Obama on health care

Imagine.

Sounds like the system that Canada has is the same the UK has. To be honest, i cannot imagine living in a country where you have to pay for your healthcare.

Even though i've known of the way America's healthcare system works for quite a while now it has actually come as a bit of a shock to me to hear that America has this system in place.

I think for that reason i am finding it hard to see where you are coming from jflynn. I don't for a second believe that people will lose the motivation to succeed just because they don't have to pay for healthcare.

Well one thing's for sure. I'd love to get my hand looked at knowing it isn't going to cost me my other hand to do so. I had to have broken or fractured something in there two or three years ago now, it still feels, "different", and is always in "bearable" but constant pain. I'm afraid to do a lot of things with it out of fear it will get worse.

If people are determined to live off government/tax payers/us/however-you-want-to-put-it, then they're going to do just that. Even without a universal plan, I know of a married couple with a child who abuse the heck out of the system. Parents are on Medicaid, child is on WIC, and they eat WAY better than I do - with foodstamps, they get $575 a month NOT including what's already covered for the baby by WIC!

The dog eats STEAKS for dinner because EBT covers it and they have a freezer full of them - dog food costs money!

Throw a little unemployment into the mix, and you get a lazy couple living off said sources who are in NO hurry to find jobs whatsoever (even though they 'apply' here and there to appease unemployment).

Universal Health Plan... are we really not going to pay for the service? I'm pretty sure the taxes would go up to accommodate such health plan... only good thing is every working person is contributing something to the system.

It got easier for the unemployed though... not that I'm trying to say that if someone is unemployed, then make it hell for that person. That person might honestly not be able to find a job.

Greatest motivation is work so you could afford to buy stuff, but when a person is able to get things for free and have it better than people who actually work... completely removes any motives to work.

A lot of people are happy just to gain the bare minimum living accommodations and poor quality of living through welfare.

...

How well do you know them ?
People on programs are really good at looking like they have a lot when in reality they don't have as much as it might seem. It makes it easier for them to make it through the day if they can trick themselves into believing they have more than they do, which just happens to be something other people are able to see as well.



The same stuff that you would get fresh from the butcher, or are they buying a bucketload of steak that's set to get ground up into hamburger the next day and they happen to get it for the hamburger price ?
You are aware that the "good hamburger" is just steaks and other premium cuts of meat that are getting too old to look pretty as steaks in the display case right ?

What are they going without to eat "well" ? I bet they can't say they were able to take their day off to climb through their brand new house stringing lines for Internet, cable TV, X-boxes, etc.

That has actually happened to someone my family's friend knew.

He got into a severe car crash and needed immediate medical care. The only thing though is that he didn't have insurance and was broke...

The doctors refused working on him until they found someone who was willing to pay for him...

Very. Immediate family - every family has a black sheep, right? heh I'm pretty intimate with the details of most every stunt they've pulled thus far.



Yep, same steaks your or I would go for at any major grocery chain's meat dept. I asked why the steaks and their answer - "If he was out in the wild, this is the closest to what he would eat"



lol, nope, that they can't. I hope I don't give the impression that I'm jealous of what they have, because unlike them, I can see that they have nothing but a long road ahead of them. What they don't mooch from the gov, they get from the family, though, so they have a cabin on a waterfront that's paid for, a car they didn't pay for, and a WHOLE LOT of baggage (emotional/financial/name it) between them. They use unemployment to pay utilities, phone, gas and cable. Worst part is that their financial state is ruined for the rest of their lives and so much more but they live for the now and never for the future. You're right on with the illusion theory. They really do believe they are on vacation or something. One day their dream's going to fall apart and my family won't be here to help them any more and he'll be out of enablers to lean on. I hate more than anythhing that the child has to go through it (currently 1.5 years old). He is SO sweet, but in for such a rough life.

$575 per month for a family of 3?4? to eat doesn't sound like an outrageous amount to me, altho AFAIK, the EBT amount for an individual is $150 month (and I know a few people with them). That's $5 a day.

Apparently, overall productivity per worker has gone up in the US during the recession, to compensate for lay-offs; ie, people are fired to cut costs, and then the people who remain working have to do slightly more work.

A capitalist economy requires unemployment in order to work, because this keeps wages down and ensures a ready "labour pool" -- people who can be employed quickly and cheaply when needed, and fired when not.

Who those people are is more or less a matter of musical chairs. It seems to me that if some people are going to benefit, grotesquely, from this arrangement, then those people need to feel some obligation, thru taxes or whatever, to those who do not benefit.

I can kind of understand jflynn's perspective, but the reason I would choose not to think that way is that it eliminates the pretence of or need for any respect between citizens. So, if I'm smart enough to get away with it, I might as well walk into jflynn's place, tie him to a chair, take everything of value I want, and then blow jflynn's head off to complicate any investigation. Why would I feel any sort of guilt about that? To paraphrase jflynn, I don't care about the losers of the world, such as the chimp without a face tied to his chair, or what becomes of them because of my greed, complacency, and general behavior.

Thus, in the interest of my own mental health, I'd rather think of a nation and it's citizens (at least) as being bound together by some human sentiment, or committed to some higher ideal other than you don't care about me, I don't care about you, so what? In that case, the only purpose "the nation" serves is to provide infrastructure and protection to corporations, who use this set-up to extract all the wealth from the nation's resources (including its people) and keep it, giving nothing back. Not exactly what I would call "the land of the brave and free", more like "a land of coerced and ignorant losers".

You guys are missing my point completly.

I DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR YOUR HEALTHCARE.

that is what nationalized heathcare is about. my taxes helps you remove a kidney. i don't care about your kidney. i care about my money being in my pocket (unless i donate to a charity or something i believe in, which i do from time to time)

that site i linked to was just the income tax i think, everything else is taxed high as well.

I have an EX girlfirend that was on WIC and drove around in a new Lincoln Navigator.

One of the people that abuse the system for their own good and one of the reasons that she is the "EX"

The closest thing we have to a nationalized health care system is what is currently provided to the military. I could at any time walk in and get seen, no co-pays (there were some co-pays for various things like mental health), no ridiculous forms to fill out. I just showed them my military ID and for the most part that was all I needed, same went for my wife and kids. Never got a bill for any of it except the birth of my daughter and that was $33 and that was for one night stay in the hospital and a meal. Granted most of my doctor visits were on a military installation and the quality of the doctors varied but in emergency situations I could go to a hospital and be seen without issue. And guess what, we are all paying for it, do you have a problem with that? I would hope not but you don't even realize it but you are. Part of your taxes helps support Tricare.

So think of nationalized healthcare like Tricare for everyone instead of just the military.

You already are silly!

No, you just want all the other things the government provides for you, such as a safe, productive, competitive environment in which to work, make money, and live your life.

My point is that would be much, much more difficult if it were not provided to you, because I will show up with a shotgun and ruin it but quick. Well not really, I'm not violent; but that is the situation in some places, eg, under the Taliban.

So you cannot claim that society and the government is doing nothing for you. That is paid for with something. Your problem is you do not want to give, you want only to take. People like that are generally recognized as "selfish pigs" and are kind of hard to take seriously, unless they are also violent Which makes me think of a joke someone told me about those "Reaper" drones:

Q: What does a goblin say to a ghoul?
A: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Whoa, hang on. So you guys have to pay if your wife has a baby in a hospital?

Maybe i am just used to the National Health Service we have in the UK, but i find that completely wrong.