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Originally Posted by Light of Icarus
Hmm a pretty sound theory... Yet.. I don't know anybody who is pleased with the post office nor police, maybe the fire department but seeing as I haven't had any experience with them... Do you want to live in an America where they dictate what you think, what you eat, what you drive, or even what you do with your life? The choices you make versus what they want you to do. Would we be human beings if we didn't make our own mistakes in life. And the government is pretty much trying to eliminate those mistakes to make our lives better.
It is socialist to take control of individual companies and say if you don't do this and this then you're going to jail. I.E. When they took over the automobile companies. I cry socialism because I see it as a problem, I don't care about government run facilities. As far as it matters to me let them keep certain things, because you're right on one thing... They're good at certain jobs which if left up to common people it would fail.
The private health care corporations do offer health care at a high price. They tend to cut the high risk clients, like you said. But is it fair to fine people that don't have a job and can't afford this high rated bullshit? Is it fair that senior citizens have to suffer, even though they've contributed to the economy for their entire life?
All I'm saying is that if the government step up and take control of our health care then they need to do it at lower priced rates because if they expect people who're out of work to be able to afford a fine for not having it then they need to lower the cost to make it more readily available for said people.
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Health reform has been debated for decades and experts have been considering the problem of the poor affording coverage under a system with an individual mandate for some time. Obviously you can't pass a health care plan with an individual mandate that doesn't offer so-called hardship exemptions for those unable to afford health care. For the poor, the new health care bill will likely increase Medicaid (a joint federal-state program that helps pay for health care expenses) coverage to people earning somewhere around 133% of poverty. In addition, today's news indicates that the final bill will likely give subsidies (in the form of tax credits) to households earning somewhere between 300% and 400% of poverty in order to offset the cost of health care premiums. All of these measures are designed to help the poor or working class afford health care.
Furthermore, I fail to see how on earth universal health care is equivalent to the government controlling how you think, what you eat, what you drive, or how you live your life. The fact is that our economy cannot sustain itself under the current health care system. The costs of the system are so great that they will literally drag down the economy of the United States as the boomers begin to age. Putting aside the fact that it is criminal to have 47 million uninsured people, or that health care in the US stinks, or that single-payer systems work just fine, the fact is that by acting on this issue Congress is preventing a national catastrophe. Since the employer-based, private insurance run system is going to be left in tact, most people won't even notice much of a difference when this bill goes into effect. How any of this translates into totalitarianism is beyond me.
There are a million other things I could say (about the public option, health care exchanges, etc.) but basically what we're going to wind up with in a month or two is a Rube Goldberg-ian plan designed to get universal health care and start reigning in our health care costs because we have too many political roadblocks to do something sensible like the Wyden plan or single-payer.
P.S. The Postal Service operates everywhere. Anything I give them, shows up where I want it to in a reasonable amount of time. When I move, I can instantly have all my mail forwarded by clicking a few buttons online. Their customer service isn't great, but it's better than I've had with, say, Comcast. In fact, their service is better than I get from Comcast. And when it comes to health care, the VA health care system is actually far and away the best in the United States. I wouldn't want the government to sell me TVs, but I know I hate having private insurance companies control whether or not I get health care procedures. The government IS good at running certain things.
P.P.S. I'm not sure why you're so worried about old people receiving health insurance. Seniors are automatically eligible for Medicare right now, which is relatively highly rated and far better than any private insurance I'll ever receive. In fact, seniors have the least to gain from health care reform because they already enjoy the ample benefits of a well-functioning single-payer system.