National food security is still a thing. So, to a point, I am fine with subsidies. And again, food prices going up disproportionately impacts the poor.

@unstupid that's a terrible argument. By subsidizing corn, the price of food drops. That means consumers spend less on food and can buy other things.

@Ezio

That might have been exacerbated by the subsidy, but food products have always been based around some for of grain, whether it be wheat or corn. There were very heavy wheat subsidies back in the day when everything was wheat based, but corn is just a better crop.

@Unstupid

Housing is subsidized. A lot of jobs are subsidized. Student debt is subsidized. Let's just take all of that away and make everyone's lives worse :D

House might vote on the Healthcare bill before Friday, that's when they go on recess.
@orathaic - I'll study the US union 1930s issue further. Example you quoted I referred to events in Weimar Germany.
Bismarck's Germany - Legislated not only healthcare for all but also pensions and support for those injured on the job (Workman's compensation). Weimar SPD supported same, along with the centrists, but by the end of the 30s big business was supporting the Right, then along came 1933.

@Yoyo, what Ezio said.

@taylor, i'm not sure how easily you can compare the US today to the Weimar Republic in 1930...

though the US in in 1930 was a very different place.

I have a few issues with the OP-
1. People aren't property or material objects.
2. I don't think insurance companies should exist at all. I believe in a federal healthcare system in which all NECESSARY medical procedures are covered by the society we live in. Similar to how we decided all people should be at least educated to the 12th grade. Of course I also believe that this system would work best if it was a slow process. So at first we should regulate big pharmaceutical companies to make our prescriptions comparable to those of other first world countries. Second we should eliminate the insurance industry and replace it with a federal medical review agency. This review agency would accept or deny requests for funds based on a publicly accessible document and these decisions could be challenged. Third medical facilities would slowly transition to federal agencies. This could be done either by buying out hospitals, or by using the governments power of eminent domain to take away hospitals or by renting the space from the land owner.

You should also make it so the public owns to results of publically funded research.

How many billions have been made from military research? All publically funded, GPS? Touch screens? The list goes on and on...

Invest some of that money in researching new drugs, and own the resulting patents.

@Commandr Byron - who decides what is neccesary?

For example, i believe breast enhancement is pretty common, and it has measurable health benefits. Going from a perfectly batural A cup to a more socially expected C can do wonders for a person's self-esteem and self-confidence. This can improve overall health outcomes in many ways. And while i think it is a shame that social pressure makes people feel this way in the first place; now that we have oeople whose health can be improved by a simple procedure, i believe it should be.

Yet most people would say it was cosmetic and thus not want to find it.

Where and how do you draw the line?

If it was a cosmetic procedure to repair damage suffered during a car accident? (Again which will help restore the person to what they feel they should be) is that ok?

And who decides?

Well, the first step is to figure out what the most cost effective and efficient way to deliver health care to all people so as to save the Us economy billions and prevent suffering and misery and then rule it out for the US because everyone would include black people and if there is anything a majority of Americans cannot abide it is anything that helps black people. Then figure out the second best option and rule that out because that would be the smart thing to do and Americans don't do smart. Having eliminated those two you can go for the third fourth and fifth best options and rule those out because they all involve government involvement to regulate a self distorting market and rule those out because Americans won't go for options involving government because "freedumb." Then take the width best option and if it curtails corporate profits, then rule that out because Americans value corportate profits more than human life (unless it involves being able to control women's bodies because most Americans think women are property, not people). Finally, once you hit on a system that is confusing, expensive, inefficient and lets millions die and suffer for no reason but is outrageously profitable then that's the one Americans will want because it is consistent within american values

@Ogion, i think you're missing the process. First ask the profit makers (aka 'job makers') what to do.

Then do whatever gives them the most profit.

Then concoct a propaganda machine to convince the public that this is what they both want and need.

Drawing the line is hard. But that's why we should leave that to doctors, and experts. If s person can successfully challenge that their breast enhancement/ reduction was medically nessecary with a recommendation from their physician than they can have it funded. The issue here will be deciding which preventative procedures to fund since most emergency or treatment procedures will be deemed nessecary.

I also think that procedures deemed unnessecary should not be subject to interest, and a person should be able to opt in to a payment plan or have the funds automatically collected from their tax returns.

The goals should be: providing nessecary medical treatment to our society at as low a cost as possible; and working to limit patient debt and hardship for uncovered procedures.

Leave it to experts? Are you kidding? It should be decided by preachers and people with no training but strong opinions. Experts and doctors have no business offering opinions on medical care or health care policy. For example, you surgery clearly involve icky woman stuff and so can't be covered. You want coverage that benefits women? Get serious! Who do you think we are, some civilized country or something?

just in case anyone was wondering why people call the left a bunch of deranged socialists.

*presto*

What are you even talking about, James? It is deranged to mock the "alternate reality" right wing? A spot on parody is hardly deranged.

I'm sure from where most Americans sit suggestions like making sure kids don't die of easily preventable diseases or using evidence and reason sounds deranged, but I assure you it isn't.

Is the claim that tens of thousands will die an exaggeration?

deranged in that these are many of the same people who pushed for Bernie, who would have bankrupted us. deranged in that they still believe the European model is functioning and healthy. deranged in that they have zero regard for the means and a 100% focus on the ends.

oh and @Ogion I owe you an apology for an earlier thread, when we were discussion Comey and his behavior. Although I found precedent in the FBI handbook for protocol during an investigation, and even with his new interview coming out, i've looked into past cases and the precedent the FBI had set, and more and more i saw just how egregiously he behaved during this past election.

it's been a few months and i haven't been on the forum recently, but i needed to post that

And....enter the alternative facts. Bernie wouldn't have bankrupted the US, simply because much of what he proposed is more cost effective than what we're doing now and he would have raised taxes to pay for it. What bankrupts the US is giant tax cuts with no cuts in spending. What's deranged is pointing a finger at the left on fiscal matters when the right has driven massive deficits and generated serious recessions. And yes, the European model is healthier and better functioning that the US by a great many measures. So, that also is deranged U.S. exceptionalism "alternative facts" and similarly, your notion about the means is just stupid, because the left has rather a lot of very specific policy proposals on how to accomplish things. Contrast that with the vacuous "policy proposals" that have zero detail, such as the GOP tax plan or the "bring coal jobs back" that have zero credibility

COme back when you have actual facts at your disposal.

And no, it is not an exaggeration. We know pretty well what the elevated mortality rate is from a lack of health insurance because the US has been running that experiment on its people for decades so we have a lot of data. We also have a reasonably good sense of how many people will lose health insurance as a result of Trumpcare. The tens of thousands number is simply the product of the two.

But hey, it's only poor people dying, so who cares? Americans don't really think they're human beings anyway.

It's amazing the binary you operate on. i criticize the left, and you straw man the right.


furthermore if you think Bernie was getting his tax plan through congress... who's delusional again?

I think you're both wrong equally on things. How about you two compromise and meet somewhere in the middle.

if you want socialized healthcare, at least do it on the state level. at the very least you're giving Americans options in which state to live in, rather than a fully comprehensive federal plan.

if some of the country wants it and some don't: compromise is a lose-lose.

going with individual sections of the country reflecting the demands of their populous: that's a Republic.

Depends on who controls Congress, eh? Clinton did. Of course if the Republicans obstruct everything then the country suffers as always.

How is it a straw man to highlight how the right doesn't give a shit about most people, fetishize the "free market," is profoundly racist and sexist, and has complete disdain for facts and expertise? These are comprehensively demonstrated and beyond question. That's not a strawman, it's reality.

And yeah, tell Jews and Nazis to meet in the middle. Or scientists and climate deniers to "meet in the middle" That bit of stupid sophistry is bullshit when one side is provably right and the other provably wrong. All that bit of stupidity is make extremes more extreme to make the "middle" look more right wing. I'm sorry, but I'm not compromising with a bunch of racist trolls. Not. going. to. happen.

I can go one better. Grant California, the west coast and the east independence and the rump US can do whatever harebrained thing it wants without dragging the productive parts of the country down with it.

actually the right and left COULD meet in the middle on climate change. Stop subsidizing oil, and get with the times with France and much of the modern world with Nuclear tech. I'd even support some short-term subsidies for investing in nuclear recycling tech, we've fucked up the "free" market enough with subsidies to oil and others, Nuclear can outperform them all.

except for Hydro, because Hydro is badass

@Ogion

sure go away. have fun with solvency issues, come next natural disaster. also you're going to see a lot of working class leave when you post sweeping gun control laws and speech codes are implemented. it'll help our labor/capital ratio a bit too given the infrastructure leaving where you are, PLUS medical manufacturing is still secure in the midwest.

but i'm guessing the 30% of the voters who went for Trump aren't going to leave so easily, so you better make sure the hollywood elites toughen up for once or else they'll get trampled

and Republicans don't like "free markets" that much either. they're utter bullshit artists

Your are confusing California for Inasas, which I have shown exhaustively before. Ending blue state subsidies to the federal government would be a phenomenal fiscal boost, but California's budget is in pretty decent shape, mostly because democrats run the show. As for the rest, it's the red states not blue ones enacting bans on protest Ag gag laws bans on talking about climate change and spewing out textbooks filled with fake facts. Want freedom of speech? Move to a blue state. And working class people het wages and benefits here unlike union busting red states. Get your facts straight. Jesus

Ogion i don't have time to argue fiscal solvency, structured vs seasonal deficits, and why California's model perfectly encapsulates boom/bust economics.

but can you agree, to letting states decide who socializes healthcare? is that an acceptable solution to you?