News Us politics - read first post before comment

[lostforgottensoul]

I'm very comfortable with trying out single payer / socialized medicine on a state level. Please let's do this! I'd like to see it work on a state or other smaller scale first before we nationalize it. I think this is a place that liberals and conservatives could actually agree... and that's how health care can be reformed in the quickest manner.

Bravo with that statement and yes, YES, I also think Reps and Dems can agree with this. I am Rep on my voter card but more independant in thinking (depending on the topic really) but I see a lot of Dems on here (I dislike the word "liberals" because of how my dad uses it - to cut down people) and I see us all agreeing (I think) that healthcare is broken and ObamaCare isn't working.

I'll sign Florida up for it for sure!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

: Senate GOP updates health care bill to include 6-month lockout for uninsured

Though I am glad to see the "get insurence or pay a fine" get taken out, as I believe that takes "a free nation" and turns it upside down, (though not sure it should be replaced but rather just taken away) but this is retarded! For a lack of a better word. I mean, really?

It looks like it isn't getting much backing though. Hopefully it will go nowhere.

 

[joeylittle]

For many people, the Affordable Care Act was a step in the right direction. At the very least, it acknowledged that if we are going to continue to have a profit-driven care system, people need health care or they will be swept underwater by the so-called 'true cost' of care.

But the thinking in the current administration is more geared towards making sure that John doesn't have to pay for Janes OBGYN appointment out of his own premiums and taxes.

It's every man for himself, and if you don't have a parachute you're screwed.

The Affordable Care Act was far from perfect. But the ideology was going in the right direction. People can chant 'repeal and replace' all they want...without a plan for 'replace', repeal only serves to throw everything into chaos. And the current majority party had a very long time to come up with a different plan. Apparently, their plan is 'health care should be optional', and 'the well should not pay for the sick'.

Great plan.

But we are a capitalist nation, and social policies have always struggled in the face of that. It's just depressing as f*ck to watch the capitalists win this one.

Canadians have extreme wait times for certain procedures. I understand that cancer treatment is sometimes very difficult to obtain. That is not an insignificant thing.

But I would rather take a system with limits on access to care, timing-wise, than be in a system that will deny me coverage because I am already sick.

I often wonder if the US is just too big of a nation to be governed effectively.

 

[Casey_03]

But I would rather take a system with limits on access to care, timing-wise, than be in a system that will deny me coverage because I am already sick.

Agreed. Some of the stories about children being born with pre-existing conditions are absolutely heartbreaking. I had to stop looking at Twitter today because it was just too much to think about how many families could be destroyed if their children are born with a heart defect or some other condition under this new healthcare plan. I'm glad to see that this bill is not getting full support from Republicans, but I have a feeling it will pass. For me personally, that would be catastrophic. I will lose Medicaid and be left without health insurance. I'm not sure if my son will still be covered. And yet, at least my son doesn't have a pre-existing condition. I'll still be better off than millions of other Americans.

 

[scout86]

I often wonder if the US is just too big of a nation to be governed effectively

I think that's a big part of the problem.

 

[anthony]

Trump seems to like Australia's way of doing it though, sort of

The simple way for that to occur, is the US stops spending 600+ billion per annum on their military budget, and cut that shit in half, allocating it to healthcare. War is not solving things, the US has not won a war since WWII, and the size of the US military is not required to defend its own country from attack. It loses every other time, so why not cut it down, allocate to healthcare, and use half the budget to focus on actual defence instead of losing offence?

 

[scout86]

And yet the current proposed budget calls for increased military spending. I suspect you could figure out the reasons if you followed the money.

There are moments, a lot of them recently, when I wonder if this isn't just part of a republican plan to decrease the 'surplus' population.

 

[Deleted member 541]

@scout86 If they wanted to decrease the "surplus population" then why stop funding Planned Parenthood??? I don't think it's the surplus they are trying to get rid of, but the "sick and elderly" Those that are in need of the medical treatments... mostly the baby boomer generation, and the elderly. We live longer these days due to medical advances, therefore we put a strain on services and the medical field.

I doubt this bill will pass. If the two parties would put their hatred of each other's values aside and WORK for the people (their actual job) then they might actually come up with a plan that would work. But giving a tax break to the 1% of the rich ain't working, IMO!!!! That just makes the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer...

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Canadians have extreme wait times for certain procedures. I understand that cancer treatment is sometimes very difficult to obtain. That is not an insignificant thing.

That was my dad's concern with free healthcare. A vaild concern but Anthony showed that Austrialia is doing it without those extreme wait times. So why can't we attempt their type of healthcare on a small scale like @Justmehere said?

Apparently, their plan is 'health care should be optional', and 'the well should not pay for the sick'.

Which is just stupid. Where does that leave us sick people? I have group but what if I didn't? And where does that leave my group? ObamaCare reached out and touched group. Why? And it is dying all by itself.

the US stops spending 600+ billion per annum on their military budget, and cut that shit in half, allocating it to healthcare. War is not solving things, the US has not won a war since WWII, and the size of the US military is not required to defend its own country from attack. It loses every other time, so why not cut it down, allocate to healthcare, and use half the budget to focus on actual defence instead of losing offence?

Agreed! We have something like the largest military. There is a reason all other countries have a lesser forced military. There is no reason for such a big military other then showing our muscles. Stupid!

 

[Anarchy]

Just me here's, pointing to the VA as an illustration of what fully nationalised health care would look like, is valid.

The state sector gets a huge dollop of undeserved good will

Look at any news site, any news paper, and you will find articles detailing state sector failings, inefficiency, corruption, incompetence, overspend, debts, abuse, bullying...

And right next to them, and with no Sense of irony or scepticism; articles offering greater state sector involvement and control as a universal panacea for all ills

It's a child like "mammy will fix it"

Anything with humans involved can eff up (and generally will eff up sooner or later).

An eff up, depends upon your viewpoint.

Whether the failings are in the VA, the health insurance system, or farm subsidies - who are they failings for?

From the point of view of people working for the VA, people vetting applicants to Obama care exchanges, or a bureautwat who spends 3 weeks on $1,000/ week, re calculating the acerage of a farm, so he can reduce its subsidy payment by 50c...

The system could be working very nicely for them.

Under politics, those with a concentrated interest, will usually out lobby the more diluted interests of the general public, and that has been the case all of the time,. Right from the time of the articles of confederation ( which broke down over the issue of tariffs between the 13 colonies).
After the coup-d'etat of the constitutional convention, all 13 colonies were brought into one tarriff block

What is a tarriff for?

It allows domestic special interests to charge domestic consumers higher prices for fewer and lower quality goods than they would otherwise have available

That has been the purpose of government in America, right from the start - to screw over the population, to the benefit of politically favoured special interests.

The failings at the VA (for veterans - not for employees) are not somehow accidental, they're institutional, that's what the institution does.

 

[Anarchy]

Agreed! We have something like the largest military. There is a reason all other countries have a lesser forced military. There is no reason for such a big military other then showing our muscles. Stupid!

The united state military is not only the biggest

It's also bigger than the next nine biggest militaries added together.

Just regarding all of the sabre rattling in the news about threats to the united state, by Russia. Where in the world rankings of economies would you expect to see Russia? ( Bear in mind that the money to sustain a military has to come from somewhere).

Spoiler

. Russia has the fourteenth largest economy in the world. It's smaller than the Spanish economy, and way less than half the size of the British economy.

 

[Anarchy]

A hundred years ago, Americans were also told that their nation was facing a health care crisis. Then, however, the complaint was that medical costs were too low, and that health insurance was too accessible. But in that era, too, government stepped forward to solve the problem. And boy, did it solve it!

How Government Solved

A brief historical piece from the mid 90s by Roderick Long. He's a History prof at Auburn, and a left libertarian.
The Shriners hospitals are one of the few reminders of that time.