Free Health Care?

Yes it's a step towards socialism... but it's not all bad. Statistically we Canadians pay less for healthcare than Americans do, but we're not all fat lazy bastards either... just most of us. Yes the wait times are slightly longer, but I have no problem having to wait a month to get knee surgery because it's not going to cost me $50 000.

ZOMZZZZ SOCIALISM IS THE DEVIL!!!  DAMN COMMIES!  THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY THE GOVERNMENT CANT PROVIDE SERVICES FOR US!

jk, but I don't see why so many people our blindly opposed to socialism without even really knowing what it is, and I don't see how labeling anyone socialist or not socialist is getting our country anywhere.  I really don't know what the effects of socialized medicine would be on our country, and i really don't have an opinion on it, but socialism is just another big word used to get the average stupid American to not like Obama.

Canada has free healthcare. Perhaps we lean slightly more towards socialism than the Americans, but we're still a capitalist country, mainly. The UK (left leaning) also has free healthcare, but the NHS are incredibly deep in debt, like £8 billion (~$16 billion USD) or something (London on its own was £579 million). I can see the American health system ending up the same way, with the number of people in the country.

Oh, and not to mention it can be slow as hell.

Free health care isn't free because taxes have to go up to pay for it.  In countries with "free health care", people lose control over their life and death health care decisions because it is usually illegal to purchase essential medical services(.i.e. not plastic surgery) beyond what the government provides.

Socialism is a great concept, however, it will never work. We are greedy competitive animals and trying to institute socialism would be moronic.

For those of you who believe socialism is a good concept must also not agree with ski competitions...why should someone get $20,000 a year to ride line skis and I don't? Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that he can throw corked 9's with sick tweaked grabs while I'm limited to throwing 3's b/c I'm scarred and wasn't privileged enough to grow up next to a mountain let alone have enough money to afford to ski...A socialistic world is limited to those who are the worst, not the best, all for the sake of equality...

Alot of people say that free health care is for the people who are not able to afford health care coverage, so people on or under the poverty line makes sense. And what alot of people dont know is if you are on or under the poverty line, you can get healthcare for around 6 bucks a month from the state. Just my .2

besides the long waits its all good here in Canada

Thats gay...it was well written...

The skiier population is mostly rich upper-middle class white kids. Obviously a lot of the stupid ones are going to be opposed to public health care because their parents can afford to pay for health insurance.

The idea of the most important aspect in a persons life (their helath) being privatized and being run to try and get a maximum profit is fucking ridiculous. Healthcare is more important than the police or firefighters or schools or anything else, yet people are still opposed to making it public, even though they willingly pay for countless other things to be public.



I dont hear anyone saying that they dont start a lot of fires so they shouldnt have to pay for the fire dept...

i think that the main point is if we shall consider health as an universal right, that should be granted by the state even to those who can't afford it. and if you compare a human being to a car, well i guess you don't think at it as a right.

personally, for my european background, i consider a welfare state providing a fair access to health the best solutions to the damages of capitalism (whose limits have been clearly showed in the last months). moreover, health care is not just preventing people from becoming fat, is giving to every citizen the right to fulfill his realisation as a man, no matter what can be the disease or disabilities that affect him.

that is very true and a good point.

however, the problem that the american pubic is faced with, or sick of, is that Obama is trying to force it down our throat. Congress hardly understands this monstrosity, same with the american public.

obama is trying to do too many things in too short of a time period IMO. hopefully they move this thing into the fall session before our country does something completely retarded. give the american public a chance to get their voices heard.

look at the other side of the equation. what about the people that do not want this plan? Obama says that we can keep our current healthcare provider if we want. the key word is CURRENT. there have been reports that say something on the lines of, after this bill is passed, any further private coverage cannot be purchased by the american public! so, Obama was not lying when he said you could keep your coverage if you have it, you just cant change it? WTF?

The problem is that people are scared right now, costs are high, we are in the worst recession since the great depression and its not going to get better in the foreseeable future. i can see why people want this program. they think it will reduce the cost of their healthcare costs. I, with millions of other people, believe differently.

I know the healthcare coverage is broken in this country. why not fix Medicare and Medicaid first? why not try obamas plan on a smaller scale level, like Washington D.C. or a smaller economy state? Why the fuck would you start a program of that size in the worst recession in decades? HE HAS NO MONEY, WE HAVE NO MONEY AS A COUNTRY. you can only tax the rich for so long before they get sick of paying everybody's taxes in this country.

I would like to see the costs reduced in the healthcare sector of this country, as would anybody. our system needs an overhaul and you cant blame the government for trying to help us but do you think that the government can ruin (sorry run haha) healthcare like it did with Chrysler? GM? the financial institutions? There would be so many things running wrong with this new plan that our economy could crash further than it already is.

and do not sit there and play this card, "oh but our current system is broken and needs fixing." of course it does! my girlfriend is a nurse and she had to do her final paper on universal healthcare coverage for this country. she found (in her 30 page report) that you simply cannot provide universal healthcare coverage in this country without raising taxes (for everybody, not just the rich, thats a ploy by obama.) all of our taxes will go up, for those that pay into the system. most people that are complaining do not actually pay any taxes.

not only can we not afford it, our system is so diverse, complex and riddled with regulation, laws and things of that sort we would have to systematically break the entire system and start over from scratch in order to provide that type of service. not to mention the millions upon millions of people that we would add the the hospital mix. What i mean is that, could you imagine the 45 million americans or whatever the figure is that do not have health coverage now have it? do you know how packed the hospitals would be? the system would probably collapse in on itself. and im sure the illegals will get coverage too, so add them in the mix as well.

as you can tell im really pissed at this program. if you read this all the way plus karma for you!

oh, and the person i quoted, only the first like 2 paragraphs were for you. im not bitching at you, im bitching at everybody

i dont pay for health care... its awesome, and so is Canada. only suckers pay for health care.

dam man, i think you hit the nail right on the head!

you explained it better than i did in my whole long long post.

there are programs to help people get back on their feet. the government should not provide everything too us.

great post

free health care is the worst idea ever,

what you posted was 100% correct and a good argument.

i think the problem we are facing is cost, from wherever it comes from. we need to fix the costs of the coverage and operations. i think that can be done through washington and the market place. i do not think the answer is more government intervention.

healthcare should be just like any other free market business. it is sick that surgeries costs tens of thousands of dollars. its the cost not the provider whether it be government or the free market. i just do not want the government running 1/6th of our economy

Free Health Care is the best sounding WORST IDEA EVER.

What is this whole "socialism doesnt work" argument?


It works for your schools (kinda, well enough not to complain and want them privatized), it works for the police force, it works for public workers building roads etc, it works for everything else. Why does it not work for health care?

Health care in countries with private and public care is considerably better than it is in the US. In the UK, if you can afford private care, it is available, but if you cant, public care is there for free and it is still very good. I dont see why Americans are so afraid of the idea.

just a little opinion here: FREE HEALTHCARE IN CANADA SUCKS! you have to wait a fuckload of time to get in from the ER because a bunch of old people go there for no reason (you got a sliver? WHO CARES!) and you have to wait a minimum of 6h to get stuff like stitches and shit.

actually illegal immigrants are a pretty good deal fiscally because the vast majority pay taxes but because their ss numbers and info are fake they don't collect services such as social security and medicare.

where the fuck are you going to get the money for this, it doesn't make sense at all. Socializing the helthcare system would be the best thing to ever happen if we had the money to do that, but if we can have a free socialsized plan, which can be free and have rediculous waits and have dramatically less quality,  and other competing plans that actually cost money to have better healthcare and more quality. Still with this idea we can't afford it, if someone can give me a good way of paying for this bullshit ill give you +K.

raise taxes or cut military spending. Pretty complicated huh? Healthcare is a bargain compared to being tangled up in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Also it's not as if this is entirely new spending. American taxpayers already pay huge amounts for emergency  care for those that can't afford it. It's not as if emergency rooms turn away those without payment options. So creating an actual healthcare system has the potential to greatly increase efficiency.

Standardized test scores are 23% higher in private schools compared to public...9 out of 10 students at private schools go to college whereas 2 out of 10 is average for public...most construction projects are contracted to private construction companies who get the job done on average 25% faster than union construction companies...airline security is also contracted out...no where in your argument did I see one validated point...there are a few people who can argue effectively supporting socialism, you sir are not one of them...I'll post the links where I got the info from

I love Canada

thank you for replying to me directly, i get your point and i find it legitimate, for the reason i wrote in my first sentence: how much we consider health a right.

you see, we confront here our opinions on the basic clash equality vs. liberty. I tend to prefer a goverment who, as long as common freedoms are granted, is able to give everyone an equal access to a basic health care, obviously when needed, in spite of his income. I don't think there's a danger of getting people dependent on it, because it's something that is due for real health problems. As it as already been noted, government supply a basic education, security, roads and infrastructures, who are payed through taxes.
On the other way, you support the idea of a minimal state intervention on health care, that should be left free to work as a market. In the last months we've seen how this kind of capitalism (the one of the tatcher/reagan era) has some major downsides and imperfections, being far away from the ideal model it was believed to be.
This is why i have major doubts: in this economic crisis are people able to face this peculiar aspect of health care without help from the state? How strong the free market in which you believe still is and how can it provide a fair amount of equal chances to everyone?
So i can make you the same question you're making me: At what cost? and i'm not talking about money, but how many people should be left behind helpless just to sustain such a strong idea of a free market?

raise taxes.
I doubt it would make a significant difference in anyone's bottom line (assuming they have private healthcare now) and hopefully those businesses that currently have healthcare as a free benefit would give their workers a pay raise which could in turn be taxed along with the rest of their income to pay for healthcare, which would hopefully cost less money overall then the private healthcare did.

That's the theory behind it anyways, I have no idea if it would actually work this way.

exactly. calling democrats socialists doesn't get anyone anywhere. 1 - they aren't. Our democrats are the left-leaning party in the states, but in most other countries they would be considered centrist or even right-leaning. 2 - even if democrats/obama were trying to go more towards "socialist" programs, no one even stops to think if that's good or bad, they just reject it out of hand because americans are conditioned to hate socialism and communism.

i know there are some conservatives who dislike things obama is doing for actual, legitimate reasons. i respect those of you who are like that, but unfortunately for you, the rest of the GOP are a bunch of unstable crazies who spend their time accusing obama of not being born in the US/being a secret muslim/being a socialist instead of actually doing something useful for their party.

dude, you are so full of shit. Have you ever heard that correllation does not equal causation? The examples you posted are pretty fucking weak. Hmm, who's more likely to go to college, someone who's family already payst 10K or more for education, or a standard public school student? Obviously people in higher socioeconomic classes will have higher average test scores and go to college.

Airport security is contracted out? what relevance does that have. Did I miss the memo that airport security is mankinds greatest achievement. Let me throught out some of my own bullshit examples.

NASA sent people to the moon. Manhattan project yields nuclear technology. Egyptians build pyramids. Convinced that governments can be effective yet?

*throw

there is a reason that england's income tax rate takes away 40% of the money you earn. its not just free healthcare think about it.

Im not claiming that government run programs are always more effective than privately run ones. Obviously private schools and private healthcare are going to be better than their public conterparts...

However, this does not mean that public healthcare would not work.

I was also going to mention this, but I wasn't sure if roads were contracted, I know dredging of federal channels and maintaining locks etc was contracted because my dad works for the Corps of Engineers.  All they do is oversee the projects.

My point is, if a company isnt doing the job that you want them to do, or aren't up to par, you fire them and bring in someone who CAN do the job...with federal matters, you are stuck with what you get, no matter how inefficient or counter productive they are...there are smarter ways to do this that socialize or federalize health care...an example is auto insurance...

there's a difference between socialism and communism...

What about my post made you think I dont understand that there is a difference...

theres too many people getting screwed in the american halth system the way it is the rich can pay for it the poor get support and now all these middle class people getting laid off are fucked and nobody is helping them you can't call yourselfa first world country if like half of it cant get healthcare

because your post described socialism that is very, very far left. when the media calls obama a socialist, and conservatives get their panties in a jumble about it, it isn't anywhere close to what you described. obama is hardly even socialist, and his socialist aspects would be beneficial even though they are very minor. america is not going to start paying every job equally any time soon, like the metaphor in your post.

Government Run schools are a bane for this country.

Read the book Education:Free and Compulsory by Murray Rothbard for free here

http://mises.org/story/2226

Its not very long and it will change the way you look at Government schools

so⋅cial⋅ism  AC_FL_RunContent = 0;var interfaceflash = new LEXICOFlashObject ( "http://cache.lexico.com/d/g/speaker.swf", "speaker", "17", "15", "", "6");interfaceflash.addParam("loop", "false");interfaceflash.addParam("quality", "high");interfaceflash.addParam("menu", "false");interfaceflash.addParam("salign", "t");interfaceflash.addParam("FlashVars", "soundUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fcache.lexico.com%2Fdictionary%2Faudio%2Fluna%2FS06%2FS0679000.mp3&clkLogProxyUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fwhatzup.html&t=a&d=d&s=di&c=a&ti=1&ai=51359&l=dir&o=0&sv=00000000&ip=d8111db2&u=audio"); interfaceflash.addParam('wmode','transparent');interfaceflash.write();  /ˈsoʊʃəˌlɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Show IPA –noun 1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. 2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory. 3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

The point of Socialism is to eliminate competition thus bringing forth equality...competition hinders socialism because in theory people are supposed to strive for communal effort...thus eliminating someone being able to achieve a higher status than someone else...sorry about how that last post turned out but that was from dictionary.com...

Half of Americans can't get healthcare? Yeah right, the number of uninsured Americans is 47,000,000 and the current population of the U.S. is 304,000,000. When you do the math only 15% of Americans don't have health insurance that is far far lower than your claim of 50%.

Not to mention the fact that a good amount that 15% has other ways of paying for health care, like HSA (health savings accounts)

You turned me onto this site...now I have another reason to avoid work at work...hope you're f'ing happy!

I think that my mom would be bankrupt right now because of my ankle if we didn't live in canada.
I didn't read all that artical at all tho, just glanced at it.

Part of his point tho is the fact that, YOU DO PAY FOR IT!!! Only in the form of taxes...If your mom has a decent job, which I presume she does because you ski and have a computer...you probably would have health insurance...

i am happy

read the book i posted though really its good

ok i guesed at half im not gunna lie i had no idea americas population was that huge but 47 million people is still alot more than canada has but i do think its more then 15% regardless alot of people are getting fucked

just kidding it is like right on 15%

the only problem you people have with socialism is the fact that it's tied to people like hitler, stalin, Mussolini etc.

dude

I though I was for free health care but when I broke my elbow had I had to wait a month to get it fixed it would have been seriously fucked up for the rest of my life. So I hope your knee was okay.