RE: "How to fix the entitlement crisis"

Collarspace Discussion Forums

Home Login Search

RE: "How to fix the entitlement crisis"

View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest

All Forums >> [Casual Banter] >> Off the Grid >> RE: "How to fix the entitlement crisis"

Page: << < prev 1 [2]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

RE: "How to fix the entitlement crisis" - 5/23/2008 4:22:05 AM

meatcleaver

Posts: 9030
Joined: 3/13/2006
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: cyberdude611

CUT! CUT! CUT!

And we CANNOT do universal healthcare. If we do that right now this country will surely go into bankruptcy. We dont have the money to send 300 million Americans to the doctor and pay for every test, every procedure, and every surgery. We just dont have the money. We also dont have enough doctors. I right now cant get an appoitment (non-emergency) with my doctor for 2 months. He's that booked. If we have universal healthacre....how long will I have to wait then? A year?

And when you start forcing doctors to take paycuts in order to lower healthcare costs....more doctors will leave the practice. This is exactly what has happened to education. We are losing teachers because we are opening more schools and to pay for rising education costs we have to reduce teacher salaries. When you make more money as an Assistant Manager at McDonalds than teaching a High School class....you have to be nuts to go to school, pay $20,000 for a Masters degree and be a teacher. So we now have a teacher shortage and class sizes are going up and test scores are going down.
All the great minds out there that are becoming doctors will become lawyers or businessmen if they feel they can make more money doing something other than medicine.

Government is NOT the answer to our problems.

America is fighting a $3 billion war and the average American pays between 60-100% more for inferior healthcare (international stats accepted by the American medical professionals) than other developed countries so of course it can afford decent healthcare for everyone. It is a question of priorities. Cut imperial military jollies, cut corporate welfare and make the rich pay their fair share of tax. Its not easy in a country that is ideologically opposed to anything that smacks of collective social responsibility but its rational and there are about 30 other democracies in the world where universal healthcare works so the idea it doesn't work is purely dogma.

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 5/23/2008 4:24:34 AM >

_____________________________

There are fascists who consider themselves humanitarians, like cannibals on a health kick, eating only vegetarians.

(in reply to cyberdude611)

Profile

Post #: 21

RE: "How to fix the entitlement crisis" - 5/23/2008 3:52:07 PM

MmeGigs

Posts: 706
Joined: 1/26/2008
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

... there are about 30 other democracies in the world where universal healthcare works so the idea it doesn't work is purely dogma.

Yup. The arguments against universal health care tend to boil down to "It's not perfect!", as if perfection should be the standard. "The perfect is the enemy of the good." - Voltaire

We as a nation have to decide whether health care is a luxury or a necessity. If we decide it's a luxury, we have to accept that a heck of a lot of people are going to die from the lack of it*. If we decide it's a necessity, we have to find a way to assure that everyone has access to it.

* According to the Institute of Medicine, 20,000 people die in the US every year because they don't have health insurance.** If people are dying from lack of health care, doesn't that make it by definition a "necessity" rather than a "luxury"?

** I think that these folks need to get organized and die all at the same place and time. That would get folks to sit up and pay attention, wouldn't it?

(in reply to meatcleaver)

Profile

Post #: 22

RE: "How to fix the entitlement crisis" - 5/23/2008 4:26:22 PM

Real_Trouble

Posts: 471
Joined: 2/25/2008
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: MmeGigs

... there are about 30 other democracies in the world where universal healthcare works so the idea it doesn't work is purely dogma.

Again, look at the federal budget expenditures of those countries and then look at ours.

You will see there is one glaring difference between how we spend our money and how they spend their money; this differing allocation of funds helps to explain why we seem to have a much harder time paying for these things.

_____________________________

Send lawyers, guns, and money.

(in reply to MmeGigs)

Profile

Post #: 23