People who don’t care about being shot in the face
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http://www.balancedpolitics.org/universal_health_care.htm
I was planning on sending an e-mail to this person.
Hello Joe,
I’m certainly glad I was able to stumble upon a site like yours, you know, a site that was balanced and unbiased when it came to certain issues. Except your site is about as unbiased as Mogadishu is a fun family vacation spot.
For the sake of brevity, because brevity I know is something you value since you feel that government isn’t concise enough in legislation. I’ll keep my counterarguments brief.
Since I more or less agree with your pros, I’ll address the few cons I have issues with.
There isn’t a single government agency or division that runs efficiently; do we really want an organization that developed the U.S. Tax Code handling something as complex as health care?
I don’t disagree at all. In fact, I couldn’t have less faith in the government to handle something efficiently if congressmen were caught flushing money down the toilet. But here’s the thing, the idea is not to endlessly bicker about how universal healthcare will be inherently costly, but how to refine the idea into something that works.
“Free” health care isn’t really free since we must pay for it with taxes; expenses for health care would have to be paid for with higher taxes or spending cuts in other areas such as defense, education, etc.
The ignorant people in this debate aren’t the ones for a universal healthcare system, they’re the ones too stupid to realize they’re getting screwed over by it.
Profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity have always led to greater cost control and effectiveness.
The only motives insurance companies have is to not make healthcare “better”, but to NOT GIVE ANYONE COVERAGE AT ALL. Capitalism works when the main incentive is to do your fucking job, but in our broken healthcare system this is most certainly not the case.
To quote Barack Obama last week, “We could make the cost of food much less if we eliminated meat inspectors.”
Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility.
There already isn’t any flexibility, because you’re limited to what you can afford. Whether it’s an elective surgery or not. You can’t get anything without paying the price and dealing with the unnecessary stress.
The idea of universal healthcare is to not offer a myriad of choices to people, it’s to provide them with what they need, and if you think that healthcare is a privilege, not a right, then make that point fucking clear because I think it’s a goddamn right.
The health-care industry likely will become infused with the same kind of corruption, back-room dealing, and special-interest-dominated sleeze that is already prevalent in other areas of government.
Congratulations, you just listed one of the pros for a universal healthcare system. Note that screwing over people with good insurance plans only happened because there were “Cadillac” insurance plans to begin with. If your complaint here is that the government is too corrupt to handle control over healthcare then you should have listed that in your first argument. Notice that you’re repeating the same arguments… which makes it look like there are more cons than pros in your list.
If you didn’t get it earlier, Mogadishu isn’t a fun place.
Patients aren’t likely to curb their drug costs and doctor visits if health care is free; thus, total costs will be several times what they are now.
So you do think healthcare is a privilege, and if you honestly feel that way I can’t really argue with that, but you should know that insurance companies have a profit incentive and the government does not.
Also the United States has the most costly healthcare system in the entire world.
Just because Americans are uninsured doesn’t mean they can’t receive health care; nonprofits and government-run hospitals provide services to those who don’t have insurance, and it is illegal to refuse emergency medical service because of a lack of insurance.
Except the entire fucking point of universal healthcare is that this isn’t enough. Not to mention you pay for these things to be provided to people anyway, yet you also have to pay for your own health insurance. And how is that fair to you?
Government-mandated procedures will likely reduce doctor flexibility and lead to poor patient care.
United States is ranked 37th in terms of overall healthcare performance. I’d say private healthcare is doing us fucking wonders, and WHO agrees:
[WARNING, BIASED LIBERAL LINK, INCOMING, UH OH]
http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en/index.html
Healthy people who take care of themselves will have to pay for the burden of those who smoke, are obese, etc.
Except that already happens.
A long, painful transition will have to take place involving lost insurance industry jobs, business closures, and new patient record creation.
Right now the average time it takes for medicare to reimburse a claim is 14-15 days. For insurance companies, that claim takes 6 entire weeks. So where does waiting for reimbursement become a bigger issue?
Malpractice lawsuit costs, which are already sky-high, could further explode since universal care may expose the government to legal liability, and the possibility to sue someone with deep pockets usually invites more lawsuits.
You’re talking about cost again and I’m not going to address the same goddamn argument. Go fuck yourself.
Government is more likely to pass additional restrictions or increase taxes on smoking, fast food, etc., leading to a further loss of personal freedoms.
If you pay a health insurance premium you already pay for those things in taxes, except in a universal healthcare system those who smoke and eat fast food are responsible for committing those actions.
Patient confidentiality is likely to be compromised since centralized health information will likely be maintained by the government.
Did you know confidentiality is already compromised? If you have a history of depression, there is a law in the state of Wisconsin that allows prosecutors to use that against you in a court of law. They can walk into your doctor, take the fucking medical history, and use it against you no matter how irrelevant. If you think a universal healthcare is going to change the government’s ability to use personal information against you, you’re ignorant as shit.
Health care equipment, drugs, and services may end up being rationed by the government. In other words, politics, lifestyle of patients, and philosophical differences of those in power, could determine who gets what.
In case you haven’t noticed it’s the healthcare insurance companies that already ration care from people, because they have shareholders, CEOs, and employees that all want MONEY and they want it NOW. The fact that the United States is notorious for this exact problem is because of its ass backwards healthcare system.
Patients may be subjected to extremely long waits for treatment.
Right now someone without insurance or a rejected claim will have to wait infinity hours to receive treatment. Go fuck yourself.
Like social security, any government benefit eventually is taken as a “right” by the public, meaning that it’s politically near impossible to remove or curtail it later on when costs get out of control. Social security was originally put in place to help seniors live the last few years of their lives; however, the retirement age of 65 was set when average life spans were dramatically shorter. Now that people are regular living into their 90s or longer, costs are skyrocketing out of control, making the program unsustainable. Despite the fact that all politicians know the system is heading for bankruptcy in a couple decades, no one is rushing to fix it. When President Bush tried to re-structure it with private accounts, the Democrats ran a scare campaign about Bush’s intention to “take away your social security”. Even though he promised no change in benefits, the fact that he was proposing change at all was enough to kill the effort, despite the fact that Democrats offered zero alternative plan to fix it. Despite Republican control of the presidency and both houses, Bush was not even close to having the political support to fix something that has to be fixed ASAP; politicians simply didn’t want to risk their re-elections. The same pattern is true with virtually all government spending programs. Do you think politicians will ever be able to cut education spending or unemployment insurance?…Only if they have a political death wish. In time, the same would be true of universal health care spending. As costs skyrocket because of government inefficiency and an aging population, politicians will never be able to re-structure the system, remove benefits, or put private practice options back in the system….that is, unless they want to give up hope of re-election. With record debt levels already in place, we can’t afford to put in another “untouchable” spending program, especially one with the capacity to easily pass defense and social security in cost.
There is so much hypocrisy in this paragraph my head is about to explode. When I get an aneurysm, you’re paying for it, not the government.
Social security and healthcare are two very different issues, and in case you haven’t noticed there are plenty of government programs that haven’t gone out of control. If the government paid for universal healthcare, we would have to probably pay more attention to things like obesity, things that already we should be paying attention to. You can’t shoot old people in the face. That’s stupid. But you can try to help kids walk up a flight of stairs.