Universal Health Care

“I knew that one :)”

“But Wanderer, all that money is really a subsidy for the cheap labor that employers want.

Aren't you happy to subsidize business??

(where's the sarcasm font?)”

“You do have free emergency service if you need it, all you have to do is walk into any Emergency Room & they are required by law to not turn you away & provide you with services.

I'd like to see the humor side of this issue, but it's just killing the healthcare system though and I know TON'S of people are suffering because of the huge # of people here who refuse to buy insurance.

Unfortunately, I can't see the humor in that - PLEASE help me!”

“marca O es socialista usted nunca cambiará de opinión.”

“One of my issues with Universal Healthcare will be that New Research and New Cures will be a thing of the past. As it is most things that people #&%!$ about that only the rich can afford end up being covered by most insurance companies after the rich peeps pay the research costs”

“The more that people are removed from actual costs the more those costs increase.

Sure, maybe we could pay for UC now but we will not be able to afford it int the future. It's not a road we should go down.

I'd rather we dismantled and/or revised the insurance backed managed care system we currently have.”

“la minisha es un cerdo fascista

(eat my shorts and shove that socialist crap up your bucket)

Wanderer, maybe you should un-pucker a bit and learn to relax.

One does have "free" ER service.......but it ain't free. The rest of us pay for it.

My family has excellent health insurance, and excellent health too.

The growing problem with health care as it is................
It is run for profit and profit is more important than actual service.”

“Amen, Bro. MarkO.”

“Wanderer, maybe you should un-pucker a bit and learn to relax.

One does have "free" ER service.......but it ain't free. The rest of us pay for it.

OHMYGOD, MarkO, probably without realizing it, just acknowledged that there's no such thing as "the government" paying for something... but that ALL OF US pay for these "free services"!!!!


YAAAAA MARKO!!!! Welcome to the REAL world!”

“Holy unsafe procreational episode, I thought Marko thought the easter bunny (the dude that is taser proof and raises the dead) paid for all those stuffy nosed cold victims that fill the ER every night.”

“I just want to clarify my position of this issue... most of the time I'm responding to a specific post & therefore am not speaking to the "global perspective"...

SO.... here's a comment I want to make that is imporatant to me...


1. I would like for EVERY HUMAN BEING living in our country to have access to quality healthcare, NOT JUST EMERGENCY SERVICES!

2. I think everyone should accept some responsibility for the costs of the services they recieve and pay their portion.

Just so you all know, there is a process in place in CHC's across the country... a patient is responsible for their portion of a medical bill based upon their ability to pay... it is called "Sliding Fee Scale".

Based upon the federal gov'ts annual poverty level guidelines, information is colleceted on income levels and family size... and based upon that data the specific patient responsibility is calculated. Thus, if you have 5 kids and make $20,000.00 you pay less for healthcare services than someone who makes $20,000.00 and has 2 kids! SO, there is a process in place that adjusts for different levels.”

“Well there is no such thing as FREE healthcare, someone has to pay for it. The problem with our health care system is the rediculous overcharging that goes on. A universal healthcare system will only make things worse for americans...”

“That right it won't be free, we pay thru are taxes that we already pay

The government just has to move money around”

“health care can only be free if doctors start working for nothing.”

“I'd rather have the freedom of choice in my healthcare insurance and have to pay for it than have the .gov tell me where to go. Does anyone here seriously believe more government involvement fixes anything? Big government=big screw ups”

“I agree with stick......! We don;t need any more government in our lives. There is already way too much.”

“A Japanese doctor says, "Medicine in my country is so advanced that
we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him
out looking for work in six weeks."
A German doctor says, "That is nothing. We can take a lung out of
one person, put it in another, and have him out looking for work in
four weeks."
A British doctor says, "In my country medicine is so advanced that
we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and
have both of them out looking for work in two weeks."
The American doctor, not to be outdone, interjected, "You guys are
way behind. We are about to take a woman with no brains, send her
to Washington where she will become President, and then half the
country will be out looking for work."”

“It seems Bush already got that particularly job accomplished.”

“I agree with stick......! We don;t need any more government in our lives. There is already way too much.”

Yah, any of the remaining three will take care of that in Heart beEt.”

“Don't know where you're getting your information Nimblebrain, but it's incorrect. According to Bureau of Labor Stats:

Seasonally Adjusted
Unemployment Rate:
4.9% in Jan 2008

Annual Averages
Unemployment Rate:
4.6% for 2007”

“Wait...how bout FREE COMPUTER Help care in the US...yeah we will set a fee Computer Technicians will charge for work. Heck if you need your computer repaired I think we should make it free for everyone...besides technicians can do the work for free.”

“If tech support ever goes free I will just have to start back plumbing...”

“I think we need to get FREE PLUMBING!”

“free love”

“free Tibet”

“Free love never really worked out that well for me :P”

“i was too young. a friend i used to work with told me that... for a brief while... indeed love was free. never for me.
last edited: 2/15/08 7:52:03 PM”

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than half of U.S. doctors now favor switching to a national health care plan and fewer than a third oppose the idea, according to a survey published on Monday.

The survey suggests that opinions have changed substantially since the last survey in 2002 and as the country debates serious changes to the health care system.

Of more than 2,000 doctors surveyed, 59 percent said they support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

The 2002 survey found that 49 percent of physicians supported national health insurance and 40 percent opposed it.

"Many claim to speak for physicians and represent their views. We asked doctors directly and found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, most doctors support national health insurance," said Dr. Aaron Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine, who led the study.

"As doctors, we find that our patients suffer because of increasing deductibles, co-payments, and restrictions on patient care," said Dr. Ronald Ackermann, who worked on the study with Carroll. "More and more, physicians are turning to national health insurance as a solution to this problem."

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=doctors-support-universal”

“Faux Noose says we can't afford federal medical, because we must take over the airlines first and , to follow, the tourist attractions at all airline destinations. And, Nutrisystems.
last edited: 4/05/08 8:53:33 AM”

“Let's also ask the truck drivers if we should have a national truck driving plan. "Hey guys, do you want the government to pay you money?"”

“I don't , but you must, by now, have figured out that things have to go all one way or the other. Unlike Hybrid cars, because they're machines don't allow the gas parts to eat the electric parts alive (and vice versa). With people involved , the private sector eats government alive any time they have a common task. Medicare is a bank for all the medical industry and now the investment banks, corporate home builders and all the other' capitalist want the taxpayer to foot the bill for their excesses.
last edited: 4/05/08 10:41:39 AM”

“The AMA has finally tired of jumping through hoops for insurance conglomerates.”

“ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Mark Windsor looks exhausted. For a week he's been undergoing radiation treatment on a cancerous tumor in his neck. A metal rod fused to his spine keeps his head stable. His muscles there are gone, the result of multiple failed surgeries to rid him of his disease. He can't turn his head sideways or look up or down. So his look stays fixed, despite his fatigue.

"If I probably had gotten some good treatment several years ago I probably would have been cured," Windsor said from his home in Atlanta, Georgia.

The reason he didn't get care sooner -- he couldn't afford it, because he didn't have insurance. Windsor, a self-employed photographer, has had bone cancer -- a rare chondrosarcoma -- for more than 25 years. At 52, that's almost half his life. While he's found help from a few generous doctors, his efforts to survive have often been desperate. And now he's learned, largely in vain.

"I've been given anywhere from 18 months to three years," Windsor said. "And of course that's if I continue to go through these brutal treatments that I don't know that my body is capable of doing anymore. I'm tired. I've had a lot of operations in my life. And this radiation treatment wasn't much better on it. It's now taken my ability for taste away. My smell is horrible. I feel nauseated every day. And I just don't think this ever had to get to this."

Windsor first asked for the radiation therapy 13 years ago, long before his cancer had advanced into the brutal disease that's now assailing him. If he had been treated anytime sooner, the therapy might have worked to eradicate his tumors, when they were still small. But without insurance, Windsor couldn't afford the proper surgeries and follow-up care needed for the radiation to be effective.

The American Cancer Society says uninsured patients are 60 percent more likely to die within five years of their diagnosis. Without insurance, the diagnosis is twice as likely to come in the later stages of cancer.

Dying for lack of insurance”

“My mother in law got excellent treatment for her cancer. They were bankrupt and flat broke. She fought hard but chain smoking her whole life finally took it's toll and she died.

Health care will only be free when doctors start working for nothing It will only cost less when our legal system gets a grip on reality.

I do think that the health care system needs reform but it will never be free. I think Americans need to come to grips with the fact that litigations and runaway juries granting huge awards are not free either and that only the lawers are getting rich.

Your hospital doesn't want to charge 20 buck for a box of Kleenex. They have to...”

“Wow, thanks for the link V. Imagine how much longer he would have had to wait if he lived in a country that offered "free" care.”

“...or what the quality of care would have been like.

i won't tell you what my tax bill was this year but here is my belief: i pay more than my fair share to live in america. asking me to pay someone else's medical bills is too much to ask of me. our politicians need to stop trying to pick the pocket of americans (and i am NOT a rich person) and start to reform the underlying inefficient and corrupt system. the system has PLENTY OF MONEY and throwing more at it won't make thing better. we need reformation not redistribution.”

“I guess you were making money when you could have spent some quality time in he service? Seems to me that if you skipped that part of your civic responsibility you could at least pay your taxes without the whining.”

“Again , when 5% of the earths population starts acting like 5%, instead of acting like they are 50%, then we will be able to think about getting real in things that effect us and not the other 95%.”

“Amen.”

“when earth starts spinning and your crack gets powdered, then rabbit people will eat spareribs in acid rain.”

“since when was serving in the military a civic responsibility?”

“being a social worker, politician, police officer, fireman, park ranger, etc are all civic minded jobs. Its not just military that is the signifier of service to your country”

“Violin still hasn't figured out that FUEGO thing? LOL”

“I bet fiddle boy still gets plenty of hits on his web page anyway.....”

“Hillary Schools Bill O'Reilly on Universal Healthcare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xvo1eHL-_M”

“Did she give an example of somplace where Universal health care actually works?”

“From a democratic(not the party) standpoint, the rest of the industrial world has overriden our single 'NO' vote.”

“pshaw, we make our own rules”

“Rules for jewels provided by fools?”

“As humorist P.J. O'Rourke famously said, "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free."




http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/paying_for_health_care_who_and.html”