I don't think a homeless person with an addiction problem can be accused of "taking advantage of the system".

I'd say that a person in such tragic circumstances has been failed by "the system" and is in serious need of help.

As with ag's statement about all poor people not being jobless, not all poor people are homeless either.

@ dingle: No, but he mentioned a _specific_ homeless person with an addiciton problem, who he was describing as a "slacker" who takes advantage of the system.

Jamie 'What they are doing IS work, and it is work that brings benefits not just for their own family, but for society as a whole, by producing well-adjusted children who grow up to be useful and productive citizens - so to a certain extent I think state support for such parents is legitimate."

But there are plenty of working parents that are producing well-adjusted children as well, teaching them to be useful and productive AND providing for themselves, and teaching the children the value of earning a living and living within your means.

@ Dingle: That may be true, and good for them. I was simply trying to acknowledge the value of investing time in raising your children, as in my view, ag's earlier statement seemed to paint all stay-at-home parents who recieve any kind of welfare benefits as "slackers", which I don't think is necessarily the case.

@Jamiet: the specific person has been in and out of being clean and chooses to use drugs. The person chose drugs in the beginning. This is a personal choice with the people he hung out with and willing to push himself in that direction. it's not society to blame for this. He could have chose to stay away, stay clean, and make himself better (like most people do), but he chose to live another lifestyle and became an addict from it.

And you still haven't acknowledged that public health care will only enourage people to take advantage of the system.

What I think is amusing in all this, is the fact that, as a whole, the current US private insurance-based healthcare "system" actually costs the American populace MORE, proportionally, than the UK's state-funded NHS system.

We in the UK get a better general level of healthcare, and it's provided to all on a much fairer basis, and it actually costs us less money, as a nation!

How's that for a logical argument, ag?

Jamie, I can't say I disagree with ag. I don't like the idea of paying mothers to stay at home with their kids. I don't think they are all slackers, but I don't think they should have the 'luxury' of staying at home with their kids while collecting public assistance.

There will always be cases that are wrongfully treated in any scenario.

You need to make a choice, out of three options:

1) You have an incredibly large bureaucratic force with standarts (and who sets those standarts?) to determine who is worthy of aid and who is not.

2) You give little or no benefit to anyone, to prevent people from abusing the system, leaving people who need and deserve the benefits with nothing.

3) You give benefits to everyone who seems to need it, at the risk of people abusing the system.

I'm of the school of thought that it is best to leave a guilty men free, than to imprison an innocent.

@ ag7433: "And you still haven't acknowledged that public health care will only enourage people to take advantage of the system."

I'm not going to acknowledge that, because as far as I see it, comparing the UK and US models, I don't think you're necessarily correct.

We have a much better, much fairer, healthcare system than you do, and yet I don't think our country is over-run with "slackers". There are a small minority who try to milk the system rather than contributing productively, but I don't see how forcing people to pay for their basic health needs would be a useful response in dealing with that minority.

@ ag7433: "And you still haven't acknowledged that public health care will only enourage people to take advantage of the system."

i agree with this completely, and I find it hard to believe that anyone can't acknowledge that. You could argue it won't encourage ALOT of people, you could argue the benefits outweigh the cost, but I can't believe you will not acknowledge that statement as written.

@Jamiet: And I think that's a big difference in culture and mindset between UK and US.

Many in the US refuse to be enablers of the minority of people who will abuse the system, where UK writes it off.

@Sayjo - I play on Icecrown for the Alliance. I onlys tarted WoW a couple months back and got hooked pretty quickly. A friend of mine was already playing and they have this triple XP for 3 months on players under lvl 60, so he rolled a new tune and I started and we have them both at 60 already. We put them away and started on a second set to get them as high as we can before the three months is up (September 2, I think). We are hoping to at least get over 40 by then, but he is on vacation this weeke so I have been running my main Toon while he is away.

Look up Necrosium, level 60 Human Lock in Icecrown at the Armory. My secondary is Ygrodekan, level 20 Night Elf Rogue also in Icecrown.

@Xapi - you assume a 60K back debt. Mine is only about 20K now (started around (25K) so 30 months left, but I only do medical bills out of a sense of responsibility. If that is all the debt a person has, they can pay $50 a month for life and the medical provider has to accept it. The law doesn't allow for life altering incidents and illnesses to make one an indentured servant. Of course, that is part of the reason medical care costs so much in this country. They have to make up for the people who can't or won't pay and aren't insured or whose is under insured or insurance denies the claim.

I (Though I'm not Jamie, I agree with most of his views on this) would acknowledge this:

Public health care will, between a number of positive effects, have the negative effect of encouraging some people to take further advantage of the system.

I object, in ag's statement, to the word "only", and the lack of a restrain in the word "people", as if every single person would be encouraged to do it.

Xapi says : "Public health care will have the negative effect of encouraging [ALL] people to take further advantage of the system." See, he just said it. Game set and match. LOL

Seriously though, I'll sustain your objections Xapi. Well put.

@ ag: I'm happy to agree with you that that is a fundamental difference.

If you provide a comprehensive and fair welfare system, there will always be a few freeloaders who abuse it. But where they are only a small-ish minority, and where the system is beneficial to the majority - as our NHS clearly is - that's a small price to pay.

We can still take steps to tackle freeloaders, even with their abuse factored in, society as a whole is still better off.

Essentially, as I see it, you want to deliberately keep a system which you know doesn't work well, simply because you don't like the idea that reform would benefit a small minority that are undeserving - EVEN THOUGH the deserving majority would also benefit from the reform.

Am I right? And if so, why do you think you hold that view?

@ Draugnar: I didn't assume a thing, I took your numbers and worked with them.

You (or someone else, I'm fuzzy about this) said you had 7 years of 15% of your income to pay for the debt. A guy who makes less that half you make, paying the same %, would take more than twice the time (15 years was a low estimate, it's probably more due to interest).

If the number 7 is wrong, then I'm sorry, that invalidates my lazy calculations.

@Xapi - People is the plural of person, but does not, in any way, imply everyone. If he meant everyone, he wouldn't have said "it will encourage people", but "it will encourage everyone". Don't put meaning behind words that isn't there. Using the word "people" is neither connotative or denotative of the entire populace.

@ Xapi: Yes, well put.

I am also happy to acknowledge that statement:

"Public health care will, between a number of positive effects, have the negative effect of encouraging some people to take further advantage of the system."

It's just that I think the positive effects massively outweigh the negative.

Hah, and i think the negative effects massively outweigh the positive.

@Xapi - I didn't say that, someone else did. They were also running with the 60K number someone else mentioned. But it wasn't me. I have about 30 months left on my debt and it is old credit card bills from when I was unemployed after 9/11 trashed the IT consulting industry and a lot of us IT Developer Consultants found ourselves without any income and quickly going through what little cash savings we had cause our stocks had all tanked.

@ Draugnar: When discussing political subjects such as this, it is best to be specific about what you mean.

"Encourage people" could be read as just two, or every single one. If I were to say that statement, I wouldn't want the reader to be the one to decide what he thinks I mean by that.

Even the word "some" is a bit too loose for my taste, but acceptable.

@ Draugnar: Fair enough.

Although I should point out that 60K is a figure that, from what I gathered in this discussion, is not impossible to achieve in medical-related debt in the US, am I right?

Xapi, I think you are just nitpicking now. I believe the meaning of 'encourage people' was fairly obvious and you are now objecting to forum rather than function.

form not forum

Some is less than most, by definition and should be plenty acceptable. It is defintely more than a couple or a select few who would be encouraged to abuse the system. In fact, it would be every person who currently abuses welfare and SSI that would be encouraged to abuse a public healthcare system, and that is no small number of peope.

P.S. Note that I said every person who currently ABUSES those systems, not every person on those systems.

@ag: OK, so we're clear then, you prefer to:

2) Give little or no benefit to anyone, to prevent people from abusing the system, leaving people who need and deserve the benefits with nothing.

While Jamie and I prefer to:

3) Give benefits to everyone who seems to need it, at the risk of people abusing the system.

@ag7433

There will always be people who abuse any system, public or private. Instead of focusing on them - focus on the family of four that lost Health Insurance because the father was laid off and they're struggling on part time jobs just to make ends meet.

Focus on people like me who because we work for small businesses, aren't able to get decent Health Insurance without getting fucked over in ridiculous prices.

Focus on people like me, who when I did work for a large company with Health Insurance provided that I got screwed into $11,000 in medical bills from two nights in a hospital because the insurance company decided that going to the emergency room because of vomiting after a concussion, as the doctor ordered, was elective, could have waited until the morning and thus not an actual emergency.

You're fine with all the people that fit into those situations getting fucked if it means sticking it to the uncommon but once in a blue moon hypothetical guy that might abuse the system?

@Draugnar
How old are you exactly that you can with a straight face say it's as easy as "Just don't pay!" Good luck trying to move, buy a home, car, use credit cards, rent an apartment anywhere decent, get a sensitive job that does background/credit checks or get any type of loan with your credit all fucked up because you're not properly paying off your medical bills.