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Originally Posted by Ustwo
If you want other people to pick up your health care bill you are lazy, period, you want others to work for you without giving anything in return. You want more from the system then you put in. Its being lazy...
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What if I want to subsidize other's care with my increased tax money? Am I extra hard working? Should people worship me and try to model my benevolent nature? What is the opposite of lazy? Because I want to work for others without getting anything in return; Thus, I am the opposite of your definition.
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
You don’t seem to get the point, so I’ll be clear. If all of your income beyond living expenses went to health care, would it be ‘affordable’? Yes you had the money, so could you afford it? When people say affordable what they are often saying isn’t ‘can I pay for it’ but ‘can I pay for it without it changing my lifestyle’.
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Oooooh! Can I use a tactic you use often? Define "All income beyond living expenses". Do retirement and entertainment expenses fall into this category? What I am trying to say is: Don't lose the forest for the trees here.
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
We all make choices in life, why should others pay for yours if your lifestyle can not be supported by your income? Fifty percent of all health care in this country is already funded by the government, I don’t see untreated disease in the streets like I have seen in other countries, SOMETHING must be working right, even for ministers kids.
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My statistics say that 73.2 percent of American healthcare is covered by government. Maybe we need to quote source after source in defence of our positions. Or maybe we can agree to leave stats out of this political debate.
BTW, I am comparing American healthcare with Canadian healthcare. The WTO and WHO did the same thing, and our population is healthier than yours, on average and all that. When you compare American healthcare to some third world country like Bangladesh or Sierra Leone, you are looking pretty good. That is the main reason why I hang out with fat, ugly people. I look skinny and beautiful by comparison.
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
...What you are asking is ‘is health care a right’ and the answer is no. Nothing that makes someone else a slave should be a right.
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Ooookay. You used the term slave there. I am wondering who will envoke the "Hitler Rule" of debate first.
Are taxes a method of 'enslaving' someone? How would your perfect system deal with people that cannot afford to pay for their necessary (and expensive) care?
I am not saying that Universal Healthcare is a Right. It is a social program that is a damn nice thing to have, and I would qualify it as a beautiful WANT. If everybody wants to make it work, than it can.
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
If you are forcing someone to give money/labor to support someone else, under penalty of law you have made them a slave and no one should have a 'right' to your labor, its the big mistake socialists all make, socialism makes us all into slaves.
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Do you pay taxes? Do you pay property taxes? Education taxes? Federal and state taxes? Municipal taxes? If you do, then you are already a "Slave". If you don't, then you are guilty of tax evasion and are a criminal. My point: You (america, and other civilized societies) have already created that system. I really don't know how to best defend your critique; it makes little sense to me. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but if I have it right, you would be in favour of eliminating all taxes and having people fend for themselves. That is not a society.
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
Should doctors be able to refuse care? Yes, doctors are people not machines, and you have no right to their time any more than I have a right to yours. Jane and Joe should have the means to bring a child to a doctor when they fall ill, I don’t know how Jane and Joe are, and no Jane and Joe in this country CAN’T take their child to see a doctor when they fall ill (I used to work in a free clinic for children). That being said Jane and Joe need to take a responsibility for having children INCLUDING a financial one.
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Oh. Okay. But what if that shitty situation happens where Jane and Joe's little girl gets Leukemia, and they had that basic insurance that has high copays and the like? Their financial situation provided basic insurance, nothing more. Should the child be left out due to her parents inability to afford comprehensive coverage?
You worked in a free clinic for children? Didn't you see the good things that happened there? Wouldn't you like to see that service provided for everyone, regardless of age?
And that clinic was not free, it was funded by the government. AKA the beginning of Universal Healthcare.
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
...Most medical procedures are not due to life threatening illness but are elective in that you won’t die if you don’t get them. They will often effect the quality of your life, but thats not an issue for socialized care.
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Yes, it is very much an issue for socialized care. In healthcare economics, and in social economics in general, this is called a QUALY, or Quality Adjusted Life Year. It is the amount of time gained by every healthcare dollar spent.
If I spend $50,000 to take an MRI of Ustwo's brain to see if he has that rare cancer or if it is just migrane headaches he is suffereing from, every year after that of quality life I have provided him is factored into the cost equation. I could also innoculate 25,000 children with a Polio vaccine at 2 bucks a shot, giving them each their entire lives without the risk of Polio. Which is more important? That is not for me to decide, thank the lord, but if it were the LAST $50,000 on earth, the very bottom of the barrel, then I think people would debate about the efficiencies of healthcare. I would rather take an extra $50,000 from private healthcare provider's profits or insurance company salaries to give both you and the 25,000 kids a better shot.
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
Anyone who thinks spending MORE of their tax money on less coverage then you can get with private insurance in the US is a smart move is uneducated in the system, period. I’m not going to sugar coat that one. People who need critical care in this country GET it already, but when I hear that a single mother in Canada making 38k a year pays $3346 a year for the health insurance that averages 19.9 weeks of wait time to SEE a doctor, and I hear people who don't have a clue about the system talk about how great it is and how we should force everyone on the US on it, I get a little steamed myself.
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I consider myself educated on the system. (notice that little dot next to the letter 'm' there? It is a period as well)
I don't like things that are sugar coated. They have been linked to type II diabetes.
You heard of a mother in Canada? Well, I heard of some pretty heinous shit about your system. That is why we are having this debate.
And a good steam is supposed to clear your pores and regulate your body tempurature. Very good for your health.
Last but not least: I have never torn someone's response apart, sentence by sentence before. It is a common tactic used by the people who frequent the Tilted Politics board, and I think it is a tactic that actually DISCOURAGES debate. I thought I would give it a try, because there were many things in Ustwo's post that I wanted to address.
It made me feel dirty, and less of a person. I don't like the way it looks when I previewed my post. It is almost like that person's thoughts are jumbled up in my own, and I leave it to the reader to decypher the text and argument.
I will also never quote source after source in defence of my position. The statistics battle has long been lost on both sides, and my academic career spent considerable time in showing that numbers can be manipulated for any purpose. I want to debate political philosophy, and delve into the topic of why opponents of Universal Healthcare are opposed to it. I don't want to compare apples and apples, because a Granny Smith apple tastes different than a MacIntosh. The onus is on the reader to become informed on the environment and the numes involved.