[passgasser]

Originally Posted by rngreenhorn

I hope you are right. I hope our citizens can control this monster. Karens article in the New York Times has me convinced that universal health care is inevitable. Most Americans don't feel their health care should be their responsibility.

I think I need to take a break. This whole subject has got me down in the dumps.

It is only inevitable if folks like you and I give up.

[passgasser]

Allow me to stipulate that any editorial article you all find at the New Democracy Project, The Nation, Columbia University, etc, are going to be supportive of your position. That said, perhaps we can take up a little less bandwidth with posts of things written by others.

As to Spacenurse’s posting, what is interesting about what Dr Angell’s comments is more what she didn’t say, rather than what she did say. For each of the 4 "myths," her response essentially boiled down to "it doesn’t’ have to be that way." I will grant that it doesn’t have to be that way. However, given the US government’s history of involvement in social programs, it will take more than "it doesn’t have to be that way" to get me to agree. Show me an efficiently run social program. Show me a program that is not weighted down by an overwhelming administrative burden. Are you aware that most government positions are paid according to how many other employees the position supervises? As such, it is in the interest of managers to create positions within their departments, making each department as large and as cumbersome as is possible.

There still stands several unanswered challenges for all those who support the idea of universal health care. You must demonstrate how we are going to form such an agency without it being an administrative behemoth. You must demonstrate that the majority of Americans won’t suffer from such establishment. I’ve said that for the majority (about 85%), if they wish to have healthcare at even the same level they now enjoy, their expenditures on health care are going to go up, not down. And so far unspoken, this will create an even worse two-tier level of healthcare delivery than what exists now. There are still other points that have yet to be addressed, but you get the point. We would be beyond foolish to charge headlong into such a massive change without some real forethought. Without that forethought, most Americans would be far worse off than what they are now. And that is simply unfair.

As to the idea of "social responsibility," that’s simply nonsense. This idea is based on the fundamentally flawed principle that I have an equal or greater responsibility to support others as I do to support myself and my family, and that is a recipe for disaster. Beyond that, it assumes that the "haves" have a responsibility to provide more and more for the "have nots," world without end, amen. This, of course, relieves the "have nots" of any responsibility to society whatsoever. It not only "levels the playing field," it levels the outcomes, which is so irresponsible as to be criminal. Knowing that I will have the same benefits and lifestyle whether I work or not, exactly why should I continue to bust my backside? I submit that if I have a brain in my head, your idea of a social conscience makes it far more desirable for me to become unemployed. I submit that our responsibility to society is to support ourselves and our families to the best of our ability. We have a moral obligation to provide for those who are truly unable to support themselves, but that is actually a far smaller number than those currently on public assistance. Beyond which, we cannot give "moral obligations" the force of law, because each of us perceives morality differently, according to our beliefs.

There is one other question I’ve asked that I’d really like answered. What’s next? Where does my "social responsibility" end? If you manage to plow over the objections you admit are valid and push this through, what social program will we next be forced to accept to assuage your "social conscience?" What money must next be taken from us in order for us to meet your ideal of "social responsibility?" Or are you willing to say "this is it, after this, no more expenditures on social programs?"

Edited to add: When I talk about social responsibility, understand that I am not talking about the "ideal." Clearly, if each of us was willing to work for the betterment of society as a whole, rather than for our own advantages, the world might be a far better place. Whether you recognize it or not, this is hive mentality. Unfortunately, we are not ants. Such an ideal ignores human nature, which was the ultimate downfall of Marx' theory. People do not work for abstracts. People do not work for the betterment of society, their own condition ignored. And until you can address this fundamental point of human nature, your arguments are philosophically dead in the water.

[passgasser]

One other point supporters of universal healthcare have ignored: In all the swooning over how much better it will be, how we will cut the administrative costs so drastically, how everyone will be covered, all of you have ignored the most telling point so far posted. The medicare prescription drug program, hailed as such a social boon, not even five years after it has passed, has now been determined to be far more expensive than the government initially thought. On the order of triple the cost. This is just a drug program for a small percentage of our population. How the heck are they going to accurately estimate and control the entire bill for all healthcare in this country, when they can't do it on such a vastly reduced scale?

[Fuzzy]

With all this talk about "social responsibility", why do we expect our employers to pick up all or part of the cost for our health insurance, when we buy our own car insurance? In fact, I have alot more choices for car insurance than I do for health insurance. It is also less restrictive.

Fuzzy

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

With all this talk about "social responsibility", why do we expect our employers to pick up all or part of the cost for our health insurance, when we buy our own car insurance? In fact, I have alot more choices for car insurance than I do for health insurance. It is also less restrictive.

Fuzzy

It's a throwback to the 'fringe' benefits offered during WWII in order to recruit employees with incentives other than salaries, which were subject to a 'freeze' because of the war. A few years after WWII, Congress codified the practice by giving employers a tax break for doing so.

In actuality, employers SHOULDN'T be offering health insurance. We don't need employers to achieve the tax breaks for health insurance, they could be offered to us directly, something Pres. Bush advocated in his State of the Union address.

If we divest health insurance from employers, the issue of 'portability' would be moot. Also, salaries would go up because employers wouldn't be spending that money on a portion of your health insurance and that would almost offset the increased cost of purchasing on your own, combined with the tax breaks for doing so.

And THEN, you would have your choice, providing that the regulations the gov't hangs on employer for expensive plans doesn't translate to individuals: individuals should be free to choose the coverage that best 'fits'. For example, I'm a divorced male with three boys at home. I simply DON'T need coverage that mandates birth control pills or any of a variety of 'female services'. That's not to say those services aren't important, if you are covering a female; they just aren't important to ME. By having the option of choosing coverage that 'fits', I could save money on the cost of my own coverage.

~faith,
Timothy.

[pickledpepperRN]

The Medicare drug plan was created at the behest of the pharmaceutical corporation lobby and health insurance corporations. THEY need to go..
It is bad for the country to "improve" a system by privatizing it.

Perhaps those in power at the time were trying to create a dumb system so they could get rid of Medicare all together.
I wish the SS and Medicare money were in the "lock box".

[ingelein]

Albany Family Physicians Lobby for Single Payer Health Care System

http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany...05/daily3.html

Their concerns include the fact that nearly 3 million New Yorkers are uninsured and many more are underinsured, while others have insurance that does not cover significant items like medications.

The doctors also complain that dealing with multiple insurance plans, with their different rules, forms, and procedures wastes an estimated 20 percent to 30 percent of the health care dollar.

A single payer health plan is the best way to control costs and reduce administrative waste, say the doctors.

Interesting that doctors advocate universal healthcare, some have argued that healthcare workers will be hurt financially by a single payer system.

[ingelein]

Originally Posted by passgasser

As to the idea of "social responsibility," that’s simply nonsense.

Edited to add: When I talk about social responsibility, understand that I am not talking about the "ideal." Clearly, if each of us was willing to work for the betterment of society as a whole, rather than for our own advantages, the world might be a far better place. Whether you recognize it or not, this is hive mentality. Unfortunately, we are not ants. Such an ideal ignores human nature, which was the ultimate downfall of Marx' theory. People do not work for abstracts. People do not work for the betterment of society, their own condition ignored. And until you can address this fundamental point of human nature, your arguments are philosophically dead in the water.

WHO has asked anyone to ignore their own condition, Personal and Social responsibility can coexist in one human being.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKYmzOHWWRU

[HM2Viking]

Frankly, I think it is quite fair to post information to linked sources. Instead of making blind assertions I make it a point to share links which is meant to allow others to follow back and make their own minds up about the issues at hand. Information is also posted as a refutation of postings by others that appear to be erroneous. The data does not appear to support the assertion that a profit driven health care system is capable of assuring universal access to quality care. The indisputable fact of our health care system is that we lag behind the rest of the industrialized world in health outcome measures and that is why we need to rethink the underlying assumptions of our current system.

Some Molly Ivins quotes to lighten things up....

http://www.progressive.org/mag_wxivins013107?page=0%2C2

Jan. 1995: Self-description
“I don’t have an agenda, I don’t have a program. I’m not a communist or a socialist. I guess I’m a left-libertarian and a populist, and I believe in the Bill of Rights the way some folks believe in the Bible.”

January 2007: Populists and liberals
“Listen, a populist is someone who is for the people and against the powerful, and so a populist is generally the same as a liberal—except we tend to have more fun.”

[ingelein]

Discusses how even PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE hard working middle class families cannot bare the burden of runaway medical debt.

Sick and Broke
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Feb8.html

Nobody's safe. That's the warning from the first large scale study of medical bankruptcy.Health Insurance?That didn't protect 1 million Americans who were financially ruined by illness or medical bills.

A comfortable middle class life style?Good education? Decent job? No safeguards there.Most medically bankrupt were middle classhomeowners who had been to college and had RESPONSIBLE jobs--until illness struck.