Over 35% of the country has 0 tax liability anyway, and I'm fairly sure that's greater than the % of those without health insurance. So it's borderline wealth redistribution at that point.

Not to mention we should expect a group of bureacrats who have never run anything to effectively manage our healthcare is a laughable thought.

yeah i realize i'm not factoring inflation / deflation, tax brackets, and other overall economic trends. but at the same time 99% of the time when people start throwing huge numbers around they also start screaming that the sky is falling and the world is ending. i was just trying to toss out a bit of perspective on how 1 trillion can be broken down into a manageable amount.


@hesher - i'm with you, just on the other coast :thumb:

socialized healthcare is awesome until you need something relatively urgent taken care of... then it kind of goes all random as phoque. haha

by the way, I think we're getting off topic. Back to the $1 trillion health care proposal!!

Well now we're talking governments, which I'd love to discuss with you guys, but not in a Healthcare thread.

One of America's more powerful strengths is that we're flexible, the world can hate us, we switch presidents and we're at least at neutral again.

Congress can pass a resolution directly addressing the Iran riots, and the Executive says vauge points to not get involved.

In thos situations its great, but in certain situations its a pain in the ass, like on healthcare. We can claim up and down that we believe anythings possible, and we can make things work, and yet we're 29th in the world in Infant mortality. We refuse to fix healthcare because of our representitives political interests.

And when we finally get a president willing, and a champion dying of a brain tumor and we're really going to get there this time, everyone goes to the talking points. Currently HMO's tell you ya can't get treatments YOU PAY FOR! Why is the government, who may be slow in the worst case scenario, faulted for being a few months behind when so many of the working poor in this country are without healthcare because the insurance they have hires people to deny their claim.

There ought to be a fire set under the ass of these polticians, and I wish I was in a state where the senators opposed this because I'd run as a third party and steal their votes. The default for conservatives seems to be that the current system is fine.

Our system is christ-awful and anyone whos ever gone to the ER knows it. People are getting charged for things that aren't happening, for doctors they've never seen, and for treatments they don't need.

I have about 6 fillings in my mouth I didn't need from a dentist who knew they could get the money because as a minor with two state employeed parents, i was a gold mine. There is severe wrong in our current system.

I'm so mad. I had a damn essay typed up and my comp froze. If I get some time I'll restate it in a bit.

I think the system being broken is generally accepted but spending a trillion dollars the US doesn't have with no real plan to pay it back (other than Obama's vague promise that he would cut the deficit in half over his term...and he never really explained how he was planning to do it) is kind of a bad idea. I'm for universal health care but not for the US shoving it's fiscal problems off on the rest of the world.

Wow. I'm pretty sure this is the first thing I've ever nodded and agreed with you. Pretty much the summarized version of what I had. But I spent that time on it that I'm still posting it up.

I welcome socialized medicine. The government may simply put a cap on wrongful death/negligence lawsuits and the costs would come down dramatically, and the tax increases would be nothing compared to the average family's annual medical expenses as they are now.

I don't see it happening in 5 years though, not even 15 or 20...or perhaps ever. There is SO. MUCH. MONEY. in the insurance companies and drug companies that the lobbyists will completely block any such talk.

There would have to be some very drastic occurence that would shift the status quo.

Wrong. Eliminating wrongful death suits would maybe decrease costs 1-2%. Also I'm sure a bunch of people would want to sign up to a healthcare system that eliminates their right to tort law. Really GREAT idea.

And it's definitely coming. The polls are already starting to show a push against those currently in power. This will get through before the next set of elections.

As a conservative in the definitional sense of the word [i.e. please don't relate me to the so-called "conservatives" in office now], I definitely see the problems in healthcare. My problem is with how they plan on going about this economically. We have a bunch of bureaucrats in office that have for the most part never run a business in their collective lives [including the potus], but have put their hands in the banks, the auto industry, and now have their eyes set on healthcare.

I stated it earlier, but my preference would be for a tiered system. Create a safety net for those uninsured which comes from another payroll tax on them and their employers [~3%] on those that cannot show proof of insurance. Put them in a no-frills system that gives preventive cares, regular Dr. Visits, and emergency care. The gov't could contact with private providers that would run low-end facilities [thin staffing, long waits, potentially bad locations] and would be kept out hugely expensive non-compensated cares.

The problem is the idea of a single payer system that is probably the end result of the government entering as they want to. They enter ostensibly as "competition" in an effort, which they will do in the end as a result of rationing. They will force out any private competition they have because no one can truly compete pricing with the government, since the gov. has shown pure faith into just taking on more and more debt with no foresight into the future.

It's not a matter of whether I want my taxes going to those less fortunate. I have no problem with that. But do it responsibly. Maybe start by repealing the stupid ass stimulus bill that hasn't done anything and more than likely won't ever, and use that $$$ for healthcare. And if they're going to refute their promise to not tax healthcare benefits, how about you don't exclude your largest voting block from the taxes [the unions]? Then from there why don't we search into the idea that the people benefitting the most from this aren't paying a dime into it and figure out a way where more than 1/3 of those working aren't paying income tax. It's funny that most the people that don't pay taxes are the one's asking those that do why they don't want to help the less fortunate.