Uh-oh....

[djs]

The problem with the healthcare discussion is nobody wants to give a problem statement.

Lets see: Healthcare is to expensive? This isn't the fault of insurance, in fact, just the opposite, insurance helps keep the costs down. The expense is driven by government, doctors, and attorneys. No plans to fix this.

Lets see: Insurance is to expensive? Yes, see comment above. If healthcare is expensive, insurance has to be expensive.

Lets see: Not everyone qualifies? True. Let's talk. It will be expensive for the individual, see above.

Lets see: Illegals and uninsured costs the system millions? Having them on an insurance plan doesn't change this, it just moves the dollars around.

etc....

By not providing a problem statement, the conversation is endless. By using the terms health care, health costs, and health insurance interchangably, politicians keep from pointing the finger at themselves, but don't solve any real problems.

I'll lay the gauntlet down. Between me and my wife, we make in excess of $250,000 a year (mostly my wife). This means the 'rich' is me. Now, I'm a community minded person and actually believe in helping out those less fortunate. If a person is not taking on any personal responsibility, they are not getting my help though.

Tell me why I should fund healthcare for illegal immigrants? Why should I pull money out of my pocket to pay for this when their own country won't?

Tell me why I should pay for healthcare for people who eat 3 bigmacs a day and are obese? I'll meet you half way, I'll pay $20 a month towards their gym membership if they promise to go work out 3 days a week.

Let's talk real problems and real solutions. This 'fluffy non-specific' stuff is just political posturing...

Dan

 

[Guest]

Carp at me all you want with your conservative clap-trap and rant and rail against the government if you wish. Why you are at it please don't accept (or sell) Medicare plans... and then tell ME that I'M a hypocrite!

We've heard all the gloom and doom about civilization as we know it ending if we had Medicare (back in 1963.) The world did not end and our citizenry is better for it.

How many of you vote to end it? Any of you? How about it, you Limbaugh conservatives? Rick, you're one of them, (with a different label... so-called Libertarianism.)

Folks, if you honestly believe that the current IFP system is working then you live under a rock. And it you honestly believe that the private sector is large enough and powerful enough and even has any intention in wanting to fix it, you live under a rock in a cave!

No one wants a government system, but the greed that inhabits the entire healthcare system is beyond the control of the private sector. Only the government can reign it in.

Will the system be better? Not for some people... probably not for you Rick because you are wealthy. But since you have no contact with the lower strata of society, those who work hard for a living and who lose their homes and savings because they either can't get or afford coverage... it WILL be a better system. And people with your philosophy believe that life is always zero-sum... that if someone else "gets," they "take away" from something you have.

I know that most of you health agents make a lot of noise about "helping" people and "doing the right thing" for the client, but for most of you in this venue, it's all about the money. You could care less if 40% of our citizens can't have adequate medical care for an affordable price, so long as you get your 7% or 20% of each dollar spent on coverage by the rich and healthy.

Am I disgusted by you (collectively) as much as you are disgusted by me? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Your greed, your selfishness, your hypocrisy, and in some cases your bigotry revolt me.

If you can tell me how the private sector can be changed such that the system will be financially viable such that you can still make your six-figure income, fine. But you can't. And each one of you here is putting your own selfish interest ahead of what is good for the country.

But that's what Limbaugh-conservatives do, so I'm not surprised.

I have no doubt that the huge majority of agents would use the same arguments you use against equal-opportunity healthcare against civil-rights and other anti-discrimination legislation. I have no doubt that the huge majority of your right-wing Limbuaghites would happily roll back public-accommodation laws, equal-housing laws, voting rights laws, and everything that "takes away" from your rich, white, privileged "class" and gives to those who did did not have the same advantage you were born with. If you folks could get away with it you'd all join the KKK in a New York minute.

That's what all this opposition is about... besides the money... you're simply afraid that YOU might have to stand in line at the ER like those who don't have an insurance card in their wallet now do.

Medicare for the masses. If it means you and I are put out of business, well so be it. Learn to sell another kind of insurance and be happy that you will live in a better and more just society.

Rick, what do you discuss at those lunches you host in SoCal with your right-wing whacko friends? Massive Resistance (read your history of the South in the 50s) or maybe some sort of military coup?

Oh sure, you folks come on here and vent about how the medical delivery system will go down the toilet... but you really don't care about that. It's the money. Just admit it. It's the money.

Yeah, after all the battles I've lived through (and fought) for civil and equal rights in my 61 years of life... against people like you (collectively) who believe that they have an entitlement to everything because they listen to Rush and Newt and Rick, remind me that the struggle never ends.... that the greed and discrimination and ignorance in this society is still a potent force... and that those of you on this board are not part of the solution... you are part of the problem.

You want to debate this with me? Do you want to "discuss" the virtues of social Darwinism that you hold so dear? Do you want to try to convince me that you are justified in your entitlement mentality? Do you want to try to convince me that greed is good and that selfishness is a virtue? Bring it on! I "beat" you $#@!s in the 50s and 60s, and 70... I'm still up to it now.

Come on. Try to convince me that "Alabama of 1958" was a better society than we have now. Try to convince me that we are worse off because of the social, educational, and political equality that people like me (not people like you) have worked their entire lives to make happen. Tell me how we would be better off without Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps? Come one, if you have the intellectual ability and the literary skill-set, throw your Limbaugh-Gringrich conservative-reactionary crap at me.

Guys, I've seen you all before... you were the cops the streets of Selma and Montgomery. You were the hard-hats who supported the Vietnam debacle. You were the folks who loved Halderman, Erlichman, and Nixon. You were the punks who held the signs that said "I don't believe in segregation... I believe in slavery."

You think folks like you and Rick and Winter and all you others here who "glory" yourselves in greed and who rationalize that they have what they have because they WORKED for it, while all those brown, black, and poor white people are just lazy SOBs, come on... bring it on to me.

Tell me again why only the rich and healthy should be able to have medical care. Tell me again how being cured of disease is a privilege and not a right?

I've heard it all before, but I'll be happy to hear it again. Just do me a favor and take off the white sheets and red arm-bands.

Disgust me? "Do ya think, DiNozzo?"


ANC

 

[arnguy]

Interesting post, Dan, but "to" should be "too!"

 

[Paradigm]

I am against socialism in all forms. The individual is of value.... society so called is of none by itself. People must take responsibility for themselves.

I am not a hypocrite and I quite freely admit that the reason i am in business is to make money. The fact that I can help people with their most dire of financial needs is a bonus. Anything worth doing well is worth doing for money. There is no shame in profit and no honor in self sacrificial acts. These acts violate the most fundamental of all duties; the duty to self. I dont have a duty to my fellow man to prop him up...I will help him if I can, I will not do him harm...But I will never act counter to my own self interest. Call that greedy, call that selfish, but the reality is that is the nature of man. Everything we do everyday is guided by our own self interest. Either we benefit or profit from it financially or emotionally. There are no selfless acts and there are no exceptions to that rule.

I will go one step further if the only way to save humanity is the collectivization of society and the elimination of personal freedom. I would rather death find me than lose my freedom to determine my own personal destiny. That is my God given right of freewill pure and simple and I will never voluntarily or involuntarily give up that power.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

Interesting post, Dan, but "to" should be "too!"

Way to be on the ball arn. Good job!

 

[SportsNut]

Way to be on the ball arn. Good job!

You can't slide a pinch of dust past Arnguy... He watches every move, doesn't he...?

I say the man would have made one hell of a 4th grade teacher... and maybe doubled as running the jug part-time to... or is it too.... or no, could it be two... or.... 2...

OK, send me to the corner; where is that pointy hat.

 

[djs]

Interesting post, Dan, but "to" should be "too!"

Some poor union worker without health insurance made my keyboard. It occassionaly has a typing problem, but I try to avoid pointing this out.... it's isn't politically correct to talk about your keyboards handicaps!

But thanks for letting my keyboard know that it missed a 'o', and it now has an inferiority complex....

Dan

 

[DJM]

The **** is about to hit the fan...

 

[cmsplert]

The reason health care costs in America is we have excess capacity.

For health care to cost less there has to be less capacity.

That is the furture.

 

[arnguy]

The reason health care costs in America is we have excess capacity.

For health care to cost less there has to be less capacity.

That is the furture.

Are you saying that health care will be rationed?