Everyone covered by healthcare?

[SmallTownGuy]

Dysia

If I was a CEO of a multinational corporation, I would want my employees to be in the best possible condition and that would demand they have the same health care standards and choices I myself would be happy with.

Maybe that's why you and I aren't CEOs? Most big CEOs seem to list employees firmly on the "liability" side of the balance sheet, not the "asset" side. They want to maximize profits, not expenses. If an employee gets sick or injured, fire them and hire someone else.

(Railroads in the USA used to be famous for firing injured employees, until they were finally unionized. Even then, my next-door neighbor had to sue to get compensation when he lost his leg in a rail yard accident. And then the railroad fired him for suing.)

[Alchameer]

from blue to

Power of Alchemy

from blue to

I could agree the government needs to get more efficient, but I don't think it should be providing health care to everyone (least of all doing so using the corrupt crony capitalist system as the delivery method). Really I don't think the government should be doing anything that requires that it force people to give it money to fund it. Taxation is theft -- nothing built on theft is good.

It makes a trip to the hospital affordable for those who are considered working poor such as myself. My current job offers "health insurance" but it costs so much that I cannot afford it due to bills I am responsible for. The way you talk makes me think you already have health insurance. I could be wrong though.

You're right. I've been without before, and I know it's a risky position to be in. I just don't see government as a valid answer, at least not the way it operates now.

I'd rather be able to pay something that I could actually afford rather than going into debt for the rest of my life. This is an option I'll take. America's health care system needs an overhaul. The obamacare package is more of a bandage than an overhaul.

Besides, those signing on for obamacare will be charged just as much as those who are not (unless that price has changed). It will cost someone 1% of their yearly earnings for the healthcare, and those who refuse to take it will be charged an additional 1% of their yearly income. I'd imagine that excludes people who already have insurance through a job.

[Jessi Danger]

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

for the government to come up with a way to cover everyone and attempt to make it more efficient?

Government never makes anything more efficient.
Milton Friedman: "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand”

Haha good quote. I agree. It would be nice if they could become more efficient, and hopefully one day they will. America is known for its inefficiency.

I don't see how exactly a government entity is any more or less efficient then a non-government entity?

[Jessi Danger]

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

for the government to come up with a way to cover everyone and attempt to make it more efficient?

Government never makes anything more efficient.
Milton Friedman: "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand”

Haha good quote. I agree. It would be nice if they could become more efficient, and hopefully one day they will. America is known for its inefficiency.

American government is known for it's inefficiency, but American Free Market Economy is predominantly known for it's efficiency. Hence the Golden Era of the 1800's.
The Economy only became more inefficient with government becoming involved. Prolonging the Great Depression in cahoots with the Federal Reserve, Minimum Wage Laws, Advocating Unions, etc.

..... yes the golden age of child labor, mutilation injuries and subsequent firing, crony capitalism, government bribes, and using the State to suppress labor.

..... that golden era. >.>

[Christien Chalfant]

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

for the government to come up with a way to cover everyone and attempt to make it more efficient?

Government never makes anything more efficient.
Milton Friedman: "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand”

Haha good quote. I agree. It would be nice if they could become more efficient, and hopefully one day they will. America is known for its inefficiency.

American government is known for it's inefficiency, but American Free Market Economy is predominantly known for it's efficiency. Hence the Golden Era of the 1800's.
The Economy only became more inefficient with government becoming involved. Prolonging the Great Depression in cahoots with the Federal Reserve, Minimum Wage Laws, Advocating Unions, etc.

Efficient, yes, but those models make a lot of untrue assumptions, such as everyone is logical, or full employment in some. Also, then you have to find the middle of the road for efficiency and humanity. For instance, fair treatment of the labor force. It is much more efficient to pay them as little as possible and offer no benefits and bark orders, but then they rebel and strike which causes unions and minimum wage laws to protect them so they can be decently happy. Efficiency in the short term is different than in the long term and the middle class is who we need to be most efficient as a country, not just efficiency for companies.

Well everyone is somewhat logical and illogical, but then again it's not the government to make up for that human deficiency through regulation.
There's no model that I've ever seen that's even suggested full employment, such a thing is trivial and implausible.
Minimum Wage Laws don't protect people, it discriminates against them. Mainly against minority youths.
Unions no longer like to work for their job. A guest speaker from "UNITE HERE" came and talked in my sociology class about how 400 cleaning ladies at a casino in Las Vegas immediately started marching when they were told to clean 10 extra rooms for the day. The problem is that he was bragging. Bragging about how 400 women, most likely minority women, who probably have a tough financial life, decided not to do their job but instead march on the boss because the boss told them to do their job. That's not fair treatment. Especially when there's a number of cleaning ladies at the same casino who aren't apart of a Union cleaning their extra rooms.
The guest speaker also said how it was wrong for him to work 20 hours a week and get paid $8 an hour to clean dishes.
But when you think about it, he was working 3 hours a day, making $160 a week cleaning dishes. Now he also had plenty of time to find another part-time job. OR if he was really so unhappy and thought his job was unfair then he could've quite and looked for or found another job.
I think you misunderstand that many middle-classers own small businesses. My mother for example is an Upper Middle Class member, she owns and is a partner in a Law Firm. She employs about 10-15 people. She works 8 hours a day, coaches swim teams, plays harp in a symphony, is the first reader at church, as well as other things. She works for long-term success, companies if they want to be successful have to aim for long-term success.
Minimum Wage Laws have only kept the poor stuck in a cycle of Welfare. Unions discriminate against other workers. You say these things make people's lives better, but all you have to do is watch a video of Thomas Sowell debating against an Academic Socialist or watch/listen to a Milton Friedman lecture and the answers are clear. If you don't like those two, then maybe give Walter Williams a try.
My problem with Unions is that Unions always think they're right. They will almost never admit that they were wrong or made a stupid move when striking or marching. Whereas if a Boss is made aware of poor working conditions, more often than not a change will be made; the Boss will admit if they're wrong in cases. Whereas Unions are always "Right."
But I'm sure HOSTESS going out of business isn't the Unions fault, even though the Union members refused to work.
In my mind, if somebody doesn't want to work, then they should be fired.
Look at the Air Traffic Strike during Ronald Reagan's Administration. That's how to properly deal with a Union.

[Christien Chalfant]

Jessi Danger

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

for the government to come up with a way to cover everyone and attempt to make it more efficient?

Government never makes anything more efficient.
Milton Friedman: "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand”

Haha good quote. I agree. It would be nice if they could become more efficient, and hopefully one day they will. America is known for its inefficiency.

American government is known for it's inefficiency, but American Free Market Economy is predominantly known for it's efficiency. Hence the Golden Era of the 1800's.
The Economy only became more inefficient with government becoming involved. Prolonging the Great Depression in cahoots with the Federal Reserve, Minimum Wage Laws, Advocating Unions, etc.

..... yes the golden age of child labor, mutilation injuries and subsequent firing, crony capitalism, government bribes, and using the State to suppress labor.

..... that golden era. >.>

The Golden Era in efficiency and wealth.
But then again bosses didn't FORCE children to work, they offered a wage for them and the parents told them to work.
Mutilation injuries still exist to this day, that's really nothing special. The evolvement in technology is responsible for bettering those conditions.
Subsequent firing depends on the conditions of why they were fired. Because if someone isn't doing their job, I would fire them.
Crony Capitalism??? Well you can call it that because of Robber Barons, but there are Robber Barons today despite all the gov't regulation. Robber Barons aren't anything that's going to be going away anytime soon, those will always exist. All it takes one bad person in a powerful position.
Though it's unfair to the best economic system to be discredited because of a minority of bad company operators.
Gov't bribes? You're going to have to give me a source on that. Laissez-faire was still very popular then. Land grants to companies were as minor as small allotments of land for railways.
Using the state to suppress labor? Explain that too.
Besides al the things you cited still exist to this day despite the American Economy being mixed and ever so Socialist since the 1930's. No, since the 1900's.

[Christien Chalfant]

Jessi Danger

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

for the government to come up with a way to cover everyone and attempt to make it more efficient?

Government never makes anything more efficient.
Milton Friedman: "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand”

Haha good quote. I agree. It would be nice if they could become more efficient, and hopefully one day they will. America is known for its inefficiency.

I don't see how exactly a government entity is any more or less efficient then a non-government entity?

History.
Who runs businesses better; Gov't or Businesses?
Who knows how to farm better; Gov't or Farmers?
Who knows how to do Healthcare; Gov't or the Health Professionals?
Who knows more about sports; Gov't or Sports Professionals/Analysts/Coaches?

It's like when Obama talks about energy when he's never worked in the energy industry, doesn't have any sort of energy science background, yet apparently KNOWS what should be done in the energy industry.
You can't talk about the moon if you've never been there. You can't say how the moons surface is if you've never been on it, studied it by samples, or done anything like that.

Really. The answer is obvious

[Initiate_Sacred_Demise]

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

for the government to come up with a way to cover everyone and attempt to make it more efficient?

Government never makes anything more efficient.
Milton Friedman: "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand”

Haha good quote. I agree. It would be nice if they could become more efficient, and hopefully one day they will. America is known for its inefficiency.

American government is known for it's inefficiency, but American Free Market Economy is predominantly known for it's efficiency. Hence the Golden Era of the 1800's.
The Economy only became more inefficient with government becoming involved. Prolonging the Great Depression in cahoots with the Federal Reserve, Minimum Wage Laws, Advocating Unions, etc.

Efficient, yes, but those models make a lot of untrue assumptions, such as everyone is logical, or full employment in some. Also, then you have to find the middle of the road for efficiency and humanity. For instance, fair treatment of the labor force. It is much more efficient to pay them as little as possible and offer no benefits and bark orders, but then they rebel and strike which causes unions and minimum wage laws to protect them so they can be decently happy. Efficiency in the short term is different than in the long term and the middle class is who we need to be most efficient as a country, not just efficiency for companies.

Well everyone is somewhat logical and illogical, but then again it's not the government to make up for that human deficiency through regulation.
There's no model that I've ever seen that's even suggested full employment, such a thing is trivial and implausible.
Minimum Wage Laws don't protect people, it discriminates against them. Mainly against minority youths.
Unions no longer like to work for their job. A guest speaker from "UNITE HERE" came and talked in my sociology class about how 400 cleaning ladies at a casino in Las Vegas immediately started marching when they were told to clean 10 extra rooms for the day. The problem is that he was bragging. Bragging about how 400 women, most likely minority women, who probably have a tough financial life, decided not to do their job but instead march on the boss because the boss told them to do their job. That's not fair treatment. Especially when there's a number of cleaning ladies at the same casino who aren't apart of a Union cleaning their extra rooms.
The guest speaker also said how it was wrong for him to work 20 hours a week and get paid $8 an hour to clean dishes.
But when you think about it, he was working 3 hours a day, making $160 a week cleaning dishes. Now he also had plenty of time to find another part-time job. OR if he was really so unhappy and thought his job was unfair then he could've quite and looked for or found another job.
I think you misunderstand that many middle-classers own small businesses. My mother for example is an Upper Middle Class member, she owns and is a partner in a Law Firm. She employs about 10-15 people. She works 8 hours a day, coaches swim teams, plays harp in a symphony, is the first reader at church, as well as other things. She works for long-term success, companies if they want to be successful have to aim for long-term success.
Minimum Wage Laws have only kept the poor stuck in a cycle of Welfare. Unions discriminate against other workers. You say these things make people's lives better, but all you have to do is watch a video of Thomas Sowell debating against an Academic Socialist or watch/listen to a Milton Friedman lecture and the answers are clear. If you don't like those two, then maybe give Walter Williams a try.
My problem with Unions is that Unions always think they're right. They will almost never admit that they were wrong or made a stupid move when striking or marching. Whereas if a Boss is made aware of poor working conditions, more often than not a change will be made; the Boss will admit if they're wrong in cases. Whereas Unions are always "Right."
But I'm sure HOSTESS going out of business isn't the Unions fault, even though the Union members refused to work.
In my mind, if somebody doesn't want to work, then they should be fired.
Look at the Air Traffic Strike during Ronald Reagan's Administration. That's how to properly deal with a Union.

Well I don't think current unions are a good thing, but at one point in time they served their purpose. Also, working a minimum wage job means you make too much for complete welfare, unless you have a ton of kids.

[Suicidesoldier#1]

SmallTownGuy

Dysia

If I was a CEO of a multinational corporation, I would want my employees to be in the best possible condition and that would demand they have the same health care standards and choices I myself would be happy with.

Maybe that's why you and I aren't CEOs? Most big CEOs seem to list employees firmly on the "liability" side of the balance sheet, not the "asset" side. They want to maximize profits, not expenses. If an employee gets sick or injured, fire them and hire someone else.

(Railroads in the USA used to be famous for firing injured employees, until they were finally unionized. Even then, my next-door neighbor had to sue to get compensation when he lost his leg in a rail yard accident. And then the railroad fired him for suing.)

Except that it would be more efficient to have healthy, well trained, well motivated workers than not well motivated workers. xp

[Jessi Danger]

Christien Chalfant

Jessi Danger

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Christien Chalfant

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

for the government to come up with a way to cover everyone and attempt to make it more efficient?

Government never makes anything more efficient.
Milton Friedman: "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand”

Haha good quote. I agree. It would be nice if they could become more efficient, and hopefully one day they will. America is known for its inefficiency.

I don't see how exactly a government entity is any more or less efficient then a non-government entity?

History.
Who runs businesses better; Gov't or Businesses?
Who knows how to farm better; Gov't or Farmers?
Who knows how to do Healthcare; Gov't or the Health Professionals?
Who knows more about sports; Gov't or Sports Professionals/Analysts/Coaches?

It's like when Obama talks about energy when he's never worked in the energy industry, doesn't have any sort of energy science background, yet apparently KNOWS what should be done in the energy industry.
You can't talk about the moon if you've never been there. You can't say how the moons surface is if you've never been on it, studied it by samples, or done anything like that.

Really. The answer is obvious

Lets ask a question. What exactly constitutes better? We may have an different answers.

[Christien Chalfant]

Initiate_Sacred_Demise

Well I don't think current unions are a good thing, but at one point in time they served their purpose. Also, working a minimum wage job means you make too much for complete welfare, unless you have a ton of kids.

I agree with you that at one point in time Unions did some good. Because they brought up things that were safety risks. But now these current unions are so ridiculous.
Even if that's the case with welfare, my point is that a black/hispanic teenager who comes from a poor home, neighborhood, and terrible public school will most likely not be able to get a minimum wage job.
That job would be important in supporting his/her family possibly as well as acquiring skills.
Teenagers are low-skilled workers and minimum wage more often than not stops them from acquiring skills by working an entry-level job.
So let's say in the extreme case, In a world without minimum wage, a black 15 yr old gets a job that pays around $3-$5 an hour. That's only his first year on the job, over the next 3-4 years if he works at the same place or any place for that matter, he will acquire skills.
Then when he's 18, regardless of if he's graduated high school or not, regardless if he has the resources to go to college, He has skills that will allow him to keep working.
Within 3-6 years of working at a gas station, or being an errand boy for a law firm, the teenager will acquire skills that could quite possibly keep him from being stuck in the cycle of welfare.
Minimum wage is meant to be a wage that people can live off of. But that's to say there is a Universal Number that will apply to all poor, which simply is just not the case.

[Lilly_Quill]

How much money do other countries tax for this health care? And how often? Because I don’t think I could afford to dish out much more than I already do. I work 40-45 hours a week above min. wage, live in a little one bedroom apartment (nothing special: no washer/dryer or anything), no cable, no internet(using public computer/internet). Last time I had to pay for car repairs, I didn’t have money for food for two months so I could pay for rent and utilities and tuition and books. I didn’t have anything to eat for about three weeks. I’ve been trying to get an extra part time job but businesses are not hiring and so many people are also looking for work. The thought of more taxes scares me.

[tista077]

Canadians are covered with health care. But we get taxed a bit.

[low iq 111]

Sir Deranged Reindeer

low iq 111

Sir Deranged Reindeer

I think it's ridiculous that America doesn't already have universal health care. I can't get over the fact that in the US, if you get a cancer diagnosis, if you don't have healthcare, you lose your house to pay for treatment. And if you do have healthcare, it's probably through work, so you can't leave work to take the treatment without losing health cover, and if you do, then you won't be able to get health care again, because no one who wants to hire you. That's ******** up.

Meanwhile, in every other first world country, we have universal healthcare, and the world hasn't imploded. And if you want extra cover, and have some extra money, you have the option to buy private healthcare.

Personally I use healthcare all the freaking time, and would probably be dead if the government wasn't paying for a large percentage of it.

i think it's ridiculous that you feel entitled to a house and cancer treatment.

yurop likes to brag about giving everyone healthcare but they always forget that a large part of their economy is supported by people who are basically slave laborers in other countries.

So anyone who can't afford to pay the USA's ridiculously inflated medical treatment prices deserves to die homeless because they got sick due to no fault of the own?

And how do you mean Europe's economy is supported by slave labourers? If you mean importing goods from countries with questionable workers rights/ child labour, America does exactly the same.

no i didn't say anything like that. if you read my posts i support some national healthcare. also, many reasons people die is no one's 'fault'. it's just something that happens and you have to get used to it.

you are trying to act morally superior in that you give all of your citizens healthcare yet you are hypocrites because you import things made by slave laborers in other countries. if you had true values you would stop importing things from those people and you would not even deserve to have a house and any and all health care and a car etc etc etc everything under the sun. you would give up some of your luxuries to care for the poor around the world. but right now you are exploiting the poor in the world to satisfy your own needs. that's ridiculous.

america does it too but we don't try to act morally superior.

[A Drunk Damsel]

from blue to

azulmagia

But...but...that would mean negroes and other unworthy moochers would get healthcare!

You want service, you gots to pay. And Seriously, who still cares about color. You know what, I'm gonna do it. I don't care how awful it is. I'm gonna quote ICP. "******** skin color. Everybody's blue. Then what would all these bigots do?"

I'm black and my byofriend is white and both of groups of friends were really surprised that we decided to date.