Comment

Comment by twister7boy on February 17, 2010 at 9:21am

i wouldn't mind paying higher taxes at all for this. as long as the tax money isn't going to waste. now in the us in the state where i live. a job can fire under the right to work act. this means if a company just for any reason decides they want to fire you for fun they can. they just put it in different words. that has to go. i also would like to see more people stop being so lazy. i work hurt all the time and am currently. when i left something that weighs just 20 pounds it kills my leg and back. before this i was moving 400 pound furniture like it was nothing and always the first to say lets get it done. nothing is going to move it self even if i need help i'm not scarred to ask for help. but i see too people playing our systems here. unemployment for starters. way too many times i see people come into work and ask if were hiring. not big deal right. wrong. they only want to fill out the application if were not hiring to take back to the the unemployment office to get paid saying they were looking for a job. another thing is do i really need the government making commercials making me feel good about myself weather i am or not. hell no. waste of money. plus if we didn't have so many corrupt people on the bench running things i would lighten up. these people that make the minimum wage laws have no clue to what it is really like trying to live on that followed with only 20 hours a week of work if your lucky. they sit in their fat million dollar houses and laugh at us. some have been there but forgot what it's like to live in the real world with real reality. when i need a break i'll go visit them sometime. next i think companies need to step up as well. stop doing slave drive work and anybody that is working should never have to think about can i pay my even basic bills just to get by. like do i want eat today or pay the water bill to shower. pathetic. i would really like to see people getting more involved in stopping playing games with people when what they need is work that pays worth a dam no matter what type of job you have and welfare employees investigate what their are really paying for. if your working you should not have to worry about anything. but here even if your educated and have a great paying job some companies will take advantage of you. i worked as a district manager for a security firm and made great money. six thousand a month after taxes take home. when i refused to sell a minor that worked under me a gun ordered by the owner of the company i was fired. that's bullshit. money really does talk around here because he knew the judge as a friend as well he was fined five hundred thousand bucks. now if i was found guilty of that charge you better believe i would still be sitting in jail to this day. our systems here really sucks. no money no problem my butt for medical attention. they offer you a easy help plan through another company. wrong you get the entire bill if your working most times. insurance companies say yeah well cover that. then bill time comes and they wont or only cover a small fraction. if i'm going into debt because of a hospital; bill insurance said they would cover and then doesn't. hell i'll just pay the dam thing off myself and actually save some money with no insurance over the years. basically the victims are never really looked after here that much. and until people stop putting a price tag on someones life it will never change. a price tag on someones life is never right. companies have too much power to weld it the way they want. until its too late and someone dies or hits the homeless end of that point in their life. main thing is if your working and your not lazy you shouldn't have to worry about surviving. i'm not saying you have to live the life up just to where at least you have a point in your life where you don't have to decide if your kids are going to and your not because you can't afford to feed them and you. one major thing i see with companies is they keep lazy people working for them. i had guys falling asleep at work all the time. i would rather get a new employee and train them myself. my company says they ain't going anywhere. someone else that deserves that job is not getting it because of bad company oversees. what crap. that means more work for me and still no extra pay. if i have to do the work of 20 people why aren't i getting that pay as well. mean while the lazy man sleeping on the job gets a paycheck and a homeless man on the street that is willing to better job stays homeless. if you don't won't to work and you can i say go funk yourself. your lazy and your holding back a lot of other good people with families that better deserve the job then you. of course i'm not talking about people that are really not able to work. well this is long so i'm done ranting for now. peace. gregg

Comment by JS on February 17, 2010 at 8:52am

Ashram, I'm not saying he is an Iraq/Afghanistan war supporter. In fact, I never said so. This wasn't even directed at him. This was directed to anyone b**ching about the costs.

There is a big difference between Socialism and Social Democracy. In fact, huge.

Socialism is what Eastern Europe had from 1944 to 1991.
Social Democracy is what a lot of industrialised countries have (Sweden and France, for example).

I'm not saying socialised healthcare is the best system in the world.

"And what makes you think a government health care system wouldn't be run the same way?"
Well, because it isn't, in Europe. I've yet to hear any complaints from anyone who lives under socialised healthcare.

And you donate to another country when it's in trouble, but if your next door neighbour is in huge debt due to having no healthcare you won't lift a finger to improve the system?
That's a bit hypocritical, isn't it?
By the way, healthcare IS a human right after all.

Comment by Ashram on February 16, 2010 at 10:31pm

"I would much prefer a system that puts the patient before the cost."

And what makes you think a government health care system wouldn't be run the same way?

Remember, government systems usually have to deal with budgets and policy. This means your money is limited to what has been made available for your use by the government and what you do must follow guidelines and procedures, many of which can be convoluted.

Government programs aim to stretch the budget as much as possible, which can (and does) include rationing of care and even denying care.

And there have been many stories where this exact thing has happened, many of which can be found on the internet.

To me, that looks like they would concerned for cost as much as a company concerned about bottom line profit, moreso than a competitive company that aims to earn its money by serving the customer better than their competition first and foremost.

But, competition has been squelched by the government, including government policy bought and paid for by big business.

In addition, what makes you think that a government system would not involve big business?

Free market competition cannot work in such an environment where the big boys have politicians in their pockets to use against the little guys.

If the little guys can compete in a fair system, which is where the government stays out unless laws have been broken, they would keep the big boys on their toes and force them to work at getting and keeping customers by offering high quality at low prices rather than building the bottom line. What needs to be put back in place is an environment that instills upon businesses of any kind that shows that you have no bottom line if you don't have what customers want.

Now, back to public health, more than likely, the government will subcontract work in public medicine to private companies. Guess who will be in line to get those contracts?

If the American people want to do something meaningful, they can start by talking to their officials to bring forth health reform that reasserts competitive and fair free market principles and downright opposing and voting against ALL incumbents no matter what they say or their political affiliation because of corruption risk.

Comment by Ashram on February 16, 2010 at 9:53pm

"Clark, yet you can afford to support a nearly endless war in another country solely for oil/petrol and no other purposes whatsoever..."

Straw man. What makes you assume that Clark even supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place?

Or, are you assuming through stereotype about Americans, especially those who do not agree with socialism?

Comment by Ashram on February 16, 2010 at 9:41pm

"Ashram, how is healthcare not a right? And if not, why isn't it a right?"

Because, again, other people have to work to provide it.

If health care were a right, you could also use that as a way to basically justify slavery in the medical field as ridiculous as that may sound. But, if health care is a right, others are obligated to serve you so your right to health care can be honored and upheld. And as rights are supposed to be inalienable, there can be no conditions to have your right to health care honored, such as having to PAY other people who provide it so you can get it. Because of the obligations that making health care a right can entail, it contradicts the rights of those people who work to provide health care services.

Instead, I aim to suggest that your health, including finding health care and ways to pay for the unexpected (savings, insurance, etc.), is, first and foremost, YOUR responsibility to attain and maintain. Unfortunately, bad things can happen which may make it difficult to find health care when you need it as well as to pay for it, but that's life. You deal with it as best as you can and you shouldn't expect other people to do it for you, much less be forced to under government decree. The only time other people should is if they, themselves, decide to help you as a genuine act of charity.

It's only fair that you honestly work and pay for own needs.

"And yes, i'm aiming to go to Medical School in a couple of years, and I would much prefer a system that puts the patient before the cost. Right now, in the United States, the cost is above all else. Medical Insurances, all that complete and utter bullsh*t."

And how do you suppose the problems with insurance got to be the way it is in the first place?

A good bit of it is from government interference from the 1973 HMO Act. It was the government's attempt to lower costs, but it did so by offering an alternative that, while cheaper, was lower in quality. The private sector had to follow suit to stay in business (particularly as companies who buy contracts from insurance companies would aim to reduce costs by foregoing indemnity coverage for the cheaper HMO plan, regardless of the fact that it would negatively affect benefits to their employees), resulting in the PPO insurance product, which isn't much better.

Another bit is interference from the FDA (another government agency), which hasn't been doing a very good job at safeguarding the public against bad drugs and medical procedures while denying things that would be a benefit because of technicalities and possibly even corruption from big pharma.

Now this opens up another explanation of how government gets corrupt in the first place. Government intervention cannot occur without those being affected having a say; it's called representation. The problem, however, is that this opens the way for lobbyists which can allow big business to bribe politicians, making politicians, and in effect the government, the instrument of big business to create laws that benefit big business.

You keep the government out of the affairs of big business, and you keep big business from getting a way of digging its claws into the government.

But, again, democratic lawmaking is a two way street between the politicians and the constituents. A democratically-run government under a constitutional republic can't just make any law it wants to without allowing those that will be affected to have a say. If it could, it's a dictatorship (it can make laws without listening to anyone). But, again, this leaves a way in for corruption so the most prudent thing to do is not for the government to try to control big business through enacting new laws but to enforce existing laws and punish those who are proven to have failed to abide by it.

Back to the point, another problem are legal issues; frivolous lawsuits aimed not at collecting recompense for bad practices that may have injured or killed people but as a way to get easy money for the plaintiffs and the lawyers. Those lawsuits make up a big part of the risk of being in the medical profession and the risk has been so high that they have inflated prices of medical products and services.

"If you lost your job (and with that, your health insurance) right now at this very moment, I bet your views would change in an instant."

Don't be so sure. I don't want others to be burdened by me, and that includes not wanting them to pay for my health care through taxation.

Comment by Clark Novak on February 16, 2010 at 11:15am

Ryk writes: "On the basis of this statement alone, I can tell you have an axe to grind and are incapable of a logical discussion."

Ryk, certainly what I wrote was an emotionally-charged statement. But you have not refuted that statement, or any of the other facts I posted. Which tells me that you are either unwilling or unable to do so, and so fall back on emotional aspersions instead.

If you have hard evidence to counter what I've written, please post it. But setting aside my assertion of the facts simply because you don't like who you think I am is just as illogical as you accuse me of being.

Comment by Ryk on February 16, 2010 at 7:04am

"Especially given that everything Government touches is filled with waste, corruption and head-shaking stupidity. "

On the basis of this statement alone, I can tell you have an axe to grind and are incapable of a logical discussion.

Comment by Clark Novak on February 15, 2010 at 7:04pm

Johannes, for a non-native English speaker, you write it very well :)

Here are a couple of points worth noting:
* According to the Tax Policy Center, In 2007, the total revenue collected in taxes by the U.S. Government was $2.568 trillion.
* On 9 February, USA Today reported that the U.S. budget deficit was a record $1.6 trillion.
* The U.S. Census department estimates 304 million U.S. citizens as of 2008.
* That means that, if we were all to be assessed a share of the debt in order to pay it off today, it would cost each citizen over $40,000!
* This is WITHOUT a Federal universal health care system in place.
* The cost of a Federal Universal Health Care program was estimated in 2009 by the Congressional Budget Office at $1.5 trillion - the size of the current National Debt.
* The entire Gross National Product of the U.S. was pegged at $14 trillion by the World Bank in 2008.
* President Obama today called for raising the Federal Debt Ceiling to $14 trillion!

It seems ludicrous that ten percent of the entire economic product of a nation should be garnished in order to underwrite a single Federal program! Especially given that everything Government touches is filled with waste, corruption and head-shaking stupidity. On that basis alone, I object to a Federal health care program. When coupled with other statistics and observations of similar systems in Canada and the UK, I cannot help but determine that a program enacted in our own country would be similarly flawed and useless.

Comment by JS on February 15, 2010 at 12:08pm

Now, why did you delete your first reply?

Comment by JS on February 15, 2010 at 12:05pm

I know that I don't know everything. I know that I may be (and probably am) wrong on a lot of subjects but I have very clear and certain views.

As far as my writing style is concerned, I'm not making fun of you, this is how I get my point across. I may come off as insulting or not very polite, or anything similar to that, but this *is* my writing style and my way of making the point clear to everyone.

I hope you understand.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• …
• 5
• Next ›
• Page