That's both unusual and silly.

yeh so's yer face boco

so's yer burger, finngammer

You said this in the other thread, but I didn't get your point then and I still don't. Why can't medical fees be covered through taxes?

Because theres no real way to do police departments privately instead of having the government do them, so they have to be a government entity paid through taxes. Fire department could possibly be done privately, but its easier (and dare I say, more efficient, if that can exist in government) to do it through taxes.

Healthcare on the other hand, has been done privately for a long time. Its something completely different from fire and police departments. The analogy is rather weak.

Please quantify "Its something completely different from fire and police departments". Also, has any country ever gone (in modern times) from having universal healthcare to a private healthcare system?

I can accept that it may be impossible to effectively run universal healthcare at the country level for the USA (that would be the same as having a single system for the entire EU). But I find it hard to believe that universal healthcare governed at the state level wouldn't work.

Some states are really, really poor and others are really, really rich. It wouldn't be fair to do it by state because the quality of care would vary too much among states.

Police and fire departments are something that has to be run by the government. Health care does not.

Police departments being a government agency makes sense. They have to be the enforcement part of the judicial system, and having a private agency take care of something like that leaves open way to many possibilities for corruption (not that there isn't police corruption, but having them run by a private agency would only aggravate things). And enforcing the laws falls to the responsibility of the government.

Fire departments could conceivably be taken care of privately, but because they must work and interact so closely with police departments, its much more efficient and logical to have them done by the government as well.

Health care, however, is a sector that is taken care of by private industry. Saying that taxes should pay for health care, which can be privately run, just because police and fire departments are payed for by taxes, is an inaccurate comparison.

Ok.

But the fact that it is possible to run healthcare privately doesn't have any bearing on whether healthcare is a right in the same way way police and fire departments are.

The other thing to consider is that whilst many Americans are opposed to universal healthcare now, if you had universal healthcare you would almost certainly be opposed to abolishing it. This assumption is based on the overwhelming support of universal healthcare in countries that already have it.

I don't think it's fair to say anything about that unless you've seen a reliable poll or something. Its not like we get to take a vote on it

I say it based on what people on this forum say, which given our overall liberal bias seems to make my assumption somewhat valid.

Well if you want to know what I think about it see any of Evad's posts on the topic.

while i may not have gone out and done a poll on the subject if we step out of the "but you didnt do a double blind study, get it signed in triplicate, published in a popular scientific journal and reviewed and approved by Stephen Hawking" world that massassi usually lives in. it is not even remotely a streatch to believe that there are many people in the U.S. who are opposed to universal health care. there after all many MANY people living here. over 300 million... its not going to be hard to find many people who oppose universal health care.

of course having said that it would probably be no problem finding many people who are for universal health care as well.

going back to the actual topic of the thread. socialist may be a inaccurate description of obama, and the democrat party. i will admit i probably do not understand all of the legalistic nuances of that which is socialism. HOWEVER! obama has shown himself to be in favor of big government in almost every way. and that i am definitely opposed to . (and before anyone says "but McCain is pro big government too" i never said i support McCain. so lets shoot that one in the face Cheney style before it even gets brought up.)

That's a rather big statement.

If you have a good handful of money and have decent insurance, you can get covered with great medical service for whatever ailment, illness or condition you have. Competition drives medical facilities to have good equipment and supplies and additionally significantly smaller waiting lines. Not only that, it helps promote advancements in treatments, less trouble when finding/visiting a good doctor of choice, and so forth. If I had money and if I had something like, say, cancer, I would pretty much choose American treatment, without second thought, than any other country's medical services. There's a reason why important international figures often come to America to receive care.

Of course it's not all sunshine, far from it, but I doubt people won't miss a lot if we ever go into universal healthcare.

lol, theres a reason for that. Think about it

You can keep your private healthcare to prop up the universal healthcare. That's what some people in England do. Nobody is saying the private sector has to disappear and, to be honest, competing with a government service which runs at a loss is the ultimate incentive to innovate.

But can you choose to not pay taxes to support this government service? I mean, if I'm going to "pay for" universal healthcare, why would I pay even more for private services? Yeah, I can get better treatment, but private care is expensive as is. I really don't trust the US government to efficiently run a nation-wide healthcare system because I can't imagine the money hemorrhaging out of the programs and how stressed it would be with so many people in this country.

Except that those companies trying to compete with the government are competing against a free service. How many people really choose to go with a service that they pay for over a service that is free? Sure, there are some, but the majority won't, which will kill off a large part of the private sector that provides the "good" healthcare.



Police are needed to enforce laws, while fire departments are needed to keep cities from burning down. I'm still failing to see how having police and fire departments equates to everyone getting healthcare.

Accessable health care keeps disease in check. It is exactly like a fire department. If there wasn't a danger of fire spreading to the entire city, then it could be privatized.

Well, that's assuming if our hospitals can't respond to outbreaks. I agree that a healthy society is also a stable, productive one. Although a health care system that is too accessible can easily be abused or misused by, let's say, hypochondriacs.

On the flip side, one could argue that private healthcare's driving force to develop new technology and market new treatment options "helps people" in the long run instead of worrying about if Joe can get rid of his sniffles. Seems like can't go for a day without hearing some announcement that a local hospital or medical facility has implemented a new technological advancement or procedure in their treatment. If a company found a new way to literally zap cancer away (safely) without any sort of surgery, you bet you will hear about it on the airwaves in ads.

I'll take abused-by-hypochondriacs over needed-but-doesn't-qualify any day.

The only other thing I have to say is profit-motivation is lower on the totem-pole than intrinsic motivation, in my opinion. The biggest scientific breakthroughs throughout history have not come as a result of people in widget factories and research labs slaving away for their bosses. The breakthroughs have come from enthusiasts who personally sacrificed a lot of things to be able to carry on their research—because they wanted to.

Except that even though we apparently don't have "accessible" health care (which is false, ever hear of Medicare and Medicaid? Not to mention you can go into any emergency room in the country right now and they have to treat you), we don't have disease running rampant.

they have to treat you, but you have to pay, eventually. fortunately most fo them dont charge huge financing fees if you're late on a payment or something.

and most people living in the US dont qualify for medicare/caid.

Yeah, I don't make much money. In fact, I live below the poverty level, according to statistics. But I make too much to qualify for Medicare/caid. Figure that one out.

It's illegal to charge interest on medical bills.

Wow.. it surprises me A LOT that there is a tiny shred of dignity left somewhere in the finance industry.

I have to admit I was quite surprised to learn that as well.

I'm for universal health care.

I also don't think the financial industry is evil.


Both of these opinions are because of personal/self-interested reasons, but I find it odd that no one ever makes these arguments on a self-interest basis and everyone always comments on it from a "other people like you" or "society at large" point of view -- perhaps because they'd get admonished for "not caring about other people" or being "heartless" or "only thinking about themselves" or whatnot. Isn't it rational to act out of self-interest, though? =/

*hides and waits for stones to be thrown at him*

i regularly state that i do not want to have to put money into other peoples health care. not even that i dont want to, i just dont want to be forced to. i am all for helping people and donating my time and money to philanthropic causes, but the second some ninny says "but your obligated to! you have money so you were obviously born with some magical advantage, so its only FAIR that you be forced to help!" **** that!

also as for the whole health care/police/fire department, thing. health care really does not belong in that category. thats like saying we need to have "universal free food" because if people cant afford food they will starve to death!!!

honestly the police is the only one of the three that i think absolutely needs to be government run. since the fire department is already run by govt. it is a good idea to keep it that way, but if it was already set up to be a privately owned system it would probably work fine.

I'd much rather have free food than police and firemen and health care. You could probably feed the entire world for the cost of those three.

You do indeed have government-funded homeless shelters, which provide food, which is indeed 'free food' as paid for by taxpayers.

Every year, some candidate in the US elections is labelled 'socialist'. I am a socialist and I'm getting quite annoyed by this. The American perception of what is 'left-wing' is hilarious. In the UK, the Labour party have the lowest approval ratings for decades and this is partly due to the frustration that our labour party isn't socialist enough. In fact, our 'Conservative' party is possibly more left-wing than they are (and yet currently led by a bit of an idiot), and are pretty much certain to win the next election. So while Obama will probably win the US election, and Cameron will probably win the UK election, I'd much rather have Obama as Prime Minister. If you guys don't want him, can we have him? Pretty please?

Webcameron.



It could be worse Mort, your country could be filled with butthurt idiots that voted the SNP into power.

thats different though. its not giving away free food to 'everyone' because 'some' cant afford it.

He was speaking of health insurance, though..which is significantly different than a critical medical situation. IMHO, anyway.



Unemployment would go up. Specifically mine.

Actually I'm pretty sure they don't do a background or credit check at homeless shelters. You could walk right in and get something to eat.

that is true, now back to reality.... there we go. homeless shelters were still designed for the homeless, not for everyone who can still afford food. yes people could abuse it, but it does not mean that is what it was intended for.

If they start doing background and credit checks at homeless shelters, we're all ****ed. It's bad enough some employers have started doing credit checks as well as drug tests.

im not suggesting they do background checks on homeless. i was just saying that even though joe shmoe who is a manager at best buy and is certainly not homeless, let alone so broke he cant afford food, could just go in and pick up a meal, does not mean homeless shelters are meant for that... they are meant for the homeless.

What? The quality of health care is already highly geological. People flock to get heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic because it's one of the best in the world. If you live in Alabama, there's probably nothing anywhere near as good.