Equality really sucks when you think you're better than everybody else.

You any idea how much a heart operation costs?

I'll give you a clue , it's about the size of a morgage.

I'm sure everybody would like to go private but sadly in the real world not everybody can afford it. I'm sure some of the elderly people & relatives I know who have needed operations on the NHS would be happy to know you'd abolish the whole thing just because of a few junkies and because they don't happen to have a lot of money you'd rather they died , but then they'd probably point out to you that they'd paid for it their entire lives themselves.

@at Riseagainstocks:

Your proposal for pure private health care is inane. People rarely think they need healthcare, but when they do use it they are extremely lucky they have it, because as urban said a heart operation costs about as much as a mortgage.

I can personally attest to this, until last year I really didn't need health insurance, the only medicine I was on was adderol.
Due to a very unfortunate situation I now I take 14.5 pills a day (~20 dollars worth of pills every single night) and see a doctor ever two weeks (~400 dollars a visit). Not to mention all the other doctors i've had to go to because all the medicine has wrecked havoc on my body.

Without health insurance I would be ****ed, because the system works that once you have been diagnosed with an problem insurance doesn't have to cover it if you don't have insurance already.

So basically i'm saying your idea is completely impractical.

You guys don't understand the basic tenants of capitalism. Competition for buisness = better product, lower prices.

and did any of you read my whole post?
I even bolded it for those among us who are a tad slow. I agree, in the CURRENT system, a heart operation DOES cost an arm and a leg, however what is that really going to? Exorbinant doctor salaries and malpractice insurance. With competition hospitals and pharmacutical companies are forced to lower prices AND still provide a needed, quality product.

and again, HEALTH INSURANCE DOES NOT GO AWAY, IT IS MERELY NOT SUBSIDIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT.


I enjoy reading your posts when you're not being a haughty prick and not even creating a counterarguement.

I fully expect Fal to make a strong counter-argument and hopefully an insult free argument at that.

Not taking sides RAR, just saying for the sake of the thread.

Universal Healthcare is unconstitutional. The sole authority on whether or not a system can be implemented in the United States is the constitution, and universal Healthcare places a incredible amount of power in the hands of the Government. Healthcare is a service industry. Competetion increases the quality of the service, and, if not dominated by a few regional powerhouses, keeps costs managable. Universal healthcare is a huge step towards socialism, an economic and political system that the Founding Fathers did not intend and certainly would not approve of.

In which case I'll give you an example.

Meet Benjamin. Benjamin is a cleaner. Specifically he cleans restaurant kitchens. It's not a particularly enjoyable job, and it doesn't require many qualifications. As a result it's not very highly paid. Under a pure capitalism this will remain the same as, through lack of protection for the workers rights there's inadequate support should a body wish to unionise and, for example, exercise strike action. Because Benjamins job so lacks a necessity for qualification, and because there will always be people who need money, there will always be a Benjamin. At the same time, there will always be a need for a Benjamin, without him providing such a service you go to a restaurant, eat the food and pick up God only knows what bug and fall ill. Bless him, Benjamin fell in love and married. Now he also has a kid to support! As a result of common social divide, his wife is in a similarly low paid job. Maybe she's working two to help them scrape by, which tends to be what happens.

Bejamin falls ill. He has cancer. Oh noes! Now we see three options:

1. He doesn't have health insurance. He goes to the hospital, pays a gazundle of money for the meeting with the doctor and all the tests that they do (and you know in the US under a mostly privatised system they do a lot of essentially unnecessary tests to "rule out alternatives" that cost a lot of money. Need an MRI? Have five!) has to stay off work and finds his pay lowered for sick leave and then can't pay for his treatment. He dies, sucks for Molly and Jimmy. Maybe they go on benefit, single mother family sort of thing. Jimmy probably gets bullied for getting free school meals, though maybe that's too close to socialism, but it's Ok because RiseAgainst didn't have to wait in line for his treatment, whatever that may be.

2. He has health insurance, his already low wage is munched a sizable amount. He goes to hospital, goes through the same process and the health insurance pays for all that and his treatment. His premiums SKYROCKET, a lack of money causes his marriage to break up (because money issues are amongst the most commonly cited cause for divorce), little Jimmy has a troubled upbringing; grows up to and with bickering and arguing as the norm for a relationship (internal working model, developmental psychology) and probably divorces in his future relationship. He was probably a right little tyke! (read also: bully) because the trials of the break up meant that parenting went to hell in a handbasket. Benjamin continues to scrape a living, but with less of his wage to play with because of raised insurance premiums a bald head and clinical depression caused by chemo therapy and a divorce, but it's ok because RisaAgainst didn't have to wait in line for his treatment, whatever that may be. It'd probably be much similar if he didn't have health insurance and decided to pay for the treatment, he'd just have to mortgage the house in the process.

3. He doesn't have health insurance and won't go to see the doctor, you think a guy in a low wage job trying to support a wife and kid has that sort of money to spend?! You gotta be kidding! He dies, they don't know it was cancer until post mortem, Molly and Jimmy are boned. RiseAgainst didn't have to wait.

The assertion that a system such as the medical one will have prices internally regulated is naive. Even if things aren't to become goliathic monopolies, the tendency is for the CEOs of the companies to meet up and say "you know we can still keep our prices high and get a tidy keeping for ourselves", or the Doctors on the ground level will throw in tests to rule out alternatives (protect themselves from lawsuits and get a tidy sum in their pockets) which boosts the price. The patient either pays or dies. Which is why hospital fees and health insurance can be kept so high. You pay or you die.

Under the British Health System Benjamin would have paid health insurance from his wages as a part of the tax, which really is a pittance for what you get especially considering that drinkers and smokers "sin tax" heavily subsidises the system, and that the high wage earners pay more tax in the gradient system. When he fell ill he would've gone to the doctor without worry, been sent off for tests which he wouldn't have had to wait an incredible length for and get it all paid for by the Government. If waiting lists are massive, there's a chance that the Government will pay for him to go private anyway. And of course he has that option from the start if he has that sort of money to fritter away because private healthcare legally coexists (something which I disagree with, which is another matter).

You may not like the idea of tax subsidising, fully or partially, the healthcare system but as a whole it's massive amounts better for society. Stress is reduced, mental wellbeing increased, life expectancy increased. Nobody expects major illness, they don't plan for it, what if you suddenly become ill? Private health insurance is an expensive thing, and without it the costs are even bigger. National healthcare is so much more beneficial as a whole, to yourself; your family; to wider society, that the only reasons to disagree with it come down to short-sightedness and greed.

P.S. The majority of your first quote from yourself regarding national healthcare boiled down to an elaborate ad hominem attacking Europe as a whole, so I didn't think it justified a constructed response.

You do realise your Government, along with any other constitutional Government, just changes the constitution to suit it's needs right? I can't really fathom why people spend so much time yammering on about why you should or shouldn't do something with the argument "It's (un)constitutional!" because when it boils down to it a constitution is worth less than the paper it's written on.

The founding fathers were racist pricks and the Constitution is as outdated as the Bible.

I hate Ron Paul.

Well the poor people of America are poor why? Because they didn't put their minds to anything. A poor person IN AMERICA has enough potential to go from rich to poor. They just have to work hard. I mean I wish healthcare could be free and everyone could share, but it gives too much power to a government. I am not so much anti-universal healthcare as I am anti-universal government. In other words when I said I was anti-universal healthcare, I am more talking about America's situation. In a small anarchist society it could work, but America isn't like that.

But you have to consider the longterm effects of universal healthcare. You are giving the government power of your money, and the power of how good the doctors are. Money is dangerous enough, but then how good the treatment is just adds to the problem. And the government won't stop there with socialist ideals. They will go further and further until we become what Russia was.

Excuse me, I didn't know we were talking about how bad of a critic I am. I thought we were here to talk about politics. I must have been mistaken.

Anyways to get back on topic, no I do not just look at the negative propaganda. I do realize there are good things about universal health care, but I don't think it is worth giving up more freedom and taking a big risk for those good things. I don't understand why people can't at least try to be responsible for themselves.

On the topic of the other countries, well only time will tell. We haven't seen these countries deal with this long enough for something like a terrible leader to rule them and take away more freedoms.

Everybody can't win. It is impossible. You can reduce how badly people lose, but not everyone can really win.

It may take a bit longer than 10 years, but I think you understand the point.

Socialism does not give equality. It only stresses for it.

Well I would hope they would want their offspring to live happy lives without a government controlled by a tyrant.

The constitution is not from a superhuman being. It is from a couple of revolutionaries who liked some ideals of the enlightenment and because of the tyrannical government they were under, they acted. These guys were not the smartest beings on the earth. They did not believe in human equality because you can easily see that they owned slaves. I don't see how the founding fathers would know how to deal with socialism before it was even invented.

And why is he working in this job? Well because he thought that school was not worth it so he decided to not apply himself. If he did apply himself and not worry about love so much, maybe he would have succeeded. It is partially his fault he ended up that way.

Not all doctors don't get paid as much as you think.

And why is forced charity right? That is pretty much what it is.

You seem to be implying that we have some sort of "social equality" in America which is....


























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wait for it....























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bullshit!