Free health care for all?

[dean]

I do hear the argument concerning medicare and social security that, "I am entitled to it because I paid into it for 40 years!" My father paid into it for almost fifty years and started using both when he turned 65. He lived to be 89 and I can guarentee that he used many times the money that he paid into it, particularly in the last 2 years of life. I'm not ready for euthinasia but it seems bizzare thaat we Americans spend so much money to stay alive as long as we can. In the cas of my dad, he lived at home for his last two years, attached to an oxygen bottle and with nurse parcticianeers around him all the time. I personally hope that I never feel that it is better to stick around like that than die. It wouldn't surprise me if, in 10-20 years, politicians, because of the urgency, pass a means testing rule for both SS and medicare, for those that can afford to forego both. If your concern is the amount of money paid in, I would be in favor of allowing both programs, up to the point that the individual has gotten his or her money out of the programs. Finally, concerning paying into the SS and medicare systems. For most people, their employer pays half the amount. If you are self-employed, like me, you pay it all.

[Old Hippie]

"...Personally I'd rather have the cash value and decide for myself what health insurance company I want to use..."

 

 

 

Problem is, you will not get the same plan at the same price. Health insurance is cheaper in volume than it is individually.

 

National health care, by any name is far from free regardless of what anyone wants to think. It is paid for by tax money WE pay. Poor people already have it as do retirees, elderly, people who never worked and collect welfare have it etc... The only people who don't have it are the workers who actually pay the bills.

 

Ultimately, Some sort of national health care is going to have to happen. Companies will not be able to afford it as a"perk" (which it is not) and individuals will not be able to afford it on their own. There is no way people can take less and less salary just to pay for their health care.

 

I cannot for the life of me understand why people in the USA are so opposed to this.

 

[HeartThais]

Free market healthcare would be pretty harsh on the old folks. The other problem with giving people money and letting do what they want is that people are notoriously bad planners. They'll put off insurance but once they get cancer, they'll be screaming for the latest radical experimental treatment that costs a million bucks a pop.

 

I'm all for free market healthcare as long as we can also agree to ignore the old people and the bad planners (optimists) and let them die peacefully in a corner. Since I'm a soft-touch, I prefer the alternative.

[Al]

I cannot for the life of me understand why people in the USA are so opposed to this.

There are deep conservative threads that run through the country:

Americans are more mistrustful of government, more supportive of the free market, and more dubious about the welfare state than citizens of any other Western country. The word "liberal" has become tainted. And Reagan is deemed too sacrosanct to challenge.

 

But after the disastrous Bush years, Democrats can no longer afford the luxury of avoiding the confrontation with the American right and its toxic legacy -- or trying to gloss it over with pretty words, as Obama did with Reagan. And there will never be a better time to challenge the monster in the right-wing cave. It is talking tough now, but it is weakened and confused, and it has just been roundly rejected by the American people. Americans are in a crisis, and they are prepared to take a fresh look at old dogmas. As Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas pointed out in an insightful Newsweek article titled "We Are All Socialists Now," Americans suffer from cognitive dissonance about big government: They distrust it and say they don't want it, but want the things that only it can deliver. And with the great god of free market capitalism now revealed to have feet of clay to everyone who has (or had) a 401K, the time is ripe for an articulate and non-threatening liberal to explain to Americans why the federal government has a vital role to play and does not have to be the enemy of individual initiative.

[Steve]

HH, got a question. I assume you'd scrap everything: medicaid, medicare, etc. Basically take a more libertarian view that the free market will remedy all that and if people had to fend for themselves they would plan and budget better.

 

Am I correct in that assumption?

 

Not agreeing or disagreeing per se just wanted to get the totality of your view. I am making the assumption based on the 'no free lunch' statement.

 

In a strange way, it would make the family unit stronger. I think the reason why the family unit is so strong in Thailand and other 3rd world countries is because there is largely no social safety net with regards to health care. You rely on your kids to take care of you in your old age. Your kids ARE medicare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Al]

 

In a strange way, it would make the family unit stronger. I think the reason why the family unit is so strong in Thailand and other 3rd world countries is because there is largely no social safety net with regards to health care. You rely on your kids to take care of you in your old age. Your kids ARE medicare.

 

yes, but not so strange. it has been known by lots of people. that is one of the many reasons why I am opposed to all this conservative and/or libertarian crap.

 

let us not stop at medicare, if you get a job, the first thing you are going to do is try to get your family on the payroll for other jobs in the company, whether they are competent or not. on and on and on. it feeds that kind of corruption.

 

 

[HeartThais]

In a strange way, it would make the family unit stronger. I think the reason why the family unit is so strong in Thailand and other 3rd world countries is because there is largely no social safety net with regards to health care. You rely on your kids to take care of you in your old age. Your kids ARE medicare.

 

Does evidence of stronger family unit include encouraging or turning a blind's eye to your daughters becoming prostitutes?

 

There is no doubt in my mind that without a safety net, families will find other ways of helping their own. Most of us won't let mom and dad starve. But that's a loooooong stretch from thinking that scrapping these programs will improve the social fabric of family life altogether.

[dean]

The devil of health care reform will be in the details. Sure, you can raise income taxes somewhat. You can also raise the "sin" tax on liquor and cigarettes. You can raise the gas tax by $1.50-2.00 per gallon. You can eliminaste much of the paperwork required by both the government and insurance companies, to try to get the amount that U.S. pays in health care closer to what Eropeans pay. You can try to get the AMA, health insurance companies and drug makers on the same page (health coverage for all at an affordable price) but this might be the hardest thing to do. I can't imagine how many millions they will spend to try to influence individual members of congress to support their way of doing things. Personally, if we got to the point of a basic universal health plan, which covered all Americans, and provided an HMO type of coverage, I'd be satisfied. Then, those that want a better plan can buy it either through government or insurance companies. While want universal coverage which would be basic for all Americans (and particularly for those that can least afford to pay, like the young, old , disabled and those with life long health problems), I still feel that, in order to get people involved in taking charge of their own health care (and that of their families), some of the health insurance cost should be borne by as many Americans as possible.

[Steve]

Good point.

 

Culturally its okay to send your daughter into prostitution in Thailand but it wouldn't if you were in a trailer in West Virginia or a shanty in Mississippi.

[Steve]

In a strange way' date=' it would make the family unit stronger. I think the reason why the family unit is so strong in Thailand and other 3rd world countries is because there is largely no social safety net with regards to health care. You rely on your kids to take care of you in your old age. Your kids ARE medicare. [/quote']

 

Does evidence of stronger family unit include encouraging or turning a blind's eye to your daughters becoming prostitutes?

 

There is no doubt in my mind that without a safety net, families will find other ways of helping their own. Most of us won't let mom and dad starve. But that's a loooooong stretch from thinking that scrapping these programs will improve the social fabric of family life altogether.

 

Another good point but I think that happens no matter what. Old boys network happens with the rich as well with sons getting jobs from Dad's frat brother at Harvard or Skull and Bones brother at Yale.

 

See your point though.

 

Just an obsrvation that in countries with no social safety net the family is all important.

 

Of course that has its negatives. Thailand. India. To name a few places where family loyalty means children are exploited and do so willlingly out of family duty.