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Obamacare upheld
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northway



Joined: 05 Jul 2010

PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 11:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

visitorq wrote:
sirius black wrote:
Interesting thing is America's doctors and the industry like to brag that we have the best medical care in the world. Its also the most expensive but they view that as a necessary evil for the best medical care.

I view it as a totally unnecessary and shameful sort of evil. There is no reason for it, other than some people being granted a monopoly by government. As with so many other things in our country...

Quote:
The licensing boards are NOT a government agency but a private board. Many people are under the erroneous assumption that the government licenses doctors. They do not, a private board does and the government accepts their determination as to whether or not one can practice medicine in a state or the nation.

This is the key point. Without government enforcement, these licensing boards would only be as good as their reputation. Other boards would spring into existence and offer competition, and more skilled doctors would be hired, driving down prices. As many doctors as are required by the market to satisfy the needs of consumers would be hired, and healthcare prices would inevitably drop to a level that the market can bear (unlike the present time, where it is much too high). The basic supply and demand principle should be allowed to work, and benefit the consumer above all, but this natural way is corrupted whenever government grants a monopoly.


That plan strikes me as a game of Russian roulette wherein someone would get shot in the head by a witch doctor to cure their brain tumor. You need some kind of professional standards, as most people lack the time and savvy to analyze the entire market for health care. Moreover, a lot of medical care happens during emergencies, and I really don't see how you're going to analyze the reputations of various medical boards when in the process of having a heart attack.
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visitorq



Joined: 11 Jan 2008

PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 12:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

northway wrote:
That plan strikes me as a game of Russian roulette wherein someone would get shot in the head by a witch doctor to cure their brain tumor. You need some kind of professional standards, as most people lack the time and savvy to analyze the entire market for health care. Moreover, a lot of medical care happens during emergencies, and I really don't see how you're going to analyze the reputations of various medical boards when in the process of having a heart attack.

What are you talking about? In medical emergencies people usually go to hospitals. Hospitals would compete to get the most accredited doctors and keep out bad doctors, or risk going out of business (most people already know which hospitals are reputable or not just by word of mouth, or you could have private rating companies release reports, but you as a patient wouldn't have to research too deeply into it). And even if some new hospitals were opened and had less highly qualified doctors than others, it would still be better than nothing. Overall it would still force the prices down across the board and give people a much better value for the quality of care they would receive. This is the very nature of competition.

As for people who just scrape their knees or want to get their child's sore throats swabbed, they could go to private clinics. For this sort of thing a person with a 2 year degree from some community college could probably be brought on to be trained by regular doctors and move up from their entry-level positions after just a couple years of on-the-job training. If they wanted to move on to become more highly qualified brain surgeons or whatever, they would then take the time and invest the money to study and gain more experience required to receive the additional accreditation. Pretty straightforward.
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NilesQ



Joined: 27 Nov 2006

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 9:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

To be honest, I'm Canadian. That means I'm biased because because I was raised in a society where the idea of healthcare as an inalienable right is highly promoted.

What I find hard to reconcile is that fact that, in general, Americans are some of the kindest and most generous people you'll ever meet, but seem to be quite oppossed to the idea of socialized, (even private, mandated) healthcare. The public will support running untold deficits and incurring debt to conduct military operations in foreign lands, but opposes increased public spending to guarantee universal coverage for fellow citizens.

Not my place to judge this as I'm not a US citizen. I'd like to understand the ideology, though. Is it not wanting governmnet interference in medical care? Fear of inefficient use of resources by bureaucrats?
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K1020



Joined: 20 Jun 2010

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 5:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was speaking to a friend of mine about that exact topic and he saw socialization of medicine as an infringement on his liberty by taxation. I mentioned all the other stupid crap he pays for already any he dismissed it; saying that all should be addressed but regardless of any other spending he opposed opening a new front in government spending.
I mentioned one could reasonably make a link between proper healthcare, at least for minors, and a net social benefit that could shift spending out of other institutions as a result; but no dice. For him this was an issue of money out of his pocket; period.
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visitorq



Joined: 11 Jan 2008

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 6:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NilesQ wrote:
To be honest, I'm Canadian. That means I'm biased because because I was raised in a society where the idea of healthcare as an inalienable right is highly promoted.

What I find hard to reconcile is that fact that, in general, Americans are some of the kindest and most generous people you'll ever meet, but seem to be quite oppossed to the idea of socialized, (even private, mandated) healthcare. The public will support running untold deficits and incurring debt to conduct military operations in foreign lands, but opposes increased public spending to guarantee universal coverage for fellow citizens.

Not my place to judge this as I'm not a US citizen. I'd like to understand the ideology, though. Is it not wanting governmnet interference in medical care? Fear of inefficient use of resources by bureaucrats?

Can't speak for others, but for me the money spent on the military, as well as that wasted on corporate welfare and bailouts, is nothing short of a travesty. It illustrates clearly the folly of government involvement in the economy, and while I would prefer that money wasted on war were spent on something like healthcare, in principle I must refute any government confiscation/redistribution of peoples' money (which is stolen either by force through taxation, or through the fraud of inflationary money creation). Socialized medicine is arguably just another form of monopoly capitalism, and in the case of Obamneycare, is tantamount to massive, unfair subsidies to be handed over to insurance companies.

On a more ideological level, I find it impossible to see how healthcare could be in any way construed as a "right". People have natural rights, like being free in their person, but this does not include the right to other peoples' money. Just as I don't have the right to stick my hand in your pocket and help myself to your money (whether I am genuinely in need or not), the government doesn't have the right to take peoples' money through taxation. At least that is how the argument goes...
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comm



Joined: 22 Jun 2010

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 7:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NilesQ wrote:
The public will support running untold deficits and incurring debt to conduct military operations in foreign lands, but opposes increased public spending to guarantee universal coverage for fellow citizens.

Not my place to judge this as I'm not a US citizen. I'd like to understand the ideology, though. Is it not wanting governmnet interference in medical care? Fear of inefficient use of resources by bureaucrats?

I don't believe in this ideology, but I think I understand it...
Generally, conservative Americans are opposed to taking things from someone and giving it to someone else, liberals are more ambiguous on this. But it's difficult to make that case when you're taking money from someone and giving someone else "freedom" or "security".

Frankly, I'm with visitorq. Taxation is the taking of money (where money is effectively one's labor given form) by force for the purpose of giving it to someone else. In principle, I shouldn't have to give my labor (money) for other people's healthcare and neither should a doctor have to give his labor (literally) for nothing in return. The idea that one would have the right to force me to labor (that is, take my money) or force a doctor to labor (in the literal sense) is quite alien to me.

While I'd prefer not to be taxed for other people's healthcare, it's certainly preferable to our aggressive foreign policy; which at best, subsidizes other nations' defense and at worst, props up vile dictators, creating more enemies for us in the long run.
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Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NilesQ wrote:

What I find hard to reconcile is that fact that, in general, Americans are some of the kindest and most generous people you'll ever meet, but seem to be quite oppossed to the idea of socialized, (even private, mandated) healthcare. The public will support running untold deficits and incurring debt to conduct military operations in foreign lands, but opposes increased public spending to guarantee universal coverage for fellow citizens.

Not my place to judge this as I'm not a US citizen. I'd like to understand the ideology, though. Is it not wanting governmnet interference in medical care? Fear of inefficient use of resources by bureaucrats?


It may seem that Americans are crazy with the juxtaposition you've provided: nearly unlimited funding for foreign wars and military spending but nothing for socialized healthcare.

But remember that WWII has shown that American military power can be trusted, even we push other conflicts away from our memory. Meanwhile, Federal-managed healthcare is totally foreign.

Its still a bit odd. Gov't subsidized healthcare is already here in the U.S.: its called Medicare/Medicaid. The difference is that Americans pay for it in the form of payroll taxes. Although there's certainly a distribution of wealth at play, Americans aren't conscious of it because they feel they paid into the system, and will get care out of it. Likewise, most Americans currently get healthcare through their employer. This is changing, but for the majority of the middle-class, employers provide health-care plans.

The American mindset definitely associates healthcare with work achievement therefore self-reliance. Meanwhile, the American mindset also associates gov't subsidy with I'm generalizing here, which we all recognize as unavoidable. But since I mention it, its worth going to the numbers, which will probably surprise both of us.

When Americans were asked whether it was the responsibility of the Federal gov't to provide healthcare to all, a majority of respondents consistently answered 'yes.' I urge you to go to the link, as Gallup asked this question every year. From 2000-2007, 60% or more Americans believed the Feds should provide universal healthcare, and never more than 40% answered that the Federal gov't shouldn't. So during the Bush years, roughly 180 million Americans supported Federally provided universal healthcare. Americans don't look so foreign now, do they?

It starts to get interesting starting in 2009. Battle lines are drawn and talking points crafted and funding on both sides marshalled; and yet Obamacare was passed in 2009. Firstly, Obama radicalized healthcare. Once he got behind it, people forgot that Obamneycare (if I can borrow visitorq's verbage) was a Democrat-adopted GOP plan. It didn't help that Obama felt it unnecessary to defend his signature legislation. Meanwhile, Fox and the GOP propaganda machine lined up against Obamacare because it was the Obama-Democratic grand plan. Put any issue into the American partisan machine, and pretty soon it becomes impossible for most of the country to have a rational discussion about it.

I don't know if that helps. Frankly, I was impressed with visitorq's post. I agree with him, it seems strange to call healthcare a 'right.' But then again, Americans assign rights to political activities and expression, protection of property, and privacy. Our rights are arrayed against a tyrannical and over-grasping government, we have almost no rights versus employers (except for a limited number of privacy and equal protection anti-discrimination rights), and no expectation that the government has to provide us anything in terms of necessaries. Visitorq mentions that wasteful military spending is far worse than healthcare investment, but I would also state that almost all welfare spending is more wasteful than healthcare spending; particularly energy subsidies, housing subsidies (FHA loans and insurance), and agricultural subsidies. The Federal gov't has distorted a lot of commerce in America, and has its hands in almost every industry. Conservatives are rightly suspicious, and I cannot argue with visitorq: the way Obamacare is structured, it very evidently subsidizes private insurance industries.
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Sector7G



Joined: 24 May 2008

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

comm wrote:
In principle, I shouldn't have to give my labor (money) for other people's healthcare and neither should a doctor have to give his labor (literally) for nothing in return. The idea that one would have the right to force me to labor (that is, take my money) or force a doctor to labor (in the literal sense) is quite alien to me.

While I'd prefer not to be taxed for other people's healthcare, it's certainly preferable to our aggressive foreign policy; which at best, subsidizes other nations' defense and at worst, props up vile dictators, creating more enemies for us in the long run.


The "tax", or "penalty", or whatever you want to call it, is only imposed on those who don't prove they have health insurance. While I can kind of understand someone not liking that just on principle, I am not sure I understand how that translates into you "giving money for other people's healthcare", or how doctors are being forced into giving their labor for nothing in return. Could you please explain what you mean by that?
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comm



Joined: 22 Jun 2010

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 9:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sector7G wrote:
Could you please explain what you mean by that?

I was responding to NilesQ's question about why Americans don't support taxpayer funded universal healthcare, as I quoted him in my response...
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Sector7G



Joined: 24 May 2008

PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

comm wrote:
Sector7G wrote:
Could you please explain what you mean by that?

I was responding to NilesQ's question about why Americans don't support taxpayer funded universal healthcare, as I quoted him in my response...


Ok, sorry, not trying to butt in or start an argument. I just don't think that is an accurate description of the Affordable Care Act, which really has no similarity to the systems used in Canada or the UK.

Requiring everyone to have health insurance may be objectionable, as I said before, but it is not the same as "taxpayer funded". That is all I am saying.
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ThingsComeAround



Joined: 07 Nov 2008

PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not in Texas:

http://m.lubbockonline.com/local-news/2012-07-09/texas-washington-no-obamacare

Quote:
AUSTIN � Republican Gov. Rick Perry told the federal government Monday despite the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the health care act, Texas won�t expand Medicaid or implement a state insurance exchange, a move that drew strong criticism from Democrats.

In a two-page letter to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Perry told her, �please relay this message to the President: I oppose both the expansion of Medicaid as provided in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the creation of a so-called �state� insurance exchange, because both represent brazen intrusions into the sovereignty of our state.�
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northway



Joined: 05 Jul 2010

PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Two things:

First, if health care isn't a right, doesn't it necessarily follow that you would turn sick people away from hospitals if they don't have the means to pay? Are you really willing to do that?

Second, Democrats wanted a public option in addition to the private market solution that we ended up with. Had this occurred, there would have at least been the possibility that you wouldn't be forced to buy a plan from a for-profit insurance company. As it is, that didn't fly, and we're left with a system where we have to pay private insurers (subsidizing private industry, if you will).
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sirius black



Joined: 04 Jun 2010

PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I saw the opposition to the health care plan as largely a political thing by the Republican masses and a financial thing by the medical industry.
Just my guess but had a Repblican president done the same there wouldn't be this outrage and the right would hail him as a visionary.

Repubicans and conservatives don't seem to see a problem with it on the state level such as when Romney did pretty much the same in Massachusetts. If some Americans were opposed to it in concept it wouldn't pass on the state level. It would also be protested by people not from that state.

We've seen things that a state did or would turnn into a national debate and people outside the state join in.

States that consider gay marriages for example, gets national attention from the pundits. Protesters from outside the state on BOTH sides of the issue. Money poured in on BOTH sides from outside the state to defeat it.

When have you seen the same emotion from a state considering statewide mandatory health plan? Yeah, you get some but not even close to the attention for things such as gay marraige as an example.

However, the supposed outrage over Obamacare was as if there was going to a hammer and a sickle replacing the stars on the flag.

Lets be real. The protests and outrage was ALL ABOUT OBAMA. Republicans and conservatives were still pissed about losing the election so badly and with money poured in from the health care industry to the politicians they bought and paid for, it was made bigger than it really was.

The anti heath care bill was all about giving Obama a public defeat. I'm not saying this a proponent of a national plan but just the real truth behind it all.

Republicans were going to oppose ANYTHING by Obama at that time. Democrats do the same as well. Bush got stiff opposition for thngs from Dems after the bitterness over the recount in 2000.
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Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gov. Scott to Continue Blocking ObamaCare in Florida

Quote:
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) maintained that he would continue to reject implementation of key aspects of President Barack Obama's health care reform law this week, despite the certainty that Obamacare will now remain intact due to the president's reelection.

Scott has been a leading adversary of Obamacare, repeatedly refusing to accept provisions that would expand Medicaid rolls and set up a state-run health insurance exchange. He continued to criticize these programs during an appearance at the New College of Florida on Wednesday.


The Obama machine should work to peel him off in 2014.

McDonnell in VA and Brownback in KS vow the same.
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Fox



Joined: 04 Mar 2009

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 4:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kuros wrote:
Although there's certainly a distribution of wealth at play, Americans aren't conscious of it because they feel they paid into the system, and will get care out of it.


Which, at least in the case of the average baby boomer, is questionable: the baby boomers present an entitlement crisis precisely because they never paid in anywhere near as much as they're going to be taking out under the current system. If we're seriously going to do entitlement reform, the baby boomers feeling the sting of it most strongly would probably be just.

Kuros wrote:
I agree with him, it seems strange to call healthcare a 'right.'


Calling anything new a "right" seems strange at first, because rights are ultimately a social convention; the only reason our current rights seem intuitive to us is because they're now deeply embedded in our culture. Go back far enough in history and no one has any rights at all. Although I do feel certain rights resonate with the human character (and I would actually say the right to be taken care of when ill -- i.e. health care -- probably resonates more strongly with the human essence than, say, the right to freedom of speech or religion do), they still manifest only by societal fiat.

I'm not championing the "Obamacare" model here (I've made no secret of how I feel about it in itself), but the abstract notion of healthcare as a right? No less absurd or troublesome in principle than any other right society has chosen to grant, and moreover, illustrative of a humane and benevolent character.
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