NEWS: Democrats And Republicans Hit New Lows; Not Surprisingly, Republicans Lower

I fail to see how any of that addresses the fact that I am gainfully employed but cannot afford health care and cannot obtain health insurance. Cost is not my concern, as I guarantee you my share of any increased costs would be a fuck of a lot less than I'll wind up paying if I have any sort of medical emergency before I land a job with insurance.

youre being punished by the new puritanism; is your career something you enjoy? maybe you would have health insurance at a job you hate! your fun quotient is too high.

How the hell can america afford to pay for back door universal health care? By taxing the rich even more? haha no. They wont allow it and since they control both parties....
Hmm how about higher tax's for the middle class? Well that would be the final death blow to the middle class. It would suit fascists in the republican party and socialists in the democratic party.. But the method they decided on was excise tax's. On things like cig's and tobacco then probally fast food, and everything people think or say is bad for you. Then oops we wake up one morning to find ourselves living in a totalitarian puritan state.
Health care is expensive in America that is true, but I dont think I would want to have to wait 6 months for an operation because of some screw up in washington d.c or because the system will end up being inefficient and underfunded and guess what? If universal health care is created companies can say since the goverment offers it for free......
Only thing Congress should do is figure out ways to make health care and health care insurance less expensive,by helping to fund hospitals and allowing for greater competition between health insurance companies and regulations to make sure they follow the rules.
Only thing Bigger goverment creates is more corruption and more problems. I know it sounds a little over used but frankly speaking I have an inability to trust any politician. Trust is earned over time and they flushed it down the toilet a long time ago.

You are 24 and look to be in reasonable health. Health insurance should be at the lowest point now for you. The costs should be pretty low for you. <sarcasm>Your selfish refusal to pay for health insurance is driving up the cost for other, higher risk people</sarcasm>.

If a job is fun and in has a huge supply of potential eager labor, why does it need to pay well? People will still do it regardless.

Anyways, in the global economy, Americans can't really complain about wages. We are grossly overpaid for our jobs, and people in India and China who are way more qualified are starving for our jobs. Especially Engineering, Computer Science, and Medical processions. They graduate more of those than they know what to do with. They don't have the plague of 18-22 year olds in 40k/year school majoring in art/english because they don't know what the fuck they are doing with their lives and have nothing better to do than to party for 4-6 years.

I don't think you understand - health insurance is not offered by my job. It wasn't offered by my school when I was still attending college. Where is it I'm supposed to get these supposedly low rates, if not those two places? How am I supposed to pay for them when I make roughly $10k a year? I mean, yeah, I'm young, smart, reasonably well educated. I can probably find a job where I, personally, don't have to worry about these things anymore...at least not to this degree. (Given the predilections of the insurance companies for paying out as little as possible, I don't think the worry ever goes away entirely unless you become independently wealthy.) But that's me. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who don't have my options or prospects, whether temporarily or permanently.

You can argue about the costs and potential brain-drain and all that until you are blue in the face, but unless you have a solution that covers these people the way universal health care does, it doesn't mean a good goddamn.

If things are so equivalent, and these people are so qualified, then why are we now finding out that outsourcing code to these countries (Computer Science) costs many times more even though the wages are lower there? That, when we get the product back, it's often unserviceable or requires quite a bit of correction (at American wage rates) to bring the product into spec?

I don't know you very well, but based on that comment I'm going to call you a fucking idiot, anyway.

Agreed.

How is this possible, when in the US, low income=little to no health care, and in Canada, high income/low income/no income=all health care? The only way I can see this being possible, is if you take outside factors into account: ie. if Mr. Smith makes $300,000 a year, and has to have heart surgery, maybe he can afford to take the 6 months off that the doctor recommends, whereas Mr. Jones, who makes $25,000 a year, can only afford to take off a month. But at least in Canada, Mr. Jones can get treatment instead of just dying.

Well said.

Funny.

I actually looked into it a bit, and here are some links (in order of closest to the article you read to farthest):

Freeexchange Post Talking about how Health Outcomes by Income are different by race

Scream this From the Rooftops: A paper shows that the Health Outcomes by Income is steeper in Canada

Analysis of Marginal Revolution's take on the Health Outcomes by Income

The interesting question is: Canada has "as good as" a system in terms of longevity metrics for half the price of the US system, but why aren't they a better system for 60-80%of what we pay?

And then the question of rationing by government intervention, or through market mechanisms?

umm I hate to break it to you, but the American military even with all the bad things a few might have done has a super clean record compared to the other militarys of the world.
Lets see, look at Europe for over 600 years there goverments and militarys brutally conquered,raped,butched and pillaged 90% of the earth.
next up africa, there militarys routinly use brutal tactics in there various wars and civil wars that would make General Grant squemish.
Latin America..time and time again there militarys launched goverment over throws and there opponnents mysteriously vanish.
Asia hahaha. Chinese brutally keep law and order, probally millions died during Moa's reign alone.
Then there is NK sick and twisted. Japan's military butched millions of chinese during ww2 and also kidnapped thousands of women for use as sex slaves..
Middle east....if your not a muslim there goverment/ military pretty much executes them.
Only nations that seem cleaner then america are australia and switzerland.
And besides the USA is a freak in the pages of history.
Instead of demanding huge amounts of tribute,or trying to conquer the world, we are weakening ourselves trying to help the world.

Oh I see. Because other people are worse, that makes the injustices perpetrated by the US military AOK. I see. The old bridge argument. I get it.

That was before the United States even existed. What impact does it have at all on any of this?

First of all, Ulysses S Grant never used questionable tactics. You're thinking of Sherman. Secondly, the brutal military tactics of Africa have absolutely no impact on the United States military, nor do the US armed forces affect them. What you're basically asserting is that the US military's horrifying war tactics over the past fifty years are excusable because some people have done worse. Which is an utterly ridiculous assertion to make.

This is especially funny of you to point out, because it is worth noting that the United States military was actually pulling the strings for many of those democratic overthrows.

Again, that has nothing to do with US military crimes, and neither do the rest of your examples. Suffice it to say that these countries' tactics have been disgusting, but that doesn't mean the United States is absolved of any guilt.

And then you dropped the biggest bomb of the afternoon:

Oh really?

And really?

And even more really?

And even more really really?

And especially really really?

Etc?

I mean, come on.

I'm not sure we can fix the problem without undertaking moves toward a universal healthcare system. I "can" afford healthcare premiums; but many cannot, and that is only part of the problem.

• my healthcare premiums are $12,600 per year and I am part of a network - that's for my family


• healthcare premiums comprise only 64% of my total healthcare expenditures, the balance is spent on prescriptions, unreimbursed medical expense, co-pays, deductibles, etc.


• a good friend in his late 50's recently battled prostrate cancer and "won," which translated into his insurance company cancelling his coverage and forcing him to find coverage for catastrophic medical care for $1,000 per month


• most US hospitals serving communities operate on net profit margins far below 5% and many either lost money or barely break even


• graduating doctors are unable to start or join the small practices that were once the model of medical care. The costs are too high, the risks too great, and the competition too strong. Forced to work for a PPO, HMO, or similar network, the average doctor in a single payer network makes $100k per year. Try addressing your medical school loans on that wage


• the only commercially successful elements in the healthcare supply chain are the pharma companies and the insurance companies - those who hold hostage on the distribution of medicine and those who hold hostage on the distribution of reimbursement


• nearly 70% of our nation's medical expense goes to supporting the last 2 years of a person's life and we as a nation, like most nations, are growing older


• last year, nearly 25% of Americans over 65 and 15% of all Americans with medical insurance coverage did not fill their prescriptions due to the high cost. Pharmacists report that nearly 30% of all prescriptions went unfilled nationally because of the cost

You can rail all you want to about the hyped up shortcomings of nationalized healthcare. I personally participate in both nationalized (I spend half my time in the UK) and privatized healthcare (half my time in the US). The care we receive in the UK is either equal to or slightly better than that which we receive from our private doctors in the US.

The system is broken. I think healthcare is a right all Americans should enjoy. I don't think it is a privilege. If you can't "manage" the industry to sort out it's problems and address the issue of affordable healthcare, there is no choice but to mandate it.
(edited to fix grammar)

you know, theres two issues here.

one is the exhorbitant cost.

the worse is that I simply dont trust that any insurer will continue to cover me if i get very sick. if the system will only cover me when im healthy, whats the point? maybe they should provide me with a loaded hand gun instead, in case of extreme illness.

and yet, millions of young and healthy people like me, if we were paying into national health, could cover the minority of those that do get sick AND the cost would be distributed.

but i guess for some people, being healthy is only enjoyable if other people are worried sick.
[/hypebole]

+1

This I think is a large portion of why we have the arms race situation in medical care, which I believe is the root of the unaffordability problem.

This is why socialized healthcare systems can generally achieve similar healthcare results with much less money, because they aren't making the capital expenditures to be on the forefront of medicine, merely playing catchup, allowing the US to shoulder a lot of the initial costs of new care.

The wars against mexico and spain where caused by slave owners in the south and eliteist's with ambitious economic objectives that for the most part cost america more than it gained.
Vietnam was inpart an attempt to stop what was percieved at the time as soviet exansion and the whole situation was grossly mis-interpreted.
Korea is a good example of actual agression by the soviet union and how the USA did a good thing in the world(if you say america was an evil empire during Korea you should have a nice convo with a south korean about it).

Afghanistan,another example of soviet expansion, the US military was never involved in but rather the CIA was. And it is impossible to know if letting the Soviets have Afghanistan would of changed anything because the USA bolstered muslim resistance in the region but didnt create it.

Iraq... yeah that was mostly caused either by A a stupid president, B a stupid president with some weird fetish/ grudge against saddam or C a conspiracy to enrich corporations by draining the American treasury. But in the end we will lose waaaaay more money and resources then we could ever hope to gain.
Also for the most part it was the CIA that was involved in alot of the "death squads" and other problems in latin america,other than a few cases the military was relativly clear.
Also The whole old bridge argument is not correct. There is a reason why the USA and it's military has done so few crimes or borderline things is because Congress and the American people will not stand for it.
Look at the up roar of water boarding and other light techniques.
Your argument is like saying there is a class room of kids. Everyone in the class room failed the class exept for one student with a B. But since that student didnt get an A the student with the B will have to take summer class as well.
Also the Monroe document ended European expansion in the western hemisphere, somewhat protecting the new democracys.
Also you should look up the boxer revolution and how America behaved in that War as well. If it wasnt for America the Europeans would of carved up China like they did the rest of the world.

And about Africa how it is not relevant, it was an example of how far away from evil our military is. For God sake when enemy combattants have better medical care then our own citizens and yet you call our militarys tactics evil?

And the concept that america ever gained an economic advantage from any of our wars(with the exeption of ww2) is insane. In the end all those wars are costing us dearly. But maybe the USA should stop writing checks and leave the rest of the world alone to solve its problems.