Recentle, our president, decided to try and pass a Healthcare Plan. In this plan, everyone in the United would get free Healthcare. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well first of all, guess who still gets to have private insurance? Thats right- everyone who works in the government (including Obama himself). Shouldn't the government have to comply with the rules they make? Also, in England they have socialized medicine. From waht I know about socialized medicine, it's not a good thing. Will America become like that?
Also, in this healthcare plan, President Obama plans on giving healthcare to illegal immigrants, too. Shouldn't he be helping his country before paying for illegal immigrants to have healthcare? And lastly, who is going to pay for all of this? If the government is paying for healthcare, taht means all our taxes go up! It means that doctors salaries decrease and then if you can't make money in being a doctor, then why go into that proffession? And, they will also decrease the money of the pharmacys. If pharmacies aren't getting enough money, then why are they going to want to continue in medical research.

Like P.J. O'Rourke famously said, "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."

Any responces? if you disagree make sure you can back up what you say

ETWolverine

How much did you pay in taxes in 2008? What percentage of your total income was that?

How satisfied are you with the maintenance of the roads where you live? How bad are the potholes?

How much do you like your local cops? Aren't you the guy who complains that all the cops are corrupt?

How good is the snow removal where you live?

How satisfied are you with your local DMV, post office, etc.?

And how about all those wonderful government programs like the USA PATRIOT ACT, special rendition, government evesdropping on foreign communications, etc? You complain bloody hell about those... but they are free too. Who doesn't like free?

Elliot

ETWolverine

Hello Red,

You are absolutely 100% correct in your assessment.

First of all, "free health care" isn't free... in fact, according to the CBO, nationalized health care will cost roughly 300-500% of what private health care does. Between administrative waste, payments of government pensions to retired employees of the government health care system, and the fact that the government pays an average of 35% more than private insurancve does for drugs, therapies, procedures and tests.

Second, for all the talk of health care being cheaper if the system is nationalized, you cannot expect to add 15-47 million more people to the system and have it cost less.

Third, as much as those on the left would like to dismiss the talk of "death panels", the fact is that all of the plans coming out of Congress have provisions for the government to decide what medical care you get based on your age, a determination of your remaining utility to society, and the cost of the care. Also, these plans have provisions for doctors or counselors to sit with older patients and try to convince them to sign DNRs, DNIs, living wills, and end-of-life instructions that would order doctors to withhold treatment from them. While the libs dismiss this as just "end-of-life planning", the fact is that we have seen in other countries what that ends up looking like, and we have heard the comments of our President about withholding care for seniors, and seen and heard the words of Ezekiel Emanual and others who have told us that they would withhold such care for seniors because it is too expensive. These are, in effect, "death panels" whether the libs want to own up to that fact or not.

Fourth, for all the talk about "choice and competition" through the creation of a "public option", the stated goal of Obama, Pelosi, Reed, Emmanuel, Schankowski, etc. is a single-payer system, and they have stated that they intend to use the "public option" to FORCE a single payer system over a period of several years. In fact, all the of the plans have provisions that state that if anything changes in your current plan (including a change in premium amounts), or if you are forced to leave your current plan for any reason, you cannot transfer to another private plan, and you MUST take the public option. Also, your small-business employer is going to be charged a tax that will force them to drop private insurance or go out of business, thus forcing you into the public option. Over a period of a few years, there will no longer be any private insurance, and we will have been forced into a single-payer system.

If the government really wanted to creat choice and competition in the medical insurance industry, they could do so by allowing interstate purchase of medical insurance and insurance portability. This one step would increase your choices from maybe 5 or 6 companies in your state to 1300 nationwide.

Simply put, Obamacare is a bill of goods. It's bad law, it's not designed to solve any of the problems it claims to solve, and it has a hidden agenda.

Elliot

tomder55

Ex
I got a version of Joe middle class too.

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with bottled water because he knows that the municipal water system supplies water that occasionally has e coli and other natural organisms that will make him ill--after all his mother died from drinking water that was polluted by sewage after a heavy rain. Joe tried to sue, but was told that the city had sovereign immunity from such suits as a result of state law. If the water he pours from the bottle he bought at Safeway is polluted, he knows he can sue the manufacturer and collect big, so he feels pretty sure that it's clean.

Joe grinds his coffee beans carefully because they're very expensive as a result of the U.S. government-enforced international coffee cartel that exists to protect the jobs of coffee importers--heavy campaign contributers to Congress. He's also careful about how much sugar he puts in his coffee because it costs seven times the world price of sugar as a result of the U.S. government imposed import restrictions on sugar to protect the domestic sugar beet and sugar cane industry.

Some mornings he drinks a coke instead, although it hasn't tasted as good since the manufacturer substituted corn syrup for sugar as a sweetener, since sugar is so expensive.

With his first swallow of coffee Joe takes his daily medication for his liver cancer. His doctor assures him that it is the best medication available in the U.S., although more effective medicines are used in Europe. Joe has a life expectancy of only two more years, but it will be a decade or so until the FDA tests on those other medicines are complete and they are allowed to be sold in the U.S. Joe feels protected anyway; after all, he might lose his hair or suffer some dizziness from the new medicines.. The FDA will protect him from that eventuality. Besides, the medicines he takes are paid for by money that his employer would have otherwise paid him in his regular salary. Since he never sees that money, he doesn't realize that his medicine isn't really subsidized by his employer after all.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; it is fragranced with some sort of exotic flower and there are strange chemicals in it ; and he bought it, well, because he liked the picture of the kangaroo on the bottle. He luxuriates in his bourgeois moment in the shower, a luxury unavailable to even the most wealthy of only 200 years ago. He is able to have many of such seemingly simple luxuries because some greedy businessmen sought enormous profits in the only way they could: satisfying consumer demand.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because the accumulation of capital over centuries has now brought the discounted marginal value product of a schmuck like Joe to unimaginable heights. Joe doesn't know anything about economics because he doesn't have to. He is no smarter than his forbears, and he works less. Nonetheless, because he participates in a world-embracing division of labor where his specialized work on a growing capital base is greatly valued, he is richer.

Joe's employer pays these standards because if they don't, his employer's competitors will.

It's noon time, Joe doesn't need to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills - he uses online banking and direct deposit. He has no idea how these systems work, or what a banking clearinghouse is, but he is able to use these services at the lowest cost practicable because banks compete for his business. Notwithstanding the massive interventions to the business of banking, he is able to weather the government-induced business cycles and inflation by investing in mutual funds, annuities, stocks, bonds, REITs, real estate, and other investment vehicles.
Joe plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He arrives at his rural boyhood home. The house didn't have any good programming choices until DirecTV offered an array of programming and high-speed internet, too. His dad uses a VCR, which only became affordable to him after lots of rich people bought the early, expensive versions and the manufacturers improved the designs and cut costs. In fact, his dad has a cell phone, TiVo, refrigerator, microwave oven, and a CD player - all of which became affordable to him because they were first the toys of the super-rich, and the crackpot schemes financed by the wealthy entrepreneurs willing and able to risk their money in such endeavors.

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on a reverse mortgage - a recent market innovation.
and so on......

George_1950

You living in Fairyland or Oz?

George_1950

Redhead, this is 'my' America:
"Grow Your Own Tobacco At Home

Hi --

My name is Bob and I grow tobacco at home and refuse to pay the punishment taxes that make the price of tobacco so outrageous."
http://www.stonerforums.com/lounge/g...acco-home.html
Now, what are those liberals fighting for? Don't worry about excon cause he blows lots of smoke.

phlanx

I wonder where and what everybody would be doing if there was no such thing as Government - probably fighting the next cave for nothing more than their food supply!

A government should dictate or provide the basic standard of everything, if people want to have a better system then they have the right to provide it

People can then work towards getting a better life, while the basic system provides him access to the market

Or is this just lost on people??

George_1950

There is no one advocating this.

phlanx

So if everybody agrees that there should be a government, what in the giblets should it do?

I ask I am very confused by peoples comments on what a government is there for?

If people say to provide representation - for what?, according to some they dont need any representation - as they choose 100% market over any political system

excon

Hello again, p:

It can be summed up very nicely this way. If you're a rightwinger, you think the government is there to make war. If you're a lefty, you think the government is there to look out for the people.

excon

PS> The lefty's, of course, look to the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution for their inspiration. They're ALL about protecting the PEOPLE.

phlanx

Salvo Ex,

So what you state with your very appreciated simple answer is this

Whether left or right it is the governments responsibility to raise revenue to assist in the building of an organisation

If that is true then so is this

It is the governments duty to tax its people

It is the governments duty to provide its people with protection

Now if as you say your are a righty, then that is it - nomore intervention, asistance, or influence of any kind

Then tell me my american freind, if the amount of money raised my taxes is dependant on the market, which is ultimatly dependant on what the dollar is worth

Who influences the worth of the dollar?