Do you support universal health care?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Kucinch is the only Presidential candidate with such a plan, and he has no chance at the nomination. Single payer seems to be the way to go.

Americans support universal health care for all Americans 64-35, and universal health care for minors 73-25.

http://www.pollingreport.com/health3.htm

[bullmoose88]

Currently No. Open to convincing otherwise.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Currently No. Open to convincing otherwise.

The Canadian government spends less on health care per capita than the American government,  and yet their life expectancies are 2 years longer. I think there are similar statistics for every other 1st world country with universal health care.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think the government should just provide health insurance for everyone, to avoid the famous issues with a single-payer system.

[bullmoose88]

Currently No. Open to convincing otherwise.

The Canadian government spends less on health care per capita than the American government,  and yet their life expectancies are 2 years longer. I think there are similar statistics for every other 1st world country with universal health care.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared

Without getting into the other aspects of the debate, but is it possible the longer canadian life expectancy, or the shorter american one, might be due to other things besides the form of health care (private vs. public)...ie do Americans live unhealthier life styles vs. canadians and if so, is that sufficient to explain the difference?

In other words, can we explain away the difference in life expectancy with those other factors, or must we look at private vs. public? (This is not a loaded/leading question, nor am I even sure of the answer, I don't have one)

[© tweed]

Yes.  private insurance companies should be given 90 days to disband or face military takeover of their office buildings.  lower end workers for such companies (such as, secretaries) would be provided compensation.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I've always wanted to do that to Wal-Mart.

[MODU]

No.

[The Dowager Mod]

Yes.

[Speed of Sound]

Yessir I do. The health of our peoples should be of our highest concern.

[Joe Biden 2020]

Yessir I do. The health of our peoples should be of our highest concern.

[NDN]

No. I do think that there needs to be more health coverage. But I'm extremely concerned with the costs of a hypothetical single-payer or social pay system. Let's face it, even if we cut costs in half that would still mean close to 1 trillion in healthcare costs -- paid for by the government through far higher taxes. The measures the government would take to reduce those costs would almost surely result in even less personal choice, increased waiting times, etc. There needs to be a comprehensive health care plan, but I really don't think that making everyone get government paid for health care is desirable.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Enlighten me NDN what alternative do you have to our current system? National Health Care wouldn't necesarily be the best but our system as it is broken...

[Inverted Things]

Government run entities all have a problem everyone complains about: no accountability. A government program isn't doing its job? Great, throw more money at the problem!

The last thing we want to be doing is throwing more money into the healthcare system.

[NDN]

Knight:

We have multiple alternatives. We can expand medicare and medicaid, then require compulsory health insurance for everyone else (which sounds good in theory but would be complicated). We could create a government subsidized health insurance company and have people voluntarily join that. The list goes on and on.

The single payer health insurance plan a lot of dems trot out sounds nice in theory, but looking at the costs I just don't think it would be smart.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

The corps want national health care because it would be CHEAPER than now. You can tell our health care system is FAIL when even drastically increasing government is cheaper...

[NDN]

Well no, not necessarily. Overall healthcare costs would probably go down with less people rushing to the ER and driving up premiums. However, it would still result in HUGE increases in government spending and tax increases. Remember, we're talking about national health insurance here. That means the government would be paying for far more people than it does now.

As PJ O'Rourke once said "If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

True but euro countries manage it without the kind of problems we have. Then again unlike many liberals I'm willing to see reality on taxes/spending...

[NDN]

True but euro countries manage it without the kind of problems we have. Then again unlike many liberals I'm willing to see reality on taxes/spending...

That doesn't mean it will work here though. For starters, the size and population of the United States is far greater than almost any of them. And I agree, a lot of people on both sides are unwilling to actually pay for the policies they advocate. That's why the national debt is so obscenely high, although admittedly most of that is the neo-cons' fault (see Reagan; W. Bush).

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Why not let the states experiment with solutions?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Basic preventative and anti-infectious care yes, but not everything.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

One thing all of us(me, Ernst, Yak's hairbrust, NDN) can agree on is that we shouldn't cover things like elective surgery, erectile dysfunction medicine or free coke for cokeheads

[Hatman 🍁]

I think the fact that the US spends more per capita on health care than Canada should be enough to convince any sane person that the universal health care is the way to go.

[MaC]

No, emphatically.

1.considering that at-risk information is unequal, it gives means for both the insurance companies and the government to assume 'high risk' by default, so putting insurance in the hands of the government won't change this.

2.insurance companies should be able to make profits.  Profits are not evil, contrary to the majority of this board's opinion.

3.any Bill that grants this will need to be re-written and amended five years (or ballpark near future) down the road to lower quality and increase taxes.

4.If medicare were eliminated, more people could afford insurance with the income that's taken from them in taxes.

5.nothing in the United States Constitution authorizes such, although if a state wanted to implement such a policy, that'd be fine.

[Cubby]

No, emphatically.

1.considering that at-risk information is unequal, it gives means for both the insurance companies and the government to assume 'high risk' by default, so putting insurance in the hands of the government won't change this.

I have no idea what that means.

2.insurance companies should be able to make profits.  Profits are not evil, contrary to the majority of this board's opinion.

I don't think profits are evil, but they should be subject to taxes so that government can have the resources to provide the public with services that private industry won't build.

3.any Bill that grants this will need to be re-written and amended five years (or ballpark near future) down the road to lower quality and increase taxes.

That makes no sense.

4.If medicare were eliminated, more people could afford insurance with the income that's taken from them in taxes.

OMG, do you honestly believe that?

5.nothing in the United States Constitution authorizes such, although if a state wanted to implement such a policy, that'd be fine.

I'm all for states being labratories of democracy, but the federal government has to change with the times. There is a remarkable similarity between "strict constructionist's" view of the Consitution and Fundamentalists taking every word of the Bible as literal truth. A society that has laws set in stone can't advance any further.