companies to argue that they have ownership and copyright over our genes that they've mapped (an argument that has been successful so far) may mean that every disease can be attributable to a "pre-existing condition.

What would the right-wingers want us to do? Abolish government fire departments, schools, universities, water systems, highways systems, sewer systems, garbage collection, disease control, and make everyone who can afford it buy insurance to cover these services and damn the population who can't?

My understanding of the history of the development of almost all these institutions is that, originally, fire departments, schools, universities, water systems, highways systems were established as privately owned. [Perhaps the Roman roads are an exception but tollways do have a long history.] Most of the major (privately owned) buildings in the older cities on both sides of the Atlantic pond (and a few in Oz) had insurance companies' badges on their exteriors to denote their membership of the insurance policies that paid for the (privately-run) fire fighting agencies and entitled them to have fire protection provided. It was public irritation at the inequities exposed by such systems that got firefighting run as a govt responsibility.

The oldest schools (and even the oldest universities) in the same countries were run either privately; the fact that they were run under patronage of churches and the royal courts might lead the gullible into thinking they were run by what we now understand to be "the govt" but we'll let that slide. The govt run Medibank (later reinstate as Medicare) in Oz are way ahead of what they replaced, similar to what I experienced of the US system.

Ah well...

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 07:38 PM

The National Health Service is a pretty good way of ensuring universal health care but it's not the only one.

Here's one political website's coment on this "socialized medicine" : "The NHS is an institution which binds our nation together. In cities, towns and villages up and down the country, the family doctor surgeries and local hospitals are part of the fabric of our community.   And the doctors, nurses and support staff who work so hard to keep them going are known and trusted." That's from a Conservative Party campaigning site.

But other countries do it in a range of different ways, to reflect the way their society works. I'd assume that when (and sadly if) America finally joins the rest of the world in this matter it will have its own system. Probably some combination of private and public.

But the essential thing is to do it. And the scandal is that it hasn't been done.

It's over sixty years since the NHS was set up. At the time it was unique, but since then every other economically advanced country in the world has come up with its own way of doing it. Apart from the United States.

You've had Democratic administrations, and you've had Republican administrations. And none of them have managed to ensure an American health system that is worthy of America, one which ensures that everyone in American can go to sleep at night knowing that, if and when ill-health strikes, the medical care they need will be available without breaking them financially.

No doubt there are disagreements about the best way to do things - but to allow those differences to block the coming of universal health care would be shameful. It might be as well for both sides to remember the saying "The best is enemy of the good".

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Alice
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 09:14 PM

Yes, Rowan, we have antiques here from the days when you had to buy insurance in order to have the firemen put a fire out at your house. I once saw the leather buckets on Antiques Roadshow... if your neighbor's house was not covered, it would burn. Toll roads, schooling only for the wealthy... it is amazing that people can't recognize that public health care to help people who are sick is even more important than having public schools.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 11:29 PM

I currently have Medicare administered by a private company (Health Net)

Nonsense. No private company "administers" Medicare. The private company may be a secondary provider to Medicare as a primary provider.

Either more deception, or simply more of the same old ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 11:41 PM

Greg F. -
You are debating a Fox News parrot. Every word comes straight from thier talking points. But you knew that already....

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 12:35 AM

The form of private insurance that is being referred to as HealthNet above is not, strictly speaking, the same as private insurance. The kind that is paired with Medicare is called, HealthNet Medicare Advantage and although it is provided by a private company, it is regulated by Medicare. So our friend above whose medical care is administered HeathNet (and paid for by me and the millions of other people who pay taxes but don't have access to health care ourselves) is benefiting from a structure that is pretty much exactly the same thing as what Obama is proposing. It is a structure that provides a public option (Medicare), and well regulated private options (like HealthNet Medicare Advantage). The only difference is that Obama is trying to apply this structure to everyone rather than just to those over 65 years of age. After all, if it's not the government's job to provide health care to those under 65, it's also not the government's job to provide health care to those over 65 either. So I'm sure, being convinced as he is that it's not the government's job to provide health care, that the poster above who is benefiting from government funded health care will be the first in line to give up that coverage entirely. (Or maybe that person only cares about himself, and just doesn't care about anyone else.)

If it works for those over 65, there's absolutely no reason why it can't work for everyone, and I take the enthusiastic endorsement of the person above who has this coverage as an enthusiastic endorsement of Obama's health care proposals.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 01:33 AM

I think it's also worth pointing out that the company, HealthNet, has paid out many millions of dollars in fines to the government for fraudulent behavior. They terminated many peoples' policies because those people got sick. They couldn't do that to the people who are covered under their Medicare Advantage, because that is paid for by the government, and because it is regulated by Medicare. This is why the market is not the most efficient means of providing people with health care.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 06:19 AM

""Carol C: Your definition of health care "rationing" is a bit off base. "Rationing" is withholding needed health care because of cost and age.""

NO Doug, IT'S NOT!

I can see how you would like that definition to be true, fitting in, as it does with your "I've got mine, and I don't really give a damn who hasn't" attitude.

Rationing, as anyone who spent WW2 on the Eastern side of the Atlantic will tell you, is the gathering of total resources, and the distribution of same so EVERYBODY gets the same share.

Ditto with the National Health Service. Every citizen of the UK, rich or poor, gets the treatment he/she needs, without having to present a platinum credit card at the door.

Those who wish can, and DO, opt for private treatment within the thriving Private Medical Insurance market, or indeed, if they are able, pay from their own funds.

Why, in the face of so much proven evidence of success, do you adhere to the laughable misconception that what works in so many other countries would inevitably fail, or cause failure in the private sector, if applied to US citizens.

Could it simply be that you are adamant that no portion, however small, of your tax dollar should be spent to the benefit of those you consider either losers, or wasters?

Do you REALLY care about the welfare of anyone outside your family circle?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: artbrooks
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 08:13 AM

This thread began with the title "Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?". What is good is that DougR got his answer within the first five or ten responses. What's bad is that we have gone on for almost a month, and nearly 450 posts, as he (and perhaps one or two others) fails to accept the positive responses from people who live under systems of nationalized healthcare, albeit unlike anything that has been proposed in the US, and as he argues with those who are (politely or otherwise) trying to convince him that his ideas are wrong.   I think it's time to end this, and I'm out of here.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 08:22 AM

Yeah, I know, TIA- I'm violating the prime directive of never engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

Calling him a "Faux News Parrot" though is being too kind; his spew exceeds even their lies and disinformation.

I've never been able to figure out if he really is stupid and ignorant enough to actually believe the crap he posts, or if he simply does it to wind people up. I think the preponderance of evidence points to the former.

At least I only engage him occasionally - there are some real masochists here that interact with him all the time as if he were a rational being!

All best,

Greg

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 10:53 AM

He provides us with an opportunity to put the counter-arguments out there where others can see them. One never knows if someone who has been persuaded by the propaganda but who has retained their capacity for critical thinking, and who is less brainwashed than he is might read it and change their perspective. It's worth making the counter-arguments for that reason alone, regardless of whether or not it ever makes a difference in how he thinks.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 11:50 AM

Carol C: Your 12:35 AM post, I think, is a very good one. Greg F., obviously, read it, and it is conceivable that he learned something. Emphasis on "conceivable"!

I find little to quarrel with what you wrote. Essentially you are saying, Doug is over 65 and is eligible for a government health care plan that I, because I am not yet 65,am eligible for. The inference is because I am a participant of Medicare, I should favor the government the government providing similar health care coverage for everyone regardless of age. I could argue that the primary reason that the government cannot, is because the government cannot afford to.

Experts have predicted for years that Medicare and Medicaid themselves will not exist in just a few short years! If that is
so, how can the government expect to pay health care coverage for everyone?

Obama's plan would cost, according to the Congressional Budget Office, over a Trillion dollars within the first ten years.

Democrats in Congress have been burning the midnight oil for the past few months seeking answers to how such a program can be financed. So far, they have not come up with a solution that could result in acceptable legislation.

I guess I could voluntarily withdraw from Medicare so that the cost of paying for my health care could be used to pay health care costs for those not yet eligible for Medicare (I'm certain Greg F. would approve of that)but I'm afraid that would make even less impact on health care costs than the "Dollars for Clunkers" program is going to benefit the environment.

I suppose Artbrooks is correct. Perhaps we have reached an impass.

I started this thread hoping it would be an opportunity for the "fors" and the "aginers" to express their views. I think it has done that.

DougR

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 12:23 PM

Quite the contrary, in fact. Experts say that Obama's proposals will drastically reduce the amount of money the government spends currently, and without health care reform, the deficit will continue to grow. Since we are paying about twice as much for health care in this country than in other developed countries, it is penny wise and pound foolish not to adopt a system that ensures health care for everyone. One of the reasons for this is that with the almost fifty million people in this country who don't have access to regular health care, the uninsured don't get preventive health care, and they don't seek medical attention until their problems become far more serious and far more expensive than they would be if they had been able to get medical attention much sooner. And they end up in hospital emergency rooms and unable to pay their bills.

Another reason this is costing everyone a lot of money is because the majority of bankruptcies and home foreclosures are because of people not having access to health care and not being able to pay their medical bills. This has a seriously negative effect on the housing market and on the property values of everyone who owns property, and it drives the whole economy down for everyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 01:13 PM

Who are the experts that project that the Obama health care proposal will REDUCE costs?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Aug 09 - 01:34 PM

Experts have predicted for years that Medicare and Medicaid themselves will not exist in just a few short years!

No, idiots, liars and right-wing propagandists have for more than 20 years predicted their imminent demise and continue to do so despite conclusive evidence to the contrary.

There are any number of ways to extend both in perpetuity- the most obvious of which is raising the income cap on contributions wch should have been done to keep pace with inflation decades ago.

Who are the experts that project that the Obama health care proposal will REDUCE costs?

Who are the experts, no, strike that, the idiots that predict it won't?