I'd say it's right if the government is also expected to subsidize the hospitals and the healthcare industry as well. It's not really so much a matter of whether or not the individual 'may' place a burden so much as 'when'. In a sense it's similar to what Canada seems to be slowly moving towards as well with some limited private sector healthcare options. Those who can afford to pay for the premium insurance can enjoy the faster service at the private clinic, those who can't, or choose not to, pay their taxes and go to the general hospital. Then again I've never really known anything else. It just seems super selfish to me to not want to pay into that at all even if I don't benefit from it directly there are plenty of people who do, whether they're friends, family or strangers it doesn't really matter. More healthy people = more healthy society I'd say.

I want to see the look on their faces when they're told just how long the wait time for their procedure will be up here and that there's little to no option to pay for faster service throughout most of the country.

Wait wait wait... holy sh!t the 3rd dude on that page -

too... socialist?

On the plus side this person will obviously never be able to properly fill out the necessary paperwork to get citizenship.

Haha! Wow. Let's not tell them that we have universal healthcare and other socialist institutions in place here. Let's also not tell them that the second most powerful party in government is a socialist one.

We don't need or want them here! I already have a huge problem with the current Prime Minister Harper, so we gotta get rid of him first.

I'm not well up with politics, even less with US (we have enough of our own problems here!) but why did that one idiot on the news yesterday say "Communism has come to America" and when challenged say "Well, what woud you call it?"

What has this got to do with communism, and isn't that mostly gone anyway?

Is McCarthy turning in his grave?

:confused:
(genuinely)

Because he's ignorant. Too many people in that country are ignorant, unfortunately. They think that anything subsidized or provided for everybody by the government equals a total communist takeover. That is of course, partly due to McCarthyism. And yeah, McCarthy is probably rolling in his grave. He would never have approved of something like Obamacare.

Unfortunately, the most ignorant people here are also the most outspoken. It makes us all look bad. The latest craze is to claim Obama has declared War on [insert whatever thing he is doing that Fox News is upset about]. The funny thing is this individual mandate thing was thought up by a conservative think tank years ago.

^This. And not only are they the most outspoken but I think our news media likes to showcase them because controversy boosts ratings. As a result they are over-represented in the news. I don't actually think reactionary morons are as big a segment of the American public as it seems.

Yeah, I assumed he was just totally ignorant all right. The old adage: blame it on the commies! What is this, the sixties???

Anyway, yes, I saw that the republican nominee (name escapes me) also put forward a very similar bill for his state (or possibly implemented it?) so he'll have a hell of a time arguing against it.

Not that that will stop him, I am certain.
:rolleyes:

I think that's Mitt Romney. I know that everyone who lives in Massachusetts needs to have health insurance, been like that ever since he was governor, anyways. I don't believe there is any getting around that either - not even a kind of "tax payout" or whatever, like it will be now with the rest of the country.

I know our NHS came about because of the great economy we had after World War II. This isn't the best economic time, of course, but leaving people in terrible debt after having an operation is inhuman, to me.