More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care, researchers report in a landmark study released Tuesday.The 193-page report, "Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late," examines the plight of 30 million — one in seven — working-age Americans whose employers don't provide insurance and who don't qualify for government medical care.
While Paul can rationalize all he can about Americans' need to make "different health care decisions" the fact is, lots of people make the best decisions they can based on their income or their jobs. As more employers decrease or drop healthcare benefits, it won't be (and never has been) as easy as saying "Get a job with a company that pays healthcare."
Corporate America will eventually lead the drive for a universal healthcare system. They will tire of spending the tremendous costs they pay in healthcare premiums, and will realize their employees will be more productive if they are healthy.
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I wonder what fraction of these people needed medical insurance simply because of the poor medical and health choices of which they have 100% control, such as those involving smoking, natural vs. artificial foods, educating themselves (studies show a stronger correlation between education and life span than they do for access to high-tech medical procedures and expensive toxic drugs), and regular exercise.
In any case, the US life span exceeds that of nearly every nation, and surely every communist nation.
Why do all these idiots keep coming to this horrible nation, and why do they stay?
We can certainly improve this system:
1. Make it even more market-driven.
2. Make it more accurately reflect true costs; increase co-pays. The current system encourages people to maximize the number of treatments, visits, drugs, etc., to "get the most" back for their premium.
3. Charge healthy people less, to draw them in; the current system fairly encourages healthy people to avoid getting insurance for as long as possible.
4. People take responsibility for their own health. Sure, you could say that even in socialist/commie societies. However, in a free market society, it's much easier to stay fit because we can avail ourselves better of healthful food and recreational time and resources.
If "Corporate America" ever supports "universal healthcare", it will be harming its ownself, as it will be aiding in a blow to the US economy. Nothing is "free". If workers don't pay for their own healthcare from their own wages, the costs will come from somewhere: the taxes that they pay!
And why should I -- who trouble myself to eat carefully selected foods and exercise -- pay for the consequences of people who make a different set of choices? What incentive do I have to build and maintain my own health if I can just have the rest of the nation pay to amputate my prostate or radiate my cancer?
"And why should I -- who trouble myself to eat carefully selected foods and exercise -- pay for the consequences of people who make a different set of choices? What incentive do I have to build and maintain my own health if I can just have the rest of the nation pay to amputate my prostate or radiate my cancer?"
This is a gross oversimplification. You're already paying for other people's grandmothers to have healthcare and social security. Assuming things will continue the way they are now, you won't have those services when you're old enough to take advantage of them.
You're also paying for agricultural subsidies of which you don't approve. I'm paying for wars on terror, Iraqis, Haitains, Afghans and drugs, and I don't agree with them either.
The biggest costs for most corporations is health care benefits. A shift from employer paid plans to a government run plan would save those companies millions, even though they would now have to pay higher taxes. Why? Because the burden would be shared among all Americans, not just the corporations.
Check out THIS Yes Magazine article, which does a great job of explaining of the health care debate.
From the above linked Yes article:
"But it’s not only about the money. Comments from participants in the town meetings, from Fargo to Memphis, from Los Angeles to Providence, revealed an understanding that this is about a deeper question. It is an issue of the sort of society we want to be -- one in which we all are left to sink or swim on our own or one in which we recognize that the whole society benefits when we each can get access to the help we need."
Paul would much rather watch everyone around him to struggle to stay afloat instead of offering a hand to a sinking neighbor.
Nadir: I do not seek to watch people around me struggling hopelessly and failing to keep themselves alive and healthy. You keep confusing your own interpretation of the consequences of my policy proposals with your own. The debate here does not constitute your desire to have a horrible healthcare system, versus mine to have the best-possible one, nor vice versa. The debate here instead comprises our shared goal of having the largest possible fraction of the US population having the greatest and lowest cost access to the most and best healtcare options, with the contention involving your belief that socialism can best achieve this, and mine that free market capitalism will.
You appear unwilling or unable to discuss this question without also discussing many other topics, such as tax dollars spent to subsidize agriculture, and to prevent people from selling, purchasing, and consuming recreational drugs. I agree with your position here: the healthcare problem of our country certainly involves a lack of tax dollars available for sensible and truly beneficial government efforts.
As to the socialist vs. capitalist methods of archiving a health care system, I am certain that people taking responsibility for themselves will lead to the biggest possible fraction of people obtaining the best possible services at the lowest possible prices. Such a system would not exclude you and Sean Penn from donating some of your money to help others, by the way, it would merely exclude govt agents confiscating some set fraction of y'all's incomes and then spending it some stupid, committee-decided manner. Under my free market proposal, you and Sean Penn can make a fund to help people purchase local-produced food and herbal medicines.
Your socialist proposal represents one of the endless big-govt schemes that always turns out so appalling stupid, perhaps including even the Iraq war, and surely the Homeland Security and Patriot acts, the war on drugs, big ag subsidies, etc. I am 100% certain that the best way to produce a healthcare system is *NOT* via govt confiscation of every citizen's wages, pooling of these resource, and then management of them.
"Such a system would not exclude you and Sean Penn from donating some of your money to help others, by the way, it would merely exclude govt agents confiscating some set fraction of y'all's incomes and then spending it some stupid, committee-decided manner."
And allow me to use this example to discuss another topic that isn't on the subject, but proves the point you are making. Perhaps those of you who support an imperial war in Iraq should donate the funds and your own children to fight that war instead of taking it from the US Treasury where it could be used to provide healthcare for the uninsured here at home.
"I am 100% certain that the best way to produce a healthcare system is *NOT* via govt confiscation of every citizen's wages, pooling of these resource, and then management of them."
And like on the Iraq War, your opinion is contrary to the opinion of the majority of the so-called civilized world where universal health care systems are either in place or desired. Your opinion is the fringe, whacko point of view, not mine.
Most of the industrialized world already has universal care. My buddy, Pierre who lives in Canada (and voted conservative in the last national election there) has stated that he would much rather pay higher taxes to know that he will have to pay less in healthcare premiums and that if his kids or parents get sick, he won't go bankrupt trying to get them medical care.
This does not mean that he doesn't take care of himself. He rides his bike to work in the summer, goes to the gym in the winter and feeds his kids healthy food. Pierre hasn't stopped looking out for his health because the government will pick up the tab when he's sick. He exercises because it makes him feel better.
Again, universal health care is beneficial to capitalists because corporations don't have to pony up health care costs for their employees, and those employees are healthier.
If US corporations could turn over the cost of healthcare to the government, they could afford to raise wages and still compete with nations like China and India because the skilled labor in the US still outweighs that in those Asian nations.
Universal health care should be a capitalist rallying cry!
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