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Anyone who believes democrats are leftists are so far to the extreme right that they are completely out of touch with reality or just plain ignorant of facts.
Leftists run Cuba, Venezuela and much of latin america now. They have nothing to do with the US government, which is and always has been a right wing defender of corporate interests around the world and at home. Costa Rican ideology and sentiment is much closer to those leftists some of you seem to despise than it is to the US. I find it amusing when I come across conservative right wingers who have chosen to live in Costa Rica.
Exactly, Sprite. As a Canadian listening to conservative talk radio hosts foam at the mouth these days about Obama’s healthcare plan, it’s interesting to note that 99.9% of all right wing and extreme right wing Canadian will never give up their national healthcare. You’d have to pry it from their cold dead hands.
“You’d have to pry it from their cold dead hands.” That is until you see the true COST of this plan Obama is working on!
Part of the BIG problem I see is that they don’t have a FIRM plan or cost to present for consideration. Nor do they have a FIRM plan for paying for it! Yet it seems we’re all being rushed into a vote! It’s bad enough most of our elected officials don’t read the the bills they vote on now! This proposal will be a MONSTER… and could very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back! They have to get it right before they push a vote! Nine zeros of new government spending/debt is not something ANYONE should be taking lightly! Don’t think for a moment that our creditors (Asia/Middle East) aren’t watching this and are VERY concerned about the dollars they’re holding. We’re getting dangerously close to having our credit cut off… and when that happens… this ship is going down fast… very fast!
If a 1/3 of the things I saw listed in the review of this proposal above are true… the US taxpayer is doomed!
Edited on Jul 26, 2009 14:25
Must be that the Brits, Canadians, Ticos and Cubans are awhole lot smarter than the Americans if they can successfully put together national health programs without sinking their respective countries.
Conservatives consider all change to be dangerous and bad. They are usually the ones who have managed to exploit others enough to accumulate a certain amount of wealth and so they feel, and rightly so, that they need to preserve the status quo in order to keep what they have stolen.
Part of that strategy requires that they convince enough of the exploited to support their agenda. They do this with fear mongering and lies. You can see them doing it in their opposition to a decent national healthcare program. If they can’t outright kill it, they will mangle the bill enough so that it will be guranteed to either be little change at all or completely fail.
Edited on Jul 26, 2009 14:32
Perhaps you have an “analytical” grasp on the TRUE cost of the current system? Within, say, a $100,000,000,000? I count 11 zeros there, imx. Hey, that’s just 100 billion, one year’s CONSERVATIVE (pardon the pun) cost of the Iraq war. What if, for that, ANYONE’s child can receive care?
No brainer. Let’s treat the children in Iran and N.Korea, maybe, just maybe…? Hmmmm, what if THAT was cost effective? What if you could even keep your house on the hill,, and have a nice vacation once a year? No. I thought so.If you call the Brits and Canadians and Cubans health care system better than ours you must be on heroin
Heroin would probably be an alternative if I was to think about walking into a tavern and expressing my opinion with your “constituency”, at least according to you. These guys wear brown shirts, by any chance?
“Must be that the Brits, Canadians, Ticos and Cubans are awhole lot smarter than the Americans if they can successfully put together national health programs without sinking their respective countries.”
Seems like I hear many….many…more stories about Brits..Canadians and others coming to the U.S. for medical care than the other way around. Secondly…compared to that rathole known as Cuba I don’t think that America is exactly…well….”sinking”…
Bogino, what personal experience do you have of Cuba or its healthcare program? Also, are you residing in Costa Rica, a country which also has a national health care program?
Reciting right wing dogma to crudely slander other countries and the choices those people make is typical of fascist propaganda and elitism. I am curious to know if we are dealing with a voice of experience and reason or a voice from that other camp.
Perhaps there is something intrinsic in the American psyche that rejects the idea that the ever expanding management of our daily lives by the federal government is a good thing. The current dissatisfaction with what is being proposed is evidence of that. Republicans and Democrats alike can agree that the system needs improvement, but not merely for the sake of change. Real improvement: good for the citizens, good for the doctors, good for the hospitals.
Cuba, Canada, Costa Rica have been mentioned in this thread as models of how socialized healthcare can benefit society; in some ways undoubtedly true. What is not mentioned is when compared to the US, the lack of true opportunity for everyone in those lands to arise above your station based upon an idea and a lot of hard work, to achieve a level of comfort and income so that you may provide for yourselves and families. Without that opportunity, waiting for a handout from the government seems like the best available option.
To wake up each morning knowing that you’re self-sufficient and able to direct your own affairs without interference is a goal that we should all aspire to. That, my friends, is what true freedom is all about.
My personal picture of how the healthcare system could be improved in the US is as follows:
1.) Significant and meaningful tort reform. Get the lawyers out of medicine.
2.) A comprehensive and transparent peer-review procedure for all medical professionals. Eliminate the bad actors.
3.) Create a national insurance group of all American Citizens
4.) Create a national pool of insurance carriers that would bid on and compete for their slice of that national group’s coverage
5.) Make insurance coverage available to that national group on an a-la-carte basis, each being able to choose what level of coverage desired
6.) Have the entire program be administered for the insurers by Visa / Mastercard through banks; every American having a Health Savings Account.Cut the overhead, streamline the management, keep Obama and his thugs out of my Doctor-Patient relationship. Have I missed anything?
Edited on Jul 27, 2009 09:19
Imx, you need to define what YOU mean by “opportunity”. And you need to put the risk right beside that supposed opportunity to which you vaguely refer. We are talking about management of limited resource here, not about the all the BS platitudes and superlatives that we americans like to throw around with a great air of superiority.
You also need to look at some statistics as to how many Americans actually benefit from the “opportunity”. You and I may know what we want and we may have the tools to go about getting it and we may be willing to take the risks and do the work as well. But we are talking about how to manage huge societal problems and not certain individuals. There are not nearly as many ambitious individuals as you think…and that is a good thing. Ambition for wealth leads to the consumption of an inordinate amount of limited planet resources.
So drop the negative propaganda and misconceptions about socialism and about developing countries. My impression is that the Cubans are just as happy with their system as the Ticos are with theirs.
And I’ll bet there are a whole lot more americans who are unhappy with their current health care system…and rightly so. We rank pretty low in the world as far as national health and life expectancy goes. That is another stat you should not forget.
“There are not nearly as many ambitious individuals as you think…and that is a good thing.”
I agree that there are not nearly as many ambitious people, but only in the context of “as there once were”. Self-reliance is the inevitable victim of the nanny-state mentality. The fly-in-the-ointment of your argument is that by discouraging ambition and achievement, you reduce the pool of higher income achievers. There are the same folks that are expected to fund this brave new system. Remembering Aesop: “The goose that lays the golden eggs”; the beauty of fables is that they demonstrate larger truths.
Let me add one more bullet point to my new, improved plan for U.S. Healthcare:
7.) Everyone should pay income taxes, regardless of income. The notion that the overhead of a country as large and diverse as the U.S. can be paid for by less than 1/2 of it’s population is ludicrous. Adding to that, anteing up for the healthcare of 20-30 million illegal immigrants is a bank-buster, as the CBO has been trying to get across to Obama for a month now. (crickets chirping)
Edited on Jul 27, 2009 13:31
Hey Ed…. How about the politicians PUSHING this change just come up with a REAL FIRM PLAN that we can all look at and discuss. I read about all different PLANS…. all different ways it’s going to be FUNDED…. how it’s going to work side by side with EXISTING plans… how EVERYONE will be included…. how it will BENEFIT EVERYONE… how it won’t cost folks MORE… yet I haven’t seen a plan that we can discuss that has any real SUBSTANCE… all smoke and mirrors… yet Obama is pushing for a vote! Unless Joe Biden found a money tree in his yard it’s going to cost SOMEONE…. and that someone will be the same folks that are placed on the hook for every other government program out there….
Perhaps before we create ANOTHER giant government program that will make Medicare and Social Security look small in comparison … we should have some clue as to how it will work… and more importantly… WHO and HOW it will be paid for… or perhaps you’re happy how the two GIANT social programs I mentioned have panned out?
Let’s get real… Social Security and Medicare are ticking time bombs… and what are the folks in Washington talking about… creating a BIGGER bomb that our child and grandchildren will be dealing with!
I have the definite impression that some of the folks protesting the most stridently have done quite well the last few years/decades…despite being the self proclaimed ones “on the hook” for every social program out there. Is it the notion (real or not) of social conscious and commitment of those now in power that disturbs you, or that your golden calf might be turning to stone? Thirty years of unadulterated capitalistic rampaging (yea, Clinton too) has NOT left this country in a better place. Watch out, the blinders will spoil your tan.
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