@ DJ: I am nitpicking, because the premise was to acnowledge a statement as true.

I have taken part of elections several times, so I'm very careful about what I say and ho I say it when it comes to politics.

@ Draugnar: I said it was acceptable already :P

"how I say it"

Triple dumbass points for me for ironic typo.-

@Draugnar
Welfare abuse isn't widespread, I challenge you to prove otherwise since you made the statement. "Welfare moms", "Immigrant SS Abuse" and "ACORN Fraud" have just become synonyms and 'politically correct' ways for white people to hide their racism and are not actually based in fact and reality.

@ ag7433:

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

But _why_ do you think that?

I think if you compare the US and UK health systems, you can define the main positive and negative points thus:

UK system - advantages:

1. It is fair to everyone
2. It guarantees everyone a good standard of healthcare, with most treatments free at the point of use.
3. It still allows people the option of private treatment if that's what they want
4. Health provision is based on society's needs, not private profit.
5. And bizzarely, it is cheaper!

UK system - disadvantages:

1. To a certain extent, it allows free-riding and can be taken advantage of by some people.
2. There are sometimes long waiting lists for some types of treatment (although this problem has been significantly addressed in recent years and is not much of a problem in most areas now)


US system - advantages:

1. It discourages freeloading.
2. It gives some people, who can afford it, a significant level of choice regarding their treatment etc.

US system - disadvantages:

1. It is more expensive.
2. Coverage varies considerably from state to state and from health plan to health plan and does not treat all citizens fairly - in that poor people do not get the same level of care as better-off people.
3. It often leads to acrimonious disputes between people and their insurers, as the examples given in this thread demonstrate.
4. Health provision is driven by the desire for profit, not by people's actual needs.

Medical Bills won't fuck up credit. Check with Transunion and Experion. They'll tell you they have almost no effect on your score and most hospitals and medical providers won't even report the debt because of potential ethics violations. Medical bills should always be the LAST thing you pay and should never be paid so much they put you in a bind. And I said you didn't have to pay, not you shouldn't.

I have a credit score in the mid 400s (pretty shitty, I know). I have a lovely suburban home that I rent for about $1100 per month. For most of greater Cinci, this is pretty high-end rent and it is a top neighborhood in a great school district (of course, no kids, but I still want to live someplace nice). Once my debt is paid off, it'll take 7 years to clear my credit. I just figured out where the 7 year thing came from. 7 years is how long your debts stay on your credit score and report after being paid in full, unfortunately.

Anyhow, the point is that medical bills will NOT affect your credit score significantly as the credit reporting firms don't put real weight on them. Just don't use credit cards to pay them then default on the credit cards. That is what will fuck you over royaly.

@Hibiskiss - hello kettle, pot calling. Just by saying "'politically correct' ways for white people to hide their racism" makes you out to be a racist. And I'm not going to argue with anyone who says blacks can't be racist against whites because they were oppressed as that is total, complete, and utter bull-fucking-shit.

I know plenty of abusers of SSI who go out and play softball of weekends or weeknights and waterski and do all kinds of physical activities. I never said a one of them was black. Most SSI abuser i know are white-trash trailer park kings who live in Middletown or Hamilton, OH. And there are plenty of them. It's one of the reasons I moved out of Butler county, OH to Boone County, KY.

Wow, I've been called a racist because I believe public health care will create more people who cheat the system.

@DingleberryJones - "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."
That is exactly what I would argue. Further I would argue that on the whole it would cost us all less to "write off" these freeloaders (though to be honest I think we could take steps to discourage that sort of thing fairly easily), and provide them with health care, than it does to live with the system we have now, in which those freeloaders likely end up costing everyone far more.

@Draugnar "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."

It seems to me, that yet again, you are making my point for me. We're already paying for everyone, not just through insurance but also through the taxes and other costs that go into building and running hospitals etc. The current system is simply inefficient and ends up costing most everyone more than it would cost to simply create a single payer system.

The other aspect of this to keep in mind is that providing quality "free" (in quotes because of course it has to be paid for by taxes etc, but with EVERYONE (or at least every taxpayer) paying into it it will cost far less per person than any private insurance could possible provide), health care to everyone is likely to lower medical costs overall. People who can afford to go to the doctor regularly and get things checked out early are far less likely to show up at the emergency room with severe conditions that cost FAR more to treat than if they had been found early. It costs a lot less to catch things early and to keep people generally healthy through regular check ups and such than it does to wait until they're REALLY in trouble and need some $10,000 (or more!) procedure.

This even applies in emergency situations. Someone who gets higher quality care after some major surgery or something else like that is more likely to recover and not have to come back to the hospital again and again (or to have chronic conditions etc that may cost them and the system over their lifetime, and even effect their ability to work etc).

In most cases medical care is a situation where you're better off paying to do something right the first time than to try to do something cheaply or poorly (or to wait until it REALLY has to be done) and having it end up costing you a LOT more in the end.
As a society I really think we're better off both morally and in terms of productivity and money giving everyone decent quality health care than we are with the horribly inefficient and unequal system we have now.

Xapi" I am nitpicking, because the premise was to acnowledge a statement as true."

The statement was true if you use a dictionary, a thesaurus or any other reference you care to use. You needed to qualify some things which made it more palatable to you, but no more or less true than the original statement.

DJ: Ok, I correct myself:

I am nitpicking, because the premise was to acnowledge a statement as my opinion.

I have taken part of elections several times, so I'm very careful about what I say and how I say it when it comes to politics.

In the first statement, the burden would be on the reader to interpretate how many people I believe would be encouraged to abuse the system.

In my corrected statement, I give at least an indication of this number, wich is not really accurate either, but at least puts a cap in it.

@Draugnar - You keep talking about how people don't have to pay medical bills... And I honestly do think you keep making my point for me, people who dont' pay their bills or who only pay them very very slowly ("send 'em $20 for life!") end up costing the REST OF US a tremendous amount of money, far more than if they had just gotten that care and were paying into the system with their taxes. You want to talk about freeloaders! It sounds like we have the worst possible system for that NOW! Why would you oppose a system that would actually reduce that?!

DrOct,
So instead of Draugnar pay $20 a month, you'd rather pay your share of his bill up front. How is that proving your point?

The US definetely has the worst system right now. And for trying to change it, people call Obama "evil". It's difficult to know whether to laugh or cry.

@Draugnar - I guess I could have said "right wing conservative white people" but it's essentially the same thing because almost all right wing conservatives are white for a reason. I live in Saint Augustine, Florida - the old white right wing capital of the United States. It is certainly not a coincidence that everyone here protesting Health Care is also racist. Who are these old "white trash" disabled people you know that are abusing Supplemental Security Income?

I guess since I think the whole anti-Health Care movement (and any demonstration by the right) is based in fear of how brown people will get equal care to white people it must mean I am black. My co-worker thinks that the only reason Democrats are pushing for Health Care reform is because black people vote for Democrats and want free stuff that hard working white people have to pay for. Thanks for proving my point by assuming I was black by the way.

@Dingle - You're belief that it will create more people to abuse the system... actually, the mere fact that you think there is WIDESPREAD abuse, isn't based in actual facts or data. So what exactly do you believe it? You got that gut feeling?

@Dingle: One of the main criticisms of reform is that it would encourage more freeloading. Draugnar was basically admitting that it's perfectly easy to freeload under the current system.

So if the current system encourages freeloading, you can't use freeloading as a criticism of reform.

I think that was DrOct's point, and I agree. I don't see how Draugnar's statements such as "send em $20 for life" and "don't pay" present a coherent defence of your current system.

I am a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. I am not a 'right wing conservative white person' and I am not a racist. I voted for Obama and hated the last 8 years under the Bush administration.

But I don't want to pay for your healthcare.

(I was totally going to post that I had a feeling Hibiskiss was in fact not black, and that would be funny, but I was logged to gryncat's account at the moment so I rephrained myself.)

@DingleberryJones - It proves my point because (as Jamiet says) it undermines the argument about freeloaders and because in the current system Draugnar, can walk away from that debt and not pay ANYTHING into the system leaving the rest of us to pay for all of it. With a single payer system he'll be paying into the system with his taxes. It just basically means we're all in the same insurance pool. Under the current system you're paying for him anyway, might as well do it efficiently and in such a way that he'll be paying his portion too.

@Dingle - So you're a social liberal fiscal conservative that is against reform which will lower costs and improve and expand service over the current system of rationing the best care to the wealthy? Right. Whatever you tell yourself that helps you sleep at night dude.

OTOH, I believe modern society has evolved from racism to classism.

Condoleeza Rice, for instance, is a black woman highly respected by the "right wing conservatives", because she IS a right wing conservative.

The struggle is not about race any more. It is those who have, and those who don't.

The rich, the middle class who believes they too can be rich in this system, against the poor and the miserable, who want to take their money trough welfare and medical benefits.

Hibiskiss, I sleep fine at night, thanks for asking. Its good to know that anyone who disagrees with you is a racist, or is distraught that they need to lie to themselves in order to sleep at night. It will save me from bothering to explain views to you in the future. Its a shame you don't believe in fundamental disagreements regarding issues that you need to resort to that.

@ Xapi: "I believe modern society has evolved from racism to classism"

Spot on. A lot of poor people happen to be black, but it's the fact that they are lower class that makes middle-class republicans fear them.

Of course the current US health system is a bad deal for a lot of poor whites too.

Jamie: "Of course the current US health system is a bad deal for a lot of poor whites too."

I believe the proper term is "white-trash".

@Dingle / ag7433 / Draug:

Just out of interest, do you accept my point that the British NHS model is actually cheaper than your current system?

And Dingle, if you do accept that, then as a fiscal conservative, wouldn't you agree that introducing such a system would be financially beneficial to your society, in the long term?

@ Xapi: "I believe the proper term is "white-trash"."

Or "slackers". Hehe.

...or as Draug said at 4:04, the residents of Hamilton, Ohio.

I didn't want to specify as much as "white-trash trailer park kings" because people might think that I'm discriminating against women, or white-trash who don't happen to be able to afford a trailer.

@DinglberryJones - Really here's my point about Draugnar's posts in as simple a way as I can make it. You said "But I don't want to pay for your healthcare." You already are, and at a far higher rate than you would under a single payer system.

Dingle: Fair enough, I guess it's mutually beneficial for us both to not watch you scramble through the cognitive dissonance of a socially liberal against improving quality of life and a fiscal conservative against saving money.

I also didn't say anything about you being racist. I said manufactured "threats" like welfare, ACORN and SSI abuse is masked racism by the right to drum up support. The same political right "Southern Strategy" which consists of scaring white people into supporting an agenda which is against their own self interests because it might help some brown folks (who aren't real Americans!).

The fact that you volunteered yourself up in defense of the idea says plenty about you though.

Jamie: I've lived in the south all my life and my work brings me as far west as Louisiana and east along the coast through North Carolina. The rest of the country might be moving beyond racism but it certainly hasn't down here.