US Elections
- Thread starter nightshade
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The Bronze
Rogue Demon Hunter
Got a vision of those bullets killing people in multiple locations. Hurricane roulette 😄
Skanky Vamp
Sniffin' the Slayer
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He was kinda out in the boonies of Sebring, weren't many people around, and they weren't high caliber rounds. But it's a cool visual! I should try that with the next tornado and see what happens.
Yes, all the things that are run terribly by our government...
Because you can't expect the 50% of the country that pays their taxes to pay for the healthcare and education of the 50% that don't (when they already pay for the myriad other social services to that 50%). 10% is reasonable, 50% is not. Also, we don't need more people with useless college degrees and no jobs. We need more people graduating from trade school. THAT is what, if anything, should be free.
Universities sit on their endowments while raising tuition every year; if democrats (or anyone else) really wanted to solve the problem instead of using it as a talking point, that's where the opportunity lies with legislation.
Actually, it's the hospitals that pick up the tab for that, not taxpayers.
There's a reason US education is in the shitter. And kids DO pay for K-12 education. Via everyone's taxes, even people without kids. And see how those funds are mismanaged by bureaucrats. Their solution to being overbudget is just to raise taxes.
Who are much smaller than the US, and see how long you have to wait there to see a doctor or have a procedure done. And notice how countries like the UK are now offering private insurance. They're becoming more like us for a reason.
No, you work hard, get scholarship money. Many employers offer tuition reimbursement. Join the military and take advantage of those benefits. There are ways if you're willing to do the work.
Minimum wage is just that, a minimum. It's not supposed to be forever. Raising the minimum wage to $15 as has been suggested prices people looking for their first job out of the market. Though many employers are voluntarily going to $15 anyway.
It's really the high price of pharmaceuticals that drives up hospital costs. They have the ability to arbitrarily raise prices 300% or more. On the other side of that of course is that it's reimbursement for research on new drugs. There needs to be a happy medium there. But also remember, when you're in the hospital, you're paying for a lot of people to care for you.
No more of that, please. There's no reason to be rude to another member like that. If it happens again you will be kicked from the thread.
Skanky Vamp
word
The Bronze
Rogue Demon Hunter
Yes. That reason being we're being gouged by neoliberals happy to steal anything whether it's nailed down or not. It's not an endorsement of the quality of the US system.
The Dirty War on the NHS by John Pilger is a good documentary on this if anyone is interested.
Mr Trick
Yeah I agree we're becoming more like the US but don't see that as a good thing.
TriBel
Scooby
You say that as though it's a good thing. There are problems with the NHS (probably because the Tories have been running it down) but don't believe everything you read. WHO still rank it higher than the US (France 1...UK 18....US 38 - Overall efficiency in all WHO member states).
I can see a doctor on the same day if it's urgent. I've had two heart attacks. On each occasion the ambulance arrived within 10 minutes and procedures were carried out the following day. My mother was recently admitted through A&E (Monday); saw her GP the following day and was back in for a procedure the following day. I can afford to go private without insurance. I choose not to.
@Taake - Sweden actually comes in at 23 on the WHO list. I must say - I was surprised. :0
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ILLYRIAN
Druish Pervonian Wizard
(what follows is/ are my personal views)
The NHS was a great inception at the outset and it kept getting better, then the politicians decided to cut the funding a bit 30 or 40 years ago and they have continued to do so. Now though hopefully the people of the country will remember as the COVID-19 takes hold and those same politicians expect the NHS to cater for the sick.
What of the US? Obama tried to do something for health, which had many failings (so I'm told) when Trump came into power rather than alter it and make it better, he got rid of it completely but did he put anything in its place?
Why are concepts like the NHS not going to work these days, the population was probably 30 - 40% lower then. In those days one could say the type of person who would need the NHS, but not now as people can move country to country, the refugee crises', post war migrations et cetera.
The NHS was a great inception at the outset and it kept getting better, then the politicians decided to cut the funding a bit 30 or 40 years ago and they have continued to do so. Now though hopefully the people of the country will remember as the COVID-19 takes hold and those same politicians expect the NHS to cater for the sick.
What of the US? Obama tried to do something for health, which had many failings (so I'm told) when Trump came into power rather than alter it and make it better, he got rid of it completely but did he put anything in its place?
Why are concepts like the NHS not going to work these days, the population was probably 30 - 40% lower then. In those days one could say the type of person who would need the NHS, but not now as people can move country to country, the refugee crises', post war migrations et cetera.
white avenger
white avenger
We have the same thing here, and it's called an Emergency Room. We've had that for most of my 70 plus years, and I probably wouldn't be alive today if they didn't
because I was taken into emergency surgery when I was just 2 years old. No one asked my parents if they could, pay or not, or if they had insurance (they didn't). My life was literally at risk at that moment, and the doctors and medical staff worked to keep me alive. Almost all general hospitals have facilities for that sort of thing, and I've never heard of anyone being turned away from Immediate Care just because they didn't have insurance. Sanders seems to think that there are armed guards outside the hospital, keeping would be patients away until they show that they can pay for services rendered.
And as far as free education goes, what's wrong with arranging for student loans that you will be expected to repay after graduation? Also. when I attended college, there was a Student Work Program, where you could pay at least part of your tuition by working at jobs on campus. Later, after I got out of the Navy, I was able to pay most of the expense of my classes through Veterans' Benefits.
I said it before, and I will say it again. There is no free ride. "Free" medical services and "free" education are paid for by the tax payers, and I'm not talking about any such foolishness as getting all that excess money from those at the top of the money pile. There are less than 650 billionaires in the United States, and Sanders' plan couldn't be financed by them alone, even if you took in excess of 90% of their assets yearly. That leaves the majority of it (Sanders himself has no clue as to what the overall cost might be, but it would certainly be in the trillions of dollars bracket, well above anything that Trump has proposed) And isn't it interesting that Bernie used to advocate taxing the "millionaires and billionaires" for their "fair share" of the taxes, but now that he is counted among the millionaires, he only targets the billionaires?
I didn't get it from reading, I got it from my UK friends over the years when they've needed to see someone and being surprised at their wait times. I really wasn't talking about emergency care. But fair point, maybe in the UK you can see someone if you really need it. (And so can people in the US who don't have insurance and/or can't afford to pay.) It would still be a big change to what America is used to and I do think the size of the country will come into play in it.
Usually at least a 2 week wait to see a doctor here, unless it's an emergency.
However the NHS is in the UK and we were discussing the elections in the USA.
However the NHS is in the UK and we were discussing the elections in the USA.
Trump has not gotten rid of Obamacare completely. The main changes made to Obama's program so far have been to repeal the individual mandate (which forced people to buy health insurance or pay a fine), and to expand the availability of lower cost but less comprehensive plans.
Obamacare didn't do what it claimed it would. A lot of people (about 5 million) lost their employer sponsored healthcare, and had to buy their own insurance, which was expensive. Many insurers had to cancel their lower cost plans because they didn't fit the requirements of Obamacare, so people had to go out and get new plans on the exchanges, which were more expensive. The subsidies they promised would lower insurance costs didn't for a lot of people. Obamacare also raised income taxes and taxes on investment income (and various other taxes, including one on insurance companies, which got passed to the employers and on to the employees).
By law in the US you cannot be asked whether you have insurance or can pay at an Emergency Room before receiving treatment.
ILLYRIAN
thank you for correcting me, I find it unusual that the media has avoided saying the truth.
Skanky Vamp
Sniffin' the Slayer
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Let me correct you on that one; it should read: A lot of people lost their employer sponsored healthcare, and were left with no insurance at all because they could not afford the premiums.
My insurance went from 2-something a month prior to "affordable" health care to close to a grand. I refused to pay 12 grand a year... so I went damn near 7 years with NO insurance, praying I never got sick or injured. (as an aside, thanks to the affordable health care act, I, and many other people also lost their jobs)
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Buffy Summers
I stand corrected
Ethan Reigns
Scooby
America is too corrupt to make universal healthcare work.
A case in point: sometimes you will see a white oxygen bottle about three inches in diameter and about 18 inches long, usually clamped to the side of a wheelchair. It costs $80 to fill it with oxygen. You can get the same size green tank for welding and filling it casts $8, a factor of ten less. The oxygen comes from the same tank and flows through the same fittings. There is no difference in what each bottle contains. The only difference is the amount people get gouged: "It's medical, we can really rip them off."
There have been brave words said in this thread about people paying for their own health insurance but here is the reality: your first heart attack or round of chemo will be paid for by insurance. Your next will cost you your house. If you don't have a house or equivalent funding, you become a charity case. And don't count on being able to pay for insurance after a heart attack or cancer because the rates will go up by an order of magnitude.
The best healthcare system in the world is the French. The US is 37th in the world in delivery of healthcare but its healthcare costs twice as much as the French.
The legal liability lottery in the US has killed a number of businesses and made others far more expensive than they need to be. In the US, people could always launch a lawsuit at almost no cost to themselves and there was always a chance they would win big, so healthcare providers had to factor this into their costs. In Canada, this is the case now but it used to be the case that if you filed a lawsuit, you had to pay court costs up front and the lawyers could not be paid on contingency (a percentage of the winnings), they had to be paid up front. This discouraged frivolous lawsuits of the type that are common in the US and although the rules are the same now, we do not have the same tendency to sue. And don't blame the lawyers, they don't decide things. Blame the juries of ordinary Americans who award sometimes unjustifiable damages that drive up the cost of everything.
A case in point: sometimes you will see a white oxygen bottle about three inches in diameter and about 18 inches long, usually clamped to the side of a wheelchair. It costs $80 to fill it with oxygen. You can get the same size green tank for welding and filling it casts $8, a factor of ten less. The oxygen comes from the same tank and flows through the same fittings. There is no difference in what each bottle contains. The only difference is the amount people get gouged: "It's medical, we can really rip them off."
There have been brave words said in this thread about people paying for their own health insurance but here is the reality: your first heart attack or round of chemo will be paid for by insurance. Your next will cost you your house. If you don't have a house or equivalent funding, you become a charity case. And don't count on being able to pay for insurance after a heart attack or cancer because the rates will go up by an order of magnitude.
The best healthcare system in the world is the French. The US is 37th in the world in delivery of healthcare but its healthcare costs twice as much as the French.
The legal liability lottery in the US has killed a number of businesses and made others far more expensive than they need to be. In the US, people could always launch a lawsuit at almost no cost to themselves and there was always a chance they would win big, so healthcare providers had to factor this into their costs. In Canada, this is the case now but it used to be the case that if you filed a lawsuit, you had to pay court costs up front and the lawyers could not be paid on contingency (a percentage of the winnings), they had to be paid up front. This discouraged frivolous lawsuits of the type that are common in the US and although the rules are the same now, we do not have the same tendency to sue. And don't blame the lawyers, they don't decide things. Blame the juries of ordinary Americans who award sometimes unjustifiable damages that drive up the cost of everything.
Skanky Vamp
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Ethan Reigns
Scooby
Like I said, same tank, same fittings, same lines. Welding oxygen should not have impurities because the welders breathe it and impurities may weaken the weld.
Skanky Vamp
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Right, but you don't know how the industrial tank has been maintained, as opposed to knowing how the medical tank has. The maintenance can, and does, affect the quality of oxygen.