Obamacare: Say goodbye to Grandma and the grandkids!

The overhead of Social Security is 1% of the amount paid out each year.
The overhead of a private pension fund is 5%, or 8%,or MORE, of the same number.
Apples to apples.

Medicare and Medicaid cannot be "bankrupt" because they are programs to give out government money to people in need- not businesses with income, profit, and expenses. They were designed from the get go to spend money, to help people. The correct metrics to look at would be how well do they spend money, and what results do they get?

Lets look at a simple example of a country that has a private option and a public option- Oh, I dont know, how about Argentina?

Buenos Aires is about the same size as Los Angeles.
In Buenos Aires, you have a functioning public option, with state subsidised health care, and then you have the ability of those nice people in Recoleta to buy private insurance.
Horrible, right? It causes complete breakdown of the system, I hear.

Meanwhile, in LA, you have private health care.
In LA, every night, in the downtown area only, you have upwards of 12,000 people sleeping on the street. (and thats only in the one barrio- thousands more in every other part of LA, Orange, SB, and Riverside counties)
In the microcento, you have what- 50?

Now in LA, where our glorious and efficient private insurance system works so well, a good 3/4 of those people have mental health problems. Most also have alcohol and drug problems, and a good third of them are veterans.
There is NO social safety net for any of these people- Reagan shut down the national system of mental health care in the 80's, and sent the crazies to live under freeway overpasses, the VA benefits in the USA do not include subsidised housing, any jobs, or enough money to rent an apartment in most major cities. And as for free drug and alcohol treatment programs- HAH, it is to laugh in the USA. Get a DUI in the states, and expect to spend $2000 to $3000 US on court mandated alcohol counseling- but, of course, your insurance wont cover that.

So we have Argentina, with its government constantly accused of corruption, graft, inefficiency, and outright failure- and yet, somehow, they manage to run a public option that keeps the country relatively free of the hundreds of thousands of sick, crazy, drunk, poor homeless people we have in the hyper efficient USA.
Is it because they are all hidden in the Villa Cartona?
Plenty of poor people in Argentina- but they arent all crazy, in wheelchairs, with oozing sores and drunk all day.

Sorry, but in country after country, a public option, or better yet, single payer, WORKS.

In the post office, or Social Security, or Medicare, or public health care, you eliminate a big drag on efficiency- PROFIT.
Any time a private company can extract profit, they do.
This is great, for gas stations and empanada stands.
It is totally unproductive and wasteful for basic infrastructure needs.

Government run Electricity, highways, pensions, mail delivery, and, yes, health care, is always cheaper and, by definition, more efficient, because you are eliminating profit. Profit is great for the profitee- but an unneeded drag on public services. And it is never "fair"- somebody, always a politically connected somebody, skims all that profit, while you, or I, equally deserving, somehow dont get either the profit, or the efficiency of a government system.
 
Health care in America is a joke and it completely controlled by big business . I suggest that all see this do video about the truth of vaccines and you will see where the USA and the world is headed with martial law and compulsory vaccination for the swine flu as directed by Obama and the World Health Organisation who have sweeping powers since 2005.

France, Sweden, Greece have declared mandatory swine flu vaccination for all without exception . Human rights have been eroded for most and now we are living in a World Police State where even our own body is not ours to control.


Click on link for the truth about Vaccines
http://ow.ly/izKU
 
Ries said:
Medicare and Medicaid cannot be "bankrupt" because they are programs to give out government money to people in need- not businesses with income, profit, and expenses. They were designed from the get go to spend money, to help people. The correct metrics to look at would be how well do they spend money, and what results do they get?
Click to expand...


Oh, now I understand. Government money is going to pay for health care (eventually) for everyone, just like medicare and medicaid.

I thought medicare was funded by specific tax revenue...or have the medicare taxes just gone into the general fund (along with the "other" government money ?

I must have forgotten that the government doesn't need to make a profit or even rely on tax revenue.

It can just "make" more government money, right?

It can't go bankrupt, can it (or default on paying back all the money it has borrowed from other countries)?

It can always just make more government money, can't it?

(or tax the "rich" some more...)
 
steveinbsas said:
Oh, now I understand. Government money is going to pay . . . . (or tax the "rich" some more...)
Click to expand...
Now you've got it, Steve. And the rich, of course, are those who earn more money than we do (except, of course, when we boast over drinks about how much we clever folk have got). Because the purpose of life is simply working one's material advantage, isn't it?
 
If you guys are so rich, why do you live in Argentina?
Seems like the current low tax USA, where you dont have to pay taxes for health care for those nasty poor people would be a much better place?

Look- every other civilized country has single payer, "government" health care.
And they spend LESS doing it.

Overall tax loads are pretty similar across europe, japan, and other first world countries- and in the USA, for poor people.
In the USA, tax rates for the rich are quite a bit lower.

Medicare is a benefit program.
It spends taxpayer money, no doubt about it.
And it actually saves quite a bit over what it would cost to cover those same people under a private plan, OR what it would cost, in social costs, if we just let old people die.

Which seems to be what many right wingers are advocating- if they cant afford health care, let em die.
Dump em out of the van, like those homeless people in LA.
Because, after all, its better than paying higher taxes.

I have said it before, I will say it again- I am willing to pay higher taxes in the USA for universal health care. And so are most people- but, really, we should SAVE money by eliminating all those insurance companies.
 
Ries said:
If you guys are so rich, why do you live in Argentina?
Seems like the current low tax USA, where you dont have to pay taxes for health care for those nasty poor people would be a much better place?

Look- every other civilized country has single payer, "government" health care.
And they spend LESS doing it.
Click to expand...


Me, rich? Where did you ever get that idea?

I live on less $ per month in Argentina (including a Platinum Medicus policy) than I would have to spend for the same insurance coverage (alone) in the US.

I actually think Argentina has great private insurance. Lots of competition and and practically no (malpractice) litigation....capitalism at its best.

The Argentine "system" could have served as a model for US insurance reform, but the trial lawyers there have too much power to allow it (and the President is one of them).

If the US law makers were simply offering a public option, that would be great, but that isn't what is being planned...and ultimately there is no option.

If and when the government eliminates private health insurance, will they use the "savings" to which you refer to support those many hundreds of thousands who will lose their jobs or will they be absorbed into the "public" sector as well?

And who is going to supply the additional doctors and other health care professionals that will suddenly be needed as 40 million individuals seek the health care they have so long been denied?

Perhaps Cuba can send a few.
 
cabrera said:
France, Sweden, Greece have declared mandatory swine flu vaccination for all without exception . Human rights have been eroded for most and now we are living in a World Police State where even our own body is not ours to control.
Click to expand...
False. I'm living in France right now and a very cautious line is being taken. Where do you get your 'facts'? Do you ever check them? Do you believe any fatuous piece of propaganda that's pumped in your direction?
 
bigbadwolf said:
Are you American? There is no "centre"; it's another fabrication to allow for corrupt politicians to kowtow to private interests. People of the "centre" you refer to purport to defend the interests of common people but sell out to private interests each time and this stance is called "bipartisanship," "reasonable," "compromising," etc. A compromise between which opposing parties? No-one is standing up for the interests of common people with regard to health care. But private interests -- big pharma, insurance companies, HMOs, are fighting tooth-and-nail for their interests. We use the word "compromise" when we have contending parties which both have some power and credible threats -- for instance, a powerful labor union fighting a powerful corporation. In the case of health care, there is no-one fighting for the common interest; the "compromise" is a sell-out to private interests, and advocating this nonsense is called being of the "centre." Meanwhile, go on living in the cloud-cuckoo land of noble, pious but utterly impotent intentions of the liberals and Democrats, which somehow come a cropper each and every time. Such people are part of the problem. *Sigh*
Click to expand...
No I'm not American.

The 'centre' (or 'center' if you prefer) is where most people stand in any country and whether you despise them or not doesn't change the fact. You mention the revolutions in France and Russia in terms of admiration. Surely you know they led directly to the Reign of Terror and to Joseph Stalin.

Give me the 'center' any day.

Incidentally, why are big businesses fighting 'tooth and nail' for their interests if there is no threat to them?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top