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Originally Posted by NeedKarma

Everyone who has universal health care is aware that it comes as part of our taxes. To tell people that it's "free" health care is intellectually dishonest.

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Are you saying that about the Obama administration?

In the US, a 20 or 30 or 40 something is paying medicare tax - 1.45% and their employer is kicking in another 2.9%, for healthcare of the medicare recipient. So they are being taxed for someone else's healthcare.

FICA & SECA Tax Rates

In the US unfortunantly only the unisured get stuck with the full 100% of the bill. The 85% or more that have some insurance coverage pay a co-pay or something toward a deductible, but hardly 100% of the actual bill. Most who have employer provided insurance get the additional pre-tax benefit.

So healthcare is NOT free, but the means of payment are clearly not 100% out of pocket for the vast majority.


G&P

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Originally Posted by asking

Airbags save more people than they kill.
Mammograms also have a risk, namely radiation.

In fact, treatment for breast cancer has a risk. My sister was treated for breast cancer with radiation 20 years ago. She received 5000 rads, enough to trigger another case of cancer in 20 years. It looks like that may in fact have happened. But she got another 20 years. I hope she gets another 20, but the fact remains that radiation exposure has a CUMULATIVE effect on cancer risk. So it's totally reasonable to weight that risk against the benefits of all kinds of screenings, not just mammograms. I just turned down an MRI for that reason.

Lets' be sensible.

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Sure airbags save lives, but they were not predicted to kill them either when the became mandated. Was it sensible to make these mandates without testing beforehand the effects on smaller people?

In retrospect would she still have got treatment that you acknowledge as giving her 20 years?

I'm questioning the data, how they came to their conclusions and recommendations, that is the sensible thing to do.


G&P