Quote:
|
Originally Posted by BigBen
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.
|
Thats called charity, when its not forced. I see no point to this response, and the snide bit about worshiping you shows you are still testy that someone said something bad about Canada. Odds are there is no point reading beyond this, but its early, I just put my son to bed for the night, my wife is at a concert, and I’m going to relax for half an hour or so before I start my reading for tonight, so I may as well keep reading..
Quote:
|
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.
|
The point should have been obvious, most people who say they can not ‘afford’ health care are really saying ‘I do not wish to pay for health care/insurance, I’d rather spend it on something else.’ If you really can’t afford health care, then it is in fact provided for you.
Quote:
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.
|
I read 50 percent, it may well BE 73.2 percent, it doesn’t change the point that the poor are in fact covered by the government. You should also ask yourself if its fair to compare the U.S. with Canada in terms of ‘healthy’ when we are talking about vastly different climates, peoples, and lifestyle. The US population is also older, and has more immigrants. Now if they compared it to rural minisota then perhaps we can talk about the WHO.
Quote:
|
Ooookay. You used the term slave there. I am wondering who will envoke the "Hitler Rule" of debate first.
|
We have to mention Hitler first.
Quote:
|
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?
|
Freedom isn’t fair, ever. You can be a fair people or a free people, you can’t be both equally. Initially there should have been no forced transfer of wealth in order to pay for others, thats what charity and families are for, but now we have the entitlement classes and entitlement mentality to deal with and politically that will not go away until the next world wide depression. As such, those who are inept or incapable of providing for themselves would be covered as they currently are, but adding everyone to that roll is just asking for a disaster long term.
Quote:
|
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.
|
Its going broke in Canada right now, around .22 of every dollar earned is taken by taxes specifically for health care. Wait times are long, and getting longer, you have people who take medical holidays to get procedures done, and recently Canadians finally got the right to see private health care (which was illegal) unless somehow that Supreme Court ruling has been circumvented some how. Funny how you have to fight for the right to pay double (once for the national plan and then for the private one). Is this because Canadians don’t want it to work?
Quote:
|
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 favor of eliminating all taxes and having people fend for themselves. That is not a society.
|
Taxes themselves don’t make you a slave. Being taxed and having that money given over to someone else just because they ‘need’ it does. When the western world got into the redistribution of wealth game in the 20th century, things started to go down hill. I think we are over taxed, I think most of it is a waste of money, and taxes should go for nothing beyond infrastructure, maintaining law, and national security. We may have had the best intentions with social programs, but they all tend to become entitlement monsters which never really solve the problem, and in some cases make it far worse.
Quote:
|
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?
|
http://www.leukaemia.com/leukaemia-f.../web/index.asp
Quote:
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
|
No it was pretty lousy. Horrible working environment. Sometimes it was great and you helped someone out, but more often then not the parents wouldn’t bother to return for treatment for their kid. VERY often you would see the system abusers come in. They had a nicer wardrobe then I owned, gold jewelry, cellphones, the works, and a blue card from child services for their kid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ustwo
Quote:
|
...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.
|
Quote:
|
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.
|
It doesn’t work that way, and MRI’s are a bitch to get in Canada but I hear they are working on improving at least that aspect since its so often cited as awful. You are arguing for rationed health care, which is great unless you have the cancer. Sooner or later you run out of money, and with governments I think you should realize its sooner rather than later. Government and efficient with money are NOT analogies. More like Government is to Money Efficiency as a blind man is to skeet shooting.
Quote:
Quote:
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.
|
Quote:
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.
|
At least you don’t deny the tax burden or the wait times.
Quote:
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.
|
It makes it harder to debate but it also makes it take less time to respond. We only have so much time to dedicate to this, at least I know my time is limited, in fact I’ve already given more time to this than I hoped.
Quote:
|
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.
|
I also have left out sources because if you really want to find them its an easy goggle and I think they do more to stifle debate than back it up. If someone wants to call out a source they can be provided (such as the tax burden or the wait times) but I think most people should be able to use google, there is no point in having more source than debate. I did notice your tone changed from pretty 'snippy' to start, to more rationed later on. I'll keep my snippyness in my first replies just to be fair
