Kyler, that was from Draugnar, and he's said it before, and it's ludicrous.

Emergency care is only a small part of health care. If a person without health insurance needs kidney dialysis, he is beyond fucked.

You can't keep accepting lowly skilled workers into the country to keep the economy growing and then ignore them in their hour of need. A cheap immigrant worker is for life, not just for Xmas !!

As I said, those below the poverty line are paid for and those above it have enough income to pay for health insurance of some sort. Why should the upper middle class pay for someone's hepatic are when they don't even prioritize it? I know so many peoe without health insurance that have iPhone 5's or 5s'.

And there it is.... they chose to get a luxury item, so fuck 'em, right?

Same sad argument all over again. And if it wasn't an iphone, you'd have found something else, some other reason why it's their fault they don't have xxx. Some other justification to screw the working foundation of this country out of something that will make their lives a little bit less horrible. The same tired argument has been trotted out to argue against every social program since the dawn of time. Yawn.

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Look I'll take it back another step again, in case you missed it earlier: do you or do you not believe that basic healthcare is a must-have for anybody who works?

If your answer to my question is yes, how can you possibly be opposed in principle to a program that is going to do so much to deliver this must-have?

If your answer to my question is no, I invite you to die in a fire.

And you keep saying they are "payed for."

This is not true outside of emergency care, correct? Cancer, kidney failure, whatever else? So sorry, die slowly.

YellowJacket -- You have it wrong -- it basic health care is a basic "must-have" for those who work, don't you think those same people ought to **prioritize** their own well-being before acquiring luxury items?

What you are asking is not that we provide funding for their health...you are asking that we subsidize their luxuries, as if *that* has become the right of the working class. "No!" you say, "they can't be denied their luxury items in favor of health! They *must* be allowed to but their iPhone FIRST" you say...

Well why not a ensure everyone has a new car and a 2000 square foot home before they purchase health care, too?

You priorities are completely backwards. You have done your own arguments harm, my friend.

There is a direct positive link between the health and wealth of a nation, you would think the smart money men would be supportive of policies that got the poor back into work quicker.

let me address that krellin, because it's exactly the same argument that has been used against welfare, against food stamps, against social security, against medicare.

My point is that to you this isn't a healthcare issue, to you this is a personal responsibilities issue. You think my priorities are backwards, but that's because your fundamental ideology conflicts with mine.

I've tried to make it plain that I feel that health care is an entitlement. You clearly disagree. I'm not sure how we can come to any accord on whether this program is a "success" when what I define as success you've just asserted is bad.

Does that make sense?

Nigee....and what does health care have to do with putting people back to work? If anything,the current health care law is arguably putting people out of work, or at the very least reducing the number of full time employees as employers move people to part time work. This notion is backed by no less than the Union bosses who were supporters of Obama and his health care plan, who are now openly dissenting against the policies in it.

Uh oh....another story of cut work hours due to the ACA...

http://news.investors.com/politics-obamacare/101813-675710-100-school-districts-blame-obamacare-for-cuts-to-work-hours.htm

That's very astute YJ. And I'd assert that we aren't too ideologically different. I believe all should have the opportunity for healthcare. And I don't believe that someone who spends their money on luxuries yet laments their inability to afford healthcare needs my money or anyone else's to pay for their healthcare because they had the opportunity to act responsibly and pay for it themselves and squandered it. A perfect healthcare/ health insurance system in my mind is one that takes into account those that can help themselves and choose not to and those that cannot help them selves, or those who have helped themselves and still are and it's just not enough. Currently, people will get a job that they plan to be temporary so that they can be laid off in 6 months and receive unemployment benefits because they get paid just as much to sit on ass. I don't take handouts from other people so why do some irresponsible people expect them from the rest of us? When did the not-really-working-class become so entitled as to expect their peers to pay for their basic needs while they splurge on luxuries?

Don't take my rant wrong, I don't disparage anyone their basic needs. However. I prefer to focus my charity towards those that are willing to help themselves or to those truly in need. (On another note, the typical person struggling to get by in America has a higher standard of living than the majority of people in the world)

One thing to consider is that health insurance to the self employed can cost more per month than the lease on a brand new Mercedes E class. Additionally, health insurance companies cam refuse to cover you or accept your business, sp it isn't always irresponsibility. When I was running my own company, I couldn't get coverage because of being a diabetic with hypothyroidism. Luckily, Kentucky had a plan in place that guaranteed anyone who wanted insurance could get it through the state. But not every state has these programs. So there are uninsured upper middle class business owners or super small business employees because they can't afford or are denied insurance. $1000 per month is a lot for someone making 35 or 40 grand a year and denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

You have a fair point draugnar, people who would typically be denied coverage based upon preexisting conditions should be covered somehow, and go me it sounds like Kentucky has it right. Health insurance shouldn't be a federal thing just like contraceptives abortion, and gay marriage shouldn't be federal things. Those are all subjects that would fall under unspecified powers which becomes the states problem. Also, I'm not against reform or regulation of the healthcare system, but I am against the federal government sticking its hand in cookie jars it doesn't own, and not having washed up first. That is to say, cocking it up.

Healthcare seems to be viewed as charity by some people, it shouldn't be.
If your health care companies are as efficient and greedy as your banks then I can see why people can feel ripped-off. To run a proper the greed and inefficiency needs to be removed from the system, if that means federal involvement then so be it. You have to stop recycling this myth that everything works super-efficiently if there is a profit motive, greed is the worst kind of inefficiency.

Nigee - It isn't about efficiency or greed and you conflate health insurance with healthcare, two very different types of companies, I assure you. No, this is about our form of government - one very different from yours - and the restrictions placed upon the federal government by our constitution. Think of the US federal government as the EU. That is the closest thing you have to it. Now imagine the EU telling every citizen of Germany they *must* buy a type of product, maybe a flat screen TV. It doesn't matter whose or how good, they just have to buy one. And say this flat screen TV required a monthly fee to be paid every month or it would be taken away. Do you think Greece or Spain or even France would accept that? That is what is happening here. Our federal government is supposed to have a lot less teeth than it thinks it has. It wants to be the British Government that rules with an iron fist over all of the UK, but it isn't designed to be and the constitution clearly states it isn't.

I have to say, Draug, your perception of how the EU and UK government act is often a fair distance removed from reality :p.

Still, I take it from what you say that you have nothing against the concept of health insurance for all, as long as it was done by the individual states? If your state had its own version of Obamacare would you support it?

Kyler:

"I believe all should have the opportunity for healthcare."

This is the fundamental difference - the ideological divide, and it is deeper than you seem to think: the argument for xxx vs. the opportunity for xxx. I feel that with some things, mere opportunity isn't enough. With some things, we can't punish people for bad decisions they may or may not have made in the past - notwithstanding that it's nigh impossible for a bureaucrat to make a judgement call as to whether a person has acted sufficiently irresponsible that it's clear they've "chosen not to" help themselves. Lets be realistic, all of us have at one time or another purchased an item it probably would have been wiser not to, yes?

So while at face value your suggestion of "to each for his needs and deserves," seems fair, I don't find it practical at all. I also find your repeated accusations of the laziness of unemployment recipients (and the working poor in general) insulting. Can you tell me what percentage of non-transient people on some form of government assistance act in the way you describe (milking the system, not looking for work or to better their station, etc.) ?



And stop pretending it's charity. You aren't doing it voluntarily. It isn't a noble act on your part. You aren't even being graceful about it. It's a tax, it's part of living in a civilized nation, and you don't have a choice. ;)

YJ I do lots of community service and charity work as well as donations on top of this tax that I don't have a choice on. If I had a choice, I'd still give. I'd just give in a different way that I would hope encourages people to help themselves as opposed just giving them money without a thought to their character or circumstance. I can't give you a percentage, I don't know it. But I see and hear it all the time. I'm sure there is a study somewhere that has one that I could looks up and if I were a betting man is say its a republican survey so some on here might automatically discredit it, but that aside. Do I really need to give you a percentage when nigee (and perhaps you, not going back to look explicitly) continually talk about greed? You don have to be rich to be greedy and act on it. Plenty of women try to hook up with superstars hoping to get pregnant so they can get child support and never have to work. Some men will take seasonal jobs in factories for minimum wage then when the season is up go on unemployment for a new season (and why not, unemployment pays just as much).

I have held a job during school since my junior year in high school, I don't make much I money, barely over minimum wage, but I don't spend it nonchalantly either. I tip well whenever I'm out to eat (assuming the service could even qualify as decent 40%) and I do this because I know what it's like to be on the other end, to bust your ass at 10 tables all night and then have people not tip you well even after complimenting you on your service. Now just because I know what minimum wage is like and how shitty it is doesn't make me want to take any handouts for nothing I have done. Or to get paid to sit on ass. It makes me want to work harder and finish my petroleum engineering degree and get a good job with a great salary and do my work well. That is not what I see and hear from my coworkers though. They hate it and would rather not work.

Anecdotally I think this stems from differences in upbringing and family values: many of their parents are divorced or absent and I'm fortunate enough to have both of mine alive, well, and nagging my ass)

YJ we do have fundamentally different ideologies, but I'd wager that's because our experiences shape who we are and we have experienced different things in life. Or at the very least, perceived our experiences differently.

Well hey man, again, I'd LOVE to be able to dictate where every penny of my tax dollars went to. Wouldn't we all? But that's not the way society works. At least not any society outside of a libertarian wet dream.

And yes, if you're going to repeatedly put forth wasteful, irresponsible spending and laziness as reasons why certain social programs are bad, then you'd damn well better have some numbers to back that up. Otherwise it's so much conservative rhetoric and it's meaningless. I don't care what your gut tells you is right.

All of these things you say happen, I'm sure do happen. What I won't let you get away with is using these examples as justification for removing social programs. Not without demonstrating that these programs are really being systematically abused by some parasitic underclass you are hinting at.

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FWIW, though our upbringings were likely different, there are similarities as well. I've been employed since 13, and payed my own way (waiting tables as well) through college. My parents, divorced, did not help me. I've lived as responsibly as possible, graduating with less than $5000 in debt because I chose to work instead of taking out loans, and I did well enough to be accepted to grad school with full funding at a major university. So don't make the mistake of thinking your conservative ideology has been shaped by your hard work ethic and experiences compared to mine.

Though my ideology is progressive, it's highly likely I've had little choice but to live my own life more conservatively than you have yours.

I am not an ideological socialist that just believes in giving people something for nothing, that is mindless, but I do believe in collectivism, "Personal or social orientation that emphasizes the good of the group, community, or society over and above individual gain.".
Let me put this into a context, when we send an army out to fight a war, how many of those people are actually on the front line and how many are the support staff.
We can't all be the gung-ho heroes on the front-line killing the enemy, there is a huge support team that goes with any army. What about when the fighters suffer injuries, we just don't leave them to die, we patch them up and we bear the cost of that injured combatant for as long as it takes to get them better. An army is a massive collective, nobody is left behind.
But with business we just accept that the rich and wealthy have no responsibility to the poor, that the owners are superior and the workers inferior and that somehow the humble worker is deserving of less access to affordable healthcare. The rich and wealthy got where they are by exploiting the workforce. It is worse than that because it is the middle class that are pulling up the ladder on the people below.
The politicians support and represent the super wealthy and it is they that seek to appease the middle class in order to keep the social order, but defending the haves and vilifying the have nots will not sustain the current system, the only way the current economic system can continue is by giving more money to the poorest sections of the community, directly or indirectly. If you make the cake bigger it is always the rich that get the lions share of any increase.
In some ways I am a pragmatic capitalist and not a pragmatic socialist because I support a market economy.
You so-called capitalists are just the middle-classes scared of the poor getting what you have when they have not worked as hard as you have. The wealthy don't need to concern themselves with such trivia when they have direct influence over the law makers, the government work for the rich not the poor and not the middle classes, divide and rule has always been a successful tactic of the rich.
So all this talk of left and right is a smokescreen, that is mostly the educated middle-classes talking about different ways to get the same outcomes, it's not about the left against the right, the real fight is the rich against the poor.
Don't be fooled, the current debt crisis and the health system could be adequately financed by a better redistribution of the obscene wealth in the hands of a very small number of people and organisations. Once you have all stopped knocking chunks out of each other you'll realise who are the real threat to the quality of life we currently know and enjoy.
I applaud the likes of Gates and Buffett who cut through the bullshit and give the money directly to the poorest, the have nots. They are doing more to sustain economic growth than the greedy rich who want more and more for themselves.
So as the greenback tumbles blaming the poor, the people on welfare, the sick and disabled would be a big mistake. Turn your venom on the real guilty because understanding the real problem is a big step towards resolving that problem.
If you taxed the rich appropriately (wealth tax) you could fund health through general taxation and this hotch potch of legislation that sounds unfair and unworkable and inefficient could be swept away.
Don't blame the poor, eat the rich.

@Oct - If my state had some sort of program, I would support it. Kentucky had one done right. They guaranteed affordable coverage for any one denied coverage or with rates above a certain percentage of their income and guaranteed healthcare would be paid for anyone below 150% of poverty, and not just ER visits. KY's taxes were actually lower than Ohio's except that cars were taxable personal property every year so plates were much more expensive.

I would not support a mandate that everyone must buy insurance as, despite what proponents claim, there is no instance where this currently occurs. Lot's of people don't have car insurance because they don't own and/or drive a car. One shouldn't be forced to not be a moron. But one shouldn't be forgiven a debt when one is a moron and doesn't take advantage of the options offered to them. And KY didn't require you to buy insurance. They just made it available for a reasonable price. They also have laws protecting their citizens from collection attempts should insurance deny claims or cap payouts to prevent the healthcare industry from bankrupting families.

Oh and Kentucky required anyone wishing to avail themselves of the states insurance program to show a denial for conditions or an exorbitant quote to use it. That was how they kept the cost down.

Nigee - Please stay in the UK. The workers today are not exploited. They get fair pay based on their skill set. That is not exploitation.

exploitation definition - use or utilization, especially for profit:
Profit is derived from the exploitation of the means of production, including labour.

Ah, the dictionary definition fallback. The attempt by the defeated to reclaim some high ground by ignoring a words connotation I'm favor of its denotation only. Exploitation is not a synonym of "use". It has a negative connotation implying abuse or underpayment of those unknowingly or forcibly made to do the act. Workers do so voluntarily. Children are exploited, not workers in the US. Workers in China are exploited, not workers in the US. Workers in the US are utilized to make money for themselves and the people who pay them to do the job. That isn't exploitation. If it were, the unions would step in there.

Draug - I'm an ex-economics student so I've never fallen for the Marxist negative slant on the word, I've given you the definition, if by twisting the meaning helps your cause I feel it is something you probably need to do .... what with your ego and all that, but by taking something out of context in this way does you no favours, it doesn't undermine the point made, it just makes it sound like you don't fully understand how profit/wealth is really created.

Nigee - All words have connotation to them. Faggot - by it's definition, is just a bundle of sticks for burning. Bitch is a female dog. Connotation in verbs is found in juxtaposition to their subjects and predicates. Business exploiting workers is a negative connotation. Deny it all you want. If it didn't have a negative.

But since you insist on the dictionary definition, at least be complete in your listings.

ex·ploi·ta·tion
[ek-sploi-tey-shuhn] Show IPA

noun
1.
use or utilization, especially for profit: the exploitation of newly discovered oil fields.

2.
selfish utilization: He got ahead through the exploitation of his friends.

3.
the combined, often varied, use of public-relations and advertising techniques to promote a person, movie, product, etc. connotation, there would be no reason to use the word

Businesses, by their very existence do #1, but #2 is the negative connotation that is implied when you say businesses (implication being *all* because you didn't preface it with *some*) exploit their employees. If that were true, I would be exploiting myself. I pay myself a salary from Draugnar Productions and I am Draugnar Productions only employee. So how do I exploit myself?

Bu the way, the fact that you are an "ex"-economics student impresses me none. If you had graduated, maybe. But anyone can flunk out of college and claim to be an ex-whatever student at whatever their major was. Hell, I could change my major to law and then drop out after one course and claim I was an ex-business student.

What I am is a current business owner, current business management student, and current software developer. What I'm not is an ex-anything because I have follow through and don't give up because it seemed too tough. And no, I am not an ex-Marine. I am a former active duty Marine. There are no ex-Marines *ex*cept boot camp washouts and they never were Marines to begin with.

Sorry, claim I was an ex-law student. I am a business management student.