Rick, you're back! Nice to see you again!

GoHarley
You sticking around? Missed your posts

I'll be around increasingly more, I hope.

Huh Its pretty easy how they do it, they tax the sh!t out of everyone and take away the incentives for working hard..

Are you implying that no other industrialized nation's citizens work hard? And if they are taxed so heavily, why are there not more industrialized nations whose majority of citizens are in poverty? And if for-profit health care relies on the hope that people become gravely ill to increase the profit margin, does this not seem somewhat morally deficient?

Goharley,
The people of many european nations are taxed beyond beleive to pay for the socialized society they live in. A large portion of the population is at or below poverty. The employer wont even give jobs to the young because of the fact that you cant get rid of them once their foot is in the door. Hense the uneployment rate and the roits that have been happening year after year because the young cant get work. Their economies are stagnet and yes so is ours at the moment but our growth far outreaches any of the socialized societies besides maybe China which is a hole other discussion.
For-profit health care as you call it is what gets the best and brightest Dr's into the system and what creates the great advances that keep people from getting sick. No one in the health care system wants anyone to become "gravely ill" to make an increased profit. That is just sick and a sad oppinion of Dr's in general. Likely the same type of thought process that keeps people sue happy in this country leading to higher malpracitce costs that gets past on to the patients in higher treatment costs so hard working Drs can afford to stay in practice. And there is no moral dificancy in giving your life work to helping people live longer better lives and trying to make a living at it. Like it or not we have the best health care system in the world with the most advances and the best treatment. If your so impressed with all the systems in europe and asia, fly over the next time you need a serious surgery and see if it is as good as the US if you make it back at all.

AuntyM, I totally agree with you about one of the main problems with our school system.We got very adequate educations when I went to school and we even had classes taught by the principal who was actually the ONE principal for elementary,middle and high school. He had a "secretary" and one of the senior teachers filled in for him if he was gone for any reason. Then as time past the state and federal government got more and more involved (meddled) in the process and started adding positions to build thier empire.Now all these years later we have principals,vice principals,superintendents, and other heads of departments that actually perform only functions that justify thier job, but do nothing to teach the children.Did I mention that they all have staffs? I have gone to school board meetings to complain but have been shut down by the empire builders who are totaly convinced that if anything they need to hire more people because they are so overloaded. If it was a for profit company they would have been bankrupt long ago, but thanks to that never empty vat called taxes they go on and on.

A large part of our health care system has become one of inventing illnesses, conditions, what have you to explain common symptoms in order to sell drugs. "Are you tired?" "You just might have exhaustive neorosis disease. Ask your doctor if this new drug is right for you."

Another large market is side effects. Since our FDA rubber stamps drugs we are the guinea pigs. Often times the side effects of these drugs are worse than the condition and lead to other drugs to treat the side effects.

Myself I spent less than 24 hours in critical care last year. The bill came out to approximately $1,000 an hour. $16K total. I had one of the most expensive rooms on the planet.

Go Harley,
http://www.neoperspectives.com/swedishwelfare.htm

Look at sweden, You can pay 60% of your income in taxes plus 25% sales tax and get your perfect world. Oh wait Sh!t for GDP and no limited Military protection.

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
Winston Churchill

Blue Water Pro

While the tonsils out losing a leg thing would suck, it rarely happens. The fact of the matter is that many professions in the medical trade aren't growing with demand because of out of control insurance rates. Being an OBGYN is scary because everyone sues them when something goes wrong with there pregnancy whether or not its the doc's fault.

Stlehead
It's worse then that, not all drugs in the pharmacy are even FDA approved.

willametteriveroutlaw

One thing to remember, you are locked into an American way of thinking. Europeans may pay more out of their pocket but they associate happiness with a healthy life and with having good friends and family, NOT how much money they have to buy toys.

The Swedish social welfare system is one of the best in the world. Every legal resident is covered by health insurance. Education is free. Every child gets free transportation, food in the school and 950 SEK/month till the age of 18. If you plan to have a baby, choose Sweden, you will get one-year fully paid leave, which can be shared by the parents.

Do you know how hard it is to get time off work in America when your wife has a kid, our entire value system is based off the buck to buy and not family.

Wow, 60% in taxes in return for health care, education, transportation, some vacation, etc. That leaves the average citizen with 40% disposable income. How many Americans can claim to have 40% disposable income after buying just health insurance? Most Americans can't afford to even put money in the bank or invest for retirement in the first place.

Since you make the claim that doctors are victimized by too much litigation, do you propose that the government step in and provide more regulation? Why is it, though, that the number of lawsuits has declined in relation to the cost of health care and insurance rising?

Why is it that Arizona seems to be the only state that does anything that makes any sense? They take stuff that the rest of the nation seems to turn into a huge moral debate about ethical treatment of illegal aliens and providing them with all the benefits of being a citizen without the woes of it. B.S. Good on Arizona. If they had salmon and steelhead runs and got more than a couple inches of rain a year with more trees I would live there.

I pay ~35% of my income and get all of the above.. ( I paid for college myself, which just took a little savings). Why would I want to pay an additional 30% for people who didn't get there [censored] together. What do you mean by transportation, I never saw where sweden buys there citizens a vehicle. Most americans can afford to save, they just choose not to in favor of material wealth.

I hate goverment regulation, but providing a cap on lawsuits would offer some savings to on rising medical costs.

Only 35% and you get complete 100% health care with zero deductible for your entire family? And you can also put your entire family through four years of college for that, too? And you're guaranteed at least two weeks of paid vacation? Wow.

Pardon my cynical nature, but I doubt it.

But if you are, great. You're obviously in a much more socialist environment than most Americans. And why would you want to pay a little extra for other Americans? I guess you'd have to ask that young mother who just lost the father of her kids to a drunk driver. Or ask that elderly couple that just got flooded out of their home in Lewis County or Grays Harbor County. Or maybe that guy with a family that just lost his job of 15 years because it was shipped offshore and his child was recently diagnosed with cancer. Ask them why they didn't have their [censored] together.

Or you can continue to be an "it's all about me" kinda guy. You can have your country as a collection of individuals, or you can have America as a country of individuals cooperatively creating a civilized society.



Bolagna. A better idea would be to put a salary cap on the CEOs of those insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. But consider if you had a single-payer system there wouldn't be insurance costs to rise because of lawsuits. I've had socialized health care for 26 years and pay less annually to insure my entire family than many people pay monthy.

Per capita there are more self-employed (read small business owners) in France than here in the United States, which economists say is a result of the high cost of health insurance here.

If I saved 5% of my income and invested it wisely, it wouldn't be a stretch pay for my theorhetical kids college.. I know my parents did it. I have 2 weeks paid vacation and my medical deductible, including a surgery I had last year ran me less than 2.5% of my total income. Including my additional tax free retirement savings (also could have tax free college savings if one of my boys breaks through the a rain coat) I would say my total after expenditures including taxes right now are under 30% of my income. Remember in sweden, besides the 60% income tax, there is a 25% built in sales tax as well. Good thing they have one of the lowest GDP's of any of the origional EU countries.





No its all just decent life planning and not expecting the Goverment to take care of me.




Oh yeah your programs will definately create a civilized society..
Fema takes care of flood victims.. And while the other cases you can call tear jerkers. The single mother will be taken care of (atleast in my state) The Oregon health plan and myriad of other social programs. As for the other ones, as for the other ones it sounds like he has a work ethic and will be back on his feet soon.



How much did you pay in taxes for your socialized medicine just out of curiosity?

The former employees and investors of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, etc. got a good chuckle out of that.

Bet they wish they could have had something more secure like, oh, I dunno, Sweden? And speaking of that "25% sales tax," I wonder how that all works out given the value of the Euro to the dollar and built-in profit margins of American corporations. Also, because of the way the US computes its GDP, it is not the most accurate means of comparing countries.

Wanna buy a trailer real cheap? Today's FEMA is an example of what happens to well-meant organizations when they are overtaken by an "every man for himself" ideology.

I give you credit for being such an optimist concerning my hypothetical man who's lost his job and has a child stricken with cancer. But consider that having the greatest work ethic in the world does no good if there's no work to be had. Or because of the over abundance of unemployed, he cannot find a job paying what he used to make, or an employer that offers family health care coverage.

Monetarily, I pay no more in tax for my health coverage than any average middle-class American. The co-pay is less than $100 annually. So why can't more Americans have that?

"No its all just decent life planning and not expecting the Goverment to take care of me."

Just a guess but I bet the cost of your surgery was more than you've paid out of pocket for health insurance for yourself in your entire lifespan which means someone else "took care of you" you socialist.

"Wanna buy a trailer real cheap? Today's FEMA is an example of what happens to well-meant organizations when they are overtaken by an "every man for himself" ideology."

That is a wonderful distortion of the facts. Try to make it look like buying to many trailers is "every man for himself" ideas. The problem with Fema is they are the big brother program trying to use our money to fix problems would be better taken care of a state level by on the ground personal deciding what needs to be done(with our money). Fema thinks they can throw a hundred billion at the problem and that will fix it. Hense renting cruise ships that house 3000 and having 80 on board. Buying to many trailers no one ever used and sat there to rot. Using the dome to house people, ect ,ect ,ect. And in this fine socialized society, we bail them out so they can rebiuld BELOW SEA LEVEL and do it agian in 30 years.

"I pay no more in tax for my health coverage than any average middle-class American. The co-pay is less than $100 annually. So why can't more Americans have that?"

You have a job that offers it and that is great. I pay 100% of all my employees health care. But take another 10% in taxes from your employers and soon there is not money to do that anymore. Health care benefits might only cost you $100 but your employer paid through the nose(unless you work for the government then someone elses employer paid) Keep raising taxes and there will be no jobs or health care coverage because employees and health care are the two biggest expenses and will go first in cutbacks.

"But consider that having the greatest work ethic in the world does no good if there's no work to be had. Or because of the over abundance of unemployed"

I love people who do this as well. Everythings terrible, lifes so hard, no work, no pay, jobs over seas. These are the same people who said how great it was in the nineties when the unemployment rate was 5.2%. Hense party affiliation. Now it is 4.9% which use to be concidered full employment and everyone is out of work. Job maket is flooded, No jobs blah blah blah. Once again, party affiliation. For the 4.9%, there are always jobs to be had if they want them. Might not be the same exact job they had or even need to take a pay cut but they are out there and you take what you can get and keep looking for something better. When it comes along and it will you jump at it. Work you way up or go get trained to do something diferent. The money is there is grants, loans and handouts(one of the variety I dont mind giving if someone is trying to better themselves) to do jsut that. But saying everything was wonderful in the nineties an terrible now is just plain B.S. and shows you will never be happy if your party can take the credit.

The problem with FEMA is that some jacka$$ appointed another jacka$$ to run it. He in turn awarded no bid contracts to fellow jacka$$'s. So we ended up with a whole lot of cronies fattening up at the trough while people were dying. As a taxpayer you should be appalled.

The 80's were worse than the 90's. The 2000's are worse than the 90's. What's your point? You contridict yourself here. According to you there are plenty of jobs, meaning employees have a lot of options, meaning if you are "forced" to cut health care employees can and will readily move on and work for someone who does offer healthcare. Net result in your world is only you, the employer, loses. Right?