Of Those Who Are Against 'Socialized' Medical Care.... (unemployment, minimum wage, illegal aliens)

[Hobokenkitchen]

I thought it would be interesting to do a kind of poll. : )

1: Are you For or Against universal health care?

2: How many of those who are against universal health care have lived in a country WITH universal health care? If so where? What was your experience?

2B: If your above answer was 'yes':were your taxes dramatically higher than your current taxes?

3: How many of you have a serious illness or have a close family member with a serious illness?

4: How many of you have lost jobs that have left you without health insurance even for a short period?

5: How many of you have watched Michael Moore's; Sicko? I know lots of people love to hate Michael Moore so I'm not looking for posts bashing Michael Moore - just wondering if you watched Sicko.

6: Have any of you filed bankruptcy due to unforseen medical expenses (either with or without health insurance).

7: ** I MADE UP THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES** Do you consider yourself to be 'rich'(household income $200,000/year plus), 'middle class'(household income $50,000 - $200,000/ year) or 'poor'(houshold income under $50,000/ year)? Do these sound like fair categorizations?

I am just wondering how the answers to these questions effect people's opinions.

I didn't think much about health insurance until my husband was laid off. Never crossed my mind before that. Now it does.

And my answers are:

1: For.

2: Yes. England, Denmark and Holland. In England I had the UK's private health insurance; BUPA, when I was younger (under my Father's policy). It was great. When I started work I chose to stick with the NHS. Never had any problems with health care which was always fine, but my dental care was sub par and I have spent a LOT of money correcting dental issues since living in the States.
In DK and NL health care was good, free and fast. No problems.

2B: No.

3: Yes. My aunt had breast cancer. Had free health care in the UK and is now healthy (touch wood).

4: Yes. My husband was laid off and had 6 months of unemployment. We signed up for a health insurance policy which covers emergencies only. It was expensive and our deductable in case of emergency was something like $6000.

5: Yes.

6: No. Thank goodness.

7: Mostly middle class. Very occassionally rich for a year or two! : )

[evilnewbie]

Originally Posted by Hobokenkitchen

I thought it would be interesting to do a kind of poll. : )

1: Are you For or Against universal health care?

Against. I would be "for" it if it was paid by ONLY those who enroll into the program and does not dip into other people's money. If the government wants to compete with the free market, I say let it, but don't be surprise when they lose badly. Government corruption ALWAYS cost more than the free market.

2: How many of those who are against universal health care have lived in a country WITH universal health care? If so where? What was your experience?

I have been to MULTIPLE countries with universal health care and from what I have seen and heard from practicing physicians over there. Its ALL bad... these foreign governments also hide the fact that their socialized health care is losing money very, very, very badly, they have to increases taxes A LOT just to keep up. You want modern medicine, you have to pay, no matter if its socialized or free market.

2B: If your above answer was 'yes':were your taxes dramatically higher than your current taxes?

I know for a fact that these countries have higher taxes anywhere between 10-20% and the problem is, these countries STILL can't afford their socialized health care. They want to increase taxes.. they have NO choice about it...

3: How many of you have a serious illness or have a close family member with a serious illness?

I am too young to have a serious illness but every one of my relatives and close family have serious illnesses (diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, cystic fibrosis, etc. etc.). Almost all of them don't even make more than 50k a year.. yet they can afford it all... apparently statistics and other people in this forum says that they can't...

4: How many of you have lost jobs that have left you without health insurance even for a short period?

I have never had health insurance from the age of 25-30 years of age. NEVER needed it, because most people my age don't have health problems. My work provides health insurance and I choose the CHEAPEST plan there is, because I simply don't need it. Making me pay more, makes NO sense at all... except to subsidize OTHER people who don't pay theirs...

5: How many of you have watched Michael Moore's; Sicko? I know lots of people love to hate Michael Moore so I'm not looking for posts bashing Michael Moore - just wondering if you watched Sicko.

Yes, I have and if you want to base the whole health care industry on tragic case reports and looking at the worse in health care, then I suppose you don't want to know that in most cases they work pretty well too. Is it perfect? Nope. Should there be reform? Yes... is socialized health care without any of the current problems. Absolutely NOT.

6: Have any of you filed bankruptcy due to unforseen medical expenses (either with or without health insurance).

Nope. I am just too responsible with my finances to be in that position.

7: ** I MADE UP THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES** Do you consider yourself to be 'rich'(household income $200,000/year plus), 'middle class'(household income $50,000 - $200,000/ year) or 'poor'(houshold income under $50,000/ year)? Do these sound like fair categorizations?

Nope they are not fair categorizations. Instead you should ask, after bills, mortgages, TAXES, and other loans, do you have a surplus of 1k per month, 5k per month, or more than 10k per month... people with 200k incomes don't consider themselves rich when their bills eat up almost all of their income...

[neil0311]

I'm not going to answer specific questions, but I am philosphically in favor of universal health care as an ideal, but against it in practice for the following reasons:

1. Many countries that have it, such as Canada and the UK specifically, suffer severe shortages of care and waits for care. Many Canadians come to the US and seek private care rather than suffer or die waiting in Canada. Same in the UK where many take private insurance for similar reasons.

2. The government has never been able to do anything of a large scale both well and efficiently. The military does its job well, but certainly not efficiently. A government run health care system, if it could be successful and eliminate the problems in my first point, would be massively inefficient and full of waste and corruption.

[jufrbo]

I don't have time to answer all those, but can say that holland and Denmark are much smaller than the US and a universal system is much different on such a small scale, it just couldn't work with 300 million people and 20 million illegals.

[happ]

socialized medicine is inevitable [only selfish Republicans hold our nation captive to their narrow/snobbish desires - despicable people.

Here in Cali our Republican governor is desperately working to install universal health care before he is up for election. Does that suggest where the country is going? duh!

[Hobokenkitchen]

Not answering any of the questions defeats the purpose of this thread which is to try and see if people's experiences effect their opinions.
There are other threads to just discuss whether a universal system can work.

Everyone has an opinion, I am trying to work out if the opinion is determined by experience, hence the questions. You don't even have to elaborate if you don't have time. YES / NO answers which should be very quick are fine too! : )

Thanks!! : )

[desertsun41]

Before this poll gets started, and based what I read on simular threads on this forum, I want to lay money on this fact:

Those who have employer sponsered health insurance will vote NO national health care.

Those who have no health insurance will naturally vote YES national health care.

There has always been a greedy kinda "I have it and to hell with those who dont" attitude.

I lived in Canada for a while so I know how important it is not to have to live with the stress of having none. I lived in America far longer with none. As a cancer surviver I wish I had it. No matter....I do not want minimum wage clerks who work for the insurance industry deciding my lifes fate.

This system sucks here. Even worse in Nevada where they are sticking us with HIV, AIDS and HEP C infested needles.

For those of you who have not heard yet, Las Vegas Clinics have been using the same damn needle on people comingling diseases among us all.
Local Las Vegas >> Downtown » Unsafe Practices Revealed at More Health Care Centers
40,000 patients affected/infected and when they went home unknowing about it had sexual relations with their wives, girlfriends and Mistresses. We might just have a hundred thousand new infectious diseased people as the tests come in that our fine health care system is making us pay for out of our own pockets.

For those of you visiting Vegas, DO NOT GET SICK HERE. Even our own Governer, Mayor and CEO of the Nevada Cancer Center travels to Phoenix and Southern California for medical treatments. Do they know something we do not?

[evilnewbie]

Originally Posted by desertsun41

Before this poll gets started, and based what I read on simular threads on this forum, I want to lay money on this fact:

Those who have employer sponsered health insurance will vote NO national health care.

Those who have no health insurance will naturally vote YES national health care.

There has always been a greedy kinda "I have it and to hell with those who dont" attitude.

I lived in Canada for a while so I know how important it is not to have to live with the stress of having none. I lived in America far longer with none. As a cancer surviver I wish I had it. No matter....I do not want minimum wage clerks who work for the insurance industry deciding my lifes fate.

This system sucks here. Even worse in Nevada where they are sticking us with HIV, AIDS and HEP C infested needles.

For those of you who have not heard yet, Las Vegas Clinics have been using the same damn needle on people comingling diseases among us all.
Local Las Vegas >> Downtown » Unsafe Practices Revealed at More Health Care Centers
40,000 patients affected/infected and when they went home unknowing about it had sexual relations with their wives, girlfriends and Mistresses. We might just have a hundred thousand new infectious diseased people as the tests come in that our fine health care system is making us pay for out of our own pockets.

For those of you visiting Vegas, DO NOT GET SICK HERE. Even our own Governer, Mayor and CEO of the Nevada Cancer Center travels to Phoenix and Southern California for medical treatments. Do they know something we do not?

Apparently you are uninformed. They did NOT reuse needles but reused the medicine (liquid-based anesthetic). They used different needles but the point was the needle used on the patient contaminated the medicine which was used again on the next patient. This fits perfectly with socialized medicine... trying to make things as cheap as possible... too bad you might get infected.. cheaper doesn't not mean better and often means worse...

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by desertsun41

Those who have employer sponsered health insurance will vote NO national health care.

Those who have no health insurance will naturally vote YES national health care.

There has always been a greedy kinda "I have it and to hell with those who dont" attitude.

That's a typical response that demonizes people who disagree. We're always greedy racist warmongers.

First, it's fine to be one of the takers when someone else is paying the bill.

Second, I paid more than $40K in federal taxes last year and my employer provided me with excellent health insurance that met all my needs. Why should I be forced to change, or pay for both the gov't system and my current system?

Third, there are many in our society, who by their own actions, don't deserve to have services provided to them free of charge, paid for by others who work hard. Among these people are criminals (including illegal aliens who by definintion are criminals), drug addicts, unwed and teen mothers who get pregnant and can't support their children or the care they need. People need to take personal responsibility and not rely on the government and other taxpayers to foot the bill for their own stupidity and irresponsibility. Now there are some who are in temporary need or through no fault of their own need govt services. There are already a myriad of programs to help and service those people.

[Hobokenkitchen]

Originally Posted by evilnewbie

This fits perfectly with socialized medicine... trying to make things as cheap as possible... too bad you might get infected.. cheaper doesn't not mean better and often means worse...

Er, hang on. I've lived in three countries with a national health system and visited many, many others and have NEVER heard of needles being reused. Also I believe the US system is more expensive than a lot of the others.
Let's stick to facts and not resort to scaremongering please.