Saying, I don't want my tax dollars paying for other people's care is an empty argument. We already do. The difference is if it's universal all those people w/o insurance at the ER now go into the insurance pool, thus increasing efficiency.  

Mar 10, 2010 6:39:53 am

My point is simply that a private model can't be efficient if we still have the "pitfalls" of a socialized system coupled w/ it. That's why our current system doesn't work. We can't all pay our own way and "live within our means" if we also have to subsides 1/2 the population. We either need to go full-blown social so that we achieve effiencies (economies of scale & scope) or stay private and stop paying for those who can't. Otherwise the system will forever be inefficient.  

Mar 10, 2010 6:35:51 am

With regard to efficiency, the govt has proven time and again that they are incredibly inefficient. The main issue with single payer full-blown social health care is that if it's paid for with tax dollars, you run the risk of the system ending up like social security. If you've got consistant birth rates, you're fine, but if you have a huge number of people accessing a service and a small number paying for it, the system tends to go bankrupt. The babyboom killed social security and would likely do the same with health care.

Ideals are a wonderful thing, but ifthey aren't agreed upon 100% and you aren't willing to compromise at all, you'll never see any change.

It makes much more sense to me to fix what's broken, than to chuck it all and have to fix what's broken with another system. Avoiding undue risk is generally a good trait from a governing body...not making decisions just to make a decision. I'd love to see a stop gap that would cover the uninsured beyond emergency care. Something that would get them a doctor visit once or twice a year for preventative measures. Then tackle the high costs for the rest of us. Seems fairly reasonable to me.  

Mar 10, 2010 6:19:51 am

What else can you NOT opt-out of that we compare healthcare to? K-12 education...security (police/fire/millitary)...all socialized and paid for w/ taxes. You don't get to opt-out of those and no one complains about Karl Marx because we pay taxes for firemen. That's how we need to frame the healthcare argument because that is what it is most like. OR we allow poor and elderly people to opt-out and refuse care.  

Mar 10, 2010 2:42:38 am

I think the current Bill sucks balls, but I want Obama to pass anything he can, even if it's just to be the hero. People resist change and if we can't get the wide-sweeping change we need all at once, we have to excpet incremental steps, just like we did w/ voting rights, civil rights, and pretty much any & all reform historically. That's how it works.

Like I said before, I want maximum efficiency (that's my hard-line virtue) and the only way to achieve the greatest level is a totaly private or a totaly social model. Hybrids don't work. I don't think a total private system is practical because it would exclude half the population, so let's go full-blown social. Remember, we're not talking about healthcare per se, just how to pay for it. In theory the cost is fixed (total US healthcare = x). If the argument is how do we know the gov't is capable of doing it w/o fucking it up...I don't have an answer for that. I honestly don't trust that they can either, but that should be the national debate, not whether Karl Marx will send my grnadma to a death panel. If congress is to much of a shitshow to accomplish anything of value, then I want both sides to fix THAT issue first and foremost.

That's why I think the most important issue is campaign finance reform. Our congress will never do the people's will until they are no longer beholden to lobbyists and corporate influence. 

Mar 10, 2010 2:33:36 am

the point of my post was to actually talk about real solutions to real problems with our system and other system and get some less vitriolic dialogue going.

anyone feel like tossing out ideas on how to get the costs down on our current system? or how to improve some of the issues of some other systems? i'm a fan of forcing the for-profit insurance companies to become non-profits. maybe we need to spread out some of the R&D costs of these major breakthroughs/medications/research projects to people in other industrialized countries so we aren't bearing so much of the weight for things the rest of the world also uses. some sort of tort reform to help lower the costs of malpractice insurance could help. anyone else? 

Mar 9, 2010 9:42:22 am

In Thews's answers, cost = 0 but tens if not hundreds of millions in this country would be desolate and homeless. It sounds more like serfdom in Europe circa 1200 than it does a modern & progressive society of 2010. 

Mar 9, 2010 8:32:46 am

1. our system's issues

2. what would "the best fit" four our country look like?

3. do we have the ability to administer that type of system?

4. what kind of cost with that system have? 

Mar 9, 2010 6:27:50 am

I don't like the argument that I'm "buying something I don't want" because you cannot opt out of healthcare (care not insurance). I think that's the crux of why I shit on your (the right's) arguments. You say "I don't want to be forced to buy this", but if you don't you still expect care when you get Scandinavian Whooping Measels. I said awhile ago on here that I'd be fine w/ our current healthcare model if we eliminate medicare/medicaid/all gov't coverage and refused care to all w/o private insurance. No one will do that, not even the extreme right. So the private model is corrupted w/ our quasi-socialist programs.

So now we have what we have now, a hybrid system w/ all of the downfalls of socialized healthcare - we provide it everyone (care not insurance), specifically the elderly and poor (least productive members of our economy), by punishing those of us w/ private insurance who are productive(higher premiums/taxes) w/ none of the benifits of a total social system- economies of scale/scope.

I think when you take all the politics out of it and look at it on a macro scale, you need one pure model (private or social) for it to work efficiently. I (nor anyone else) don't know which would be better, just that either would be better than the clusterfuck we have now. I do think that a complete social model has a better chance at exceptance and would be an easier transition in this country and there is precedent in other countries from which to start. 

Mar 9, 2010 3:42:44 am

If I don't own a car, I don't need insurance, but I also don't suck $ out of the taxpayers becasue I don't wreck shit on the roads. Everyone requires healthcare, insurance or no. The reasons those 2 articles claim it's different are "logically" incorrect is that to compare the health insurance model to auto insurance you have to discount all non-drivers. (to do the same, discount all who do not ever require any form of healthcare - they don't exist). Maybe the reason college kids don't succeed in that guys logic class is because he's an idiot. So they are the same in concept, only yes one is req'd by your state gov't and the other would be req'd by the fed gov't.

to your point, "If you choose to drive you should be financially liable for any damage to other's or other's property that you inflict" to compare apples to apples then "If you chose to have a heart attack you should be financially liable for any costs you incure." The flaw in the right's logic is that by not having universal coverage, you and I pay for it when they can't. It's will cost us less to subsidize basic coverage then it does now to subsidize ER visits. I guess my desire for economic efficiency makes me a pinko commie tax and spend liberal. 

Mar 8, 2010 9:51:06 am