American Health care reform protests

[optimus prime]

If anyone can guess how many hairs I have on my head I will tell you where I buried Aussie.

 

[Cassin]

Lol

 

[somone uk]

While I don't advocate the termination of the site, it may be important to institute greater moderation of the site to limit the adverse effects that it can cause.

well the perk of 4chan is that it is one of the last truly free parts of the internet, i would think it would lose all it has if it was moderated better
imho i think the rape murder would of taken place otherwise

here is another screwed up story on 4chan

 

[Cassin]

Holy sh*t that's awesome. 4chan does some good!

I got nothing against the site ... Just say some sick stuff the one and only time I went there . And heard some crazy stuff since then.

Seems like a lot of Internet humor/ sayings begin there.

 

[Cassin]

Hey btw that quote isn't me directly... I was quoting someone else

 

[CCS]

Is health care in Europe sustainable, or going bankrupt?
And which country creates new medical technology fastest?

 

[HughJass]

And which country creates new medical technology fastest?

Which country is the fattest and unhealthiest and relies on medical technologies it otherwise wouldn't need if it wasn't so fat and unhealthy.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Australia?

NHS could do with a bit of fat trimmed from its management levels, but its still generally affordable. It's our unfunded public sector pensions that will drag us down......................................

 

[somone uk]

has the bill passed yet?

America passing the healthcare bill is a lot like America getting rid of bush, it's for the better but you somehow like laughing at the stupid things he says and you can't have that unless he's president
if America passes the healthcare bill it'll be for the better but then if i am not mistaken America will no longer have liberty medical featuring Wilford Brimley and his "diabeetus" :woot:
[youtube:20qs9l55]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eApR0PFP50[/youtube:20qs9l55]

 

[The Gardener]

Like I said above, if one wants to get a sneak peek into what government-run health care would be like in the future if implemented amongst the general citizenry, perhaps one should consider looking at how the government runs health care right now, under the VA infrastructure:

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
. . .
On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of "Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.

Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.

"We've done our duty. We fought the war. We came home wounded. Fine. But whoever the people are back here who are supposed to give us the easy transition should be doing it," said Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, 26, an amputee who lived at Walter Reed for 16 months. "We don't know what to do. The people who are supposed to know don't have the answers. It's a nonstop process of stalling.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01172.html

VFW Commander-in-Chief Edward S. Banas Sr., of Voluntown, Conn., said that with only a $500 million increase in medical funding, the administration's budget falls $2.6 billion short of what the Independent Budget recommends is needed to fully meet the demands for quality veterans' health care. "This funding package is a disgrace and a sham," Banas said.

"This deplorable budget will do nothing to alleviate the many thousands of veterans who are waiting six months or more for basic health care appointments with VA. Instead, the budget seeks to drive veterans from the system by realigning funding, charging enrollment fees for access and more than doubling the prescription drug copayment.

http://www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=news.newsdtl&did=1576

Feeling Warehoused in Army Trauma Care Units

Created in the wake of the scandal in 2007 over serious shortcomings at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Warrior Transition Units were intended to be sheltering way stations where injured soldiers could recuperate and return to duty or gently process out of the Army. There are currently about 7,200 soldiers at 32 transition units across the Army, with about 465 soldiers at Fort Carson’s unit.

But interviews with more than a dozen soldiers and health care professionals from Fort Carson’s transition unit, along with reports from other posts, suggest that the units are far from being restful sanctuaries. For many soldiers, they have become warehouses of despair, where damaged men and women are kept out of sight, fed a diet of powerful prescription pills and treated harshly by noncommissioned officers. Because of their wounds, soldiers in Warrior Transition Units are particularly vulnerable to depression and addiction, but many soldiers from Fort Carson’s unit say their treatment there has made their suffering worse.

“It is just a dark place,â€￾ said the soldier, who is waiting to be medically discharged from the Army. “Being in the W.T.U. is worse than being in Iraq.â€￾

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/healt ... or.html?hp

Do any of you Americans REALLY want the US Goverment to be in charge of your health care?

Really??

 

[Nene]

@ someone UK - yes the healthcare law passed but it's a bunch of BS. Basically now everyone is required to buy insurance if they don't already have it through their employer or school or whatever, and if they can't afford it the government will help them pay for it. So basically the government is giving private insurance companies more business and tax payer dollars. I wanted to government to offer its own insurance policy.

@ The gardener - Yes really, enough with the VA, ever hear of medicare?

 

[Nene]

And which country creates new medical technology fastest?

Which country is the fattest and unhealthiest and relies on medical technologies it otherwise wouldn't need if it wasn't so fat and unhealthy.

Wait, was he really asking or was that rhetorical?

 

[The Gardener]

Medicare... oh, you mean THIS Medicare?:

"Could You Die Faster? Medicare’s Broke."
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money ... broke/290/

"Medicare Fraud Rampant In South Florida"
http://www.theledger.com/article/200808 ... /808170392

"FBI reports to Congress: widespread Medicare corruption found."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10297849

"Medicare ‘Rip-Off’ Hits Elderly"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

 

[Nene]

Medicare... oh, you mean THIS Medicare?:

"Could You Die Faster? Medicare’s Broke."
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money ... broke/290/

"Medicare Fraud Rampant In South Florida"
http://www.theledger.com/article/200808 ... /808170392

"FBI reports to Congress: widespread Medicare corruption found."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10297849

"Medicare ‘Rip-Off’ Hits Elderly"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

I could post a million links showing how horrible private insurance is...

 

[somone uk]

@ someone UK - yes the healthcare law passed but it's a bunch of BS. Basically now everyone is required to buy insurance if they don't already have it through their employer or school or whatever, and if they can't afford it the government will help them pay for it. So basically the government is giving private insurance companies more business and tax payer dollars. I wanted to government to offer its own insurance policy.

that is a really bad implementation of the policy
i had concerns that America couldn't just switch to a NHS style healthcare system overnight and even that such a change would have to be phased out longer and that would be longer than obama would have in office etc
i mean i think America should of just copied and pasted what the uk has

 

[The Gardener]

Medicare... oh, you mean THIS Medicare?:

"Could You Die Faster? Medicare’s Broke."
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money ... broke/290/

"Medicare Fraud Rampant In South Florida"
http://www.theledger.com/article/200808 ... /808170392

"FBI reports to Congress: widespread Medicare corruption found."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10297849

"Medicare ‘Rip-Off’ Hits Elderly"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

I could post a million links showing how horrible private insurance is...

Sure... But at least with private insurance you have recourse. And you have choices.

If there is corruption or flawed service with a private insurance provider, you can sue them. And as a result, people get compensated, and the corrupt or incompetent people get fired.

On the other hand, with the Federal government, due to sovereign immunity lawsuits can and are routinely tossed out of court. Government workers don't get fired. And you don't get compensation, you get ripped off.

Add to this the fact that corruption, graft, and incompetence are firmly embedded in the government, and you get what I think would be a mess. And I'm not just saying this as a debating talking point, I've posted some solid citations to back what I believe are very reasonable grounds to have a great deal of skepticism about this.

People in the US who do have health insurance, and haven't been screwed by having a pre-existing condition or screwed by having a substandard policy, generally get some of the best health care in the world. I agree that some of these flaws need to be addressed but nationalizing it is not something I think would be a good idea.

Let me take a step back, and give a more "high altitude" view of my position. I don't necessarily disagree with universal health care, from a purely philosophical standpoint. Sure, I think it would be a great thing to have, and would support it, from a philosophical perspective.

The disagreement I have with it is not the philosophy, it is the execution of the program. I think we need to take a long, hard, and honest look about how well or how poorly the US government executes its actions.

Frankly, it's dismal. Let's review:
1) Where the government DOES currently provide health care, their record is abominably bad.
2) In other sectors where the Federal government is tasked to provide social services, such as airport security, domestic disaster response, Medicare, Social Security, the IRS, the SEC, the Treasury department, Border Control, etc. the results have clearly been substandard, and characterized by long waits for service, long lines, incompentence, failure, and gross financial mismanagement.
3) The government has a long record of de-prioritizing social services. They have a record of instituting a tax on us to fund specific social service goals, only to have those funds then re-prioritized for other, non-social services related priorities. The end result has been decades of hollowing out and de-funding of Medicare, Social Security, etc. We have paid taxes to fund these activities, and the money is all gone, meaning the government ends up breaking the promises and, in the end, giving us sub-standard service.

It's not that I don't like national health care. I do. It's that I don't trust THIS government, IN PARTICULAR, to do it. Let's face the facts... they won't. They'll take the money and spend it on other things. Thinking that this behavior will change is wishful thinking, and is not supported in any sense of historical reality.

In short, I think those who believe that the US government could oversee any sort of a national health care scheme are in fantasyland.

i mean i think America should of just copied and pasted what the uk has

If we did, it would be broke in two years, tops. Your government is just better, more efficient, and less corrupt than ours is. They would bleed this dry faster than you could say "Mississippi".

For another example of this, one need only look at our "national rail system", Amtrak. It's a long standing joke.

 

[HughJass]

why don't you consider a run for office Gardener? why the f not?

 

[The Gardener]

why don't you consider a run for office Gardener? why the f not?

Because neither of the political parties would help raise funds for me.

The choice is either to serve in office as a lackey to the elites, and forget or ignore my personal principles... or try to serve in accordance with my principles, in which case I'd either never pass through the party vetting and not get money to finance a campaign, or, if I somehow did make it into office, they'e either discredit me or kill me.

Back onto the topic of US government run health care:

US VA (Veterans Administration) hospital may have inadvertantly infected 1,800 patients with HIV:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/30/va.hos ... index.html

Anyone want to give up their private hospital, and instead have these guys handling your health...??

 

[somone uk]

the us needs to start nationalising some of the hospitals and healthcare providers if it's going to succeed with it's free healthcare

 

[HughJass]

why don't you consider a run for office Gardener? why the f not?

Because neither of the political parties would help raise funds for me.

The choice is either to serve in office as a lackey to the elites, and forget or ignore my personal principles... or try to serve in accordance with my principles, in which case I'd either never pass through the party vetting and not get money to finance a campaign, or, if I somehow did make it into office, they'e either discredit me or kill me.

Ron Paul got in somehow.....


Surely there must be a base of anti-establishment voters in California screaming for an outsider?