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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
 Posted - 09/29/2008 : 06:43:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by calebjones1234
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
[quote]Well, it's impossible to imagine that the US is going to switch to a government takeover of hospitals and health care providers.
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It would also have been just recently impossible to imagine the government taking over the finical industry. |
Except that they haven't taken over "the financial industry". |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 07:46:17 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Zeked
Dave, you have said much that is total sh!t. |
You can say so as much as you like. Doesn't make it true.| Then by your admission, your argument is sincere. Amazing! |
Yet you point out nothing that would make it seem otherwise.| Taxes are not optional, they are forced, extorted. |
So personal freedom trumps community agreement?According to Dave, “I” am a hypocrite if I use any product resulting from extorted funds, while personaly objecting to extortion.
This is a completely asinine argument. Dave, make a case. |
I did, and I will again: there are plenty of people who have refused offers of "blood money." They've done so on the principle that accepting the benefits of something that they consider to be morally wrong would itself be morally wrong. Many call that "integrity."| Dave claims I am “taking advantage” of publicly funded projects. Proof Dave? |
Didn't you hear? Al Gore invented the Internet.| There must be a general concept of abuse that excludes personal knowledge. (for all you know, I have lived in Thailand for 12 years, no burden on US infrastructure, only twice visited a US embassy, just paying enormous US taxes with no expectation of any return…ever!) |
If so, then you've lied on your SFN profile, and so have ruined your credibility.Thought experiment:
A slave can clearly criticize the injustices of slavery without being hypocritical. Whether the slave personally, directly or indirectly benefits. |
A slave has a choice only between accepting the hypothetical benefits of slavery, or a slow suicide by starvation. As has already been pointed out, a U.S. citizen has the option of living without using publicly funded projects. A U.S. citizen also has the option of leaving. Your thought experiment is therefore not very well thought out. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 09:20:02 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by calebjones1234
In Oregon's "free health plan" the State sent an elderly cancer patient a letter stating they they would not pay for her doctor prescribed treatment, treatment which she had had payed for in the past. To add insult to injury, in the same letter in which the State refused to pay for the doctor prescribed treatment, the State offered to pay for doctor assisted suicide. |
Ok; until you provide a link for the bolden art, I call bullshit with all the strength of my little but powerful lungs.
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 09:37:19 [Permalink]
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Oregan's Death with Dignity Law.
Seems reasonable enogh to me.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 09:58:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Well once Palin plays the 'poor persecuted me' card at the VP debate, who knows what will happen. I predict she will break down in tears, intentionally.
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I think that's off the table now. After her last two interviews I don't think ANYONE is expecting much from her.....which could help her. If she even comes off as being "smarter than a fifth grader" it could actually bolster her "followers". Biden should go at her and go hard. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 10:05:02 [Permalink]
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Zeked:
The US is clearly embracing socialist government programs, so can we just accept that and move on to dissecting the programs for value and credibility? Yes/No? |
We have had socialist programs going back to the new deal. It's nothing new. There are a lot of older people who live on social security, for example. Where would they be without it? It's my opinion that a government should implement programs that do the most good for the most people and not get stuck on a single ideology. As best as we can, we should do what what works, sometimes using another countries approach to a problem as an example.
I, for one, would not be opposed to the complete socialization of the healthcare system, because I see healthcare as a necessity and a basic right. But I am open to market driven solutions if they can be found. The important thing to me is that if I fall on hard times, or even if I made some bad choices, the sentence for that shouldn't be death or my permanent removal from the work force because I couldn't get the medical treatment that would have kept me productive. (My recent back surgery is an example of that. After completing my recovery, I will be able to earn taxable wages again.) The bottom line for me is that if healthcare insurance costs can be brought down to reasonable levels, (as they once were) well within the grasp of most working people, including the self employed like me, with a safety net (real health insurance without insane deductibles) for those who fall below that line, I will be satisfied.
It's my opinion that at the very least, health insurance providers should be tax-exempt non-profit organizations, which would lower their bottom line, with perhaps some assistance from the general fund if needed. The whole industry needs an overhaul, not likely to happen anytime soon…
On the other hand business needs room to grow, prosper and employ as many people as possible. Hopefully we have learned where a lack of regulation and oversight will lead. So the balancing act here is to provide breathing room and incentive for companies to grow while keeping unbridled greed in check. The 20-year assault on reasonable rules and regulations has brought us to where we are now.
We need to mix and match our solutions without getting bogged down by ideology. I do not believe that pure systems can work. A fully free market and a fully socialistic state place's too much reliance, with little or no evidence to support its assumptions, on good behavior by everyone, and especially by those who are running things. It's time to get used to the fact that nothing we come up with is going to be perfect and please everyone.
Zeked:
Average citizen - Yes, you do have a right to health care, just as you have a right to food, shelter and property. However, you have no "right" to force others to provide these things for you - All "free" medical care is subsidized through taxes stolen from other people. |
But now, that “right” translates into the ability to purchase premiums that are too costly to buy for many working people. They have the "right" but lack the means. (And it's not like they are looking for you to subsidize their purchase of a 50" HDTV for them. All "rights" are not equal.) Again, that you view any public cost for healthcare as money stolen from you demonstrates your selfishness and a lack of empathy.
Try to imagine yourself suddenly without employment, or without an employer who subsidizes your healthcare and with a history of diabetes and asthma. What would you do if you couldn't make your premiums or if the deductible was so large for a procedure that you needed to get back on your feet that it would bankrupt you? What then? Would you fall back on your ideology and a |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 10:15:26 [Permalink]
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Big Papa's social healthcare plan:
Free healthcare for everyone, (excluding Mauritanians naturally) until you hit 80, then no healthcare for anyone! Anyone caught getting health care after 80 gets exiled to Mauritania. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 10:31:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by astropin
...If she even comes off as being "smarter than a fifth grader" it could actually bolster her "followers". Biden should go at her and go hard. |
Yes, the danger as I see it for Biden is: if Palen, as brainless as she is nevertheless manages to simply hold her own and at least appear coherent, even with clichés, she'll gain "50 points" with lowbrow voters. On the other hand, if Biden, despite being obviously a better debater is logical and direct but not as forcefully engaging with viewers, he'd gain only "10 points" because more is expected of him. Palen though the loser could appear to have gained more. But I think Biden knows this so I'm hopeful he'll be engaging to voters while completely demolishing her statements and arguments. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 10:35:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Big Papa's social healthcare plan:
Free healthcare for everyone, (excluding Mauritanians naturally) until you hit 80, then no healthcare for anyone! Anyone caught getting health care after 80 gets exiled to Mauritania.
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Why not 30? |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 10:40:12 [Permalink]
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| Maybe you have to be a moral atheist or having had to grown up in a nation with socialized healthcare (Sweden) to appreciate the benefits of healthcare for everyone. (At least for the US, it would seem like there is a strong correlation between being religious and not wanting healthcare-for-all). Just a quick, not reasearched, thought. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Zeked
Skeptic Friend
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 11:30:04 [Permalink]
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Kil
| Empathy starts by imagining what it would be like to walk in another persons shoes |
I know it would be appealing to wave a wand and make everyone rich so they could have all that they desire. That is not reality, and that is not sustainable under any government. There are costs that must be paid. You can not have more paid out than what comes in, as that is unsustainable.
Now if the US took tarrifs and taxes and used these to employ doctors and build a health care system that was sustainable - great. If that is what we want, we should do it as a nation.
These should not be born out by debt - this is nonsense. Stop the government excessive spending, act frugal, maybe these socialist programs can work. They can not work if they function only by creation of debt.
***
Dave
| You can say so as much as you like. Doesn't make it true. |
EOM |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 11:43:23 [Permalink]
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Zeked:
I know it would be appealing to wave a wand and make everyone rich so they could have all that they desire. That is not reality, and that is not sustainable under any government. There are costs that must be paid. You can not have more paid out than what comes in, as that is unsustainable.
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If the above is in answer to anything I wrote; nice strawman...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 11:58:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Zeked
| You can say so as much as you like. Doesn't make it true. |
EOM |
What better way to convince someone that you're right than to stop talking to them?
But it shouldn't be surprising. On the one hand, you say that taxes are extortion and limit personal freedom, and on the other hand if we decide "as a nation" to use tax money to provide a service, it is "great."
No wonder you're choosing to send End-of-Message: you don't make any sense, and you know it. The more your ideas are examined, the more bizarre they appear. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 12:08:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Zeked
Now if the US took tarrifs and taxes and used these to employ doctors and build a health care system that was sustainable - great. If that is what we want, we should do it as a nation.
These should not be born out by debt - this is nonsense. Stop the government excessive spending, act frugal, maybe these socialist programs can work. They can not work if they function only by creation of debt. |
So... You are for a 'socialized' medicine finally you just want its cost to be kept under control.
Of course, if a government budgets is unbalanced, who is to say that it is due to the cost of the medicine rather than the one of the military or of schools, or the infrastructure maintenance...
At least, public medicine, compared to defense, would have a better return in term of budget, as it would keep people more economically productive longer.
Not to mention that some of the investment costs, for example for equipment or R&D would stay the same regardless of how many people can use them. So, public medicine would allow for a higher 'bang for our bucks' there.
Similarly, if more people gained access to treatment, some drugs could be produced on a bigger scale allowing to lower their production cost... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Zeked
Skeptic Friend
USA
90 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 14:32:59 [Permalink]
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Dave
"Socialized medicine, socialized markets – meh, dollars from my pocket and less personal liberty, more government controls."
Zeked isn't doing that, though. He's effectively saying that societies should be without government, because having one necessarily takes money from the citizens' pockets and denies them some personal freedom. Which, of course, denies the right of the people to collectively say, "we should create a government."
And your typical cave-dwelling, bark-wearing hermit would disagree that "we need to live in society." The Unabomber would still be free today in his self-imposed exile if he had decided that removing himself from society was good enough. |
Explain will you? How do you draw such fantastic conclusions?
| If so, then you've lied on your SFN profile, and so have ruined your credibility. |
Are you nuts?
| Didn't you hear? Al Gore invented the Internet. |
Never mind the previous question. You have already answered.
Yeah, I think we are done Dave.
Simon
| So... You are for a 'socialized' medicine finally you just want its cost to be kept under control. |
No, I do not think it is right for the government to steal my money just so you can have health care. When the majority feel that we "must" have socialized err.. universal healthcare - all I can do is suggest that it be done without a system of debt.
If you want it - great! Go for it. Knock yourself out.
The Obama UHC plan is based on Medicare and Medicaid - look to see if those are robust and run with a balanced budget.
Does one feel confident the US government can make a UHC system that is viable?
Kil
Just rambling. I'll add it to my scarecrow collection. |
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Debate!
