Topic: Random Rants/Health Care (Read 34092 times)

MISTER MASSACRE · « **Reply #25 on:** July 28, 2009, 10:06:33 AM »

Quote from: shparks on July 26, 2009, 01:53:28 PM

It's not like weight issues are the only self inflicted health problems in the world. What about people smoking and drinking themselves to death?

How am I supposed to know if people are smoking/drinking themselves to death just by looking at them? Give me a break here

xolik · « **Reply #26 on:** July 28, 2009, 12:43:53 PM »

Quote from: Lacerda on July 28, 2009, 10:06:33 AM

How am I supposed to know if people are smoking/drinking themselves to death just by looking at them? Give me a break here

Drinking gives you excessive amounts of empty calories, thus fat. Therefore, if you see a fat slob that reeks of an ashtray, assume he drinks as well and just have a field day I swear I have to do all the thinking around here gawd.

FleetStrike · « **Reply #27 on:** July 28, 2009, 04:18:16 PM »

if that always fails you could give them this questionaire.

The Happy Funtime Drunk/Fat Bastard Survey
1. Do you drink more than one bottle of Jim Beam a day?
a. Yes
b. No
c. aourhgorhjg

2. Do you visit more a fast food chain more than 7 times a week?
a. Yes
b. No
c. BIG MAC SUPERSIZE NOW DAMNIT

3. Are you currently too busy drinking/eating yourself to death to take this survey?
a. No
b.

xolik · « **Reply #28 on:** August 07, 2009, 10:54:44 AM »

By the way, everything in this thread that may have even been slightly questioning Obama's plan has been reported to flag@whitehouse.gov

12AX7 · « **Reply #29 on:** August 10, 2009, 06:00:18 AM »

* 12AX7 edits url to the Gold Standard

xolik · « **Reply #30 on:** August 10, 2009, 09:51:05 AM »

Quote from: 12AX7 on August 10, 2009, 06:00:18 AM

* 12AX7 edits url to the Gold Standard

RON PAUL

ivan · « **Reply #31 on:** August 11, 2009, 07:57:15 PM »

Quote from: Detta on July 15, 2009, 06:17:01 PM

Now imagine having to pay for her health care. I don't fucking want to!!

But we already are paying for her health care, especially catastrophic care, if she's uninsured. And even if she is insured, someone is still paying for her healthcare if her healthcare needs are above average.

You know, folks, this bill shouldn't be such a big deal. It wouldn't make any noticeable difference to the working man, and no difference at all to the wealthy. And it might help some of the less fortunate among us. It should be tidied up a bit to quiet the fears of those who heed the fear-mongers (it is not, for instance, a left-wing conspiracy to subvert the Bill of Rights), but it's not bad as bills go.

In general, I think objections to socialized medicine are misplaced.

Where I work, we are offered a group plan that costs a set amount, so some people who work here pay over 10% of income for health insurance, and others are paying less than 5%. A few of my co-workers have a slew of ongoing medical expenses, most have a few, and a few don't have any. So the healthiest (and often least-paid and youngest) among us are supporting the sickest. But hey, that's how group insurance works, right? As opposed to that horrible other idea -- socialized medicine.

If we as a society don't have the bottle to let people suffer for lack of health care, then we as a society will always be footing the bill for the least able, least responsible, and often least deserving. No civilized society has found a solution to this conundrum; we in the US, by railing against socialized medicine, are only postponing the inevitable. It is the only moral option; in the end, society must care for its ill because it is morally abhorent not to.

We already have what amounts to institutionalized health care, except the entities governing it, aside from government, are for-profit organizations. My first brush with HMOs years ago made me think "Hey, just like Soviet Russia!". Well, if our health care already FEELS like it's socialized medicine, then just bite the bullet and go full-monty socialized, and cut the insurance industry out of the picture.

Either that, or take both government and the insurance industry out of it, and let everyone pay healthcare providers the actual cost of healthcare -- and let everyone get only the healthcare they can afford.

So fish or cut bait: Go full-bore socialized or pure-grain private. But don't deceive yourselves: the present US healthcare "system" is an institutionalized, bureaucratic and fascistic collusion of government and big business.

Whenever we have a national debate about socialized medicine, we predictably hear a bunch of horror stories about mismanaged, botched, substandard and denied health care in other countries. That's ok. It helps us forget all the horror stories about mismanaged, botched, substandard and denied health care in our own country. And hey, at least it's not socialized mismanaged, botched, substandard and denied health care.

ivan · « **Reply #32 on:** August 11, 2009, 08:11:14 PM »

Quote from: 12AX7 on July 18, 2009, 04:44:15 PM

When you’ve made your decision between the power bill or some Ramen noodles; get back to me.

What did you end up choosing?

BizB · « **Reply #33 on:** August 11, 2009, 08:31:26 PM »

woah... wbd!

12AX7 · « **Reply #34 on:** August 11, 2009, 10:28:57 PM »

Quote from: ivan on August 11, 2009, 08:11:14 PM

What did you end up choosing?

I asked the same thing in my apology PM; but she hasn't gotten back to me. So Im guessing she picked the Ramen noodles.

BizB · « **Reply #35 on:** August 12, 2009, 07:51:38 AM »

I'm quite shocked that you take that standpoint, ivan. I personally have 3 arguments against the national health insurance plans (any of them) and I have yet to hear anyone refute these.

1) Not once in the history of the US government has any substantial agency or program ever stayed within budget over a period of a decade or so. It is likely that, like the Medicare program, it will grow to 600X the projected cost within a decade or two.
B) 9th amendment.
3) 10th amendment.

ivan · « **Reply #36 on:** August 12, 2009, 01:35:02 PM »

Quote from: BizB on August 12, 2009, 07:51:38 AM

I'm quite shocked that you take that standpoint, ivan. I personally have 3 arguments against the national health insurance plans (any of them) and I have yet to hear anyone refute these.

1) Not once in the history of the US government has any substantial agency or program ever stayed within budget over a period of a decade or so. It is likely that, like the Medicare program, it will grow to 600X the projected cost within a decade or two.
B) 9th amendment.
3) 10th amendment.

Well, my position is not that socialized medicine is the best solution -- only the ineviatable one; and that fighting the inevitable yields worse results than embracing it and helping shape it. So your arguments stand unrefuted.

The LP offers a solution that passes your test: Government stays out of healthcare completely -- that means, no medi-care/caid, no Veterans hospitals, shut down the FDA, launch tort reforms to reduce malpractice liability costs, eliminate any and all government healthcare subsidies for everyone, period. People pay for almost all medical care out-of-pocket, and choose to buy affordable coverage for expensive medical procedures from a variety of thriving insurance providers.

Sounds wonderful. That's the world I'd like to live in. However, even if all of that could be achieved, this vision relies either on the absence of an underclass (the unemployed, the homeless, the mentally ill, criminals, addicts), or on our willingness to allow an underclass to suffer, in our midst, without adequate care. We have no working plan to achieve the former. The latter, simply, will not be tolerated. Underclasses fester in Rio, not here.

The presence of an underclass is what fuels the drive towards socialized medicine. As long as a goodly amount of people continue falling through society's cracks, the idea that government should do something about it will not go away. It doesn't matter that government programs are inefficient -- government is the only entity with both the resources and the will to attempt to solve, however inefficiently, a problem that is apparently getting worse.

If the thought of government-run health care is sufficiently loathesome to enough people, maybe that will move a greater part of our society to solve social problems through private means; maybe this is a wake-up call to all right-thinking anti-socialists to finally rise up and do something about the ills that, shamefully, are tolerated in the most affluent society on earth; maybe we'll all take the libertarian ideal of personal responsibility, and the Christian ideals of compassion and charity, and assume personal responsibility for those who cannot.

Wait... Is that a pig I see flying past my window?

Demosthenes · « **Reply #37 on:** August 12, 2009, 04:00:38 PM »

Quote from: BizB on August 11, 2009, 08:31:26 PM

woah... wbd!

Wbd?

Walloping Bob Dylan?
Wacky Bat Dung?
Whiskey Beer Drambuie?

xolik · « **Reply #38 on:** August 12, 2009, 06:12:02 PM »

Where Be Dragons?

ivan · « **Reply #39 on:** August 13, 2009, 03:11:22 PM »

We've heard the claim that US health care is the best, or among the best in the world. Usually, this is offered as an "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" argument. However, rarely is one presented with any kind of metric on the basis of which this claim is made.

We certainly are the most, or one of the most advanced in the field. But does that translate to high quality health care for individuals?

Amenable mortality statistics.

Ten years ago, we could point at the Brits, the Fins, the Portugese and the Irish and laugh. Ha-ha-ha, we are better at keeping people from dying of illness than you-oo. (Of course, we would have to dissemble when it came to pretty much every other developed country. And now, as of just a couple years ago, we have to sip quitely from our big cup of STFU and wonder how the hell we ended up LAST.

Well, the reason we ended up last -- meaning we are the worst at keeping people from dying from illness among developed nations -- is because our health-care "system", such as it is, is broken.

A health-care system's overriding purpose, its very reason for being, must be to keep people healthy. What is the overriding principle that propels our healthcare system towards better care for the individual?

Well?

For another, less direct metric, look at life expectancy by country. The British and Canadians, with their unspeakably horrid health care, are outliving us. We don't do so hot with regard to infant mortality, either.

I suppose we can take solice in the knowledge that we outlive the average shmo born in Swaziland. But maybe we should quietly, surreptitiously take a peek at France, what with their cradle-to-grave healthcare, enviable life expectancy and their unparalleled ability to keep people from dying of desease. And don't talk to me about taxes -- we, all of us here, are already paying about as much in taxes and expenses as they are, and getting less back.

xolik · « **Reply #40 on:** August 13, 2009, 03:20:17 PM »

what should i do wehn teh obama death squad comes to take granny away i'm serious guyz

pbsaurus · « **Reply #41 on:** August 13, 2009, 03:22:22 PM »

I don't have any living grandparents, not my problem dude.

ivan · « **Reply #42 on:** August 13, 2009, 03:24:35 PM »

My grandmother reached her centennial a few weeks ago. That's gotta be a red flag for the death panels.

pbsaurus · « **Reply #43 on:** August 13, 2009, 03:28:27 PM »

Yeah but who did she vote for? I thought the ODS was only going after republicans.

Demosthenes · « **Reply #44 on:** August 13, 2009, 04:02:18 PM »

I reject qualitative arguments regarding this issue, instead relying as I always have on the underlying principles at stake.

xolik · « **Reply #45 on:** August 13, 2009, 04:23:00 PM »

so what i will just tell them i voted obama like everybody else wut r they gonna do n e ways its not liek they keep trak of vote records my uncle says they do but he also talks to teh flowers on the enddtable and screams at the ceiling fan to quit reading his thoughts so he may not be rite

12AX7 · « **Reply #46 on:** August 13, 2009, 08:13:43 PM »

Maybe I'm missing something, but as far as I know; one of the shorter bills is over 600 pages long. Then there's that 1000 page one. I have heard contradiction after contradiction from pro-Obamacare officials in explaining what is going to happen; in addition to admissions of "well, I don't really know what's in the bill; I haven't read it yet...", and so on so often, I would oppose it soley because no one seems to know what it is exactly, and what its actually going to do , exactly.

U.S.Postal / FedEx / UPS ...?

ivan · « **Reply #47 on:** August 14, 2009, 12:49:13 PM »

Quote from: Demosthenes on August 13, 2009, 04:02:18 PM

I reject qualitative arguments regarding this issue, instead relying as I always have on the underlying principles at stake.

The underlying principle I'm grappling with is: how does the most advanced, prosperous and resourceful society in history tolerate poverty and suffering in its midst?

The conclusion is: it can't, for long.

Sure, I believe that individuals unfettered by taxation and regulation can form a humane and relatively blight-free society; but we are not unfettered, and will remain fettered for the forseeable future. In the mean time, there are people who can't in good conscience stand by idly while many among us fall through the cracks. These people will consider only one underlying principle: it is immoral to stand by and do nothing. They will attempt to wield the most powerful tool for social change at their disposal: government.

pbsaurus · « **Reply #48 on:** August 14, 2009, 03:19:41 PM »

Efficiency and progress is ours
once a more
now that we have the neutron bomb...

Demosthenes · « **Reply #49 on:** August 14, 2009, 03:54:24 PM »

Quote from: ivan on August 14, 2009, 12:49:13 PM

it is immoral to stand by and do nothing.

I assume those very same people would be fine if government decided that eating meat was immoral and banned it? Or if atheism was immoral? Or that [fill in the blank] was immoral?

The problem with using moral justification of government use of force is that one loses any right to complain when someone whose morals they find disagreeable use government to force theirs upon everyone.

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Author Topic: Random Rants/Health Care (Read 34092 times)

12AX7

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