Universal Health Care Reform in the United States

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

I am always suspicious when what is called for by politicians and others is a 'debate'. How is this meant to be conducted in a sensible manner, without the loudest, most extreme voices (like Sarah Palin in this 'debate') being those that gain the most attention? How is any conclusion supposed to be reached that will appeal to anything like everybody? Can everybody be expected to understand the issues being put to them anything like well enough to reach an informed judgement? I'm afraid I tend to think that such calls for debates are, by and large, meaningless, and an excuse to avoid taking an actual decision.

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So why have any debate at all. Whatever party gets in the majority, just passes anything and everything they want. That sounds like a good system. At least try to have a debate. At the very least it could be fun, maybe. And if someone is so extreme and wrong, as you say Sarah Palin is, then it shouldn't be too hard for someone with all the facts on their side to disprove said extreme person. If you can't logically talk your way through the points to convince people (or at least try to) that your side is right, how do you know that your view point is the correct one?

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Originally Posted by chuck34

So why have any debate at all. Whatever party gets in the majority, just passes anything and everything they want. That sounds like a good system. At least try to have a debate. At the very least it could be fun, maybe. And if someone is so extreme and wrong, as you say Sarah Palin is, then it shouldn't be too hard for someone with all the facts on their side to disprove said extreme person. If you can't logically talk your way through the points to convince people (or at least try to) that your side is right, how do you know that your view point is the correct one?

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I'm not saying there should be no debate. But how does such a debate work? The only accurate means of coming to a conclusion is surely to have a national referendum. I always cringe when I hear politicians calling for 'an open and honest national debate' on something. What exactly does this mean? How should it be conducted?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

The obvious thing would be to not necessarily raise taxes, but to impose a levy on the existing medical insurance companies. As far as I can make out, they're on the take in a major and bloody obvious way.

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Really?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...rofit-not-rec/

Sure they make profits, but why are profits so "evil"?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

If there was some system of regulation of what the maximum allowable charges were for procedures and medical items, then the access to the system would be more equitable in the first place.

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That, I'm convinced, will lead to shortages of doctors and services because of less incentive for the doctors to perform their jobs. As far as I can tell, the premise of all this seems to be that doctors and insurance companies are evil and greedy. Why is it that if you start telling doctors and insurance companies what they can make (and that is less than what they currently make) that they all of a sudden become compassionate individuals that will do all this "good" out of the kindness of their hearts?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

People going into bankruptcy because they've had some medical procedure is quite frankly proves that people can not afford the existing system. Any overhaul has to be better in principle than what currently exists.

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Yes, but why does the government have to take over the industry to do this? A simple bill that says insurance companies can not drop coverage for people activly undergoing treatment would go a long way to stopping this.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

In Australia, there is a 1.5% tax imposed on income for the maintenance of the medical system, as well as a rebate for having private medical insurance. The system works as well as any other in the world I suppose.
But it took 11 years after the passing of the Health Insurance Act 1973, for Medicare as we know it in Australia to jump through all of the legal hoops.

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You said earlier that you didn't want to raise taxes, now you do? Obama has said over and over that he won't raise taxes on anyone that makes under $250,000 a year. How can you square that?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

The big problem with the American health care system is that so much power is vested with unelected people, making extravagant sums of money from it - and you're all paying for it.

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The power being vested in unelected people will not change even if the government takes over the entire system. Career beaurocrats will be running the system and they are unelected. There will always be people making loads of money, and sadly we're probably always going to pay for it one way or another. The trick is to harness the greed of those people.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

I'm not saying there should be no debate. But how does such a debate work? The only accurate means of coming to a conclusion is surely to have a national referendum. I always cringe when I hear politicians calling for 'an open and honest national debate' on something. What exactly does this mean? How should it be conducted?

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Well for starters, when the Senators and Congressmen are on break (like they are now) they should be required to have X number of OPEN townhall type meetings. And then actually listen to their constituents, instead of dismissing them as "right wing nut jobs".

National referendums are a nice idea, and perhaps they should be discussed. But currently I'm not sure how that would work. I don't know if that has ever happened in the US. The US is not a direct democracy. We are a representative democracy, for better or worse.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

Well for starters, when the Senators and Congressmen are on break (like they are now) they should be required to have X number of OPEN townhall type meetings. And then actually listen to their constituents, instead of dismissing them as "right wing nut jobs".

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But what happens at such events? The loudest, most extreme voices tend to be the ones that garner the most prominence whether or not they are correct.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

But what happens at such events? The loudest, most extreme voices tend to be the ones that garner the most prominence whether or not they are correct.

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If they aren't correct, then the Senator or Congressman needs to calmly and rationally dispel their concerns/fears. Instead all they do is shout back, or call them paid nut jobs, and ignore them.

How else do you propose to do things? National referendums for everything? That would be very hard to organize.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Gotta love the fact that your choice of source is the paper of choice for unthinking morons.

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This news article is utter nonsense. This paper is just like Fox News...Lies, lies and more lies. Yet the sad thing is, that people actually believe this crap :rolleyes:

I have never ever heard of this happening in our hospitals...I asked a friend of mine whom works in a NHS hospital about this and her words were " first ive heard of it"

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

I am British.

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Then why is there a German Flag under you screen name?

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Originally Posted by steve_spackman

This news article is utter nonsense. This paper is just like Fox News...Lies, lies and more lies. Yet the sad thing is, that people actually believe this crap :rolleyes:

I have never ever heard of this happening in our hospitals...I asked a friend of mine whom works in a NHS hospital about this and her words were " first ive heard of it"

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Fox news is the only credible news organization in the US. All the others are just Democrat party mouthpieces. At least Fox is middle of the road.

Look at all the crying over the death of teddy by the other networks. The numbers of viewers are down and yet they are treating it like the death of a sitting President. Not a senator.

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

Then why is there a German Flag under you screen name?

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Because one has a choice as to which flag one has under one's name. I am aware that choosing not to display the flag of one's own country might be considered practically treasonous by your sort, but I don't care.