Look who thinks the ACA is unaffordable

No wonder he ain't got no yeller Ferrari. :down:

 

No, those with your words.

What I'm saying is that you can't afford private insurance (which, by the way, is nowhere near as expensive as in the US), at least you have a state system you can rely on to keep you alive and will not cost you your house.

 

What products does the state manufacture and sell to produce the revenue to fund that state system.....?


He has insurance...it's paid for in tax dollars and run poorly by the state. Something he's not even allowed to opt out of when he is unhappy with the level of service provided.

That's the problem with any of these state run endeavors. You have no choice but to participate. If it's so great why not include an opt out option? After all people will love it and gladly opt in to the system.


If the state run plan is so great why are the politician not on it?

 

Did you read the post I was responding to?

I'm not advertising socialized medicine. I'm saying get a little more information instead of just repeating things that are not true. If you're not happy with the delays, you have other options.

 

I'll would enjoy hearing you explain to the numerous people that I have met around the world that have to deal with the social medical programs. Good luck convincing them that they are wrong about long waits. I've heard absolute horror stories from Nurses working at social hospitals, I guess they are wrong too....

Almost ALL government social programs are absolute scams. Things get worse NOT better almost by default when the government gets involved.

Cost has been going up and quality going down because of increased government involvement. Not the other way around. Now people are acting surprised that cost are going up even faster with the Affordable Care Act...UFB!

You say "you guys" are spreading a lot of wrong information, how do you feel about the information our own government officials are spreading?

 

For now.

 

There may be a few things the US government does very well. I just can't think of one. As far as what I've seen, they screw up everything they touch.

 

Wasn't that the point of the ACA? And what we have now was just to get it passed into law? I'm happy to see that you are finally coming around to the realization that this was completely shameful politics in action. Now we are stuck with this bullshit forever. Just like the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security.

 

I'm on Medicare, which could be considered partial socialized medicine, but is not a program that the entire country is on, which would be the difference between fully socialized medicine. Put the whole country on it and the costs would quickly overwhelm the system. Part of that is its reliance on underpaying for services, which in this country must be compensated for by someone else (the privately insured) being overcharged for services. That is why there would not magically be a reduction in health care costs for all if everyone were put onto the same program. Suddenly, there would be no entities to shift the actual costs to.
Private insurance requires cost controls to remain viable, those cost controls disappear when the government runs the program. Costs increase needlessly until no more money can be wrung from the taxpayers, at which point it is availability of care that must be curtailed to keep the system going.
Socialism in any form has never worked and will never work, except in the short term.

 

I've been dealing with the French medical system for exactly 10 years this week. What's your level of familiarity with socialized medicine?

 

Because socialized medicine never works I suggest that you stop using it.

 

All I have to really compare is the Canadian version of socialized medicine and private clinics are seeing massive growth right now due to the absolute shittiness of the health care system. That really astounds me as Canada taxes the fuck out of people and should have the $. If you have a good job with limited write offs expect to see 1/2 of your paycheck disappear. And the waits are more reality than myth. A friend had to wait 6 months for ACL surgery and my father is in line for cataract surgery (6 - 8 mos) and a hip replacement. (1 1/2 to 2 years). Ya, they could pony up more for additional services but they have already paid a ton of money to the system and should not have to.
That being said, many Canadians will defend the system even while they are bitching about waiting for services. All I know is that I have way superior health care for less money in the US but thanks to goobermint interference the differences are getting to be less all of the time.

 

Do you not find there to be long waits for people here as well? My wife's trying to make an appointment to see a specialists, wait list is 4 to 6 months out. I know of a person needing cancer treatment, has insurance (state employee), and is expecting it to be over a year before he can obtain treatment.

We can't base our positions on isolated incidents though. Hell, last week it was released that a hospital in Chicago was basically butchering people under false pretenses on their death beds to ramp up their billable revenues. With a doctor secretly recording the hospitals administration encouraging it and providing bonuses for it, or something like that.

Costs were already escalating so far beyond the rate of inflation that healthcare was... Wait, wasn't part of the reasoning for health care reform in response to costs spiraling out of control...

 

Funny you mention the French system. I had a 2 hour discussion with a retired French Physics professor. He retired from Auburn and is a self proclaimed die hard socialist. (lived in Auburn Alabama for the past 30 years) He argued over and over that America should go to social medicine while complaining that his mother had to wait over 3 months to have a test conducted for poor circulation on her legs.

His argument that he's never had to wait 3 months for any test. His wife had to remind him that he is not in France and that they have both had numerous discussions about how the medical system there has been declining rapidly for years. He appeared to argue against anything other than socialism without relying on a single fact in any category. I've met numerous Canadians that have similar experiences.

I personally have not had to deal with social medicine. If I need to go to the Dr. when I'm out of the country, I use private centers. I do however have many friends around the world that have to deal with social medicine on a routine basis. Some have good experiences and others have a nightmare of a time just go get an appointment. (it seems to depend on their location)

Oddly enough, the private centers opening in Canada are MUCH more cost effective and efficient than the social centers. How do you explain that? Seems to conflict with socialist arguments.


I have worked with and am friends with many Dr.s and nurses that are or were in government hospitals and exactly ZERO have anything positive to say about those programs once they started working in private facilities. Most were actually angry for believing the total B.S. that they had to deal with once they realized how different things were in privately operated clinics.

I also work with many people from the U.K. They brag about their social systems all the while making sure they stay out of the country long enough each year to avoid taxes.

People can argue for social programs all they want but they have to rely on purely emotional stances. I've yet to have anyone explain to me why it is such a bad thing to be responsible and accountable for yourself. Anytime a group starts looking for the government to get involved to make things "fair" they are asking for trouble. And this will be the case until any government can find a way to legislate compassion. Socialism has failed every time it has been tried throughout history and the explanation for the failures seems to always be that they just didn't do enough... so doing more of the same should provide different results?

Do you not think that the governments involvement in medical care in the U.S. has caused the problems that we are dealing with now? (I'm talking about involvement way before the Affordable Care Act)

 

Just to be clear, as several off you seem to have missed it: the waits are not a myth. What's a myth is people saying that there is no other option. There's a private option, like the US.

 

I haven't heard of any long waits here but I would suspect that it is quite possible in highly populate areas, especially if the insurance has a limited number of available Dr.s on their plan.

I do know that it can be difficult even in small towns to find Dr.s that are accepting new patients because they are so far stretched as is. I don't see this getting any better even before the Affordable Care Act because it is becoming so cost prohibitive to open a GP office.

These issues and many others are the fault of the government and they will only get worse. If the government would put out clear and manageable regulations for medical centers, hold violators accountable and get the hell out of the picture, I think things would be much better. By getting out of the way, I mean allow the free market to manage everything on the business end. Cost WOULD go down, LEVEL of care WOULD increase. The medical centers and insurance companies that don't progress like they need to for competitiveness WILL go away.

 

And for those that prefer the private option where is the form to fill out to stop paying for the socialized system they don't use?

I don't care if you want it...

I don't care if you think it's better....

I care about me not wanting it and not wanting to pay for your health care system. Just like I don't want to pay to feed your children. Just like I don't want to pay to send your kids to school.

Create the system that's fine. Just give me the option to not be a part of it and not have to pay for my health care twice.

 

Somewhere along the lines of a dual public/private system is the only way I can honestly see a nation's health care system working successfully for most of society. I'm not sure anyone's going to find the ideal balance though.

 

I honestly don't see many of these problems being solely the fault of government. While vigorously disagreeing about the notion of the free market being able to manage everything on the business end. While I honestly consider myself a capitalist, there's many facets of the health care system where competitive markets simply can't come into play. Not to mention the human or compassion factors.

I wholeheartedly agree though with the notion that amounts to a need for reasonable governmental regulation It's just finding the happy medium of reasonable...

 

Sorry, I did miss that. I always found it strange that most of my friends in Europe that brag about social medicine and other social programs in their countries have private care and don't have deal with the social programs. They seemed to pat themselves on the back like their country was better somehow because of the programs and they weren't aware of any of the laws in place in the U.S. that requires hospitals to provide emergency care to uninsured patients.

I'm currently self employed and I pay for my own insurance. I have the Cadillac plan and it cost me 118.00 per month for medical and dental. I know numerous people my age and younger that do not have insurance because of the "cost" but they gladly pay more than 118.00 for their phone and cable bill each. They don't NOT have insurance because they can't afford it, they don't have it because they CHOOSE not to pay for it. You can get catastrophic plans for as little as 90.00 per year...at least you can now...next year those prices will change dramatically.

Luckily I have the ability to leave the country before then so I will not have to deal with the mess in the U.S. I feel sorry for the people that don't have the option. Sadly, I don't see the direction of the country changing, the vast majority of the public in the U.S. appear to be far too comfortably ignorant of what government is doing. Republicans and Democrats alike...