<p>How do you feel about the following statement on a scale of 1-5, 1 being completely agree, 5 being completely disagree: We need to have a socialized general healthcare system in this country?</p>
<p>2</p>
<p>that's my answer</p>
<p>5 .</p>
<p>1 .</p>
<p>we know who the rich white republican is!</p>
<p>What do you mean by socialized? That's just a hot button word that means whatever anyone wants to to mean.</p>
<p>1.
and I am not a " rich white republican "</p>
<p>for heaven's sake everybody else around the world calls it "Universal Health Care" or "National Health Care System." We don't have to always label it with this "socialist" red scare attitude. Basically, it's a simple matter of who pays the bill. I don't see why the government shouldn't shoulder the responsibility as me and my family already pay them way too much in tax dollars anyway. Better to spend my hard earned tax dollars on curing me and my fellow citizens than letting it end up on Lockheed Martin's balance sheet.</p>
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we know who the rich white republican is!
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Funny, last time I checked, I was brown, middle-class, and staunchly anti-republican...</p>
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I don't see why the government shouldn't shoulder the responsibility as me and my family already pay them way too much in tax dollars anyway. Better to spend my hard earned tax dollars on curing me and my fellow citizens than letting it end up on Lockheed Martin's balance sheet.
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I wouldn't mind 'socialized' healthcare if the only thing involved was a simple reallocation of resources from the comically high defense budget.</p>
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<p>I fully admit to being white, but I am neither Republican nor individually wealthy. </p>
<p>Do we really want to have to justify to some bureaucratic system why we need the surgery or the chemo? People die waiting for proper treatment to be approved in countries with socialized health care. Even the little things, like being able to pick your physician, are put at risk by having a socialized system of medicine. </p>
<p>I have no desire to give the government any say in my health care, and I don't want to subsidize the health care of others. Socialized health care is a wealth transfer system, essentially stealing. No thanks.</p>
<p>Well healthcare should NOT be left to the free market. I'm sorry. We have the #1 highest cost per capita of healthcare in the world. It doesn't mean that we get great healthcare though. We're #39 in the quality of healthcare according to the WHO-and oh yeah, guess who's number 1? Oh yeah, FRANCE. You know, the country very well known for their nationalised healthcare? The UK, Canada and Australia are all better according to the WHO. Oh yeah, guess what? France, the UK, and Canada, all countries with nationalised healthcare, spend less than HALF of what the US does per capita on healthcare. So obviously nationalised healthcare works. Healthcare is a social interest, just like education-it needs to be funded by society, not left to the free market.</p>
<p>My friend from Canada has bluecross health insurance, valid in Canada, paid for by the government of Canada, and she seems to be very happy with it. It's the same bluecross insurance, that my mother, as a federal government worker, pays $2500 a year for. I'm more than willing to pay for prescription medication as they do in Canada-I pay for prescription meds here, and I pay for health insurance ON TOP OF IT.</p>
<p>I provide you with these Links from Duke and Virginia Law, which show and state why regulation in our health sector is the reason for high prices, and as a result of high prices not adequate coverage.</p>
<p>States</a> Make Health Care More Expensive, Matthews Claims
Is</a> Execessive Health Care Regulation Hurting Uninsured?
Cost</a> of Health Services Regulation</p>
<p>and some other articles
Rising</a> Costs, Reduced Access: How Regulation Harms Health Consumers and the Uninsured
Excessive</a> Health Insurance Regulation Leads to High Costs</p>
<p>our health care is expensive due to the government regulating it, not because of the free market. If it was up to the free market prices would always be at the true market value of what a person would pay for them which is much cheaper than what we have now.</p>
<p>For God's sake, regulation is a necessary element of healthcare. If there was no regulation, insurance companies would no doubt just deny or void all claims and not pay out ANYTHING. And then what would happen? We're dealing with people's lives here. I would totally support regulation that requires insurance companies to unconditionally pay out ALL claims and not allowing insurance companies any say in what treatments a patient receives. You have the right to make a profit on your business if your business merits it, but I'm sorry, you don't get to profit off the suffering of other people.</p>
<p>Insurance companies are regulated and still get away with a lot of crap. But it should NOT cost $2,000 to call an ambulance and a hospital stay should NOT require you to remortgage your house. We desperately NEED nationalised healthcare, along the lines of what Canada, the UK, and France have. And we have more money then them. We should be able to hopefully do it better.</p>
<p>Government regulation is as good as the people working for it and the design. It can be government and well done, just as it can be private, profit-oriented and poorly run, as is our current system in the US. We spend more and get less than any other country, except perhaps for expensive gizmos and unnecessary tests. Case in point, as I have ranted elsewhere, just about everything good thing you here about French healthcare is true. You might not have heard that doctors and nurses are not paid enough (but being professional they still do their jobs) - that is unfair. The hospitals and doctors offices do not usually look like lounges of your better hotels. So if that is upsetting you might not like French healthcare. Those are the main downsides. You would never have a government employee making a single decision in your healthcare, unlike the power that insurance employees yield here. All they do is make sure the doctors get paid, and you get reimbursed. And they try to make sure people don't cheat (which of course they do--people coming from elsewhere and pretending to be family etc etc). The French on a different subject also regulate a favorite topic in the news right now - Banks! Yes, banks do not get to charge major amounts of money for overdrafts. They offer things like savings accounts which after 5 years of regular lows savings at whatever rate you want guarantee a mortage or house-fix up loan at a low rate (4 percent interest I think) for up to 100,000 euros. And if you find you can't use it, you can give the rights to someone else in your family etc etc. Owning a home in France doesn't mean owning a trailor home...it means a real 'something' be it a condo or a house. I mention this just to show that good government policy in conjunction with private interests can create positive change in society. And please don't rant about the French tax rate, it really isn't that high and is offset by lower costs elsewhere (property taxes are very low). Notice the lack of rich French people moving here to get away from those taxes. ...I am going to get back to listening to McCain rant here so...</p>
<p>Isn't "Department of Defense" a misnomer, since this department hasn't done any "defending" in the past, oh, 60 years? It should be called the "useless wars department." But besides that point, Scandinavia has one of the highest tax rates in the world but they also have one of the highest standards of living in the world. Remember, bigger is NOT better. You could have a 6,000 square foot mansion built with cardboard and a crap floorplan, or a 1000 square foot apartment built with brick and steel with a workable floor plan. I'll take the latter any time. I don't understand people's aversion to apartments or condos, but whatever, that's another topic. If you ask me, I'd rather have a properly built condo than a crappy "single family" home.</p>
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For God's sake, regulation is a necessary element of healthcare. If there was no regulation, insurance companies would no doubt just deny or void all claims and not pay out ANYTHING. And then what would happen? We're dealing with people's lives here. I would totally support regulation that requires insurance companies to unconditionally pay out ALL claims and not allowing insurance companies any say in what treatments a patient receives. You have the right to make a profit on your business if your business merits it, but I'm sorry, you don't get to profit off the suffering of other people.</p>
<p>Insurance companies are regulated and still get away with a lot of crap. But it should NOT cost $2,000 to call an ambulance and a hospital stay should NOT require you to remortgage your house. We desperately NEED nationalised healthcare, along the lines of what Canada, the UK, and France have. And we have more money then them. We should be able to hopefully do it better.
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</p>
<p>Sorry but I see no need for any regulation in health care. The market is far less forgiving than any law or government action. The insurance companies could do that, as you mentioned not paying and such, but they would then go out of business. Since there is usually a infinite amount of competition in a free market with little to no chance of monopoly, somebody will and the company or person that does the right job will gain the most customers. </p>
<p>If ya didn't realize, these insurance companies love and lobby for more regulation. To them the more the better, because the more regulation the more money they are forced to charge. Then to combat the high prices of health insurance the govt needs to inflate the money system, but the insurance companies are still getting paid, they don't care. Do you know how cheap insurance was before massive regulation and the advent of the HMO and managed care?</p>
<p>The market is unforgiving, if you screw your customers they will screw you and you will be broke.</p>
<p>Regulations, the wrong regulations, screwed up our housing/financial systems.</p>
<p>The wrong, far-reaching regulations are also crippling our health care system (which is, essentially, pretty nationalized) . It's not working.</p>
<p>I think universal health care doesn't necessarily mean a bureaucratic regulatory health care. It's simply system under which the government would shoulder portions of each citizen's medical expenses. </p>
<p>I hate to say this but during my time in Canada, I went to a local hospital there to check up on a really painful stomach ache. Ironically, it was the least painful process because all I had to do in terms of paper work was to show them my driver's license. Then, immediately I got the treatment and the doctor also gave me some medicine to take for the next few weeks for free. That was it. Whatever universal health care may be, my own experiences tell me it's a much less painful process than filing an insurance claim and fighting my way through the bureaucratic puzzles and fine prints laid out by Aetna here in maryland.</p>
<p>Dr. Horse: market failures occur when ALL health insurance companies try to screw their customers. What are we going to do, boycott health insurance altogether? Healthcare should NEVER be left to greedy, profit-seeking corporations. EVER. Nationalise it.</p>
<p>Just look at how deregulating the banking industry worked out.</p>