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As another senior with similar experiences, I agree with your post and well said. All the years I worked and paid in, I never begrudged a single senior their Medicare or Social Security. Of course, it was a big old Ponzi scheme and now the governmnent, after cleaning out the SS "Trust" Fund, wants to scale back. I want to scale back their pensions and good luck with that.....
I agree. When will people learn that politicians use us as pawns to fatten their own wallets? They want to scale back ss and reduce veteran benefits but they never vote to reduce anything they get. Everythough everything they touch goes broke, they always vote themselves raises and the best benefits. All the while, reducing everyone else's. We always clamor for change, but we never vote for it. We deserve the government we get
I agree. When will people learn that politicians use us as pawns to fatten their own wallets? They want to scale back ss and reduce veteran benefits but they never vote to reduce anything they get. Everythough everything they touch goes broke, they always vote themselves raises and the best benefits. All the while, reducing everyone else's. We always clamor for change, but we never vote for it. We deserve the government we get
If I understand you correctly from other posts you seem to be saying that we can't cut back on government spending for veterans, but that everyone else ought to be "left to their own" to find away to pay for their health care? In other words "give me mine", but to the hell with everyone else?
FTR, I don't like hypocrisy on the part of politicians either. However, do you understand that if all 535 Senators and Congressman were to stop taking benefits at all it wouldn't begin to compensate for the hundreds of thousands of veterans who rely on the VA and pensions for survival? Its a mathematical problem and when hundreds of thousands of people are entitled to benefits the taxpayer--not your congressman--is the one who must foot the bill.
I am sick and tired of people who view themselves as a cut above everyone else. I could care less about those who want to talk about "the dangers of socialism" or the alleged decline of individualism in this country. Many of the people who are affected by this conservative indifference to suffering are children who committed the crime of being born to the wrong parents.
I want a system that provides some basic level of health care for everyone. I don't care if "rugged individualism", "free enterprise", or even some quality of care has to be sacrificed to get it. Give me what all the other developed nations in this world currently have.
Politicians 'buy votes' by taking money from those who work, save and pay their own way ... and giving it to those who do not." The action is justified with PC words like "rights, entitlement and equality." These words are only euphemisms for "non-progressive" words like, "welfare, charity and wealth redistribution." Bundling non-welfare, worker-paid Social Security into the same mix, only attempts to deflect the truth.
Most working folks see the need and believe they should contribute to social welfare for the less fortunate. But, they resent those who promote/defend an "entitlement or rights mentality" and those who "work the many system loopholes to capture as many 'freebies' as possible."
This is the issue the conservatives have with the liberals who promote equal healthcare for all, with no ideal of what the plan contains, much less a plan to pay for it, beyond more of the same corrupt, tax and spend policies. Their ploy is to talk only about things like "rights, entitlements and equality" ... while ignoring the financial reality of unfettered idealism.
Perhaps this type of socialism has merit in a strong, stable economy -- but, fueling an already out-of-control $17-TRILLION debt with more bureaucratic largess, subjugates the "Rights" of those who must pay for it, to the 'rights' of those who benefit from it.
As a healthy person with money, it's clear now that I'm one of the people who will be balancing the new health care system on my back. And really if you think about it, the insurance system has always been based on the premise that healthy people will pay more in premiums than they get in services while unhealthy people will get more in services than they pay in premiums.
So, I keep thinking about what degree of health care I'm really willing to pay for other people to have.
* Vision care to maintain 20/20 in people under 70.
What degree of health care do YOU think should be a RIGHT for EVERYONE to have?
Are you planning on dying young?? How about us old geezers who worked all of our lives and paid into the system??
That being said I do think their should be limits. I don't want to sound cold BUT $100,000 treatments to keep someone alive for a few months?? Physical therapy??The doc used to give us a list of exercises to do.
I find the premise of "health is a right", plus most comments here as condescending and demeaning, nevermind esoteric and useless.
No, what's demeaning is being well educated, intelligent, and full of potential - but instead of enjoying a rewarding career, having a happy marriage, and raising a family, you instead spend your days unemployed, in bed most of the time, afflicted with chronic pain, isolated and disenfranchised because the meager resources of a free clinic can't figure out what's wrong with you. So you lay there in bed watching soaps and game shows while your life - and everyone else's lives - pass you by. THAT'S demeaning. Perhaps if you actually had to live this scenario, you wouldn't be so quick to blather about forum posts being demeaning.
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Originally Posted by Henry10
What most of you are saying is "I am stupid, I can't take care of myself. When I am old, it will not be my kids, my grandkids, or my great-grandkids who will take care of me, but it will be some faceless system."
Yes, that's EXACTLY what I'm saying. And if you think the burden must fall on family members, most of whom are either elderly and on fixed incomes or young and just starting out (and financially murdered by student loan debt), you're living in a fantasyland. And what happens to the person who doesn't have a big family - or no family at all? Are disabled people just SOL if their parents' generation had almost zero children other than yourself?
Plus, no matter how much your family might love you, there will ALWAYS be resentment and anger - because YOU, the disabled person, is sucking up their incomes, taking up room in their houses, and if the disability is bad enough, they might have to feed you, change diapers, bathe you ... perhaps for decades. And the disabled person is going to KNOW that they're a burden.
So if you would rather families take up the burden so that the government doesn't have to, then you better start relaxing abortion restrictions, legalize euthenasia, and get ready for a lot of suicides. Between those who have no caretakers and end up out on the street to those who feel shame and uselessness for being a burden, suicides will skyrocket. All so you can save a few nickels on your taxes, I'm guessing. Or maybe so the money saved can buy some more military hardware.
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Originally Posted by Henry10
For those who idolize Europe -- Europe has been experimenting with socialism and universal healthcare only, really for 50-60 years. That's nothing in the history of state and societies.
Europe was bombed back to the Stone Age during WWII. They experienced invasions, the Holocaust, occupations, terrorism, and ethnic cleansing. After going through a six-long year ordeal like that, the one thing the Europeans did NOT want to do was go back to "business as usual." They wanted the war to change how they did things. And so yes, they are experimenting. Isn't that grand? They're evolving, changing, forging a path for the future of nations. America is still stuck in 1950 because we didn't learn anything from WWII; we were safe behind our oceans. Perhaps if America had had to spend the next 40 years rebuilding, if we had had jackbooted armies marching through our capital cities, perhaps if our Jews and intellectuals had to hide in attics, perhaps if our women and children were being raped and butched while our men were off to war, WE wouldn't even be debating this topic. WE would be doing things differently instead of the same old Mammon worship - money first, always first, and everything has a price tag - even compassion.
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Originally Posted by Henry10
If math was to be trusted, these societies are dying, they are rotting. Many of you come here and waive the Leninist banners, and proclaim that Socialism and Universal HC is such a novel idea. You are ignorant of human history and experience. Socialism, with its Universal HC is just another flavor of a very old and dated, 5000 years old, yet persistent system. It's called Tyranny. Marx called Dictatorship.
LOL! My how melodramatic. Yeah, I know your type, those that bandy about words like socialism, communism, Marxism - words designed to scare, words designed to conjure up the Cold War boogymen that, as it turned out, never even existed DURING the Cold War. Your version of doing things is actually much older than universal health care. It's called Social Darwinism - survival of the fittest, though in our case, it's the financially fit, and since you cannot get rich and still remain moral, it essentially means that we allow immorality to rise to the top. The result, of course, is a cadre of wealty elitists - perhaps like yourself - who would just as happily step over starving children on your way to the bank than to live in a civilization that actually helps its most vulnerable. (Yeah, I can play the "emotionally charged word game" too.)
Therefore, if any of my posts sounded demeaning to you, then GOOD! Perhaps that's what it takes to wake people up. These old Cold Warriors still running in fear of socialism are dinosaurs in today's world, as useless as nuclear weapons and equally as destructive to a functioning society.
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Originally Posted by Henry10
It is the American Constitution and society, a recent start-up of just 225 years old, which is the innovative and progressive society. A market-based healthcare was the American way. It is precisely this model that elevated our health science and technology to the top of the heap.
Hmm ... and a market-based healthcare system is discussed in the Constitution WHERE, exactly? Please cite article and paragraph or the amendment as appropriate. I'll wait. In fact, where in the Constitution do the Founders say we must be capitalists or even assert a specific economic model at all? I think you know full well that no such provision exists, and even if they did discuss this, America is our nation to govern as we see fit - it does NOT belong to the Founders. We are not "house sitting" the nation until the Founders come back from vacation.
As for being at "the top of the heap," who really cares? How is that a good thing for the average American who now pays an average of over $20,000 per year on health insurance for a family of four? It would be like every car dealership selling Rolls Royces or every restaurant on every corner in America being a five-star coronary dream. Sure, great choices for the wealthy, but the average person ends up priced out of the picture completely. Besides, the wealthy can still go to their fancy doctors and get better health care than the rest of us peons - because what would America be without ivory towers, gated communities, and a distinct class-based society. Hmm, I wonder if the Founders wanted an American aristocracy. Do ya think?
Your system is as old as governance with those with land, money, and titles getting better services, better living conditions, better justice, better, well, everything. The financeers aren't much different than the nobility given their lives of leisure where their money does most of the work. All they have to do is say yes or no to a proposal now and again. The rest of us are the ones who work and slave every day, and your system will soon put at least 70% of Americans at risk with either flimsy health insurance or none at all. Who can afford $20k per year for insurance when wages are stagnating, jobs are harder to find, and 67% of all new jobs created in the last 10 years being low-wage? Your system is falling apart and if we don't change it, we WILL see a return to medieval feudalism. Mark my words.
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Originally Posted by Henry10
As far as Canadian healthcare -- before you idolize it, learn it first. Read below a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. We Americans are considerable happier than Canadians with our healthcare. Secondly, healthcare in Canada's Universal BS is more income-gradient than US. That means that in Canada, the rich-to-poor health-gap is (gasp!) wider than in US.
Explain to me how such a study is even remotely useful in gauging which health care system is BETTER? Not only that, but just WHAT are the Americans in this study comparing? Have any of them actually lived in Canada and made use of their health care system? You can't compare something they have with something they never had and expect it to mean something. It's like asking a lifelong resident of Kansas: "So do you like living in Topeka more than you do Tokyo?" It's a meaningless question.
Plus, I am very well aware of the constant propaganda that comes from the right side of the political fence, what, with all of this nonsense about huge waiting times and millions of people dying from incompentent doctors, tainted medicines, or because they couldn't see a doctor in time, etc. etc. Of course if you actually talk to Canadians, most of them will tell you they wouldn't take our greed-based system if their lives dependent on it - which it kinda does! The Brits that I talk to have called our system "barbaric." And while there will be problems in any system, and while they admit that there are things they need to do to improve things, they still wouldn't take our aristocratic health care system for all the tea in the world, much less in China.
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Originally Posted by Henry10
If I was a woman, I would definitely want my healthcare in US, not Canada.
Why sure, as a woman I just love having my health care in a nation steeped in religion so that my reproductive health is decided upon at least as much by Bronze Age mythology as it is by 21st Century science. Yeah, that makes me so happy, especially when I see a troupe of old men sitting around deciding whether mammograms and pap smears should be covered by affordable insurance policies, having a bunch of male priests deciding my contraception rights ... and isn't it strange how Viagra is covered by most insurance policies, but contraception for women is not, and there's a big court battle right now fighting to allow religious business owners to deny contraception to women. Yeah, you don't even have to be a religious business anymore. Now you can own a secular business and STILL require your employees to adhere to your personal religious values. Just wait until the first Muslim store owner requires all of his female employees to come to work dressed in burkas - we'll see how long that law lasts.
No degree of health care is anyone's right. It is a personal responsibility. However, in the case of the USA where we are heavily taxed and have an irresponsible government that gives billions to foreign countries, I would like to see that revenue utilized for catastrophic health care for every citizen. It would be the civilized thing to do.
No, what's demeaning is being well educated, intelligent, and full of potential - but instead of enjoying a rewarding career, having a happy marriage, and raising a family, you instead spend your days unemployed, in bed most of the time, afflicted with chronic pain, isolated and disenfranchised because the meager resources of a free clinic can't figure out what's wrong with you. So you lay there in bed watching soaps and game shows while your life - and everyone else's lives - pass you by. THAT'S demeaning. Perhaps if you actually had to live this scenario, you wouldn't be so quick to blather about forum posts being demeaning.
As fellow sufferer, I can tell you that healthcare is hard work. Treatment is hard work. It is also hard work to find and go to facilities that can cure you. If you got little to no income, you should be on Medicaid. Many hospitals and clinics treat Medicaid patients.
If you don't have a good facility close by, how Universal Healthcare would solve that better than Medicaid?
If we want to learn something from Canada, your treatment would be worse in Canada, and longer waiting period. This is the reality. So forget about philosophizing and moralizing us.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
Yes, that's EXACTLY what I'm saying. And if you think the burden must fall on family members, most of whom are either elderly and on fixed incomes or young and just starting out (and financially murdered by student loan debt), you're living in a fantasyland. And what happens to the person who doesn't have a big family - or no family at all? Are disabled people just SOL if their parents' generation had almost zero children other than yourself?
Plus, no matter how much your family might love you, there will ALWAYS be resentment and anger - because YOU, the disabled person, is sucking up their incomes, taking up room in their houses, and if the disability is bad enough, they might have to feed you, change diapers, bathe you ... perhaps for decades. And the disabled person is going to KNOW that they're a burden.
Many people, you call them middle class, planned for healthcare in retirement. Those who didn't, we still have a safety net, for basic income and healthcare.
Yes, burden for most elderly falls (and should fall) on their own resources, and family. That's how it should be -- it's common sense. Those who can't and who don't have family, we have a safety net for them. However, we don't want this to be turned on its head, and remove family, and even people's own motivation to prepare themselves through life to live well in their sunset years.
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Originally Posted by Shirina
Europe was bombed back to the Stone Age during WWII. They experienced invasions, the Holocaust, occupations, terrorism, and ethnic cleansing. After going through a six-long year ordeal like that, the one thing the Europeans did NOT want to do was go back to "business as usual." They wanted the war to change how they did things. And so yes, they are experimenting. Isn't that grand? They're evolving, changing, forging a path for the future of nations. America is still stuck in 1950 because we didn't learn anything from WWII; we were safe behind our oceans. Perhaps if America had had to spend the next 40 years rebuilding, if we had had jackbooted armies marching through our capital cities, perhaps if our Jews and intellectuals had to hide in attics, perhaps if our women and children were being raped and butched while our men were off to war, WE wouldn't even be debating this topic. WE would be doing things differently instead of the same old Mammon worship - money first, always first, and everything has a price tag - even compassion.
You need to learn and get educated first about current European societies, the good and the bad. Secondly, you need to learn about history, especially European history, at least for the last 200-300 years.
Then you can start to understand what's going on in Europe.
About compassion -- maybe we have different points of view on compassion -- compassion for me is respect of the individual, and its liberties. The very Europe you talk about dedicated about 400-500 years to fighting, revolutions, civil wars, Enlightment, great progresses in arts, culture, science, religion, to liberate the individual from the chains of Govt. You may not understand it, but demeaning the individual, and its sovereignty over the state, goes against the last 500-700 years of progress in Western Civilizations.
You also need to understand how Europe has structured its political systems, post WWII, to deal with the very danger of the perennial enemy of compassion -- Tyrannical Governments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina
LOL! My how melodramatic. Yeah, I know your type, those that bandy about words like socialism, communism, Marxism - words designed to scare, words designed to conjure up the Cold War boogymen that, as it turned out, never even existed DURING the Cold War.
My high-school friend died in Bucarest's square overthrowing the regimes you make fun of. They had Universal Healthare o'right. He was not even 22-years old. You think that is melodramatic??
My generation overthrew a Regime, which mentality you represent, overthrew by a bloody revolution. When students overthrew socialism they wanted liberty, capitalism. They surely did not want another Universal Healthcare.
Surely, tanks crushed many, and snipers took out some more, but students caught up with the people you seem to agree with. And students executed them.
Just over 20 years ago. This was no fiction. You find that melodramatic? It is called real-life experience, and the ability to read more than one chapter in the History for Dummies.
The rest of your ignorant rambling -- it's not worth wasting keystrokes.
Healthcare is always a "want" and sometimes a "need".
No degree of healthcare is a "right".
If you're talking boob jobs and tummy tucks.. sure..
But...
Really.. you think healthcare is a want.. so people want disease that needs to be cured? Or sicknesses that require medicine.
The ONLY want in regard to healthcare is to not have to NEED it.....
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How about us old geezers who worked all of our lives and paid into the system??
