The Poorhouse: Aunt Winnie, Glenn Beck, And The Politics Of The New Deal

By having a strong government presence in health care, the providers would have to provide adequate service or risk losing their franchise.

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redivider said:

no it won't. there is ZERO proof that switzerland uses rationing and lower quality care. reality says otherwise, you're just too much of a dumbass to realize it.

there is TONS AND TONS of proof that they are receiving better care for their buck. they have lower obesity rates, infant deaths are at a level that's statistically similar to that of the US, they have longer life expectancy, and more people can afford their health care costs. all the while they spend less per capita on health care while covering nearly all of the people living within those borders.

how is this not enough proof that their system works better than ours????????????????????

PLEASE, EXPLAIN!!!! PLEASE!!! I'M BEGGING YOU!!!!!

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redivider said:

obesity rates are not a cultural issue, as your stupid politicians have led you to believe.

it's a health care issue, like EVERY DOCTOR SAYS IT IS.

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NoDrama said:

Pretty sure Obesity is caused by the excess consumption of Calories and not becasue you don't have affordable healthcare, but I'm no doctor. Go to other countries and the poor are skinny, only in America are the Poor couch whales.

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redivider said:

a nation's health care quality isn't measured by how many people are covered with health care. health care isn't just money.

eating too many calories and not exercising sounds a lot like people are not taking CARE of their HEALTH.

it's a non-monetary variable that's inevitably linked to how healthy a country is.

health care isn't just about paying for a doctor, it's about the overall health of a country.

in my world it isn't always about the money.

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NLXSK1 said:

We are saying that if you eat too much and dont exercise then it is your problem that you are fat...

You want to say that if people eat too much and dont exercise then it is a problem for the government...

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NoDrama said:

He's is saying it is the responsibility of government to interfere with how you want to live and force you to put down that big mac and eat some twigs and pine cone cereal instead. At gunpoint if necessary, YOU WILL BE HEALTHY!!!

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NLXSK1 said:

This is where we are in complete and total DISAGREEMENT!!! *shocker*

I want to get government out of healthcare completely so that competition forces healthcare to be cheaper than it is now. Through torte reform, private insurance, and free market competition there would be many more opportunites and choices than there are now. Just allowing healthcare to be purchased across state lines would lower the cost.

Insurance companies dont make a larger portion of profit than any other company in the industry. But if we could get rid of the lawyers, the paperwork and the regulation then costs would come down. Mostly, profits would go up[/QUOTE]

Competition, are you serious?? It is a huge conglomerate where one raises prices and the others follow. You can't actually think they would start lowering prices without some rules or regulations. Dude you are living in some fairytale landscape. I've yet to see one thing in medical care go down, except the amount of coverage one recieves, and that while raising prices. Wake the fuck up. This private medical system is a grand farce. Competition only exists to see which one can rape and pillage the most. This libertarian notion of competition left the building years ago. I remember when I had a Union 76 service station franchise in Ca. The company stores, (Non-franchised) would lower their prices and try and get us to compete without lowering our wholesale price, basically trying to run us out of business. They wanted us to sell more gas at lower prices to basically make the same gross profit. What they didn't realize is the fact we would have to hire more help and run longer hours, thus increasing our costs and lowering our net profits, which after paying the exhorbitant rent and franchise fees would be a negative factor. Yeah competition, dead and stinking.

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medicineman said:

Competition, are you serious?? It is a huge conglomerate where one raises prices and the others follow. You can't actually think they would start lowering prices without some rules or regulations. Dude you are living in some fairytale landscape. I've yet to see one thing in medical care go down, except the amount of coverage one recieves, and that while raising prices. Wake the fuck up. This private medical system is a grand farce. Competition only exists to see which one can rape and pillage the most. This libertarian notion of competition left the building years ago. I remember when I had a Union 76 service station franchise in Ca. The company stores, (Non-franchised) would lower their prices and try and get us to compete without lowering our wholesale price, basically trying to run us out of business. They wanted us to sell more gas at lower prices to basically make the same gross profit. What they didn't realize is the fact we would have to hire more help and run longer hours, thus increasing our costs and lowering our net profits, which after paying the exhorbitant rent and franchise fees would be a negative factor. Yeah competition, dead and stinking.

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medicineman said:

NLXSK1 said:

This is where we are in complete and total DISAGREEMENT!!! *shocker*

I want to get government out of healthcare completely so that competition forces healthcare to be cheaper than it is now. Through torte reform, private insurance, and free market competition there would be many more opportunites and choices than there are now. Just allowing healthcare to be purchased across state lines would lower the cost.

Insurance companies dont make a larger portion of profit than any other company in the industry. But if we could get rid of the lawyers, the paperwork and the regulation then costs would come down. Mostly, profits would go up[/QUOTE]

Competition, are you serious?? It is a huge conglomerate where one raises prices and the others follow. You can't actually think they would start lowering prices without some rules or regulations. Dude you are living in some fairytale landscape. I've yet to see one thing in medical care go down, except the amount of coverage one recieves, and that while raising prices. Wake the fuck up. This private medical system is a grand farce. Competition only exists to see which one can rape and pillage the most. This libertarian notion of competition left the building years ago. I remember when I had a Union 76 service station franchise in Ca. The company stores, (Non-franchised) would lower their prices and try and get us to compete without lowering our wholesale price, basically trying to run us out of business. They wanted us to sell more gas at lower prices to basically make the same gross profit. What they didn't realize is the fact we would have to hire more help and run longer hours, thus increasing our costs and lowering our net profits, which after paying the exhorbitant rent and franchise fees would be a negative factor. Yeah competition, dead and stinking.

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Here is an example. Lasics (sp) eye surgery. It is not covered by medicare or medicade I believe.

Since it is only covered privately the cost for the surgery has been declining over the years and not going up. This is one area where I can directly point to competition unfettered by government manipulation and clearly demonstrate how it has become much cheaper to get the surgery.

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NLXSK1 said:

We are saying that if you eat too much and dont exercise then it is your problem that you are fat...

You want to say that if people eat too much and dont exercise then it is a problem for the government...

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Hudsonvalley82 said:

Difference is that less than 10,000 people have a rolls royce in the US, Everyone has at least an Accord. And if you actually knew a thing or two about following through, you would have seen that their system provides better across the board results, so I guess they are all driving a lexus, while here, a vast minority have a Rolls, some have a lexus, most have an accord, and 40 million have to walk.

Way to completely ignore to address what the data is saying and put up a childish analogy with no bearing at all to this conversation.

Racking up the points quick are we?
How much more can you run away from? This is a debate, not hide and seek.

Doc: Find different stats from a better source...
(kinda called that whole libertarian knee jerk response of "I don't agree with it, so it must be false")

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redivider said:

and i didn't say the government should say what you eat or not. you assumed that's what I think. and you're wrong.

i'm saying that what we have right now isn't working, there's other models which DO work better and they cost less.

i am saying that there is nothing wrong with fixing something that's broken. there is something wrong with pretending it's not.

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doc111 said:

My friend, I have put up more stats and more arguments in this particular subforum than I care to count.

Canada is NOT the U.S. I know many of the residents look the same and talk the same but they are 2 totally seperate and sovereign nations. What works there will not necessarily work here and vice versa. To apply stats from X country with single payer or Y country with nationally funded healthcare to our situation in the U.S. is simply not reasonable. Different cultures tolerate different things and don't tolerate others. Europe tolerates some nudity on primetime television and many billboard ads while this would never fly in the U.S. Has history been revised so drastically that we can't see why it is SO important to limit the powers of the federal government? Why does the federal govt. feel it necessary to be constantly expanding and grabbing up power? So they can "fix" everything? Why should we trust a government to fix antyhing when they can't even work within the constraints of a budget? We won't even go into the fact that Obamacare does little to nothing about the COST of medical care. And the one thing that the progressives argued would be the major the cost lowering part of the law is being challenged by many states and now some federal judges as unconstitutional. If you can't figure out what that is it's the provision that states that all Americans are required to carry health insurance or face fines. This goes against everything our country stands for! I guess that's the problem with history. It is subject to be rewritten by people with an agenda.

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doc111 said:

If you can't figure out what that is it's the provision that states that all Americans are required to carry health insurance or face fines. This goes against everything our country stands for!

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redivider said:

hey genius, yo do realize that the obamacare that passed wasn't what Obama proposed right?? if it was up to obama he probalby would've nationalized the entire health insurance industry.

it was a compromise package that does nothing about health care costs b/c the reform package that passed was more concerned with getting coverage to millions of americans who lacked it. health care costs would've greatly been reduced if all the advertising and clerical bullshit work insurance companies spend money on just went away. ever think about that??

probably not. that would be smart.

you somehow think that the federal government, not 'special interests' or large private sector corporations leaning on the government, is the problem.


and how does the insurance mandate go against everything america stands for??? can you make an argument or are you just repeating stuff you heard and happen to agree with in parrot-like fashion without really understanding what you're saying???

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redivider said:

and here we can see a bit more into your reasoning.

it makes sense that if somebody is fat then that's their problem. if it didn't affect you.

but what if that person being fat costs you something???? what if all these fatties walking around somehow have an impact on how much you spend???

because they do.

but you can't force somebody to eat less, or to eat healthier... but how come the swiss have less obesity rates if the government doesn't force their people to eat healthy???

because their approach to health care goes beyond money. it goes beyond coverage. the swiss understand that being somewhat healthy contributes to a happy life.

in the US being healthy is not equated with being happy. in the US being RICH is equated to being happy, whether or not your healthy can ride in the back seat.

so yeah, their better health care isn't just coverage. it's a blend between affordability and lifestyle.

here in the US we have a serious lack of both.

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doc111 said:

I'm flattered that you finally recognize my superior intellect!

I do realize that it wasn't exactly what Obama proposed. Has there ever been legislation proposed by any president that didn't get revised in some way? I do know a little something about compromise there amigo.

Strawman me, go ahead, I don't mind. *Sigh* It is my opinion, and I'm not alone on this one, that the insurance mandate goes against everything this country stands for. If that makes me a parrot, then so be it. I've certainly been called worse. How can you force someone to purchase a product they may or may not need or want? I think this provision stands better than a fair chance of being stricken down by some court, probably the big one in D.C., what's it called again?

It's a slippery slope thing. How much power is too much? When is enough, enough? Our forefathers understood this and took great pains to limit federal powers in an attempt to prevent the United States from becoming a tyrannical form of government like so many eventually become. It is my humble opinion that it is far more important to prevent the federal government from doing what governments do; become unmanageable juggernauts! We get rid of the "clerical" or "administrative" bullshit that insurace companies do and it gets replace with what exactly????? Perhaps government doing ridiculous clerical or administrative bullshit? <Sarcasm ON> We all know that government workers are not wasteful or inefficient at all! <Sarcasm OFF>

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redivider said:

i went to college, and in there, in a classroom, getting my learning on, i learned about 'test markets'.

that's when a company tests the viability of an operation by doing something on a small scale. the idea is that results in test markets will be similar to that of the entire market. the population and size difference are irrelevant.

so yeah, you CAN compare the two, because they are similar:

1) both nations are considered 'industrialized'.
2)both nations have strong central governments.
3) both nations fall within the top per-capita spenders on health care in the world.

THEY ARE COMPARABLE IN ALMOST EVERY WAY, SHAPE AND FORM. possibly the most significant difference between the two is the language being spoken.


and to answer your question: What does obesity rates have to do with health care??


Source: WebMD. http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/obesity-health-risks

obesity rates are not a cultural issue, as your stupid politicians have led you to believe.

it's a health care issue, like EVERY DOCTOR SAYS IT IS.

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