Healthcare - A Privilege Or A Right?

What do Democratic values have to do with healthcare?

Are we talking medicine or healthcare? And who would spend the money and take the time to go to medical school if they were not going to be rewarded handsomely for it?

I asked him to find me a reference on wikipedia..



Amen.

http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/details...lt.aspx?Id=553

also see http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285
"The full-time occupations with the highest earnings in 2009 were ‘Health professionals', (median pay of full-time employees of £1,031 a week), followed by ‘Corporate managers’ (£745) and ‘Science and technology professionals’ (£698). The lowest paid of all full-time employees were those in ‘Sales occupations’, at £278 a week. "

right now on "NightLine" channel 7 they are talking about medicare fraud....its in the billions a year.

You are 100% correct. Chances are the bill will only end up bogging the system up even more. Now it is run by people who are only worried about making a profit. When you are involved with anything government run then you are talking about people who only want to keep their job and the more work they can create for themselves the safer their job is so it is not in their interests to actually try to streamline the system.

If the government really wanted to make it fair they would allow people to act on their own and import drugs from other countries that sell them for significantly lower prices. If I run a business building a product I will go out on the free market and find the best parts vendor I can. If that means buying the parts I use in my product from Canada, or China or whomever, so be it. Citizens should be given that same free market ability. I can either pay $300 for the medicine from my local pharmacy or I can order it online and get the exact same thing for $90.

The reason this hasn't happened yet is because most of the people out there have some kind of health insurance that covers the cost of prescriptions so they don't really care how much they cost as long as they only have to pay a small co-pay. They also don't care how much the hospital bill is and how much they were overcharged for some things because their insurance is paying for it.

If the government doesn't want to regulate how much the pharmaceutical companies increase their profit margins on the drugs they sell, fine. But they should afford me the same courtesy and free market availability that they do any business in this country. They can't allow these companies to charge 300% more here for the same drugs and force me to pay that by not letting me use the free market to find a better price.

Also, much of the research these companies do is funded by the government. The government funded labs develop these drugs and then sell them to pharm companies. Yes, the pharm companies do develop their own stuff, but it is not as much as most people would think.

Yep. My mom actually just got a check from her insurance company because they "accidentally" over-billed some things to medicare which caused my mom to have a higher co-pay. They were audited and forced to return some of her money.

Kane, I appreciate how you look at everything from an objective perspective.

I can often see both sides of an argument. With the current health care bill I see some good stuff in it, and I see some bad stuff in it. Like you, I'm just very wary of the government running anything because everything they touch ends up bloated, corrupt and not working nearly as well as it could.

One of the things that really gets me fired up is politicians going on TV and talking about the free market and how we have to let things fail if they will fail and let the free market run its course then forcing me to pay 300% more for my medicine because I don't get to use the free market and import it.

A good reason to change the system.

What few here don't understand is a National Health scheme is cheaper than a system run by private insurance companies. You end up paying less, getting the care and having the safety net of cover if anything goes wrong with your job situation.

I can see where that would be true. Unfortunately that is NOT what the "healthcare reform bill" is set up to do. What we are about to have here is every person in the U.S. being FORCED to buy insurance from private companies and then still having our taxes raised on top of that! I'd much rather go with singlepay health care system. But there was no way in hell that was gonna happen here. Too much money for the insurance, hospitals, and pharmaceuticals at stake. They are going to drain every penny that they can get from U.S. citizens.

The insurance companies pay for nothing. Those insured pay for everything through their premiums.

Which is why they are spending so much to keep the status quo.

I admit I do not know the workings of the health care bill in the US. I'm talking about a State run health care insurance scheme over a private companies run one. If what you say is right I understand your objections to it.

Your population is healthy, you have a better workforce. You treat people earlier and prevent future serious illness you save long term. Universal healthcare is not only something all governments should provide, but is also a wise investment in your people.

Being a business owner I tend to adopt more conservative stances on things, but I also see the need for government run education, protection, basic services and also ... healthcare. Its a no brainer.

Indeed he was........ so that is why we nailed that fucking worthless hippie rabble rouser to a fucking tree.