"If We Can Nationalize Banks, Why Not Healthcare?" says Nurses Organization

Read their statement at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x392996

Why should the US be the last major industrialized Country to step up to it's responsibilities?

nationalization of healthcare insurance. Obama has the right plan of offering a public alternative to private insurance carriers. Let people choose, don't force them into not having an option.

If you get sick, you go bankrupt paying for the healthcare your private insurance is supposed to cover, or you die.

Great choice.

:thumbsup:

It's a choice. You don't like private coverage, go with the public plan.

:think:

Has proposed a public plan to work alongside the current private ones. If elected, hopefully he will be able to implement it.

billions that we do not have and is specifically designed to give people an option to escape the highly profitable extortion scheme that will hurt the major campaign contributors that those Congresspeople are utterly dependent on for their re-election campaigns.

Pardon me if I don't get my hopes up just yet.

Edit; A plan that, if it comes to pass at all, will bear the costs of all those sick people that the insurance companies won't cover. So, the health care denial companies get to keep making huge profits for denying health care to basically healthy people, while we get to pay for the sick people that need care and/or can't afford it.

Face it, single payer and the abolition of "health insurance" is the only viable strategy.

Did you just talk about spending billions on Obama's plan and then say we need to abolish health insurance to replace with nationalized UHC? You do know that either option is going to be ridiculously expensive?

we are already paying for it, we just don't get the benefit. We spend more than twice what every other nation pays for universal care, we just don't have it because of corporate profits and inefficiency.

Further, you are the one that keeps pushing the lie that a single-payer system is a nationalized health care system.

Which insurance company do you work for?

UHC replaces the need to buy insurance. Nor is there any reason to include the insurance industry in any public plan. I don't think anyone is suggesting that insurance be made illegal, or "abolished."

Health care costs nothing, just as public education costs nothing. It pays back far, far more than is put into it. Money invested into people, into human welfare is never wasted money, and it is the working people who are the originators of all wealth through their labor, after all. That money doesn't "go" anywhere, it circulates through the economy.

Everything starts with stronger, better educated, happier and healthier people. Everything. That is the source of any and all prosperity, which is the source of all wealth. All of our current social problems were caused by losing sight of that.

It is when the money is not "spent" on people that it becomes scarce and disappears, as it then accumulates in the hands of fewer and fewer people. That is the greatest threat to your freedom.

Cherry picking healthy people, leaving funding for the chronically ill to underfunded public plans that are underfunded because of private insurance.

"Social programs are fine, so long as they are kept within the context of free market personal choice libertarianism."

You are trying to have your cake and eat it, too.

Try my recipe:

You are free to have your personal choice life and libertarian philosophy within the context of social programs that take care of the rest of the people.

which subsidize lower prices for other countries who do negotiate have a choice between paying the higher price or dying of high blood pressure or diabetes or disease.

Private insurance usually is pretty fouled up. When my Dad got diagnosed with terminal cancer the insurance company immediatly fought treatments every step of the way. They would switch his medications to similar but not as effective because they had better deal with another drug company. My Mom fought back and eventually got his meds switched but not before he went though weeks of extra misery. it sucked extra energy out of my Mother as well having to ride herd on the insurance company as well as try to cope with watching what my Dad went though before he died. People shouldn't have to fight tooth and nail for the best pain meds, the best antinasuea pill for them not the one that cost a few cents less because they have a deal with one pharmaceutical company over another.

... not us.

:sarcsam:

choose a public offering over the private insurance I have right now.

I"m a cancer survivor. Even though I had private insurance, I was nearly bankrupted for over a decade paying my portion of the bill.


I"m guessing you've never had a serious health issue, am I right?

come in. You can choose to use the public offering. Never had cancer but have had to use the current insurance for some serious issues in the past year. 7 ER visits, the birth of a child, numerous visits to OBGYN before birth and pediatrician after as well as 3 visits to a cardiologist, lots of tests, lab work etc... I paid $400 out of pocket.

I have an older friend who is a cancer survivor who cannot wait to make the choice to use the public offering Obama has proposed. He currently pays $2000 a month for private coverage that he was lucky to get in the first place. Another part of Obama's plan is to prevent private companies from refusing coverage for preexisting conditions and to make them provide a base offering similar in scope and price to that of the public one he is proposing. He has a great plan for healthcare in this country.

Or never watched a family member have one. He's never gotten a call a 3am to rush to his mother's bedside in the ICU because she's taken a turn for the worse, only to see his father crying - not because of the pain & suffering his wife is going through, but because their insurance had run out and there was no way he could pay for any more time in the hospital for her.

fucking know me and my family or what we have been through regarding medical care.

Bankruptcy or death isn't a choice.

Is reading comprehension really that big a problem. That is not at all what I said. Having the choice between a private and public health provider. If both are offered as with the Obama plan, you have a choice on which provider to go with. Is that clear and did you understand?

they'd do their best to kill those programs.

You need a lesson in economics: Your precious "private" insurance keeps prices high, rations services and drives down the quality of the care of the entire system - not just their customers, but for EVERYBODY. Artificial scarcity makes for higher profits. And if a some people have to die so they can keep a few tenths of a point on the bottom line, well then though shit for them.

The fact is insurance is a scam. It preys on people's fears by taking their money & making promises they never intend on keeping. When something comes up - especially something *expensive* - they'll do their best to weasle out.

If you doubt this, then tell me - Why isn't Medicaid more popular? Why is it limted to the poor? Why are doctors & hospitals allowed to refuse Medicare patients?

If you're wondering why I'm asking about Medicare, it's because THIS IS OUR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE PROGRAM. It has been for over 40 yrs - and its been continually attacked and marginalized by the insurance industry for all that time. BUT THEY CAN'T GET RID OF IT BECAUSE IT's TOO PUPULAR!

It is our government that runs medicaid. The government makes the decisions regarding it, not private insurance companies. Our government has made medicaid what it is today. I support expansion of it. Private practice doctors run a business. They can choose who they would like to deal with. If they do not want to deal with medicare then they do not have to. If the government wants to make it a requirement for all medical practices to accept medicare patients then I'm all for it. Our government needs to expand the medicare services to make them better and more accessible. Private insurance has nothing to do with it. Public and private entities can coexist and work well for the people with proper regulation.

Simply put, a private insurance entity exists, first and foremost, to enrich the shareholders. That means for whatever service they provide, they automatically tack on a profit mark-up, making it that much more expensive. With a public entity, such as Medicare, no profit taking exists. That is why they strongly opposed John Edwards' health care plan precisely because it would've pitted Medicare directly against private insurance.

Both Hillary Clinton's and John Edwards' health care plans were better than Obama's precisely because it opened the door to allow Medicare into direct competition. Obama's plan does have its own merits, but it is piecemeal in comparison to a more extensive overhaul Edwards and Clinton advocated. As it stands, it's a dead point because both were defeated in the primaries.

exists for profit. If there is no profit in the business it wouldn't exist. Even those small mom and pop stores wouldn't exist without profit. Maybe we should just have the government nationalize everything? I dunno. That's kind of what it sounds like you are advocating with your comments.

This is the pernicious "free market" lie that has permeated every aspect of our society, and that we are all forced to live under.

In many, many professions people are not primarily motivated by profit, and even most businesspeople are not primarily motivated by profit.

Only 12% of the public say that the attaining of money is a primary motivation in their lives, according to a recent Pew survey. Why should we all be forced to support that 12%?

The producers in society, and those delivering real value to the public should be supported by the banking, finance and insurance industries, not forced to support them.

Saying that "we should just have the government nationalize everything" as the only alternative to a free market health care system is a false and misleading construct.

I said they exist for profit which is completely true. It may not be the primary motivation but that is the reason they exist. Non profits exist to provide, businesses exist to make money which is why we need regulations to keep them in check to prevent greed from becoming a primary motivator which leads to what we saw with the mortgage situation.

That is not true in education, agriculture, nursing and many other fields. As I said, it is also not true for many business people that they "exist for profit," so not only is your statement not "completely true" it is not true at all. Many business people are running a business because they want to contribute something to society, and earn a profit in order to continue doing that. They make a profit to support the valuable thing they are doing, they are not doing what they do because it makes a profit. This is a common twist of logic that most libertarians commonly use to advance their ideas. It is highly reactionary and suppressive, as well as misleading and deceptive.

There is absolutely nothing restrictive in having the government managing the delivery of medicine, any more than having the government deliver municipal water, provide roads, provide law enforcement, and hundreds of other things that are not appropriate to be delivered as "free market" commodities.

I'm a pragmatist. In the situation with health insurance, I do happen to think a single non-profit entity run by the government would be superior to what the private market offers, simply because that lone non-profit entity would have the kind of bargaining power in terms of keeping down the cost of prescription drugs and medical procedures that no private entity alone right now could muster.

In other areas, I favor free markets. To say that I advocate a position of nationalizing everything is a mis-characterization. I know that I certainly am not that dogmatic as to suggest that everything should be nationalized.

If I did not have employer-provided BC/BS (100% hospitalization, 80/20% major medical), my total bill would have been around $700,000. I was 28 at the time, and working for a not-for-profit organization. It took me ten years to recover financially from my portion of the bill, made even more difficult because I was laid-off, with no job to return to, when I was taken off treatment.

If you get health insurance through your employer - even if you pay 100% of the costs - you should know that the U.S. government subsidizes your "private" health insurance. Companies receive tax breaks to provide group health insurance to their employees. If your employer covers any part of the cost of your health insurance, they get even more tax breaks. These group plans are only available to large corporations.

So, unless you are buying your health insurance all by yourself, you are benefiting from national health insurance. You get socialized medicine. People who are not employees of large corporations don't. That's the only difference.

Obama will expand those tax breaks to the companies who provide health insurance to employees in order to help more businesses be able to offer coverage to their employees and pay more of the cost. I work for local government who offers very good private coverage and pays for just over 50% of it. With an additional 50% tax break on the insurance provided it will allow them to cover more of the cost and for small businesses to finally afford to offer it.

As I have said before. I have absolutely no problem with public health care. I just want to retain the choice between public and private offerings.

There are no such things as restrictive lists of doctors you cannot visit.

Spain for example has a national healthcare system and a private system that run side by side. It's very successful. Everyone is in the public system, but you can upgrade to the private system if you want. In reality, you get pretty much the same treatment in either system, since they share facilities.

One of the highlights of the system is that if you need non-life threatening urgent care, you can phone in, text message, or go on the Web. They will tell you when you will be seen and give you an appointment, so you don't have to wait around the ER.

I support Obama 1000% despite various quarrels with some of his stated positions. On health care, he's wrong, just like HRC was and is wrong: I am hoping that this "plan" is simply to keep the attacks of the hugely powerful insurance industry off his back for the election, (having also the additional benefit of some $$ from those ghouls) and that after he's elected we will force enough public pressure to get real universal, single-payer health care.

Let the private sector sell insurance for non-reconstructive/non-congenital-deformity/non-disease-related plastic surgery (ie, optional cosmetic surgery performed solely to offset the effects of normal aging). Because optional cosmetic surgery performed solely to offset the effects of normal aging is the only medical "treatment" I can think of that is totally "optional."

It is utterly immoral and amoral to subscribe to the idea of using illness and injury to make a profit.

is immoral then. All forms of insurance cover injury to a degree. Guess we should push for car insurance, home insurance etc... to all be nationalized. Don't give us choices and options, stick us with whatever the government wants to provide.

One of my biggest problems is to not have a choice in the things I do in life. To be told by my government that a choice has been made for me and I have no alternative is not democracy or freedom. Removing the freedom of choice is what is truly immoral.

It's a bit troubling that you hope Obama is pandering to anyone in order to get elected to not do what he had said while campaigning. If any candidate does this for any reason it is wrong and if it were McCain, everyone would cry foul and be all over him for lying to the public. For some reason you would find it ok to forgive Obama for the same actions. Double standard much?

Obama has a terrific plan that provides choice and at the same time pleases and displeases both sides on the issue. Give and take, compromise, find a solution that works for everyone. I love that we will provide insurance to everyone who needs it, it's about time we did it. I also love that I can keep the private insurance that I am happy with. More than that I love that if I ever decide I dislike my private insurance I can choose the public option. Best of all, if the public offering is as great as people expect it to be then most Americans will eventually switch over to it through choice, not force and will drastically reduce the power and size of the private insurers.

that's like "compromise" between a vulnerable shark and a helpless toddler. As for your "condone pandering" remarks, I am a realist and I do not consider Obama any sort of progressive "saviour" despite my unqualified support of his candidacy. In my world-view, it is up to the electorate to save themselves by organizing to force elected officials to act in our benefit.

As for your analogy to home and car insurance, it does not work (aside from the fact that I do not subscribe to the virtues of capitalism in any arena). Home and Car insurance providers only make money when MOST drivers and homes are intact. Health care is supposedly built on the same model, the problem is that ALL humans need health care to various degrees, and some perfectly normal and healthy human characteristcs - like live birth and protracted childhood (rather than efficiently laying eggs like lizards)require vastly expensive medical care. So the profiteers have to goudge everyone, not to mention that the profit motive itself REQUIRES goudging to the degree that the profiteering entity can get away with it.

as for your worries about "choice" - aside from the fact that you are evidently comfortable with a profit-seeking insurance company having final say over "consumer" health care choices - I don't think you understand universal health care.

I wasn't talking about compromise between the insurance companies and care for the sick, I was talking about the people and their personal position on the issue. Some are for UHC, some against. Provide both and both parties are happy and upset at the same time. Compromise.

As for the gouging. The Obama plan would require private insurers to offer comparable coverage to the public plan at the same price. So no more gouging for standard care equal to what the government will provide.

I'm not sure I understand what I don't understand about UHC. Can you elaborate?

Besides, I'm out of time, and just heard that Big Brown will be retired, which is far more interesting to me at the moment than debating with hold-outs for profiteering insurers. happy trails to you.

:eyes:

Obama is touting "clean" coal too - should I disregard everything I've ever read debunking the idea because it's part of "Obama's Plan?" Some of us retain our critical thinking skills, even in the midst of campaign fever.

And you can call me a "cop-out" when you answer:

#19 W_HAMILTON
#36 TankLV
#40 GoldenRule
#42 TahitiNut

with something other than "Obamaplan" or smilies.

a question and you ducked out with a lame excuse instead of helping me understand what I didn't understand.

And if you had seen that movie, I doubt you would feel as you do.
Are you to lazy too use Google yourself?

Is a piece of trash with a bit of validity thrown in for good measure. If that is what you used to learn about health coverage then I am sorry. Try doing some real research instead of watching a movie with an agenda. Learning from that movie is no better than watching FOX news for facts.

Public programs to address public needs require public commitment. A two tier system will always disproportionately favor the few.

The wealthy can already do whatever they want to do. We don't need public policies that protect or include or assist them in that.

The "personal choice" model as the overriding guide for developing policy always erodes and eventually destroys the public interest.

promoted the choice system in your post.

If they don't need government assistance for something like healthcare then they must have a private alternative to pay for on their own. Is that not correct?

Yes, the wealthy and powerful few have many "choices." So what? As Democrats we are concerned about the other 90% of the people.

So...you are now saying that by pointing out that the wealthy and powerful have private alternatives that I am therefore "promoting" your view about the "choice system?" That would be true were I advancing the interests of the wealthy and powerful few. Since you think I am now supporting your point of view by hwta I said, then logically that means that it is your intention to advance the interests of the wealthy and powerful few at the expense of the many, would it not?

Your "choice system" would be just fine were it not for the fact that it benefits the few at the expense of the many.

That's some serious spin there O'Reilly. :rofl:

Private corporations which import everything that they sell are denying me the choice of being able to "buy American".

Just about all single-payer, universal health care systems allow people to buy private health insurance.

Medicare provides for basic medical care and many insurance companies provide supplemental insurance at a total cost to the insured person that is far less than what comparable coverage would cost without Medicare.

The cost to Americans under the current system is extremely bloated due to the fact that most of what you pay for health care is eaten up by bloated administrative costs by insurance companies as well as health care providers' who have to deal with the insurance companies' bureaucracies, plus providing huge profits for "private" insurance companies, plus the large amounts of your premiums that go for marketing.

A single-payer system, perhaps modeled on Medicare, would reduce costs by as much as half to Americans, and still allow for every citizen to be provided with basic health care.

As an example, Canada has a single-payer system that provides health care coverage to every citizen. It is administered by the provinces, but covers Canadians anywhere in Canada. (From personal experience, I am aware that some hospitals will not accept your insurance if you live in another state and coverage is administered by an out-of-state insurance company). The PER CAPITA cost to Canadians of universal medical insurance coverage is about one-half of the cost paid by Americans who have coverage with, at the same time, 45 million Americans uninsured.

In short, the American system is a total rip-off. The "choice" given Americans is allow yourself to be cheated or go without health care.

and hopefully Obama can fix that problem. Read his plan, the how is in there. Did you know that Canadian citizens are not allowed by law to pay with their own money to get treatment so many come to the US to pay privately for treatment in order to avoid the excessive wait times in the Canadian system.

Last winter, I attended a lecture by a Canadian who discussed the Canadian universal health care system.

He pulls out al small card the size of a credit card. This card is all he needs to get health care anywhere in Canada. He lives in Ontario. On a trip to British Columbia, he needed to see a doctor about a health problem. He goes to the nearest hospital. He hands his card to a receptionist who reads the card into her computer and hands the card back to him.

He then sees the doctor who treats him. After treatment he leaves the hospital. No paperwork to fill out, no co-pays, no deductibles, no calling an insurance company to see if treatment is allowed, or what drugs he can take. That is it.

For this kind of health care, he pays an amount in taxes that is about HALF of what an American pays for less coverage. The great majority of doctors and hospitals like the system. They can practice medicine without having to deal with insurance company clerks telling them what they can and cannot do in treating their patients. They don't have to play billing games, or fight about their fees for each patient, or be adversarial with their patients, or wait sometimes months to get reimbursed because of insurance company delaying tactics.

Medical fees are negotiated ahead of time by the doctors' medical association and the provinces. The doctors and hospitals know what they will be reimbursed and they are paid on time.

For a vast majority of Americans, the Canadian system would be far superior than the morass we now put up with.

elective surgery is hip replacement. This can be very painful and restrict people to wheelchairs. There are seniors in Canada who have waited years for this surgery all the while in constant pain but I guess there are medications for that. A coworker of mine was diagnosed, scheduled and done within one month here in the US. Chronic pain is not life threatening and therefore not an emergency and can be put off for an extended time by a government provided insurance that gets to decide who gets treatment and when that treatment will occur. Excuse me if I don't relinquish myself to that plan.

With no choice you give the government a monopoly on healthcare. Our health is then in the hands of the government completely. If we get a poor government in power like the one we have had for the past 8 years who decides to cut benefits and screw the people we are stuck with it until we get to vote them out. I don't like the idea of a monopoly of any kind especially when it is in control of me and my family's health.

That is one of the most convoluted and illogical arguments I have ever seen for advancing free market ideas.

Since right wingers might get elected, and they might dismantle public programs and infrastructure, therefore we should resist advocacy for public programs and infrastructure?

People go into farming, teaching, nursing and many other professions out of a desire to contribute, not a desire to profit. Those vital services need to be protected from the ravages of the free market and the whims of the banking, finance and insurance industries. Anything less is social suicide.

Are there reading comprehension problems? That seems to be happening a lot lately.

What did I not comprehend about your argument?

Just because you did not get the response you were hoping for that does not mean that your listeners do not understand what you are trying to say. Most likely, they understand and reject your argument.

The "choice" argument is false and misleading, and is designed - was carefully and laboriously crafted and test marketed and then disseminated by right wing propaganda think tanks - to get people to think that the "free market" means freedom for them. Many of us are not falling for that. In that sense, we are failing to react to your argument with the desired response, and you are calling that a problem of "reading comprehension." But the resistance to your argument is because we do comprehend what you are saying, not because we do not.

so you prefer to be told what to do? That's cool.

The idea that we should fear control and being told what to do by the government, and not fear that from corporations is the essence of the Republican party political philosophy.

you are saying. You want no choice. You want to be given a thing with no option to replace a thing with another thing. It's not a republican philosophy at all. That's why you oppose choice so vehemently. Someone has convinced you that it is a republican philosophy and you have taken the bait and let partisanship affect your critical thinking. Stop and think for yourself for a second to see the positive in having a choice in the major decisions in your life.

There is nothing wrong with the argument you are making - although I disagree with it, since I am a Democrat, and it also would be nice if you made it more clearly and straightforwardly - and I do not expect to reach you nor demand that you see things my way. I am writing for the benefit of the other readers, and pointing out how the case you are making is the age-old Republican argument for
Are you accusing me of being a partisan Democrat now? Is that supposed to be a black mark against me? Are you really claiming that "someone has convinced me that it is a republican philosophy" to advocate free choice ideas in lieu of public programs?

Your point of view is a legitimate one, and not one I would seek to exclude form the discussion. You are free to express it. I will continue to point out the contrast between your view and the traditional view of this issue within the Democratic party. People can read both, and make up their own minds.

Make your best argument. I welcome it. No problem.

I have proposed nothing of the sort.

Having private and public programs together in order to offer the public a choice of which path they would like to take. The choice to go with the public option as I do with transportation and Amtrak because I feel Amtrak provides a better level of service, convenience and comfort than any of the airlines despite it's significant lack of funding. Or the choice to go with a private option as I would initially with health insurance because my current coverage and the company that provides it has provided me with nothing but ease, convenience and incredibly low personal cost aside from the premiums. My choices for both of those could change depending on the level of service I continue to get from them. If my health insurance company decides to make something difficult and gives me trouble I wouldn't hesitate to drop them in favor of the public coverage. Same goes for Amtrak. This is the choice I'm talking about. Government can compete with private entities as long as our representatives make it competitive with quality service.

It might fit in with some republican or libertarian philosophy but to me it makes sense. If a company fails to provide adequate services you can go elsewhere for that service. I have done it with Comcast, AT&T, Sony and Apple. All of them have at one point provided me with inadequate service, employed a business model I disagree with or failed to take acceptable action to resolve problems associated with their products. With a single government entity providing a service to everyone without an alternative we have but one option if the service level degrades. Vote and hope enough people feel the same way as you to elect the representatives who will fix it. The same is true of a private monopoly which is why we have regulations and laws to prevent them.

You insist on looking at everything as based upon your sacred right to have personal choices.

Your personal choice in health care is to obtain the services you choose. That is not "one option" anymore than one set of traffic rules or one publicly financed highway system is "one option." Of course you could by property, make your own road, and make your own rules. But you pay for the public system, because you benefit from it many ways regardless of your personal choices.

I don't think anyone envisions any sort of program that would preclude you from building your own hospital should you wish to do that, hiring your own private physicians or making whatever "personal choices" you like. No choices are being limited for you, other than the choice to see yourself as an island and ignore all of the interdependencies incumbent in living within society.

Your personal choices are entirely dependent upon others, and do not exist in a vacuum. You will benefit in many ways from universal health care, just as you do from a uniform set of traffic laws and a public highway system.

You cannot "opt out" of Social Security, national defense, public education, law enforcement, EMS, the public highway system and many other things or they would no longer be public and they would collapse and only the wealthy would have the full benefit of those things. That does not restrict your "personal choices."

AND they have to do with optional, not necessary, procedures.

I can't find the regulation to which you refer in their health care laws.

"Canadian citizens are not allowed by law to pay with their own money to get treatment so many come to the US to pay privately for treatment"

Or are you trying to say that those with more money are not allowed to jump ahead in line by paying out of their own pocket and they travel to the US to do so? Are they then reimbursed for their US "provided" health care? I did find this



They seem to be running into problems with regard to dealing with the for-profit medical industry.

The medical/health care for profit industry makes more money in the US so concentrates much of its for profit resources here. I wonder if they'd become more spread out and available if the profit motive were removed and therefor wait times might lessen?

and then get back to all of us how healthcare can be anything but A RIGHT WE SHOULD ALL HAVE.

People aren't gonna die if they don't have car or home insurance.

But people ARE dying because they don't have health insurance and that is wrong wrong wrong. :grr:

:rofl:

:puke:

didn't care for that movie as a source of information and learning.

The film is not about what is going on in your head, but rather your heart.

Learn compassion.

OMG you've got me dying over here. I have compassion, I want everyone to have healthcare. At the same time I want everyone to have a choice in where they obtain that healthcare. This is not a bad thing and honestly I don't see why people think it is. Having choices in life is freedom.

BTW movies like Sicko that are meant to evoke emotion are generally not good sources of information.

That is correct. The film inspires compassion, not cleverness. Compassion is what is missing, not cleverness.

--choice of which practicioner I see. Private insurance gives you the "choice" of premiums that amount to highway robbery or staying within their own limited networks.

People with private insurance mostly don't know shit about whether their plans are any good, because most have never been expensively sick. Just like they don't know shit about whether their local fire department is any good. With luck, they'll never have to find out. Meanwhile they allow stripmining of the total pool of health care dollars to enrich stockholder and indirectly promote defunding of public plans.

OK! Let's play the "personal choice" game, shall we?

I choose to ride the train.... oops the Republicans and their wealthy clients dismantled public transportation.

I choose to join a union and bargain collectively for higher wages....oops the Republicans and their wealthy clients crushed the unions.

I choose to buy domestic products and support American workers and businesses...oops the Republicans and their wealthy clients destroyed our manufacturing base.

I choose to rent and have secure affordable housing...oops the Republicans and their wealthy clients made housing a "free market" commodity and eliminated protections for tenants and inflated the cost of housing.

I choose to have fair wages, an affordable cost of living, and honest pay for honest work...oops instead we have deregulated banking and insurance with easy credit and financial shenanigans. We are all making money on money! Some of us are, anyway.

I choose to breathe fresh air and drink clean water...oops.

I choose to live in a society that takes care of its poor and elderly...oops - they must take "personal responsibility" for all of the forces that are outside of their control. If they aren't clever rats and can't play the "personal choice" game successfully and climb to the top of the heap, well so be it - not our worry!

Oops. OOps. Oops. Oops.

"Personal choice" is a libertarian reactionary idea, and it has been nothing but one big fat "oops."

Throughout the history of the United States, we have always had a battle between two very different sorts of "freedom." The freedom from being persecuted and exploited and abused, and the freedom to persecute, exploit and abuse others.

Collective security and public programs have always been designed to protect the first kind of freedom. "Personal choice" has always been a smokescreen for the second kind of freedom.

I want the choice to be free from your "personal choice" ideas and the policies they lead to! Can I choose that?

I choose to ride Amtrak

Unions exist

I choose to buy domestic products whenever possible

I chose to own and my mortgage payment is stable and less than rent

I choose to have clean air and fresh water by living in an environment that provides them

SS was supposed to do that but got screwed up. Feel good knowing my uncompassionate self probably won't see a penny of what I have paid into it.

I love having a choice in everything I do. If you don't want a choice anymore and prefer to be told what to do and given what you need there are many who can oblige you. That however is not democracy or freedom in any sense of the word.

Amtrak "tells you" where and when you can ride.

You have no choice about which products are still made here. Big players "tell you" what you can and cannot buy.

In many places, you do not have the choice to unionize anymore, and there are many obstacles. Big players "tell you" what you can and can't do there.

You have little or no choice about "living in an environment" that provides clean air and water - nor should those be subject to people's ability to pay for them. I have noticed that air and water circulate beyond your property.

Are we really to imagine that people choose to live in environments where the air and water are not clean? That is a bizarre and politically reactionary argument, an extreme right wing argument.

Your argument has utterly collapsed from its own obvious contradictions.

public funded Amtrak over private airlines

I buy mostly American made clothing. Not much choice with electronics except for brand which there are many.

Unions, cool.

Did you choose the apartment or house you live in or did someone say you will live here?

No contradictions.

I am starting to think that you may sincerely not understand what I am saying.

"Freedom to choose" in and of itself is of no value. The value is in the choices available, not in the freedom to choose.

Politics is concerned with the availability of choices, not with some mythical personal freedom to choose. You are arguing that you, as an autonomous individual, should be left completely free to choose from whatever is there to choose, and that this takes precedence over a greater number of people having a greater range of choices practically available to them. That is the core, the very essence of the right wing political philosophy you are promoting here. As a Democrat, I have no hesitation whatsoever in pointing out the contradictions in that philosophy. You cannot build a stong society upon individualism.

The individualism you are espousing is contradictory to, and in profound and inescapable opposition to every traditional principle and ideal of the Democratic party.

choices there is no freedom to choose. They go hand in hand.

Your point makes no sense.

The question then becomes which gives the most freedom, the most choice to the most people - public management of resources, or the privatized "personal choice" model?

Again, do you oppose Social Security? If not, by what logic do you oppose UHC and not SS?

Unless we are successful in fighting to get her insurance to continue to pay for the care and treatment she needs, her "choice" will be to be warehoused in a bed in a for-profit nursing home ward on public welfare (Medicaid.)

I personally need two different medical tests right now and with no coverage at all I have two "choices" available to me -- either 1) skip the tests or 2) not have them done.

People like you make me sick, talking about "choice".

All of you disagree with Obama's plan then? It provides the choice I have been talking about.

I'm sorry about your mother and hope it works out for you somehow. Your anger at me is misplaced. I'm not against public health insurance in the slightest and will be glad when it is finally implemented in this country. It's been way too long in coming.

He praised John Edwards' plan above all as well as Hillary's, which was basically just a knock-off of Edwards' plan.

We want to nationalize HEALTHCARE!!!

As to your plan to let people choose their own insurance - WITH WHAT MONEY?!?!?! MOST PEOPLE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO PAY FOR THEIR MEDICAL BILLS, LET ALONE ANY INSURANCE!!!

Your statement is as IGNORANT as all the proposals to allow for "health savings accounts"...

If I'm ignorant then so is Obama because all I am doing is promoting his proposed plan. I think it is an excellent idea.

... does more. We pay 75-100% MORE as a nation for our health care and deliver services to FEWER people, bankrupting many. There remains absolutely no valid defense for our corrupted system. None.

Only a complete IMBECILE would rather pay $2,000 in after-tax dollars for LESS service than he could get for $1,000 tax dollars.

pay anywhere near $2000 a month and can guarantee that my private plan gives me access to better care than anything you could get in Canada. For some people the public offering is a great thing and I support it fully, but I still want to have the choice to keep my private insurance if I choose to be an imbecile.

World Health Organization listed France as having the best overall health care system in the world, and they use the exact same single-payer format that Canada uses.

The only problem with Canada is that years of conservative rule in Canada's parliament has meant that health care has been chronically underfunded, leading to wait times if any.

The notion that people die in line in Canada for health care is overblown. Emergency care is taken care of immediately. It is elective medical treatments that have waiting lists.

Of French citizens pay privately for additional coverage.

They have a national health insurance and some of the doctors are gaming the system; sound familiar?

Question for you -- why do you choose privately provided health care over publicly provided? That seems to be your main theme.

Now, back to the French health care system. It looks very much like Obama's plan with which you agree and which could result in the same "problems" as the French have; rising health care costs brought to us by the medical industry and doctors who want to make more money - even though they have no student loans to pay off.

Some links for you:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042070.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2001/feb/21/health.comment1 (note: "liberalism" in this article is what we here in the states call "conservatism".)

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2043071

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/12/3/111.pdf (note: this is a .pdf document)

HR 676 is not the same as the French system.

The French system has a couple of issues due to rising costs in the medical/health care industry and doctors who want to make more money and game the system to do so. In the meantime, their people receive top flight health care and those of their people who are poor or chronically ill receive it 100% "free."

The issues the French system has would not be the same with HR 676 as written. They might, however, be the same issues we'd have with Obama's plan.

Health insurance is not the way to go.

the French system is the best in the world

I'd like us to learn from them and not fall "victim" to the crap to which the French system is being subjected.

That means - get insurance out of the business of "providing" health care. Get the "for profit" crap outta my health.

You didn't answer my question. "Question for you -- why do you choose privately provided health care over publicly provided?"

There are things France's public health insurance entity will not cover. For that, people purchase private supplemental insurance to cover what isn't covered in the public insurance. I would say, though, that maybe one person advocated anything approaching taking Medicare and expanding it to the entire population through the Democratic primaries. Dennis Kucinich was the only one who came closest advocating a single-payer format.

From the first link of yours:

To grasp how the French system works, think about Medicare for the elderly in the U.S., then expand that to encompass the entire population. French medicine is based on a widely held value that the healthy should pay for care of the sick. Everyone has access to the same basic coverage through national insurance funds, to which every employer and employee contributes. The government picks up the tab for the unemployed who cannot gain coverage through a family member.

But the french system is much more generous to its entire population than the U.S. is to its seniors. Unlike with Medicare, there are no deductibles, just modest co- payments that are dismissed for the chronically ill. Additionally, almost all French buy supplemental insurance, similar to Medigap, which reduces their out-of-pocket costs and covers extra expenses such as private hospital rooms, eyeglasses, and dental care.

In France, the sicker you get, the less you pay. Chronic diseases, such as diabetes, and critical surgeries, such as a coronary bypass, are reimbursed at 100%. Cancer patients are treated free of charge. Patients suffering from colon cancer, for instance, can receive Genentech Inc.'s (DNA ) Avastin without charge. In the U.S., a patient may pay $48,000 a year.

Oh well, maybe I didn't make it clear enough. :D

You pay the other 20 percent out of pocket. Many people choose to purchase SUPPLEMENTAL insurance to cover the last 20 percent, but nobody purchases private insurance to replace the public insurance entirely simply because they realize that the private entity would automatically tack on a profit mark-up.

Your privilege is killing and sickening a lot of other people, though.

??? My privilege? Did you just say that me being healthy is killing people?

--of all health care money. And yes, that kills people.

That my health is killing others. Maybe I should start smoking to reduce my health and kill fewer others. Or try and get a prescription anti depressant to help me deal with the guilt.

Just because your well being may come at the expense of others does not mean that harming you would help others. Nor does it mean that helping others would harm you.

Again, you are using the logic of another common right wing argument - that helping others means hurting someone. That is the fear tactic used by the right wing on every issue.

If those who don't have fires don't pay, you can't fund the service. What you have is ab equivalent deal, depleting the pool of health care dollars needed for care of actual sick people.

you are saying that by not paying tax dollars for a healthcare system I am killing people. Take the tax dollars from me to help everyone. I have no problem there. Just leave me with the choice to not use the services provided with those tax dollars and instead choose a private alternative if I wish to.

I think that may be the holdup here. You are under the impression that I am against paying into the program with my taxes. I'm not. Unlike the republican and libertarian ideals you have been imposing upon me which imply that I don't want to pay taxes on something I will not be using, in reality I am more than happy to pay additional taxes to be sure those who need to use the program can do so while I spend additional money on acquiring the service myself.

Private insurance is theft from that pool, and you are contributing to it.

When Social Security was enacted, no one called for the outlawing of the practice of a person saving money and setting up their own private retirement plan, did they?

I don't hear anyone calling for outlawing any personal choices for you in regards to health care. What are these "services provided with those tax dollars" that you fear being forced to use? Is anyone suggesting outlawing private insurance? Outlawing your choice of physicians? What is it that you fear will be taken away or forced on you? Your right to buy private insurance?

Any system that moves resources or services out of the reach of some for the benefit of others has consequences, and that most definitely includes death - and worse things than that.

Otherwise, were that not true why would we be Democrats?

which is far superior.

You run out of benefits real fast if your wife or kid gets cancer, then you start charging things on your credit card to pay the hospital, and the bills for chemo keep coming, and next thing you know you've lost your family home. Then your boss starts dinging you for time lost from work, and if you lose your job you don't have any health care at all.

This is UNHEARD OF in the UK, Canada, France, and all those other civilized countries that think that health care is a basic right for everyone.

Insurance companies exist to make profits for insurance companies, not to spread the risk around so that all of us can afford to go to the doctor.

Americans, fools that we are, PAY MORE than anyone else in the world for our health care when you add up insurance premiums, the cost of drugs, and co-pays.

Maybe you should go get a copy of Sicko from the library.

Hekate

is the only, reasonable solution.

you figure it out

Would you also have an objection to "complete nationalization of retirement" - Social Security? What is the difference?

Have always existed for retirement savings. I like SS and think it is a great system that needs some tweaking currently to get it back on track but would not eliminate the private retirement options that some people choose to use.

What is the difference?

SS has been in place and has been mismanaged horribly by the government. I probably will not see a penny when it comes time for me to retire. What will the age be by then? 80? If the government can get it back on track which seems likely to happen with Obama that would be fantastic. Either way, I still have a private option to save for my retirement. I will gladly pay into SS for those who can and will use it but am not currently relying on it for my retirement so I have taken advantage of other options available to me.

Apply UHC, it will help a lot of people, just don't make me use or rely on it.

You are free to save your money and buy whatever health care you like, just as you are free to set up your own retirement plan. No one is talking about outlawing that, are they?

Now, with UHC the pool of people buying private insurance will be smaller and your rates may well go up. You are being carried now, subsidized, in the form of a larger pool of people buying insurance. But no one will be taking away your personal choice, you just will not be subsidized as you are now. More people will be more fairly subsidized, as with Social Security and the hundreds of other things like that upon which you are dependent and from which you derive great benefit.

But you cannot "opt out" of UHC, in terms of supporting it, anymore than you can opt out of Social Security or the hundreds of other things that are part of living in a civilized society and enjoying the benefits.

You can't opt out of supporting law enforcement, or public education, or safety inspections, or building codes, or the public highway network. You are still free to hire your own private security, buy your own private education, buy and use your own private airplane. You still have your precious personal choices. What you do not have the right to do is to ignore the needs of the general society and impose your selfishness on the rest of us - to take without giving back, and to profit at the expense of others.

There is nothing wrong with Social Security. Attacking it is right wing propaganda. The right wing propagandists are trying to fool younger people, and they fan the flames of their resentments toward their parents and elders and use that to promote libertarian and right wing ideas, with fear mongering about Social Security.

Let's say that you are a business owner. You have employees. You are doing pretty well. You send your kids to a fancy public school. Now, you might be tempted to think - and the right wingers will most definitely encourage you to think - "why should I pay for public schools? I am not using them! Let everyone pay their own way, then they will have choice, and choice is freedom!"

But you are using public education, every time you hire an employee. You benefit from having a pool of literate educated people from which to draw for your help. You might say "I could teach the people I need myself!" True. And you could build your own road from your plant to the railhead or dock, as the plantation owners did in the South before the Civil War, and you could have your own private law enforcement on your property and your own fire department, and your own medical clinic, and on and on. Under that system, only a few will control everything because only a few will be able to truly run their lives on nothing but personal choice. The vast majority of the people will have no choice, and that is exactly the situation that has occurred throughout history and it is what the fight for justice and freedom and rights is all about.

With UHC, you are still free to fly to Switzerland and have your special health treatments, or do whatever you can afford to do. If you do not want to use UHC, then don't. You are not going to be subpoenaed and have law enforcement show up and drag you to the doctor and force public health care on you.

However, just as with the roads, public education and hundreds and hundreds of other socialized things - all of which form the solid foundation of your life, whether you want to acknowledge that or not - you, even as a wealthy business person, would benefit immensely from UHC even if you don't "use" it. A failure to see that is a failure to understand how life in human societies actually works, and has always worked.

What is the difference between SS and UHC? You oppose one, yet are reluctant to say you oppose the other.

This is just a link to the statement which is posted at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x392996.

If you'd like to recommend that post please do so at that link and thank you!

And I think it would be better to post any comments you may have at the other link.

This post was designed to alert people to the nurses statement.

Deleted Duplicate

Answer: There is a ton of money to be made in our shitty HC system. There is only a reasonable rate of return to be made in nationalized HC.

Why not just make the police a "for profit" organization? Why not just make fire safety a "for profit" organization? If it's reasonable to expect that those services should be a part of the government, and that they should provide services to everyone regardless, why should our health be any different? What's the difference between someone dying from a murderer or dying from cancer? Why is our health a "for profit" business? I don't see how anyone can argue that healthcare insurance should be "for profit," while services that the police/firemen provide are not. They should go hand in hand, since they both deal with our personal health and safety.

hospital and medical corporations that won't rake in huge profits to give us a fraction of the care other countries gov. sponsored health care provide for a much lower price.

{/sarcasm}

They want to make Social Security a for-profit business. Why not privatize everything, i.e., make everything for-profit. It has worked so well in bringing this country universal, affordable, "high quality" health care. (NOT!)

Plus, huge corporations have arisen in the market to provide health insurance. It is very profitable for them. They send lobbyists to Capitol Hill to convince idiot politicians that their money-making scheme should be allowed to continue.

blur class lines, and you *KNOW* they want those class lines as defined and blatently visible as possible.

The ONLY choice for America www.johnrussellforcongress.com :)

Once there is a total collapse of the industry do Americans realize there's a problem

It's outrageous that it costs a family more for health care than for a home.

Thank Bill Frist, and his family of bandits.

We don't want no durn leftwing-commie-socialism. Lessun it is to save the Capitalists.

'sides. Now that we've spent a trillion dollars bringing Freedom(tm) to Iraq, and likely soon to be 'nother trillion preserving the capital of the superclass, there is jus' no money left to waste on something like health care.

Life is not a gift from the government! Learn to stand on your own two feet!! Get over your mental recession!!!

Don't we have the Best Healthcare System in the World!?

Oh. Right. That is France. Well, I think we came in at 17th. Not bad, considering all the countries there are in the world.

Just take pride in being the only First World nation that has the moral strength to deny healthcare to all citizens.

:sarcasm: In case you need it.

The current admin doesn't care about us, in case you hadn't noticed. The CNA has been beating this drum for quite some time.
I hope they actually get some traction from this argument. I'm not holding my breath though.

and the corporate media represent corporations, not the American People. Thus the piss poor disparity between our healthcare and the rest of the industrialized world gets no or very little corporate media coverage.

In stead the corporate media spend their vast resources and time magnifying a programmed demon word which has been brainwashed in to the American psyche, and I don't even need to utter it, you know what it is. This instills fear to over take reason in the American People's deliberations regarding their own lives.

Kicked and too late to recommend.

Thanks for the thread, Better Believe It.

Tennessee calls the 'acceptable standards of care ' HORRIFYING but quite acceptable. http://www.wisecountyissues.com

we need to do it

We need to start getting out the REAL information, and stop letting the RW get their way with their lying talking points.

The ignorance is literallly killing us!

list of those that should be nationalized.

Basic necessities should be the foundation of society, after that, be as capitalistic as you like.

I think the dividing line should be whether this is this an option, or is it necessary to function in this society? Today, in addition to food, water, & shelter, we have to add health care, justice, education, (probably) transportation, communication, and energy.

We also know, from the "rehearsals" conducted in South America and Africa, that if we fail to establish (as in set in stone) this baseline, we can look forward to being subjected to an extortion scheme that would make the Mafia blush.

the greedy aren't allowed to dictate something for a self-serving profit. Pretty simple answer to a necessity being a right and not a "privilege"...