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Reid says Obamacare just a step toward eventual single-payer system[W:1539]

wbcoleman said:
There is a well-developed economic theory of exhaustible resources. Obviously one needs to develop alternatives to resources which will be exhausted in, say, a year. But, a century? Five centuries? In a nutshell, prices tell us when to start exploring for alternatives. And so long as prices for the incumbent resources are far below those of the alternatives, we stick with the existing supply.
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yeah, but when oil starts getting scarce, it's going to be pretty bad if we don't have something else developed. it will also continue to be bloody. sitting on our hands and hopping merrily about like the grasshopper in September is poor energy policy. we need to be more like the ant.
 
Helix said:
i agree that we should also replace the oil-based transportation model, and i would support a NASA-type initiative to push the research and infrastructure expansion. right now, the profit is in oil, so there's little motivation to do the planning that we should be doing right now. oil won't be forever, and we should plan for that.

we're already providing health care access to everyone, it's delivered in the most stupid and inefficient way possible (emergency room as primary care,) and you're already paying for it. it would be much better to try something else.

as for your food and clothing analogy, i can buy food or clothes anywhere, and both are relatively inexpensive. plus, i can choose to put off any large purchases. ****, i can grow my own food if i want, and i do. if i need immediate care, though, i have maybe two options, and if i need emergency care, i have about one option. "shopping around" and hospitals having price wars with each other will not and cannot solve this problem.

we need to look at what the rest of the first world is doing, take the best parts of each program, and custom fit a solution. barring that, we need to just expand medicare to cover everyone. a percentage of the country will cry and scream over it, but in fifty years, they'll get over it and we'll just be a normal first world country with a sane health care system.
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What you, and many, fail to see is the bizarre use of term "insurance" when applied to medical care. Insurance is protection against the rare, unexpected and expensive events in life - not intended to cover routine maintanence. Imagine what auto insurance rates would be if they covered worn tire replcement, oil changes, and tune-ups; or what homeowners/renters insurance would cost if it covered periodic repainting, replacement of worn rugs/furniture and lawn maintanance.

What folks must understand is that even if you could reduce total US medical care costs from 1/6 of the GDP to 1/10 of GDP that would still be about $5K per person annually or a net tax increase of truely enormous proportions to fund that UHC system.
 
Helix said:
yeah, but when oil starts getting scarce, it's going to be pretty bad if we don't have something else developed. it will also continue to be bloody. sitting on our hands and hopping merrily about like the grasshopper in September is poor energy policy. we need to be more like the ant.
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The price will rise, that will be the signal. And I don't mean a catastrophic increase at the last moment.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
What you, and many, fail to see is the bizarre use of term "insurance" when applied to medical care. Insurance is protection against the rare, unexpected and expensive events in life - not intended to cover routine maintanence. Imagine what auto insurance rates would be if they covered worn tire replcement, oil changes, and tune-ups; or what homeowners/renters insurance would cost if it covered periodic repainting, replacement of worn rugs/furniture and lawn maintanance.

What folks must understand is that even if you could reduce total US medical care costs from 1/6 of the GDP to 1/10 of GDP that would still be about $5K per person annually or a net tax increase of truely enormous proportions to fund that UHC system.
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When I was a kid health insurance in the form of BCBS covered catastrophic expenses. Routine treatment was paid out of pocket. Why should medical care be universally prepaid?
 
wbcoleman said:
When I was a kid health insurance in the form of BCBS covered catastrophic expenses. Routine treatment was paid out of pocket. Why should medical care be universally prepaid?
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My point exactly. What the left wants is simply more income redistribution and gov't dependency/control. PPACA is simply a step in that direction, not in any way designed to reduce overall medical care costs.
 
Redress said:
You called the OP honest. ROFL. That would be like calling one of your threads honest. "Don't read the actual poll data, just take my word for it, I would never leave out important details" j-mac and his selective outrage strikes again. Clue: the OP contained several insults. Can you find them and bitch about them too?

:rofl
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Again with the personal attacks eh? Seems a pattern with you.
 
Healthcare System | Gallup Historical Trends

Capture.JPG

1. A majority of americans dont want govt run healthcare. So lets forget that myth.
2. single payer healthcare is socialist because it operates on a system where the rich pay more for the same service (and then dont use it because they pay for better private care anyway), so its wealth redistribution. and since the govt heavily regulates healthcare under this system (and owns most of the hospitals), its effectively govt control of production
3. ACA is a step towards single payer - duh
 
jonny5 said:
Healthcare System | Gallup Historical Trends

View attachment 67151978

1. A majority of americans dont want govt run healthcare. So lets forget that myth.
2. single payer healthcare is socialist because it operates on a system where the rich pay more for the same service (and then dont use it because they pay for better private care anyway), so its wealth redistribution. and since the govt heavily regulates healthcare under this system (and owns most of the hospitals), its effectively govt control of production
3. ACA is a step towards single payer - duh
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but..... but..... the more we get to know it, the more we'll like it! :2party:
 
calamity said:
people should have access to affordable healthcare
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I stripped out all the misdirection gobbledegook because I want to address this one small part of your post that interests me.

A couple of questions for you:

1. Do you think that people do not have access to affordable health care? Is there someone...somewhere...telling a person who has the money and wants to buy some health care that they can't have it?

2. What do you consider affordable? Do you think someone who earns minimum wage and has a family of four should be able to have health care when he has no means to pay for it? Or do you want that health care to cost something next to zero so he can afford it?

3. Do you think the government should provide the health care that guy wants? If so, where does the government get the money to pay for it? And what happens if the government doesn't have the money? Does the government then restrict the health care that guy gets? Or would you rather the government just borrow more money or print more money?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
The majority of campaign contributors and their lobbyists wanted exactly what we got or we would not have it. ;)
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as is the case with most laws.
 
calamity said:
What's with Wingnuts and their insistence on putting a "K" where there should be a "C"? Do they not realize how stupid it makes them look? Nobody takes serious a post that calls America "AmeriKa" or Obamacare "ObamaKare". WTF?
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kalm down.
 
Mycroft said:
I stripped out all the misdirection gobbledegook because I want to address this one small part of your post that interests me.

A couple of questions for you:

1. Do you think that people do not have access to affordable health care? Is there someone...somewhere...telling a person who has the money and wants to buy some health care that they can't have it?

2. What do you consider affordable? Do you think someone who earns minimum wage and has a family of four should be able to have health care when he has no means to pay for it? Or do you want that health care to cost something next to zero so he can afford it?

3. Do you think the government should provide the health care that guy wants? If so, where does the government get the money to pay for it? And what happens if the government doesn't have the money? Does the government then restrict the health care that guy gets? Or would you rather the government just borrow more money or print more money?
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And thats really the debate that we havent had yet. Whether the govt has the power to spend taxmoney on healthcare, and whether the states would even vote to give them that power. I dont think they do. The federal govt does not pay for people to have water, food (generally), housing (generally), or clothing. Why is healthcare different?
 
wbcoleman said:
So why didn't they vote in single payer? Because THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE VOTES. And why didn't they have the votes? Because THE COUNTRY DOESN'T WANT IT. So what does one make of a scheme to secure an outcome which the country doesn't want by wrecking the existing insurance market and then presenting the necessity of single payer as a fait accompli?
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you seem to be falling under the delusion that if congress doesn't want something then that means america didn't want it. that's a whole lot of faith you have in a congress with the lowest approval rating in history.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
If that is what "the people" wanted then why did the demorats replace that "wanted UHC" with the PPACA mess that we now must endure? Could it be the simple fact that Medicare is grossly underfunded, even while not allowing any benefits until age 65? You cannot fund 18% of the US economy with a 2% to 9.5% tax.
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a more reasonable explanation would be because many dems get their campaign funding from insurance companies just like the GOP.
 
poweRob said:
you seem to be falling under the delusion that if congress doesn't want something then that means america didn't want it. that's a whole lot of faith you have in a congress with the lowest approval rating in history.
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If you look at the politics of Summer, 2009, and again the politics of Summer and Fall, 2010, I think it's real, REAL hard to argue that political support for the passage of Obamacare existed. Quite the contrary!
 
wbcoleman said:
If you look at the politics of Summer, 2009, and again the politics of Summer and Fall, 2010, I think it's real, REAL hard to argue that political support for the passage of Obamacare existed. Quite the contrary!
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well by your logic congress passed it because people wanted it. that's not my logic.
 
poweRob said:
well by your logic congress passed it because people wanted it. that's not my logic.
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By my logic, Congress passed it because Nancy Pelosi and Dingy Harry steamrollered it through over the objections, not only of the American people, but of their own members, many of whom [in the House] wound up losing their seats as a result.
 
wbcoleman said:
By my logic, Congress passed it because Nancy Pelosi and Dingy Harry steamrollered it through over the objections, not only of the American people, but of their own members, many of whom [in the House] wound up losing their seats as a result.
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Which is why I dont support majority rule. Or even 60% majorities. Significant changes should have nearly unanimous support, not just one party support.
 
jonny5 said:
Which is why I dont support majority rule. Or even 60% majorities. Significant changes should have nearly unanimous support, not just one party support.
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Hey, the Democrats had 60% support or close to in BOTH houses and they STILL had to sweat blood to get the scheme passed!
 
jonny5 said:
And thats really the debate that we havent had yet. Whether the govt has the power to spend taxmoney on healthcare, and whether the states would even vote to give them that power. I dont think they do. The federal govt does not pay for people to have water, food (generally), housing (generally), or clothing. Why is healthcare different?
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Oh, liberals like calamity (he's a liberal...even if he does call himself a centrist) don't want to have that debate...they just want it to happen. And they don't mind it if their chosen politicians enact something like Obamacare. You see, they know...just like Reid knows...that it's just a step toward getting the government control of the country's health care system that they desire.

But don't worry, they'll work on water, food and the rest of it in due course.
 
Mycroft said:
I stripped out all the misdirection gobbledegook because I want to address this one small part of your post that interests me.

A couple of questions for you:

1. Do you think that people do not have access to affordable health care? Is there someone...somewhere...telling a person who has the money and wants to buy some health care that they can't have it?

2. What do you consider affordable? Do you think someone who earns minimum wage and has a family of four should be able to have health care when he has no means to pay for it? Or do you want that health care to cost something next to zero so he can afford it?

3. Do you think the government should provide the health care that guy wants? If so, where does the government get the money to pay for it? And what happens if the government doesn't have the money? Does the government then restrict the health care that guy gets? Or would you rather the government just borrow more money or print more money?
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1. At a cost of $6K to 15k for insuring a family, I'd say that's pretty easy to answer. No. Most people do not have access to affordable healthcare, and it has become a huge burden on businesses to provide health insurance to their employees.

2. Affordable would be free healthcare paid for by taxes.

3. Cutting wasteful spending on border security we don't need and building additional aircraft carrier groups on top of the 10 or so we already have would go a long way toward helping to pay the cost.
 
Mycroft said:
Oh, liberals like calamity (he's a liberal...even if he does call himself a centrist) don't want to have that debate...they just want it to happen. And they don't mind it if their chosen politicians enact something like Obamacare. You see, they know...just like Reid knows...that it's just a step toward getting the government control of the country's health care system that they desire.

But don't worry, they'll work on water, food and the rest of it in due course.
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Water is a public resource. If you want privatized water, see how well that worked out for Texas.
A Texan tragedy: Plenty of oil, but no water | The Raw Story
 
wbcoleman said:
TRICARE is indistinguishable from Medicare. For people who have both, TRICARE is simply Medicare supplemental insurance.
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End care is not the same thing. TRICARE includes a healthcare option where you go to a government hospital, see a government doctor, and get government own drugs. The means of production of healthcare is government owned. MEDICARE doesn't have this.

If people were actually afraid of Socialized Healthcare, they'd be first calling to turn TRICARE entirely private. You don't see this. Because they're hypocrites. Or stupid. Or ignorant.
 
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