Do you support President Obama's and the Democrat's plan for universal health care?
 

Do you believe the Democratic health plan should include 45 million uninsured, including illegal aliens? I don't think Obama has given my concerns any thought. It is not right for the average taxpayer to have to foot the bill for people who lack will power and have voluntarily hurt their health and well being.

first get the illegal aliens out of the country
then they need to tell the us how they plan on making this work, not too many details and I just see more government

we already have it. hospital cant refuse service to anyone so perhaps a doctor visit once in awhile paid for by tax payers might keep them healthier and away from the emergency room.

Just talked to a Canadian friend of mine. His commentary:

So damn tired from bleeding constantly for 3 months. I really hate Canadian health care. AMERICANS STAND UP AGAINST SOCIALIST MEDICINE!

You make it free for everyone, the people without a family doctor are going to clog the hospitals to well beyond capacity for the sniffles when the people who are actually sick wait to die. It's definitely a fucked up system. I'd LOVE the option to pay for premium care!

I would rather see the power of healthcare returned to the people and not government regulated through tax schemes.


Provide all Americans with a tax credit for 100% of health care expenses. The tax credit is fully refundable against both income and payroll taxes.

Allow individuals to roll over unused amounts in cafeteria plans and Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA).

Make every American eligible for a Health Savings Account (HSA), remove the requirement that individuals must obtain a high-deductible insurance policy to open an HSA; allow individuals to use their HSA to make premiums payments for high-deductible policy; and allow senior citizens to use their HSA to purchase Medigap policies.

Repeal the 7.5% threshold for the deduction of medical expenses, thus making all medical expenses tax deductible.


The above is Ron Paul's healthcare plan he proposed. I think it's a better solution to making things more affordable rather than making things over crowded and more expensive to the tax payers. It makes health care companies focus on doing business with individuals, not via companies. That's the main problem... It's too expensive to get healthcare out side of your employer because of the way the taxes work...

And also, IMO, nobody should be forced to pay for someone else; it's unconstitutional. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs including whether or not individuals who make more money should spent that money on other people who don't make as much. However that doesn't mean that people should be forced to do things either way. If you agree with the healthcare plan then I ask you: How much money do you currently donate to free medical facilities every month? If you aren't donating any then you're a hypocrite.

That's why Ron Paul will never, ever become president.

He makes sense.

people who dont look at the facts are usually ignorant, which shows in a lot of these threads.

*RING THE GONG*

In 2007, the U.S. spent $2.2 trillion on health care, or $7,421 per person.

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/...Landscape.html

I know for a fact, Ive never had anyone pay for my health care thats for sure, and never have I gotten my 7k worth! ;)

That already happens every single day in America. The ER has become the place to go for the common cold. Why? Because no family doctor will see you without pre-pay. Hospitals have to.

Then, when the hospital doesn't get paid, the state and feds step in and subsidize things for them.

Why not just let people go to the family doctor and pay $55-70 to treat the cold rather than $1,300, which always seems to include a CT scan.

Taxpayers are currently paying either way. They pay higher premiums for their private insurance because the hospitals and the doctors that staff them have to jack their rates for un-reimbursed services and/or the state/federal government chips money in to make sure the hospitals don't go broke.

Why not just have the government take over and remove the for-profit motive that insurance companies have; thereby eliminating yet another layer or money?

If you look at it purely from a financial perspective, it should save money over time. Look at how low the administrative cost is for Medicare compared to private insurance. That says leaps and bounds in and of itself.

http://i31.tinypic.com/a14ay0.jpg

http://tinypic.com/r/a14ay0/3

People like me make the average go up. Many years I've incurred in excess of $100k in medical expenses.

7k on nothing nice :D

Please tell me where it says Obama's health care plan will be free for all?

Some people would be much better informed if they stopped listening to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck and watching Fox News ... even it if were a week.

@Epitome

That's not all that's included in this healthcare plan... It also includes creating a government run healthcare company that everyone must subscribe to. And imposes taxes on people who get healthcare elsewhere... That's not right, not right at all... And like I said, if you were to go with the healthcare system I listed more people could afford healthcare thereby reducing those costs. You can't exchange one tax scheme for another and say it's all fixed. That's not the real solution, that's a hack. A multi-trillion dollar hack at the expensive of the tax payers.

We need to definitely start with removing Illegal aliens form this country. They have just about put all of our hospitals in bankruptcy in Arizona and we should not have to support them with our tax dollars.

I pay for my health care and Like that option. I should not have to pay for people too lazy to get their own.

And, NO, I do not agree with obamas BS health care system. We will all get fucked if this goes through.

exactly why I mentioned the ignorance of those who ignore the facts :thumbsup

anyone who looks at the current rates of obesity and how much is already being spent on people, its ALREADY A FREE FOR ALL! :winkwink:

Have you read the preamble to the constitution, which includes "We the People" and "promote the general Welfare?"

In case you do not know the definition of welfare, it is:

2 a : aid in the form of money or necessities for those in need b : an agency or program through which such aid is distributed

you already do... as I said, many just ignore the facts of the US health care as it is now

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/...Landscape.html

The plan has flaws. I am not denying that. We can thank Lobbyists and those who refuse to compromise on that.

The reality is that Medicare keeps most of us alive after the age of 65. It does a good job doing that. It is ran by the government and it is subsidized by the people. You do make the valid point that nobody *has* to subscribe to it.

The reality is that Americans are dumb. If they weren't, there wouldn't be so many uninsured people that have insurance available to them and can pay for it.

The other half of that is that these same idiots still get sick at some point in their life. We can't gamble on whether they have enough to pay their bills or if they will pay their bills.

Let's just get everybody covered. It's not like utilization is going to go through the roof just because everybody has coverage. It will go up, but not through the roof.

Besides, preventative health care is THE BEST health care. Get people to a doctor BEFORE they get sick and save money in the end.

EDIT: Wait, we ALL currently subscribe to Medicare. We are subscribed to paying for it. It is a deduction we all pay.

Health care system rankings - Top 40 (2007)

Rank/Country

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
38 Slovenia
39 Cuba
40 Brunei


List of countries wit Socialized Medicine.
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Germany
Greece
Iceland
Ireland
Italy Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
United Kingdom
Japan
Finland
Australia
New Zealand
South Korea
Hungary
Poland
Slovakia

The socialized medicine scare inside the US is right wing paranoia.

Ah no the general welfare clause it not meant for you just said. If you look at all of the supreme court decisions before FDR stacked the courts. All of his previous attempts and using this so called general welfare clause, were consider unconstitutional.

The government is not here to give me shit!, the government is limited to the "bill of rights", which limits what they the goverment can do. No more and nothing less.

From what I understand, it's not socialized medicine or some sort of government takeover.

It's a very basic single payer option that people can choose if they want to. You can keep your current health care or use a mix of the two.

If the government run option sucks and is a failure as the Republicans are saying with long waits and terrible care, then nobody will use it and will not expand. If it works well and people give it high marks, then it will grow and more people will enter into it.

You can have free market mechanics in a government aided system. Just like there is a postal service. People use it for their day to day mail but for actual shipping, people prefer to use a private firm, even though the post office offers the same service.

Do Republicans feel conflicted about the socialist postal service when they use it to send out their fund raising letters and attack ads?

And propaganda. Health care is great for big business, bad for the individual. Guess who the Republicans bend over backwards for the most?

:thumbsup

LOL, thank you! :thumbsup

This same postal service that you brag about, is 7 billion in the whole. This same postal service is also going to stop delivery on Saturdays, nice:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh.
Off to the gym, if more people did this maybe we would be a healthier country?.

I dont have any kids, but I pay for yours to go to public school. *shrug* I dont hold it as a grudge though because it's for the overall good.

Oh, of course anyone should know that illegal aliens already get free health care at the expense of taxpayers. So do legal americans get reams and reams of money at your and my expense.

Bottom line for me is that fear is a powerful political tool. Lets keep it that way and not become tools ourselves, ok?

So tell him why he has been told that there is a good possibility that he has colon cancer and they will get him in for tests in OCTOBER with the test results a month after that.

This board needs of a forum of just polls.

Some things that get debated over and over:

1) Health care
2) Whether Black People are Humans
3) If Obama is a Citizen (see 2)
4) Was 9/11 an Inside Job

What am I missing?

I guess that is what I was getting at and I probably should have been a bit clearer in my response. I already know we are paying for the freeloaders and it pisses me off to no end.

Obama is going to be the downfall of this country. The only change that would be good is that his ass hit's the road running and doesn't look back.:disgust

We also have that here. It took me 2 years to get diagnosed with Crohn's.

It took my boyfriend about 10 months to get diagnosed with ulcers. It then took 20 days to get Nexium -- a fairly common drug -- approved by his insurance.

A lot of people die from cancer because it goes undiagnosed despite repeated doctor visits.

I also know a lot of people who have been told they "possibly" have cancer but don't. I am one of those.

The Canadian system doesn't sound much unlike the American system.

Call any family doctor and it's about 4 to 6 weeks before they can see you as a new patient. Many specialists are scheduled 2 to 3 months out unless it is an emergency...but even then you have to drive them nuts to the point that they just put you on the schedule to get you to stop calling.

No one is bragging about the Postal Service, but nobody complains about socialism when they get their mail everyday or send a letter for 50 cents when the same service would cost $7 from a private firm.

As for debt, as recent as 2005 the USPS was in the black. They have suffered financial problems recently just like all businesses have. But the fact that they have run without debts shows that a government run system CAN work and provide low cost, effective service while still allowing private firms to continue doing business and giving customers a choice.

I really dont know how people could have seen (maybe they didnt) the insurance people in front of congress testifying how they got bonuses for denying care to people on technicalities, and not want change in the system. If you've got the cash, then obviously you dont want change. Why upset the apple cart when it's perfect for you now? If change were easy, it would be called same.

Be afraid, be very afraid, lol. It gets old ya know, lol.

There's actually 5 plans right now, all with different provisions. The US does indeed need universal health care, and I applaud Obama for taking on this issue. My health insurance is double what it was a few years back, and will double again in 5-7 years. Pretty soon the system will collapse. I don't know why people in the USA want to wait for a complete meltdown before we decide to fix something.

No, that is not what "general welfare" means in the context of the US Constitution. It means for the benefit of the people at large.

What is happening today is just the opposite: it's the battle of SPECIAL INTERESTS to be put ahead of the general welfare. Many special interests groups want the public to support them via social programs such as for food stamps, public housing, child care, and health care. That is the EXACT opposite of what the constitution demands.

I hope Obama's plan goes through. I just wish it leveraged further against the Insurance companies. I think he is actually making too many concessions. The Dems need to grow a pair! You think Bush gave a shit when he decided to give a tax break to the richest people while growing our debt? Did he give a shit that he was committing the lives of over 5,000 troops, and upwards to $7 TRILLION dollars in overall expenses to start a war that was unfounded? Fuck Rush! - Fuck Fox! - Fuck the Big Corps!

The real question no one ever asks with this issue is:

"Should we steal from one to give to another?"

According to Obama, yes we should. But it is not stealing, it is a redistribution of wealth.

While I am sure you arent posting all the details, it seems there is no one stopping your friend from getting private insurace in canda. Relying on the gov AND bitching about it makes his argument funny.

"Some 65% of Canadians have some form of supplementary private health insurance"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

Is it good that people need drugs and they pay for insurance and their insurance company denies them services, and posts massive profits? Is that actually ok with some of you? For petes sake. Maybe that wealth is ill gotten and not deserved. Call it restitution.

Health insurance does NOT equal health care. For petes sake when will people understand that? :winkwink:

Get rid of insurances all together and health CARE would be cheaper. :2 cents:

I cut and pasted EVERYTHING he said.

HOW ABOUT THIS TO START..

we stop being a nation of gluttonous, obese, unhealthy fucks.....

THEN we can start talking about universal health care, paid for largely by the people who typically aren't obese unhealthy fucks.

you want my money to pay for the consequences of YOU eating deep fried cheese sticks and ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 20-30 years? Not gonna happen.

THEN

lets stop the bullshit lawsuits for $38,000,000.00 because some bitch spilled hot coffee on herself.

Of course it would be cheaper without the private insurance companies NEEDING to keep up with their bottom line! Thats my point, thank you.

Dump this current bullshit system, it's just a cash cow and does not equal quality care, or care at all. It's about money. It's a private business. You are not a patient, you are barely a client, you are above all: a customer.

You did not understand what I posted, why doesn't he have any private health insurance like the 65% of canadians who do? THAT is the details I was referring to. You make it sound like he is FORCED to rely on Gov health care. falsehood. if he is unhappy with "bleeding for 3 months" like you posted, perhaps he should look into other options man, I dont want to argue about a man's life here, but really, he could get private insurance...

As I said: "Some 65% of Canadians have some form of supplementary private health insurance"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

And keep the government out of it. Obama cant even run a cash for clunkers program right! :Oh crap

No, that is what YOUR definition means. Both the dictionary and I have a different meaning.

If you dispute the dictionary, then everything as we know it is fucked because nothing is what it seems.

Have you seen the percentage of Americans in favor of a single payer health system? How is the world is the majority a "special interest?"

Tort reform is very much needed.

I probably could have retired off malpractice suits by now under the current system.

Yet I have never sued. Only once did a doctor fuck me up and I thought that he didn't have my best interests in mind in the first place. Outright negligence. Still debating suing him; I have plenty of time left to decide.

If you're a doctor and you're trying to help me and you screw up and it's not a common occurrence, hey, shit happens.