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Originally Posted by Gebbinn
I dont even know where to begin. I will keep it as short as I can.
The government health plan will cost billions of dollars, if not trillions.
Thats, 500,000,000,000... or 1,000,000,000,000. That money has to come from somewhere. There is no such thing as a government program taking less money, it doesn't happen. Obama's saying they are going to cut the fat from all these programs already in place to pay for socialized health care is just political haranguing. They will make it look like they are taking money, but they will just turn around and give it right back to the same people under a different name. So the net tax revenue to pay for all this is going to be astronomical. That money will come from "the rich" in the form of new taxes. "The Rich" are those people who pay the wages to 95% of all working Americans. So, they will have to pay more money to pay for socialized health care. To keep to the point... Employers will dump their private insurance plans, because it makes absolutely no fiscal sense for them to pay for two different health care systems, which is what the end result will be.
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And under Bush it was called 'the debt'. Instead of raising taxes or stabilizing unsustainable growth, the costs were just tacked onto the national debt. I'm not saying Obama is doing any better, but at least that 1 trillion is paid for today instead of putting it on future generations so we can live it up currently.
And the 1 trillion is just an estimate based on the assumption that anybody could sign up for the government plan I think. Why wouldn't the government plan raise it's rates to cover expenses year after year just like the health insurance companies do? The government doesn't need to have growth or profits though, and that's what scares the insurance companies and the Friedman/Rand capitalists.
There are cheap things we can do to lower health care costs, they just aren't politically popular. (Like having kids exercise 3-5 times a week at school in PE class, which would do more for their life/self esteem than any other class). Or even separating the overweight kids and putting them through a 'Biggest Loser TV Show' type of thing for 6 months. Other adults can do things to reduce the amount of health care they will use as well like monitoring blood pressure and getting simple blood tests, limit drug use, eat healthier food, exercise more, breathe cleaner air, be safe, etc...
I do think that the CDC should be able to provide vaccinations to the poor in the face of a general health emergency (like if the H1N1 virus had started to kill tens of thousands and there was a vaccine, but people couldn't pay for it). And there should be some insurance reform to make sure everyone can get it at a reasonable rate.
It is a complicated system and some things need to change, but I think they need to work on getting it right. Even if it means the insurance companies will have to lose some money.