Kerry endorses Obama Options

[Spectatrix]

For better or worse... hopefully this'll give Obama a boost over Clinton.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22590831/

[impala454]

Why do you guys have it in your head that healthcare is so screwed up? Everyone gets this idea around election time for some stupid reason. Where do these stupid statements of "insurance & pharm companies don't care about people anymore" come from? How many of you participating in this thread have broken your leg and had it go untreated due to the horrible healthcare system we have here? Gimme a friggin break.

[Mommy]

Why do you guys have it in your head that healthcare is so screwed up? Everyone gets this idea around election time for some stupid reason. Where do these stupid statements of "insurance & pharm companies don't care about people anymore" come from? How many of you participating in this thread have broken your leg and had it go untreated due to the horrible healthcare system we have here? Gimme a friggin break.

I believe Cathryn had an incident where her appendix ruptured or something and she didnt go to the hospital because it was $$$$ until she almost died.... or something like that.

I need hand surgery from a broken hand injury I had, but I cant afford it.

[impala454]

I believe Cathryn had an incident where her appendix ruptured or something and she didnt go to the hospital because it was $$$$ until she almost died.... or something like that.

I need hand surgery from a broken hand injury I had, but I cant afford it.

But the communist healthcare systems makes you pay for it, whether you want to or not. That's the whole point.

[Mommy]

But the communist healthcare systems makes you pay for it, whether you want to or not. That's the whole point.

it doesnt MAKE you pay for it... if you dont want it, dont go to the hospital

[impala454]

it doesnt MAKE you pay for it... if you dont want it, dont go to the hospital

it comes out of your paycheck, whether you like it or not.

[pebkac]

it comes out of your paycheck, whether you like it or not.

You have to pay for national defense if you like it or not...

I don't see the whole "It'll be too expensive" argument. Universal healthcare would probably be the best thing possible for our economy. A lot of jobs are moving to Canada now. And paying their employees MORE. Why? Because healthcare costs both employers and employees less.

[impala454]

You have to pay for national defense if you like it or not...

I don't see the whole "It'll be too expensive" argument. Universal healthcare would probably be the best thing possible for our economy. A lot of jobs are moving to Canada now. And paying their employees MORE. Why? Because healthcare costs both employers and employees less.

I don't know about "a lot of jobs are moving to Canada."

look at it this way.

The way it works right now:
Person A. work for someone who pays for most of if not all of your health insurance.
Person B. you pay outright for your health insurance (typically $300-400/month)
Person C. you have no health insurance, but will still recieve emergency service if you so desire (via taxes)

The communist "universal" healthcare:
Person Z (everyone). you recieve health insurance from the government. you have no choice of doctors, and you pay 5-10% of your income to the government. (for me in particular, I'd pay $270-550/month)

So you're taking something which is vastly paid for by the private sector currently, and now having the government pay for it, but also costing the end consumer much more, as well as lowering the overall quality of the healthcare itself.

You guys just don't seem to look at the big picture. You just think "Universal Healthcare = free! yay!".

Take a gander at this, you "Canada rules!" people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

[pebkac]

I don't know about "a lot of jobs are moving to Canada."

look at it this way.

The way it works right now:
Person A. work for someone who pays for most of if not all of your health insurance.
Person B. you pay outright for your health insurance (typically $300-400/month)
Person C. you have no health insurance, but will still recieve emergency service if you so desire (via taxes)

The communist "universal" healthcare:
Person Z (everyone). you recieve health insurance from the government. you have no choice of doctors, and you pay 5-10% of your income to the government. (for me in particular, I'd pay $270-550/month)

So you're taking something which is vastly paid for by the private sector currently, and now having the government pay for it, but also costing the end consumer much more, as well as lowering the overall quality of the healthcare itself.

You guys just don't seem to look at the big picture. You just think "Universal Healthcare = free! yay!".

Take a gander at this, you "Canada rules!" people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

I still don't see how you're getting that Universal Healthcare is more expensive than Private Healthcare. The link you posted shows a chart at the end shows that Canadians have a higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality with less doctors than us and at less than 2/3 the cost. All the while in Canada and the UK, the governments spend LOWER percentages of their income on healthcare.

At any rate, I don't recall anyone ever saying that Canada's healthcare system was perfect. And I don't see why we have to base our healthcare system on it. For example, one study ranked the UK's system as being the best out of the countries they compared.

[impala454]

I still don't see how you're getting that Universal Healthcare is more expensive than Private Healthcare. The link you posted shows a chart at the end shows that Canadians have a higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality with less doctors than us and at less than 2/3 the cost.

More expensive to the end consumer. What you're talking about is lower costs overall. Huge difference. We spend more per person on healthcare in the US overall because we don't have to wait forever to get things done. As well as having quicker access to more specialized (and therefore more expensive) healthcare.

All the while in Canada and the UK, the governments spend LOWER percentages of their income on healthcare.

Again shown above why we spend more total, look at the % of healthcare costs paid by the government. nearly 70% in Canada, and only 45% in the US.

A couple other fun facts on Canada's healthcare (note, private healthcare clinics are ILLEGAL)

Studies by the Commonwealth Fund found that 57% of Canadians reported waiting 4 weeks or more to see a specialist; 24% of Canadians waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room
..
One in nine trained-in-Canada doctors is practising medicine in the United States...
..
A 2006 article in The New York Times quoted Dr. Brian Day, who opened an illegal private clinic called The Cambie Surgery Center, as saying, "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."
..
According to a September 14, 2007 article from CTV News, Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stronach came to the United States for breast cancer surgery in June of 2007.
..
When Robert Bouressa, the Premier of Quebec needed cancer treatment, he came to the U.S. to get it
..
In 2007 a woman from Calgary who was pregnant with quadruplets was sent to Great Falls, Montana to give birth. An article on this incident states, "There was no room at any other Canadian neonatal intensive care unit." [8] One critic of Canadian health care wrote, "They left a city of a million people, drove 325 miles, and crossed an international border in order to get what can be done in several cities in mighty Montana... They didn't even have to come to largest cities in Montana. Instead, they came to Great Falls, population 56,000."
..
Champion figure skater Audrey Williams needed a hip replacement. Even though she waited two years and suffered in terrible pain, she still did not get the surgery, because the waiting list was so long. In Canada, it is illegal for someone to spend their own money to get health care. So she came to the U.S. and spent her own money to get the surgery.

Universal *cough* communist *cough* Healthcare at its finest.

At any rate, I don't recall anyone ever saying that Canada's healthcare system was perfect. And I don't see why we have to base our healthcare system on it. For example, one study ranked the UK's system as being the best out of the countries they compared.

I'm not sure how the UK's system works, but if you look at theirs, their government pays 85% of all healthcare costs. I might as well just hand over my entire paycheck to the government if the US tried to do that. Then again, the UK, being such a small country, may have a much larger portion of available tax revenue to spend on things like this, where the US would not.

I think some of these systems probably work fine in their respective countries, but just because they work fine for them doesn't mean they'll work here. I like our system just fine.

My old company, I paid $37/check for health insurance, and my new company I pay $0. I have deductibles in the $500-1000 range and max out of pocket in the $2000 range. I have had back surgery as well as other surgeries, and hand picked my doctors each time. Hell, on my back surgery, I had currently been living in Lubbock, and decided it would be easier on me to come home to Houston to go to a really good surgeon, and work from home remotely while recovering. I paid a total of $2000 out of pocket for everything involved. And I'm not some exceptional case. This wasn't with some mega super duper healthcare provider that only huge companies can afford. It was friggin regular old blue cross blue shield. It's not impossible to pay for like you guys think, or out of the range of poor people. I just ran a quick quote off www.bcbstx.com and I can get a plan with a premium as low as $49/month, with $10 generic drugs and a $1,500 deductible, and there are even cheaper plans if you don't mind a higher deductible. people bitch about health insurance costing too much to bother with, but it's more like people just want it and don't want to pay for it. And people like Hillary want them to think Universal Healthcare = free healthcare.