Health Care Question

[Deuce]

You can keep trying to sugar coat it but truth is in the house version of the health care bill the would be a panel deciding if your condition is a,b,c,or d ETC. to decide what treatment you get if any.

This isn't true in any of the OECD countries, and I want you to source that for the current bills. Show me which bill and which section. I read HR3200 myself, and did not come to that conclusion.

 

[Deuce]

I would support regulation not government take over.

I show facts and you spin around them

You show "facts" but don't source them.

edit to add quotes around facts. How should I know you aren't making them up?

 

[ptif219]

This isn't true in any of the OECD countries, and I want you to source that for the current bills. Show me which bill and which section. I read HR3200 myself, and did not come to that conclusion.

Watch video at post #89 this thread

Yes i have health insurance i pay for myself and i have been unemployed since last March

 

[Deuce]

Watched part of it so far. I assume you're referring to the lady talking about the preventative services panel.

She's wrong. The committee does make recommendations for coverage, but recommendations are not law, and the bill also codifies certain basic coverage that can't be removed. Furthermore, you're losing the big picture:

This bill doesn't force anyone to use "government health care." You can still keep your private insurance company and are subject to whatever they cover or don't cover. As long as they meet minimum acceptable standards, they can cover or not cover whatever they want.

edit: Although I'm making assumptions as to which bill she's reading. She didn't name one specifically.

 

[ptif219]

Watched part of it so far. I assume you're referring to the lady talking about the preventative services panel.

She's wrong. The committee does make recommendations for coverage, but recommendations are not law, and the bill also codifies certain basic coverage that can't be removed. Furthermore, you're losing the big picture:

This bill doesn't force anyone to use "government health care." You can still keep your private insurance company and are subject to whatever they cover or don't cover. As long as they meet minimum acceptable standards, they can cover or not cover whatever they want.

edit: Although I'm making assumptions as to which bill she's reading. She didn't name one specifically.

Nice dodge but that is congresswoman Burns. The panels are under the health department which under the house bill would have had powers not under congress scrutiny.

 

[Conservative]

Ah yes, the old "my personal experience" and "the real world" arguments. "I know this stuff and you don't so that makes me right and you wrong." Easy to say. How about my counter-argument. I'm smarter than you, I know more about the health insurance and healthcare system because my family has had all sorts of health problems. I know the system better than anybody who isn't a doctor or nurse. You don't know anything.

Not sure who this is directed to but I am smarter than you from an experience standpoint, your book smarts don't make you smart and in fact actually make you look and sound foolish.

Nothing that has been proposed changes the cost of healthcare because it doesn't address the costs associated with healthcare. Until you define all the costs of healthcare you cannot address those costs.

Isn't that easy? Man, all I have to do is claim to know more and instantly I win the argument!

Tell us your qualifications that make you an expert? Reading makes you book smart to a point, actually employing people and working with bureaucracies of Govt. makes your street smart

Why should you pay for other people's healthcare?

I shouldn't pay for other people's insurance nor should you but that is what Govt. run or sponsored healthcare does. The Constitution does not authorize forcing people to pay for anything thus it will be forced through taxpayer funding.

Do you have health insurance?

Yes and I pay monthly premiums and have for 35 years

The premise upon which health insurance functions is paying for the healthcare of others. In turn, they pay for your healthcare should you happen to need it. Pooled risk is the term.

Pooled by individual contributions made by private insurance holders who made the choice, not forced insurance.

You think I'm reading a textbook? I live in the real world. I've worked my ass off for years in an industry that pays way less than it should and FAR less than the general public thinks. Yes, there are a lot of stupid young people who don't think they need insurance. So? They're young and inexperienced, does that make them deserving of bankruptcy due to random acts of god? Does it make them deserving of death?

Actually stupid people stay in dead end jobs then complain about it. With personal choice comes consequences of which may be bankruptcy. Some have a problem as they are forced to by the things they want instead of buying the things they need. You and others fail to accept personal responsibility as having consequences.

You claim that "only" 10 million people can't afford insurance. Back up that claim somehow.

U.S. Census Bureau on the Unisured. You claim research is the key, so do it.

You said yourself: The fire department protects life and property. What the hell do you think doctors do? They defend our bodies from things the police can't protect us from: injury and illness. Disease spreads to others, killing others. There's your "common defense" justification for healthcare, as it if were needed.

Doctors perform a function but have nothing to do with protecting people from foreign and domestic enemies. Read the Constitution and quit making a fool of yourself. State and local taxes pay for the fire department, not the Federal govt. You choose where to live therefore you choose what level of protection to have.

For the record: Would you be in favor of state-based Universal Healthcare? I.E. the New Hampshire government says that all healthcare in NH will run through a NH-Medicare program. Funded by state taxes and delivered to all citizens in place of current private health insurance.

Nope, health insurance is a personal responsibility but Iwill leave that up to the people of any particular state. What N.H. does is up to the people of N.H. Good luck with getting quality service through that system. Medicare is underpaying doctors and thus is being dropped by healthcare providers.

Did you know that the Canadian system is state-based? Well, sortof. They call them provinces up there.

Sort of is right, if you don't like what we have here, move there. The grass is always greener on the other side until you get there.

 

[Deuce]

Powers... over what, exactly?

Do you really not grasp this? Even HR3200, the most liberal bill that made it anywhere in congress, did not force you onto a public option or even the insurance exchange.

If your employer offered insurance that met the established standards, you could stay with that insurance policy and nothing would change. Say you had an insurance policy that did not meet those standards. For example, the deductible on your policy was $7500 and the law stated $5000 was the new maximum.

You could still keep your insurance plan. Although I certainly wouldn't recommend doing so! However, NEW plans could not be issued of this nature.

This is a fundamental concept you need to grasp. With the current bills, if you pay a private insurance company for a plan and get your healthcare from a private hospital or physician, there isn't any new panel that decides which sort of care you can or cannot receive. If the doctor says chemotherapy, you get chemotherapy. If your insurance policy covers it, your insurance policy covers it. The panel created does not have the authority to say that chemotherapy treatment is not approved for X condition with Y situation and no doctor anywhere can prescribe it.

edit: I'll clarify more. That panel recommends changes to existing government bodies. Medicare, Medicaid, etc. They're creating a panel to help guide Medicare better because right now Congress is doing it in a convoluted matter that doesn't involve very many actual healthcare professionals. They want doctor's inputs and actual research to help them decide what Medicare should pay for and what it shouldn't.

 

[Conservative]

Deuce;1058543303]
You claim that "only" 10 million people can't afford insurance. Back up that claim somehow.

The numbers being thrown around are 47 million uninsured in this country. Here is what the U.S. Census claims and how they breakdown that number

According to the Census Bureau, of that 47 million, 38 percent of them (18 million) have personal incomes of more than $50,000 a year. This means that they can afford coverage, and choose not to purchase it.

Now that leaves us with 29 million uninsured left to explain.

Of that 29 million uninsured, the biggest chunk of them aren't even citizens. Their number is about 12.6 million, or 27 percent of the original '47 million uninsured' number. This could be a higher percentage, because many prominent think tanks place the number of illegal immigrants as high as 20 million, instead of the 12 or 13 million figure.

Subtract the 12.6 number from the remaining 29 million uninsured number, and we come to the next stage of our breakdown, 16.4 million uninsured.

Of that remaining 16.4 million uninsured, 8 million are under the age of 18. If the parents of these young ones cannot afford to cover them either on their own family plans or independently, there are public insurance options already available for them but their parents have just not signed them up.

So that leaves us with 8.4 million uninsured, a figure less than 3 percent of the American population, and many of these are 18-20 something’s who choose not to purchase health coverage because they think that they won't get sick! Health experts actually refer to this age group as the 'invincibles!' The remainder of this 8.4 million uninsured are low income and could easily be covered by either federal Medicare or state run Medicaid or some charity insurance programs, and they for whatever reason have chosen not to go and get signed up.

 

[Deuce]

Edit for above ^^^: Now we're getting somewhere! This is what I've been asking for all along.

Sort of is right, if you don't like what we have here, move there. The grass is always greener on the other side until you get there.

So you are saying that if I see a serious problem in the American system I should just run away? Not try to fix it?

Sorry. I'll stay.

Doctors have nothing to do with foreign and domestic enemies, but neither do fire fighters. You're ok with state and local fire and police protection, but not ok with state and local health protection?

I'll try to go about this another way, because you keep coming back to the personal responsibility thing, that it isn't your responsibility to pay for health insurance of others.


1)You already pay for the healthcare of others. When a patient with no insurance goes to the ER, they get a bill they can't pay. Who pays? You do, in higher premiums (the hospital overbills insured patients to make up part of the difference) and also taxes (we help prop up hospitals through taxes because we need them to run.

2)We can't turn away patients who can't pay. It's wrong to let a man bleed out or die of a disease just because he's poor, regardless of the reason for him being poor.

3)Since you're already paying for emergency healthcare for the uninsured, wouldn't you prefer to pay less? Preventative care reduces long-term costs. If pneumonia is caught early, the doctor hands you a $100 bottle of antibiotics and you're fine in three days. If the patient instead stays home and tries to ride it out, it often deteriorates into an ER visit that costs thousands. If you instead paid for a health insurance policy for this guy, he would have gone to a GP on day 3 instead of an ER on day 7.

4)Shouldn't that guy you're paying for pay his own fair share? After all, by refusing to buy health insurance and going to the ER, he's dumping off his cost onto you and me, while not contributing a dime. Funneling some of his taxes into healthcare makes sure he's doing his part.

edit: One more clarification.

I'm not a big fan of the current bills. They only address a small portion of the uninsured population, and don't tackle many of the reasons that costs are so high. It's just a giant bailout of private health insurance companies. This isn't government takeover of healthcare, it's government handing 30 million customers to private companies under penalty of law!

 

[Conservative]

I'll try to go about this another way, because you keep coming back to the personal responsibility thing, that it isn't your responsibility to pay for health insurance of others.


1)You already pay for the healthcare of others. When a patient with no insurance goes to the ER, they get a bill they can't pay. Who pays? You do, in higher premiums (the hospital overbills insured patients to make up part of the difference) and also taxes (we help prop up hospitals through taxes because we need them to run.

2)We can't turn away patients who can't pay. It's wrong to let a man bleed out or die of a disease just because he's poor, regardless of the reason for him being poor.

3)Since you're already paying for emergency healthcare for the uninsured, wouldn't you prefer to pay less? Preventative care reduces long-term costs. If pneumonia is caught early, the doctor hands you a $100 bottle of antibiotics and you're fine in three days. If the patient instead stays home and tries to ride it out, it often deteriorates into an ER visit that costs thousands. If you instead paid for a health insurance policy for this guy, he would have gone to a GP on day 3 instead of an ER on day 7.

4)Shouldn't that guy you're paying for pay his own fair share? After all, by refusing to buy health insurance and going to the ER, he's dumping off his cost onto you and me, while not contributing a dime. Funneling some of his taxes into healthcare makes sure he's doing his part.

You continue to have a problem understanding the issue. We do not need a massive govt. insurance program to handle the uninsured. We need to solve the problem. Illegals need to be sent home and have their bills charged to the country of origin. If that cost isn't paid deduct it from foreign aid.

people that can afford insurance but refuse to purchase it should be charged for their healthcare costs and if they don't pay have it turned over to a collection agency.

Medicare and Medicaid plus SCHP are available and not being used.

There are plenty of rich people who have catostrophic insurance coverage and pay for everything else. They are classified as uninsured but shouldn't be.

You continue to buy the govt. spin and still have not offered true solutions to the problem. Nothing the govt. has proposed lowers healthcare costs and improves service. No one will ever solve the problem without first identifying all the costs associated and addressing those costs.

 

[Deuce]

Biggest cost contributers:

Administrative Redundancy. We have dozens of insurance companies and thousands of insurance plans that all have to be coordinated with tens or hundreds of thousands of doctor's offices. Single-payer solves this issue, having only one entity to negotiate pay rates, send bills to, and coordinate plans with saves billions in useless paperwork.

Administrative Overhead. Medicare runs with a 3% overhead. Private insurance 20-30%, although this includes a profit margin. Government programs are not as "bloated and inefficient" as you think.

Profit. Profit is the primary goal of a health insurance company. Not helping patients, not providing care. Every dollar they spend on you is a dollar out of their pockets. They literally have an incentive to not cover you. I think insurance, at the least, should be a non-profit industry. After all, people don't really have a choice in whether or not they get sick, and if you make under $200k/year, there's no way you can cover a heart transplant yourself. You need insurance, unless you're extremely wealthy.

Bad price negotiations. There's a reason Canadians pay so much less for drugs, so much less to the point where it's actually cheaper to re-import our own drugs back from Canada. And it's not what Pharma companies say: it's not because we shoulder the R&D budget with private spending. the majority of R&D is funded publicly. The reason Canadians pay less is that they have a massive base of customers to negotiate with. If PharmaTech wants to sell Pill X to Canada, they are willing to cut heavily into their profits to open up a customer base of millions. If they don't PillCorp will step in and fill that huge market. Smaller pools of customers, as happens in smaller insurance companies, can't negotiate with that much power. The same principle applies to any medical procedure. You can bargain for cheaper MRI's with a larger base too.

Malpractice. Holy crap doctors spend a lot of malpractice insurance. And adding to this is the cost of defensive medicine, which can't really be measured. Between the fear of lawsuits and the fee-for-service model, there's a huge incentive for doctors to perform more tests, different tests, expensive tests, do everything to avoid missing something. Which leads to:

Fee-for-service. Doctors should be paid salary. Fee-for-service gives doctors an incentive to spend less time with their patients, run more tests, and in general make decisions that go against their best medical opinions. "Well, Billy probably just has a migraine, but I get paid more if I run an MRI, and I'd hate to run the risk of a lawsuit because it turns out Billy never mentioned he hit his head the other day and it's actually a concussion." Doctors should make their decisions entirely on medical expertise. Removing any financial or legal ramifications would help that.

I've got more but there's a football game to get to. Offer up some of your own cost-bleeds and solutions to them. It's easy to say "oh the problem can't be fixed because nobody offers solutions." So offer solutions.

Where did you get the idea that I wasn't "street smart?" You don't know my age, experience, work history, or education. I've been a working individual in a lower tax bracket than you, it seems, so don't tell me I don't know what it's like "on the street."

 

[Conservative]

Biggest cost contributers:

Administrative Redundancy. We have dozens of insurance companies and thousands of insurance plans that all have to be coordinated with tens or hundreds of thousands of doctor's offices. Single-payer solves this issue, having only one entity to negotiate pay rates, send bills to, and coordinate plans with saves billions in useless paperwork.

Administrative Overhead. Medicare runs with a 3% overhead. Private insurance 20-30%, although this includes a profit margin. Government programs are not as "bloated and inefficient" as you think.

Profit. Profit is the primary goal of a health insurance company. Not helping patients, not providing care. Every dollar they spend on you is a dollar out of their pockets. They literally have an incentive to not cover you. I think insurance, at the least, should be a non-profit industry. After all, people don't really have a choice in whether or not they get sick, and if you make under $200k/year, there's no way you can cover a heart transplant yourself. You need insurance, unless you're extremely wealthy.

Bad price negotiations. There's a reason Canadians pay so much less for drugs, so much less to the point where it's actually cheaper to re-import our own drugs back from Canada. And it's not what Pharma companies say: it's not because we shoulder the R&D budget with private spending. the majority of R&D is funded publicly. The reason Canadians pay less is that they have a massive base of customers to negotiate with. If PharmaTech wants to sell Pill X to Canada, they are willing to cut heavily into their profits to open up a customer base of millions. If they don't PillCorp will step in and fill that huge market. Smaller pools of customers, as happens in smaller insurance companies, can't negotiate with that much power. The same principle applies to any medical procedure. You can bargain for cheaper MRI's with a larger base too.

Malpractice. Holy crap doctors spend a lot of malpractice insurance. And adding to this is the cost of defensive medicine, which can't really be measured. Between the fear of lawsuits and the fee-for-service model, there's a huge incentive for doctors to perform more tests, different tests, expensive tests, do everything to avoid missing something. Which leads to:

Fee-for-service. Doctors should be paid salary. Fee-for-service gives doctors an incentive to spend less time with their patients, run more tests, and in general make decisions that go against their best medical opinions. "Well, Billy probably just has a migraine, but I get paid more if I run an MRI, and I'd hate to run the risk of a lawsuit because it turns out Billy never mentioned he hit his head the other day and it's actually a concussion." Doctors should make their decisions entirely on medical expertise. Removing any financial or legal ramifications would help that.

I've got more but there's a football game to get to. Offer up some of your own cost-bleeds and solutions to them. It's easy to say "oh the problem can't be fixed because nobody offers solutions." So offer solutions.

Where did you get the idea that I wasn't "street smart?" You don't know my age, experience, work history, or education. I've been a working individual in a lower tax bracket than you, it seems, so don't tell me I don't know what it's like "on the street."

Great list, now tell me how the Healthcare plans in Congress address those costs? That is the point, you cannot lower the costs of healthcare insurance without identifying them. You started the list but the Govt. is ignoring that list. Govt. bureaucrats running healthcare should scare the hell out of you. My bet is we really aren't as far off as you might think.

I too am going to a Football Party. BBL

 

[Deuce]

Great list, now tell me how the Healthcare plans in Congress address those costs? That is the point, you cannot lower the costs of healthcare insurance without identifying them. You started the list but the Govt. is ignoring that list. Govt. bureaucrats running healthcare should scare the hell out of you. My bet is we really aren't as far off as you might think.

I too am going to a Football Party. BBL

You and I are in agreement about the current healthcare bills, we just think it should go in opposite directions. Despite what Republicans are calling it, the current bill really is the ultimate compromise: Everyone is left equally miserable.

Government running healthcare doesn't scare the hell out of me because quite frankly privately run death panels with no oversight at all scare me more than a government panel. Government can be voted out, health insurance currently is a privately run oligarchy. You don't have any power in changing BlueCross' practices.

Edit: And the Vikings really should have been playing in that game instead of the Saints. >:|

 

[ptif219]

You and I are in agreement about the current healthcare bills, we just think it should go in opposite directions. Despite what Republicans are calling it, the current bill really is the ultimate compromise: Everyone is left equally miserable.

Government running healthcare doesn't scare the hell out of me because quite frankly privately run death panels with no oversight at all scare me more than a government panel. Government can be voted out, health insurance currently is a privately run oligarchy. You don't have any power in changing BlueCross' practices.

Edit: And the Vikings really should have been playing in that game instead of the Saints. >:|

Obama will have a meeting on 2/25.

White House announces televised health meet - Carrie Budoff Brown and Mike Allen - POLITICO.com

President Barack Obama is planning to host a televised meeting with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders on health care reform.

The Feb. 25 meeting is an attempt to reach across the aisle but not a signal that the president plans to start over, as Republicans have demanded, a White House official said.



Farve would have choked he does that under pressure.

 

[Conservative]

You and I are in agreement about the current healthcare bills, we just think it should go in opposite directions. Despite what Republicans are calling it, the current bill really is the ultimate compromise: Everyone is left equally miserable.

Government running healthcare doesn't scare the hell out of me because quite frankly privately run death panels with no oversight at all scare me more than a government panel. Government can be voted out, health insurance currently is a privately run oligarchy. You don't have any power in changing BlueCross' practices.

Edit: And the Vikings really should have been playing in that game instead of the Saints. >:|

Yep, everyone is equally miserable with govt. run anything. I cannot imagine however anyone believing in the govt. vs.private industry that actually employs people in meaningful jobs, not make work projects. History shows how effective govt. is in running major programs and 1/6 of the American economy is a major project. I cannot believe you believe there is no oversight of healthcare companies. If not what does the Dept. of Health and Human Services as well as the SEC do?

Again I go back to the claim that the govt. can eliminate 500 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare. If that is the case why not now as the govt. controls Medicare completely. The govt. has to prove they can do what they say they can do for the first time in history.

 

[Deuce]

You're putting words in my mouth.

Over and over I hear this. "The government can't do anything!!"

(not my work):

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issed by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

 

[Conservative]

You're putting words in my mouth.

Over and over I hear this. "The government can't do anything!!"

(not my work):

Sounds like a liberal utopia. If so great why just a 3.8 trillion dollar budget? Why not just turn everything over to the Govt. since it does everything so well?

Not one person that I know of says dismantle the Federal Govt. but also I have found very few that support the current govt. spending and the 3.8 trillion dollar budget.

I am still waiting for you to show me any govt. run social program that cost what it was supposed to cost, do what it was supposed to do, solved a problem and went away. that is the point. SS was not intended to cost what it costs today and in fact wasn't even intended to be there as the life expectancy was less than the date to begin benefits. The offshoot of SS was medicare which was a multi million dollar program that now cost billions.

Your belief in the govt. sets you up for a major disappointment.

 

[Deuce]

You've conjured up this image in your head of one of "them liberals" who just LOVES big government. WANTS the government to control EVERYTHING, and WANTS a 3.8 trillion dollar budget.

You're wrong. I think we should spend far, far less. I also think the government should keep out of our lives as much as possible. I think we really, really don't need to spend $45 billion on new tanker aircraft and $150 billion on a super-fighter aircraft built for a war we will never fight.

You're missing the point entirely. I'll spell it out for you.

Certain services cannot be provided in the free market in a manner that is fair. Sometimes, we as a people decide that it's a necessary service that requires either government oversight or government control. Here are some examples:

Electricity. It is physically impossible to provide electricity in a truly open market. By physically impossible, I mean against the laws of physics. You can't have different power plants supplying power to two different houses on the same block. It's impossible without duplicating infrastructure. Electricity is a natural monopoly, and monopolies left unchecked are prone to abuse. Instead, the DoE regulates and supports energy monopolies to make sure every American can turn their lights on. This is an example of government oversight, private companies with strict control to prevent abuse. And if you think electric monopolies with no oversight wouldn't be abused, well, read a history book. We, as a people, decided that electricity was a basic utility everyone needed access to.

Environmental Protection. Don't start on global warming, I'm talking about general pollution. Did you see Beijing during the olympics? The air was so thick with smog it looked like the place was on fire. Our country used to look like that, in the height of the industrial revolution. We burned coal without even attempting to filter the exhaust, we dumped whatever chemicals we wanted whereever we wanted, because it's cheaper. Do you really think every company would play nicely when it comes to hazardous waste if not forced to? Most would be reasonable, but there will always be that one guy who decides to cut some corners and dump his ammonia into the river that feeds the next town's pipes. So we have an EPA. Regulating practices that, while cheap and good for business, directly harm people and the environment.

Fire protection. We actually used to have private fire fighters in this country. You paid them a bill for protection. If you didn't pay and your house set on fire, they would drive up and demand payment. If you couldn't pay, they sat there and watched your house burn to the ground, only to make sure it didn't spread to your neighbors. They paid their bills, after all. It became obvious that nobody deserves a destroyed house, so we turned over this necessary service to state and local GOVERNMENT to run. And to make sure nobody skimped out on their "fire bill," we fund it via taxes. Everyone pays a share.

Police. Good Lord, imagine privatized police forces. They'd basically be mercenaries.

Here's one: The Post Office! I bet you've referred to the post office as "bankrupt" before. Guess what? The post office is not designed to turn a profit. It's designed to provide cheap communication services to everyone, because our founding fathers realized that communication was so important that they put the post office in the constitution. To make sure the services stay cheap, we use taxes to support them.

Airwaves. We have an FCC because there are physical limitations to the electromagnetic spectrum. Allowing private business to do whatever they want with it would create an enormous mess. Two signals cannot exist on the same frequency. You could literally steal a market by planting a stronger transmitter next to your competitor's. Somehow we managed to get this "think of the children!" mindset and tasked the FCC with making sure poor little Billy doesn't see boobs or hear bad words, but that's another issue: parents in this country refusing to raise children on their own and demanding that schools and government do it for them.

Highways. Critical infrastructure without which our country would not be what it is. Private business simply has no incentive to build these. Wal-Mart will never make back its investment if it builds a road out to Sioux Falls, SD. Unless we go with "every road is a toll road," but man, I hate those things.

Do you know why we have Medicare? Because at a certain age, you're no longer physically capable of work. You can't hold a job to keep that health insurance, can you? Once your income is gone, paying for health insurance on your own is also difficult. It varies: some people make it to 80 before they slow down, and others can barely walk at 55, but it eventually happens to everyone. "Well they should have saved money," you say. Yes, we all try that. Sometimes, however, the unfortunate happens. The stock market tanks hard, I for one lost a fortune in the last three years. Maybe you lost your job earlier than expected, sometimes that's not in your control. There's always the unexpected, and there will always be people who did the right thing but still ended up short. I think a guy who puts in 40 years as a hardworking American deserves to be taken care of, regardless of the size of his wallet at the end of those 40 years. Apparently you don't agree.

You're right. Social Security was not intended to cost so much. People live longer, and doing so costs more. A lot more. Cost to survive goes up exponentially in those last few years. So, what? Abandon the whole thing? Stop paying after a certain age? "Hey, we only planned on you living to 70, so after 70, you're on your own!" Conservatives rant and rave about government pulling the plug on grandma, but don't you see that they're doing the opposite? Government is making sure grandma has a safety net. Private industry would have left her out to die, and before Social Security, it happened constantly. You appear to be advocating... what, exactly? Ditch the whole program?

These are just a few examples of markets that don't work, for whatever reason, left to their own affairs. Either it's physically impossible, or the service is too essential, that's when we have government step in, because government, in theory, is accountable to the people. Wal-Mart is not.

I want you to tell me specifically which government programs you think should be cut. I hear constantly from conservatives this rant about smaller government and less spending, but rarely any specifics. Worse, when conservatives take power they don't reduce spending, they increase it!

Five bucks says you don't mention any military items!

Edit: And here's another great conservative mental gymnastics piece: Why do you think the government should stay out of healthcare but SHOULD decide that marriage is "between a man and a woman" because that's "traditional?"

 

[Conservative]

You've conjured up this image in your head of one of "them liberals" who just LOVES big government. WANTS the government to control EVERYTHING, and WANTS a 3.8 trillion dollar budget.

You're wrong. I think we should spend far, far less. I also think the government should keep out of our lives as much as possible. I think we really, really don't need to spend $45 billion on new tanker aircraft and $150 billion on a super-fighter aircraft built for a war we will never fight.

You're missing the point entirely. I'll spell it out for you.

Certain services cannot be provided in the free market in a manner that is fair. Sometimes, we as a people decide that it's a necessary service that requires either government oversight or government control. Here are some examples:

Electricity. It is physically impossible to provide electricity in a truly open market. By physically impossible, I mean against the laws of physics. You can't have different power plants supplying power to two different houses on the same block. It's impossible without duplicating infrastructure. Electricity is a natural monopoly, and monopolies left unchecked are prone to abuse. Instead, the DoE regulates and supports energy monopolies to make sure every American can turn their lights on. This is an example of government oversight, private companies with strict control to prevent abuse. And if you think electric monopolies with no oversight wouldn't be abused, well, read a history book. We, as a people, decided that electricity was a basic utility everyone needed access to.

Environmental Protection. Don't start on global warming, I'm talking about general pollution. Did you see Beijing during the olympics? The air was so thick with smog it looked like the place was on fire. Our country used to look like that, in the height of the industrial revolution. We burned coal without even attempting to filter the exhaust, we dumped whatever chemicals we wanted whereever we wanted, because it's cheaper. Do you really think every company would play nicely when it comes to hazardous waste if not forced to? Most would be reasonable, but there will always be that one guy who decides to cut some corners and dump his ammonia into the river that feeds the next town's pipes. So we have an EPA. Regulating practices that, while cheap and good for business, directly harm people and the environment.

Fire protection. We actually used to have private fire fighters in this country. You paid them a bill for protection. If you didn't pay and your house set on fire, they would drive up and demand payment. If you couldn't pay, they sat there and watched your house burn to the ground, only to make sure it didn't spread to your neighbors. They paid their bills, after all. It became obvious that nobody deserves a destroyed house, so we turned over this necessary service to state and local GOVERNMENT to run. And to make sure nobody skimped out on their "fire bill," we fund it via taxes. Everyone pays a share.

Police. Good Lord, imagine privatized police forces. They'd basically be mercenaries.

Here's one: The Post Office! I bet you've referred to the post office as "bankrupt" before. Guess what? The post office is not designed to turn a profit. It's designed to provide cheap communication services to everyone, because our founding fathers realized that communication was so important that they put the post office in the constitution. To make sure the services stay cheap, we use taxes to support them.

Airwaves. We have an FCC because there are physical limitations to the electromagnetic spectrum. Allowing private business to do whatever they want with it would create an enormous mess. Two signals cannot exist on the same frequency. You could literally steal a market by planting a stronger transmitter next to your competitor's. Somehow we managed to get this "think of the children!" mindset and tasked the FCC with making sure poor little Billy doesn't see boobs or hear bad words, but that's another issue: parents in this country refusing to raise children on their own and demanding that schools and government do it for them.

Highways. Critical infrastructure without which our country would not be what it is. Private business simply has no incentive to build these. Wal-Mart will never make back its investment if it builds a road out to Sioux Falls, SD. Unless we go with "every road is a toll road," but man, I hate those things.

Do you know why we have Medicare? Because at a certain age, you're no longer physically capable of work. You can't hold a job to keep that health insurance, can you? Once your income is gone, paying for health insurance on your own is also difficult. It varies: some people make it to 80 before they slow down, and others can barely walk at 55, but it eventually happens to everyone. "Well they should have saved money," you say. Yes, we all try that. Sometimes, however, the unfortunate happens. The stock market tanks hard, I for one lost a fortune in the last three years. Maybe you lost your job earlier than expected, sometimes that's not in your control. There's always the unexpected, and there will always be people who did the right thing but still ended up short. I think a guy who puts in 40 years as a hardworking American deserves to be taken care of, regardless of the size of his wallet at the end of those 40 years. Apparently you don't agree.

You're right. Social Security was not intended to cost so much. People live longer, and doing so costs more. A lot more. Cost to survive goes up exponentially in those last few years. So, what? Abandon the whole thing? Stop paying after a certain age? "Hey, we only planned on you living to 70, so after 70, you're on your own!" Conservatives rant and rave about government pulling the plug on grandma, but don't you see that they're doing the opposite? Government is making sure grandma has a safety net. Private industry would have left her out to die, and before Social Security, it happened constantly. You appear to be advocating... what, exactly? Ditch the whole program?

These are just a few examples of markets that don't work, for whatever reason, left to their own affairs. Either it's physically impossible, or the service is too essential, that's when we have government step in, because government, in theory, is accountable to the people. Wal-Mart is not.

I want you to tell me specifically which government programs you think should be cut. I hear constantly from conservatives this rant about smaller government and less spending, but rarely any specifics. Worse, when conservatives take power they don't reduce spending, they increase it!

Five bucks says you don't mention any military items!

Edit: And here's another great conservative mental gymnastics piece: Why do you think the government should stay out of healthcare but SHOULD decide that marriage is "between a man and a woman" because that's "traditional?"

I have no intention of trying to keep up with you and your posts. I do suggest you take a history course however that has the Constitution in it that just might teach you the role of the govt. Most of what you stated are duplicated in the states. We don't need both.

Add up the functions you think the govt. should provide and see what you come up with. It won't be 3.8 trillion dollars.

As for healthcare, you are never going to convince me that is the role of govt. just like it isn't the role of govt. to tell you what to eat, drink, smore, or how to live your life. So much of that determines healthcare costs. Federal Bureaucrats have no business telling you in your town what you can or cannot do. That should be left up to the state and local government. That is how our govt. was established and is something most don't understand. Small limited Central govt. was what our Founders created, not what we have today. The Constitution provides FOR the common defense and to PROMOTE Domestic Welfare. Promote does not mean provide.

 

[Deuce]

See you later, then.

 

[misterman]

See you later, then.

Good choice.

 

[BWG]

See you later, then.

Good choice.

.....:rofl.....

 

[Conservative]

.....:rofl.....

if your opponent is committing suicide you know the best thing to do is get out of their way and let them have at it

this applies to misterman and a few others.

 

[Deuce]

if your opponent is committing suicide you know the best thing to do is get out of their way and let them have at it

this applies to misterman and a few others.

What? You are the one who said you'll never be convinced and you wont bother to keep up with my posts. I assumed that to mean you were done pretending to debate.

After all, if you are unchangeable and not even going to listen to what I say, it's not really a debate is it? I can talk to my kitchen cabinets with the same effect.

 

[Conservative]

What? You are the one who said you'll never be convinced and you wont bother to keep up with my posts. I assumed that to mean you were done pretending to debate.

After all, if you are unchangeable and not even going to listen to what I say, it's not really a debate is it? I can talk to my kitchen cabinets with the same effect.

There is absolutely no comparison between infrastructure and the other issues you mentioned vs. providing healthcare for all individuals. Healthcare is an individual responsibility not a taxpayer responsibility. It is a choice that millions of Americans choose not to participate in. No where in the Constitution is healthcare mentioned or does it give the Govt. the right to force it on people. Promote does not mean provide.