Healthcare is 'a privilege...not a right': GOP lawmaker

I completely agree.

If you want emergency care, there are a multitude of hospital emergency rooms-ask any illegal alien. For that matter, get rid of the aliens and we could probably afford "the messiah's" plan.

This is NOT the time for all this fuzzy bunny bull excrement. Where is the money to pay for it? I dont care to pay any more taxes!!!

NO, I'm not rich. 30k a year.

Tone down the rhetoric? Nope. Say it like you have a pair!

reply to post by felonius


You dont have a problem paying taxes for a military budget that equals all other countries combined, but do care about paying taxes that help your fellow citizens live a society where they can recieve equal and proper healthcare thats not decided on how big your wallet is?

Im sorry.. but have you ever lived in europe? your assumptions are full of bull#..

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
reply to post by Blanca Rose

 

Cost is part of the issue, I agree. However there is no better solution.

Would you suggest that governments step in to limit the amount a company or doctor can charge for their services? Because aside from being unconstitutional and immoral (in my opinion), it will also lead to:

a. poorer quality of healthcare- why bother when there's no competition (ie price cap).

b. poorer quality of doctors - why bother with 8 years of school; 8 years of specialization to reach only a paltry income?

c. less research into drugs, fewer breakthroughs etc. For every billion dollar blockbuster that Merck produces, they have 10 failed drugs that cost them tens of millions of dollars.

In essence, the market is finely balanced to take into consideration all those factors. Imposing a dictatorial cap on costs will inevitably lead to a diminished quality of care.

a. In Portugal healthcare was not bad at all before the government started making some public-private partnerships.. It was then that healthcare service went down the toilet.. the best hospitals are public in portugal. My mother was treated twice in private ones, they sucked and were highly expensive (insurance payed, we are not rich)..

b. We dont have bad doctors in public hospitals (generaly speaking of course), they have the highest wages, and besides the doctors can also work on private ones extra-time.. Believe me doctors in Portugal are one of the richest class.. At University the places for medicine are always full and many people goes study to spain because of that..

c. Its true we dont have an history of research.. but its starting and guess what? With government funds! If you could do a bit of research you would find that USA is a research powerhouse because government started through universities.. Public institutions have an important job in R&D.. And healthcare being researched inside public institutions we gained with it -> LOWER MARKET ENTRANCE PRICES!!!

So as Mystiq said.. DONT BE THE SHEEP and please research REALITY before following the neocon THEORY!

One more note: Public healthcare as another positive point: prevent desease sprawl..

Originally posted by felonius
I completely agree.

If you want emergency care, there are a multitude of hospital emergency rooms-ask any illegal alien. For that matter, get rid of the aliens and we could probably afford "the messiah's" plan.

This is NOT the time for all this fuzzy bunny bull excrement. Where is the money to pay for it? I dont care to pay any more taxes!!!

NO, I'm not rich. 30k a year.

Tone down the rhetoric? Nope. Say it like you have a pair!

And you are right, where's the money, it's simple, I may hate government regulation, but on a service that is so badly needed like health care, REGULATE THE COST, get the money out of the doctors hands that are making 12 million a year to treat a hangnail and put it back into the hands of the people who need the care so that they can possibly pay for it.

(NO i'm not suggesting raiding Doctor's bank accounts etc, just that they charge way too much)



[edit on 7-3-2009 by vkey08]

reply to post by sos37


I bet that hospital is a Private-Public partnership and is being managed purely with the objective of reduce costs.. that happened in portugal.. Like i said in post before.. it wasnt until this partnerships that our public healthcare went down the toilet..

reply to post by wolf241e

"This is almost class warfare in order for him to be able to say everyone now has health care. Listen, healthcare is a privilege," said Wamp.

IMHO, the real tragedy here is that we elect these morons, but it gets even better because after we elect these fools we react with shock and outrage when they turn our nation into a trainwreck !

What else should one expect when we ourselves put idiots like this in the driver's seat ?

Here are some reasons I think myself and others are not on board with universal healthcare at current.

1. The government in the US has a proven track record of failure, waste, and poor management.

2. I think most people would be more apt to accept this new system if they did not feel as though they would be taxxed further, but instead use current funds (which are not there due to our terrible economy).

3. Opponents of the program worry that the healthcare system will be abused as the welfare system is and become a breeding ground for people that do not want to work and just get free stuff.

4. Some people also worry that regulation will take the competition out of the system leading to a lack of quality and new technologies.

I think one thing we can all agree on, wether for universal healthcare or not, is that the system that we have now is not where it needs to be. Pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are reeling in fat loads of cash while many can barely afford their products.

Perhaps if we would have a team of experts in the field address the core problems with the current system we could create a universal "affordable" healthcare system for everyone where its not a situation where we are taxxed any further, but the treatments and prescriptions would have their costs greatly reduced.

I do not think I will ever be at ease when the government wants to take over something as important as healthcare even if I agree that the system we currently have is failure.

Aaron

Originally posted by tjeffersonsghost

Ill pose this again as I did earlier. Im a taxpayer. Im not going to tell how much Ive paid but Ill tell you the past four years Ive paid more than most people make. Ive never recieved anything from the government nor do I want anything.

Everyone receives something from the government. You drive on roads? You have police in your community? A fire department? You live in a country with a military? Benefit with the rest of us from research and development conducted by the military and other programs funded with tax dollars? If you have parents who get social security or medicare, tally that up too. If they couldnt afford to live without it, and there were no programs like that, guess who would be paying their bills.

You dont have to get a welfare check, social security check or unemployment check to benefit from your tax dollars. And while I agree that it would be nice to have smaller government and less taxes, however the government has intervened so heavily at this point on behalf of corporate America, the real citizens of the US need to have some programs operating on our behalf too.

If government intervention is phased out, it needs to start by phasing out corporate welfare and then begin to slowly phase out programs that help the weak, sick and poor among us. If corporations werent given every advantage against us, I doubt people would need so much help from Uncle Sam.


[edit on 7-3-2009 by Illusionsaregrander]

Originally posted by felonius

Tone down the rhetoric? Nope. Say it like you have a pair!

OK, sparky I will!

I want health care that is affordable.
Consider this; with more and more people that are losing their jobs, companies not providing health care, and HMO's gouging the public.....

If Obama institutes national health care; who are those people going to vote for that didn't have healthcare before? I seriously doubt if it will be the GOP that is in the pocket of the big pharma, HMO's and Healthcare for profit corp's. This will put the final nail in the GOP's coffin and look forward to 20 yrs of Demb/lib control in Washington. Is this what you want? Perhaps the GOP should offer something other than the status quo.

Get on board or be left behind.

[edit on 7-3-2009 by whaaa]

reply to post by vkey08


Wow! $12M to treat a hangnail- my doc hubby should have been a manicurist. I'm laughing my tail off because just last week I had an infected hangnail that my husband had to do minor surgery on in our hotel room on vacay. Hurt like hell. ;o)

Seriously, my husband did 8 years of education and then additional training in residency (treating the poor in training hospital @ $30k a year) and now he makes a good living. But, he works 24 hours straight on call and was at the hospital at 3am treating an unfunded patient who coded. Before we went on vacay, he worked nearly a month without a day off- we're in a smaller town and docs of his experience and efficiency are a rare breed these days (and you can thank gov. regs for that...). You know what he sees? He sees very good people who are having hard times made harder because he has to DOCUMENT every visit and Rx. He also sees drug seekers who fake illness to get narcotics. It's because of people who screamed about drugs that number 2 created number 1. There's a government solution that had unintended consequences. He sees people who have ridiculous ideas about how long life should last. One patient was 106 and her son wanted to keep her on a vent because he thought she had more years left. Good people mostly but all human and subject to some weird ideas at times. There's no one size solution to every medical issue except for patient choice. That will disappear under universal coverage and people will still be complaining that the "rich" get "better" care.

BTW, I was a single mom once. Two kids, no child support, no welfare of any sort and I paid for doctor visits- sometimes over time- when they were necessary. You'd be surprised how often they aren't.

reply to post by micheshi


I personally would rather the government step in and make it more affordable for people to go to Medical school. (And increase the number of medical schools) The reason medical care is so expensive is simple supply and demand. Doctors at the turn of the century lobbied politicians to help them limit the supply of doctors, politicians complied, imposing all sorts of regulations on medical schools, and entrusting the doctors themselves with the ability to regulate who could and could not teach medicine.

The doctors, (whose whole reason for lobbying politicians in the first place was to eliminate competition) regulated out many medical schools, (which helped to limit the number of doctors) and this smaller supply of school drove up the cost of medical school.

So now, there are fewer doctors graduating than we need because of fewer schools and higher costs for those schools. This situation was deliberately created by doctors, who wanted to keep their prices high, by limiting the supply of doctors.

Google it. Doctors/Cartel/Economics. It is well known, well studied, well documented.

Any real move to lower health care costs should reach back to the root of the problem, (not enough doctors) and not just find other ways to pay the few doctors out of government pockets. More doctors, more competition, less cost, more care. Its not hard. What makes it difficult is getting powerful rich lobbyists and the politicians they own to allow that to happen.





[edit on 7-3-2009 by Illusionsaregrander]

Health care was NEVER a right and I'd fight against any politician who tries to make it a right! That's just asinine.

It just won't scale. Right now we have 300M people in the US, the wealthiest large country in the world. There are 1.9B people in India and 2.1B people in China, no counting the rest of the world. That's 13 potential dependents per US person. Imagine the impact of globalization (standardization) of laws and constitution over the next 50 years. Global citizens would have the same rights around the world and a unified tax (IMF/UN) authority, and we'd pay tax to pay medical bills for 13 people other than ourselves.

First aid / preventative health care (immunization) should almost be a responsibility. Someone gets injured, whoever is nearby and capable should perform first aid. Immunization protects the population from diseased individuals.

Anything beyond first aid including emergency care should be billed back either to the individual or to whoever is responsible for the individual.

reply to post by micheshi


See up her ein NY it's the opposite, if you don't have insurance and have to use a clinic they expect payment up front and sliding scales are only for those below a certain point. Also our wonderful Governor has mandated 2 visits a year for children in school and a lot of unnecessary shots that I have never even heard of.

As far as faking illnesses that explains why when i crushed my hand in a car door and broke everything they tried to force Motrin down my throat and said "Sorry we aren't allowed to prescribe anything else, that's the law"

What I am advocating is overhaul, not government sponsored.

Originally posted by Dbriefed
Health care was NEVER a right and I'd fight against any politician who tries to make it a right!

Better make sure you have adequate health insurance before you do, just in case you lose and get beaten senseless, left in the gutter, with your wallet raped

I guess everything in america is a privelege and not a right. Only the wealthy should be entitled a house, car, family, a small vacation and even the right to live.

If you are poor then its always your fault and never anyone else's. Some people are not born with a low iq and thus everyone should be able to go to college, accidents never happen at work and thus you should never lose your house and all other major posessions due to lack of income, everyone makes a good salary so lets allow private healthcare companies get immensly rich at our expense....

Why the HELL is america the ONLY damm country on the WHOLE freakin planet which will NOT implement some kind of NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM for EVERYONE? And why the HELL do people keep saying FREE HEALTHCARE when there is NO SUCH THING?!

Get your facts straight! We pay taxes and we EXPECT services!

reply to post by EarthCitizen07


Very poor people do not pay taxes, and if you give them more subsidies, ie healthcare, the funds have to come from somewhere, which will be from the people already paying taxes for other stuff. I don't think anyone would like to see an ill person denied care, but, there must be a better way than the government just taking over.

And more taxes..

reply to post by Aaron_Justin


Oh and, I dont agree with anyone being entitled to a house, car, vacation etc., those things are earned. Everyone should have a place to live, but that does not mean everyone should own a home. It would be nice if everyone could, but the reality is that the entitlement mindset is whats getting us into trouble now.


[edit on 7-3-2009 by Aaron_Justin]

Originally posted by EarthCitizen07
Why the HELL is america the ONLY damm country on the WHOLE freakin planet which will NOT implement some kind of NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM for EVERYONE? And why the HELL do people keep saying FREE HEALTHCARE when there is NO SUCH THING?!

Because WE know what FREEDOM actually means?

Listen, the bottom line is this for me: If your RIGHT imposes a DEMAND (an enslavement, an imposition, a detriment, an expense, etc.) upon another, it CAN NOT be a legitimate RIGHT.

What you may call a RIGHT can not lead to the enslavement of others in order to fulfill your RIGHT. Does this make any sense?

This is why socialism will never work among us ALL, because those that would be enslaved in order to fulfill a socialists dreams will simply leave for greener freer pastures, just like our ancestors once did before. Get them monkeys off my back.

reply to post by Aaron_Justin


The bulk of the tax money comes from the middle class, not the wealthy.

The wealthy invest most of their money in mutual funds, offshore hedge funds, private undisclosed swiss bank accounts or some other kind of "legit" scheme. I am not saying the answer is to raise the tax rates I am saying that they should contribute their fair share, whatever that is!

And yes we need less wars, no bailing out big multi-national conglomerate octopuses, less wasteful spending and more honesty. So far the american politicians have not lived up to their potential because they are pimping everyone to special interest groups.

Originally posted by Aaron_Justin
reply to post by EarthCitizen07

 

Very poor people do not pay taxes

What? Everyone pays taxes when they buy anything from cheap wine to a 350SL. Even the poor Mexican that isn't even a citizen pay taxes when he buys a few gallons of gas to get to work cleaning motel rooms or mowing some persons lawn.

Perhaps the Health Care system could be funded from Sales tax.

Sort of like the Road tax people pay when they buy gas. Or liquor tax when you buy a 6pac.

Or how about a lottery that the bulk of the money goes to Healthcare but someone has the chance to get filthy rich and never have to worry about health care again. I'd go for that.

But I wouldn't even mind a portion of my taxes going to healthcare just like a portion of my taxes goes to fight wars I don't believe in and to pay for health care for the politicians I didn't vote for.




Hypocrites!!


























[edit on 7-3-2009 by whaaa]

[edit on 7-3-2009 by whaaa]