JerryLove

JerryLove

Audioholic Samurai
In general (not responding to an individual):
People are dying who would be saved by universal healthcare.
People are experiencing delays in care because they cannot fund it that would be saved by universal healthcare.
People are going bankrupt (the majority of all bankruptcies in the US) that would be saved by this plan.
Administrative overhead is not only adding costs but lowering care (doctors have to spend time on this rather than payments) , which would be solved by a single-payer system.

And there's no better plan on the table at the moment.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
Agreed, and I am in favor of expanded coverage (perhaps not universal, as including illegal aliens), I'm just not supporter of the Sanders bill.
Exactly why it won't ever get passed even if Sanders gets elected. Can't have a plan without a plan to pay for it.
 
thrillcat

thrillcat

Audioholic Intern
Exactly why it won't ever get passed even if Sanders gets elected. Can't have a plan without a plan to pay for it.
Just take it out of military funding like we’re doing for the wall.


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panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
Just take it out of military funding like we’re doing for the wall.


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I agree with that. There are lots of places that we are over spending that could help with this. There are lots of places the drug companies are spending that they wouldn't need to any longer if this got approved that would help with their profits.
 
JerryLove

JerryLove

Audioholic Samurai
Exactly why it won't ever get passed even if Sanders gets elected. Can't have a plan without a plan to pay for it.
There's trillions in debt that say otherwise.

Though how about simply returning to whatever taxation rates you prefer anywhere from 1945 to 1979?
 
JerryLove

JerryLove

Audioholic Samurai
Another complaint I keep hearing is that use will go up if there's no cost to using. (no co-pay, no deductible).

Here's why that's a dumb argument:
Copays and (worse) deductibles aren't scaled.

Any number you pick, if it isn't a downright barrier to the poor, is irrelevant to the well-to-do.

$25/visit is enough to cause huge issues for someone with complex medical issues living paycheck to paycheck, but what I spend on a typical lunch; so almost interchangeable with "free" (not like I'm going to multiple visits per day).

Unless you are going to tie copay to income (which literally no one has proposed in a bill anywhere); it's yet another subliminal "the poor are abusers causing your problems".
 
JerryLove

JerryLove

Audioholic Samurai
Why not? It is free.;)

Oh, you work, you have better things to do. :D
Because I spend my day arguing with you guys :D. (actually, the issue would be that it takes me a long time to get an appointment; and when I do, it takes them forever to actually see me.)

The ER is already free to people who have no money. I think I'd rather have them somewhere cheaper :p
 
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kystorm

kystorm

Audioholic
My only childhood fantasy is to want my money to do good, preferably for me, rather than support subsidies to oil companies, pharmaceutical conglomerates, and a military industrial complex.

The fact is I do pay taxes and do fund a government. I want roads, bridges, healthcare, industry oversight, affordable education, opportunities and a social safety net.

What do you want from it? Because the right seems to spend it on private prisons.
I want limited government and not an over expanding government that threatens peoples liberty/freedom with its over reach of power. People have to decide, do they want more freedom or more government... Cause it's hard to have both.
 
JerryLove

JerryLove

Audioholic Samurai
I want limited government and not an over expanding government that threatens peoples liberty/freedom with its over reach of power. People have to decide, do they want more freedom or more government... Cause it's hard to have both.
All governments are limited government and everyone opposes over-reach. Without specific definitions, you are simply rhetorical.

Given that democrats are more liberal civilly (fewer laws regulating what you can do) and end up with more balanced budgets; I must assume you are a democrat, because otherwise your actions don't align with your rhetoric.

(and you are, of course, completely wrong. You can have very little government and very little freedom; or you can have lots of government and lots of freedom... Europe isn't less free than North Africa, even though it has more government). Indeed: rights (freedoms) are guaranteed by governments. Government-less states are not known for their freedom.

In fact: this lovely internet was the product of government.
 
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Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
In fact: this lovely internet was the product of government.
This isn't really correct, Jerry, because the internet as we know it being a "product of government" is a gross exaggeration.

The origins of packet-switching networks go back to the early 1960s at MIT. By the middle to late 1960s The US Department of Defense was building an inter-networking technology based on packet-switching for some of its supercomputers called ARPANET, and work on this DoD network continued through the early 1980s. Some of the protocols developed for use on ARPANET were what became Internet Protocol (IP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). These are just networking protocols, they are not the Internet. Important foundational technologies for the internet as we know it, but left solely to the government it is profoundly unlikely that the internet would exist. TCP/IP was implemented in commercial products that I remember from AT&T, DEC, and IBM, and they provided the engineers that enhanced and extended the original specifications. The protocol work including IP and TCP (and the other supported IP transport layers, UDP and SCTP) has been controlled by an international standards group called the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) since the early 1990s. They control what's in the specifications for the protocols, but again, they're only the specifications for the protocols. (IETF also provides a common reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing framework service for IP-related patents, which is what allows many companies to participate freely and build products to the specifications with as little friction as possible.)

The physical public internet itself was built by private companies (AT&T, as an example), Internet Service Providers (ISPs), in the 1980s, and is still a private commercial industry (at least in the US). You can search for who the biggest ISPs are now, and they're all private companies.

The World-Wide Web wasn't invented until the late 1980s, by an Englishman named Tim Berners-Lee, while working at CERN in Europe, who led the definition of HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), that web browsers use, and the first web browser. There's a huge long list of technologies and protocols that came after that, most defined by engineers in private industry who were financed by private investment, and they collaborated in a number of international standards groups.

I'm not saying that the investment in ARPANET by the US DoD wasn't an important accelerator for the development of computer networking, because it was. And one could reasonably argue that the US would not be the worldwide leader in internet technology development, or basically the controlling country for the internet, without the DoD's initial investment. But to say that the infrastructure that we're communicating on now is a product of the US government is misleading and incorrect. The current-day internet would have never been developed without private funding and private enterprise, and would never have succeeded without the international community either, especially Europe.
 
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thrillcat

thrillcat

Audioholic Intern
The ER is already free to people who have no money. I think I'd rather have them somewhere cheaper :p
It’s not free, it’s being paid for by people with insurance in higher premiums, because hospitals are making up that lost profit by rolling it into services being paid by insurance companies.




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mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
It’s not free, it’s being paid for by people with insurance in higher premiums, because hospitals are making up that lost profit by rolling it into services being paid by insurance companies.
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Well, just to be picky, you must have misunderstood him and he is correct.
The ER is already free to people who have no money.
It is free for them, in the end.
He didn't state that it is free for all who go there.
And, yes you are also correct, others pay for it in the end. :)
 
killdozzer

killdozzer

Audioholic Samurai
Why not? It is free.;)

Oh, you work, you have better things to do. :D
We have it in our not so wealthy country. People don't really go there only because it's free (if you'll accept actual feedback). Some pensioners yearning for attention and a human touch. Statistically irrelevant.

Without saying anything offensive about Americans, I will say that I see you as people who are harder on taking a step back and looking at their country and themselves in a more objective manner (as much as that is possible, not expecting miracles).

You seem to echo some opinions coming from people who get to directly benefit and make money on tearing safety net, but you accept their opinions as valid and you repeat them. I find that strange. They don't have your best well-being at heart.

You also seem hung on this notion of other people paying, but the more people that pay, the less expensive it is. No small piggy bank will ever achieve what big piggy bank will. In other words imagine having to build your own road where ever you need to go (as a deliberate exaggeration for the sake of this little chat).

Also, what I see (or at least what seems to me to be the case) you have a really antique view of the debt. You still think if there's debt, there must be some sort of lack of money. Debt is a product of financial agencies equal to any other. It is being deliberately produced and traded with in the market. No hedge funds would make the news at the beginning of this century if there wasn't for the trading with CDOs.

Also, what I find unjust is that in your medical institutions you already have a lot of treatments and cures available as a result of big funds coming from big state piggy banks. Would you agree to renonce all of them and use only what is achieved exclusively through private funding? I thought so.

Besides, as universal health works you still have direct access to findings from all European big piggy banks medical institutions, so you're still profiting from something you attack.

Health is constant research and devours money. Illnesses, sicknesses, diseases of all sorts are on a constant move and permanently exotic. No exclusive club can fight them on its own.

If you're interested, this is how you look to the rest of the world; do you know the metaphor of closing the door behind you? It says once you're in from the cold, you close the door and start preaching there's no room for the rest. Before you're in from the cold, you ask for the door to be open and accept all those in need.

That's how it looks to us; your ass is covered so let's devise an elaborate econimical discourse we can wrap our selfishness in.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Extending a patent beyond its normal life takes an act of Congress. Drug patents can be extended to include the delays due to regulatory approval (the Hatch-Waxman Act), but in general there's no such thing as a lifetime patent.
But a lapsed or expired patent can be bought and renewed. If a corporation or group of people wanted to keep it going, they could just buy and sell it repeatedly.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
The Federal government spent about $1.1 trillion in healthcare. That's $3,363/person.
State governments spent about $605 billion (in 2016, which is the first year I found). That's $1,850/person

Combined: that's $5,213/person

Germany's total expenditure (not just government expenditure) is $5,182; but as has been pointed out, not everyone gets everything free; so actual tax spending is lower than that.

$5,182 <5,213


Yea. nothing prejudicial in the "magically appear" language. That's certainly my claim /s

The only thing I asserted as magical was if we could magically switch to an exact copy of Germany; because I know there are differences in an incredibly complex system (some to advantage and some to disadvantage) but I needed to pick somewhere to make my argument by example.

The way rural hospitals stay afloat is multi-pronged.
1) an 80% reduction in administrative costs (I've already cited source in a previous post).
2) the elimination of people who don't pay (because universal healthcare covers everyone)
3) A government payer system with a "public trust" incentive to keep the hospitals open (much like how the rural Telco fund got phones to rural areas)


Universal healthcare in Germany costs $5,182 per person.

That's less than $10,800 and less than $16,500.


That's what they do. That's not why they exist.

Just like copyright, they exist to encourage the creation of new work for the public good.

The goal is always the public good. If they are not serving the public good, then they are not valid.

Do you support what has happened with insulin prices in the US? There are a number of life-saving drug that are still under patent. Are you actually OK with companies pricing those at "market bear" to maximize profit even if that results in, say, ten million unnecessary deaths?

Because if you aren't. Tell me what you are proposing to prevent it.

Funny note: there's actually an insurance company in...I want to say Nevada. If you'll agree to it, they will pay to fly you to SoCal, drive you into Mexico (where your prescription will be waiting for you), drive you back, fly you back, and pay you $500 in cash... because it's cheaper than paying the price for the same medication in the US. That seems reasonable, right?
You're comparing government paid health care when I posted the total cost of health care. The government isn't going to be able to pay the total cost on its own without tax increases. In addition, the cost to be the sole administrator will cause the cost to increase because of additional staffing and infrastructure.

Germany's population is about 1/4 that of the US and the two countries are very different in other ways, so a "we should be more like them" argument is futile.
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
But a lapsed or expired patent can be bought and renewed. If a corporation or group of people wanted to keep it going, they could just buy and sell it repeatedly.
That’s not true.
 
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