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  1. #12
    Tree Killer Senior Member Beirut's Avatar
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    Default Re: American Socialism

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    Medical costs alone do not cause bankruptcy - its the associated loss of income because the individual is hurt or focused on caring for the sick member of the family. Inother words this arguement does not meet all the requirements as the cause for filing bankruptcy. Then again if the insurance attempts to cut off on going treatment that was initially covered - the insurance company faces several legal issues for doing so. Insurance can only stop treatment if their is a cap on the coverage.
    If Joe Average gets hit with a massive health care bill, in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, I'm thinking his loss of income will simply be the icing on the cake of his financial destitution. The point is that no one should have to lose their home to pay for health care.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't roughly half of all American bankruptcies due to medical costs? And aren't the majority of those bankruptcies involving people who had medical insurance?

    As for the insurance compnaies cutting people off, they do it pretty much at will from what I've seen. They have the money, the lawyers, and they are fighting back when healthy; the patient is fighting sick, often broke, and with the least costly legal backup.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    Again provide stats that demonstrated that when one losing there job because of medical reasons that socialize medicine prevents the individual from going bankrupt or suffering major finicial setback. This statement is to general when speaking of how medical issues effect one's income.
    What's too general about Joe Average getting hit with bills beyond his (and most normal people's) ability to pay? It's neither rocket surgery nor brain science to see that getting a monstrous health care bill is detrimental to one's economic well being. Socialized medicine does not hit the patient with any such bill.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    I dont necessarily agree or disagree. Immediate health care for life and limb is alreadly established by law here. After that the current method is that the individual is responsible for their health.
    I prefer the method where all health care required is mandated by law.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    Basic health is a personal responsiblity. To attempt to claim that the government must provide services for a basic responsiblity of the individual does not sit well with me. If you only discussing the treatment that follows after the immediate treatment after an injury that threatens life or limb then I would agree, however your arguement has not been that.
    My argument is simple; all medical costs to all patients should be covered by a government run socialized health care plan. Ba-da-bing!

    Basic health care is a personal responsibility, no one denies that. But a girl I grew up with got meningitis in Grade 1 and required ten-years of horrendous treatments to cure her, I would have been hard pressed to hold either her or her parents responsible for her illness. As Forrest Gump said, "*** happens."

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    Name one plan that alreadly exists in the United States to change from for profit medicine to socialized medicine that goes beyond the surface political speech for general health care. I am not aware of any such plan. Using plans of other nations might be a good start - but no politician has broached that idea. Since I can only write the ineffective state senator and congresswomen of my district - and the other members of congress - it is ignored because the general voting population has not yet bought into socialized medicine.
    I'm only saying what should and can be done. Don't blame me because your elected officials aren't doing it. Most industrialized nations have socialized health care. We demanded it and we got it. You're going to have to do it for yourself.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    I rather the helping hand come from family and friends - personal problems are for personal fixes - not government involvement.
    Sure, if you need help putting the BBQ together or are drunk and need to talk to someone, call uncle Fred. But unless Fred knows how to tie off an artery or diagnose a heart defect in a child, I'd prefer to keep him hands off the more serious stuff.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    Read again - I said he often feels he does not need insurance - the young are often deluded about their mortality.
    Aren't we all. But the point is still valid that young people with low paying jobs are probably very hard put to get insurance coverage that will cover all potential problems.


    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    Here is the crux - not only does congress and the president have to develop a workable plan - they have to convince the voting public that it will benefit the nation. Again neither has been done.
    But it should be done. If you guys can free the slaves, split the atom, put a man on the moon, and claim sole superpower status and leadership of the free world, then I'm sure you can manage to take care of your own people. Otherwise, what are you doing it all for? Pardon my ignorance and/or naive mental state, but isn't "America taking care of Americans" the whole raison d'etre of America?

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    Still a buerueracy is it not? I would image that if one delves into the fraud waste and abuse of the system one would find shocking data. We sort of had a discussion along these line a year or two ago, and it was easy for me to find. Since I am currently just arguing from my own personal opinion - I will only mention that any governmental program is prone to such problems and governmental buerueracies run by elected officials often are some of the worst.
    Everything is a bureaucracy. You can't buy a chocolate bar without encountering some level of bureaucracy. Life without bureaucracy is life in a cave. And since nothing is perfect, and since bureaucracies are omnipresent in today's society, you're kind of stuck between a rock and hard place.

    Governments and corporations are both guilty of waste and coruption. The difference is I have more control over my government than the corporations.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    The current escalation of the debt is partly because of that. The large part of the debt comes from a failure over the last 40-50 years to balance the budget. Blaming the current conflict only address a small part of the issue. Now Imagine if the money was not spent and the budget was balanced the way the constitution spells out? So this arguement is counter productive because you are speaking of spending money that the government does not have - and either way the government would be incorrect in doing so.
    Blaming the current conflict addresses a trillion dollars or more of the issue. And that trillion dollars+ does not take into account the damage done to the economy by having tens of thousands of wounded soldiers coming home who will require further, often life long, medical care, and who will no longer contribute to the economy of the country. It's a pooch screwing of Everest-ian proportions.

    If Bush hadn't gone bonkers and ruined your economy, you would have the option taking on a reasonable deficit for a certain period of time, a financial shock absorber of sorts, to finance a socialized health care system and get it on its feet until the system and finances are worked out.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    Again there are programs alreadly establish just for this at the national level. Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Welfare programs, Unemployment insurance. At the state and local level there is also Food Stamp programs, welfare program, Medical care programs via county health clinics, and others.
    Not good enough. Not by a country mile. Especially not good enough in a country as prosperous as yours and one that espouses Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as the basic tenets of it's social structure. And whose only reason, it appears, for not having socialized health care, is that it lacks the will to overcome the problems inherent in building and administering such a plan. It smacks of defeatism and I don't buy it for a microsecond.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    So once again assistance is alreadly there. The problem is that many programs are not probably used by the citizens or they are to ashamed to use the program. If a person needs help - they have to just ask and it often can be accomplished.
    The assistance that is there is too little. People are being cut off or denied out of hand.

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    I notice that in this discussion you often ignore the Medicare and Medicaid programs - which are programs geared to assist the elderly on fixed incomes and those in unforunate situations that need assistance. This is one of the major proplems I have with your position - you ignore the fact that the United States government currently has a system to provide medicial care to those in need. Is it because you don't understand these programs? Or is it that you ignore them because they do not meet your definition of socialized medicine? To claim that the American Government ignores those in need because of health issues - is only an emotional arguement when one begins to connect the dots about programs that alreadly exist. You might argue that the systems are not adequate, but claim that because a large percentage of american is uninsured requires a new socialized medicial program be established does not compute to me.
    What I understand is that tens of millions of Americans have no health insurance and millions more are underinsured.

    If millions of your own people are in dire need of life saving assistance and you do not think that is an adequate reason for the formulation of a national social plan to help them... what is?

    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    Now I think Medicare and Medicaid are both full of fraud, waste, and abuse because they are solely managed by the government and is used as a reason for insurance companies to deny coverage to elderly americans requires them to be overhauled into better programs - but both are socialized medical programs, run like insurance companies by inebt government officials.
    As stated, I'll take the government I don't trust over the corporation I don't trust any day.


    Quote Originally Posted by Redleg
    The problem Beriut is that no system has full access to health care without reservation. Health care is like all other governmental programs - it has a finite source of supply. Every system has a cost regardless of how it is done.
    Of course. Every system has holes. Every system has waste. Every system has people fall through the cracks. But at least socialized health care has as a fundamental, legal, and inviolable social-contract tenet of its very existence that all people will be treated equally without any regard to their income or ability to pay.

    My God, that sounds so American I might just bake an apple pie.
    Last edited by Beirut; 06-10-2008 at 22:48. Reason: Becuse i kant spel.
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