Congratulations America

[Juska]

What I was saying is that it hardly matters which one gets moved around, it all ends up being equal in the end. Land is very hard to redistribute, so money is the next best thing.

Actually, it matters very much which one is redistributed. If all you do is redistribute money then you will have to constantly redistribute money, especially if that money is being consumed for survival. If you redistribute land and then that land is used to produce you thereby break the cycle of redistribution, because someone with their own productive land can be self-sufficient. Giving someone money does not give them the chance to become self-sufficient, it makes them dependent.

What would people need to do in order to change individuals on that scale? We are talking about a mass consciousness shift in 300 million people. Stuff like that can't be lobbied for ^_^

A giant change in academia is one thing that is needed to produce such an individual change. Technically you could lobby that, but I don't suggest or support it.

You would be hard pressed to find 1000 of those stories happening in a small time span without the shift talked about above. A million is a fraction, sure, but not enough to fund any sort of health care initiative.

If the top million income earners in America wanted to they could make a great choice to change health care, that's where the majority of this money is coming from anyway.

I don't see how giving away your votes to a handful of highly placed people constitutes the states having more power. If anything that is a deferral of power. Concentrating voting power like that vastly increases the chances of corruption, since you only need to get to a few 10's of people in order to make a major shift in the result of an election, if it is planned right.

Because each state is important, even the small states are important on some level because their electoral votes matter. If it was all popular vote then candidates would cater to large population centers and ignore the voices of those outside. It gives the minority a voice in the process.

The system gives states the power because states cast votes and not people (even though the people cast the votes for their state), a popular vote would nullify any state power in the presidential election process. Electors almost never vote against the people anyway because they are carefully chosen.

Your country doesn't have the laws in place for that to work, and it would likely be labeled communism immediately by half the population. But I still don't think that a private monopoly is -ever- a good idea if you want anything cheap or high quality. Take a look at cell phone services recently, for example. It was -almost- a monopoly for a long time, only now are competitors coming out, and we suddenly discover that they can do it for less than half the price.

Public monopolies can do the same things as private monopolies and actually we do have the laws in place for private monopolies to work under public supervision, nearly every power company in the United States acts as a private monopoly under public oversight.

Agreed, these are issues that when fixed will go a long way toward lowering prices. But I doubt it would be enough, since being able to buy across state  lines paves the way for a monopoly to develop independently, which would be a disaster.

I don't quite see how increased competition leads directly to private monopolies, it lets better companies succeed and poorer companies fail yes, which is good. Besides we have many anti-monopoly laws in place to prevent them from happening and being harmful.

It's a before and after comparison:
before: I have nothing, and can get more by becoming independent
after: I have health insurance, and by becoming independent I get exactly what I did before, which hopefully included health insurance at a small price.

No you don't, because you will lose your health insurance coverage when you progress to a certain income level which may not be sufficient to provide you your own coverage, and then you'll get taxed to boot.

I think that the amount of money that would be paid for health insurance is much smaller than the amount of income that would be needed as an increase to move out of dependency status. Isn't is partially subsidized up to a certain imcome bracket as well?

Yes it is partially subsidized, but if you've lost the other welfare programs in addition the odds of you being able to make up the difference needed after the subsidy are low and it's safer and easier to just remain a dependent.

Insert [everything they own] where I originally said [home] and the point remains.

Dependency level citizens don't own anything that could be used as collateral to pay for health care, because what they receive they consume. You can't save up dependency gifts because then your wealth will exceed the levels allotted for you to keep receiving aid and many forms of aid aren't redeemable outside of a specific area (food stamps for instance can't be saved or used to buy health care). They consume what they are given and so save nothing in order to progress. Now they get to consume more and have even less incentive to save and progress away.  

Well, I actually dislike the entire democracy system that most of democratic countries have. The brand of democracy we have is just deferral of decision making - we elect some guy to make our decisions for us for x number of years. Actual democracy involves mass decision making on most aspects of life. So I really dislike the idea of having a "head of state" at all - I think there should just be x number of administrators with limited decision making power that basically derive their power directly from majority vote on individual issues.

Perhaps not so feasible with huge populations, but I think that in a system where voting happens for most important issues, the power of a federal government ceases to be a problem.

That's because what we have is a representative democracy and not a pure democracy in order to prevent mob rule and so that minority voices are not lost in the crowd. Historically successful pure democracy did not include universal suffrage, if they had then the uninformed, poorly educated masses would run amok with the countries decisions. Historically mob rule has never led to any kind of favorable outcome. Ideally pure democracy would work in a society of complete equality ( as long as the equality tends toward good, smart, educated, responsible, virtuous, and self-reliant not equality of absolute stupidity), but so would any other form of government.

And so because we can be sure that there will always be stupid, angry, and bad men in the world the best way to minimize the damage those men can do it to make sure every man is as equal in terms of power as the next. So that the bad man cannot force the good man to do bad or so that the stupid man cannot force the smart man to do stupid things. Government's role is to protect one man from the unwanted actions of another directed towards him or his property and to protect the one man from the unwanted actions of the mob as well.

Your in favor of collectivism and I am not.

PS. Everything is related, we are just breaking the surface and confronting the actual issues, which are why we think a certain way on certain things.

[Death]

"Oh no, it's going to cost money!"
"Oh no, I don't have the right to be uninsured anymore!"

So. duck. What.

This saves lives. Many, many lives, and it goes towards GREATLY increasing the quality of life for countless Americans. I honestly could not care less about people having to have insurance or having to pay a bit more in taxes when it is weighted against the unbelievable amounts of good it will produce.

But then again I am apparently an oddity, I don't believe in putting greed and self-interest ahead of the greater good. I'm willing to give a little to help people that I don't even know. But I guess that just makes me a better person than some.

I'm going to enjoy my first visit to the doctor in about 4 years, at least. Maybe now I can finally get some treatment so I don't have to die when I'm duck 30.

[Juska]

"Oh no, it's going to cost money!"
"Oh no, I don't have the right to be uninsured anymore!"

So. [wash my mouth out!!!]. What.

This saves lives. Many, many lives, and it goes towards GREATLY increasing the quality of life for countless Americans. I honestly could not care less about people having to have insurance or having to pay a bit more in taxes when it is weighted against the unbelievable amounts of good it will produce.

But then again I am apparently an oddity, I don't believe in putting greed and self-interest ahead of the greater good. I'm willing to give a little to help people that I don't even know. But I guess that just makes me a better person than some.

I'm going to enjoy my first visit to the doctor in about 4 years, at least. Maybe now I can finally get some treatment so I don't have to die when I'm [wash my mouth out!!!] 30.

So, your being covered freely now? (Unless I'm misreading your last sentence) And then your saying that others shouldn't put self-interest first? When this is in your self-interest?

I don't believe in putting the self-interest of the masses before the self-interest of the individual.

The amount of good it will do is questionable at best, UHC has only been around for 60 some odd years and this new system isn't even UHC, on the other hand, government has been around for 5,000+ years and it has been proven again and again that powerful governments have the power to do horrible things to their people and that government always seek more and more power, so they should be combated at every step.

I'll take five millennia of history over six decades thank you.

[Death]

"Oh no, it's going to cost money!"
"Oh no, I don't have the right to be uninsured anymore!"

So. [wash my mouth out!!!]. What.

This saves lives. Many, many lives, and it goes towards GREATLY increasing the quality of life for countless Americans. I honestly could not care less about people having to have insurance or having to pay a bit more in taxes when it is weighted against the unbelievable amounts of good it will produce.

But then again I am apparently an oddity, I don't believe in putting greed and self-interest ahead of the greater good. I'm willing to give a little to help people that I don't even know. But I guess that just makes me a better person than some.

I'm going to enjoy my first visit to the doctor in about 4 years, at least. Maybe now I can finally get some treatment so I don't have to die when I'm [wash my mouth out!!!] 30.

So, your being covered freely now? (Unless I'm misreading your last sentence) And then your saying that others shouldn't put self-interest first? When this is in your self-interest?

I don't believe in putting the self-interest of the masses before the self-interest of the individual.

The amount of good it will do is questionable at best, UHC has only been around for 60 some odd years and this new system isn't even UHC, on the other hand, government has been around for 5,000+ years and it has been proven again and again that powerful governments have the power to do horrible things to their people and that government always seek more and more power, so they should be combated at every step.

I'll take five millennia of history over six decades thank you.

Nobody is being covered freely now, but this year I will have insurance so I won't have to file for bankruptcy if I see a doctor. You aren't even making a logical argument, you're just making assumptions about what will happen. Aren't you like, Dutch or something anyways? If you don't have much experience with the American government and healthcare system you have absolutely no business discussing it.  These are human lives we're talking about, not just figures from the news.

Your argument is a lot like religion in function, one of those completely "WAIT AND SEE" things. So yeah, let's watch America be ruined because Americans will live better. Poverty pays.

A questionable amount of good though.. lol. If you don't care about people dying and losing everything they own because of the way this system operates, then yeah, I guess healthcare reform is a horrible thing for you. Sorry.

[Juska]

I am an American citizen, I was born in New Jersey and have lived every year of my life in America. My ancestry is Dutch, my grandparents immigrated in the early 50's from the Netherlands.

I've already addressed all of your points in my discussion with Shadow. This not just a matter of providing health care to people, there is much more at stake.

[Shadow]

Meh, I think the 'wait and see' point will be an interesting one. If this actually sticks long enough and people stop opposing it long enough to allow it a chance to do what it is supposed to, I think you will see in a few years that this new system is not as evil as you think it is.

[Juska]

Yeah, there were a whole lot of Europeans with the same wait and see attitude of appeasement when Hitler started snatching up territory.

Note: I'm not saying that Obama and the Democrats are Hitler and the Nazis, just that historically appeasement is a bad policy.

[Shadow]

well the  point here is that this is happening, and it can either be good, or people can keep forcing compromises into it and it will be a piece of crap. Actually you are already past that point, but it is not completely unsalvagable.

This is hardly appeasement, it is giving somthing new a chance

[Death]

It's all fun and games until the person not getting their way starts talking about Hitler. Weak.

[Juska]

I make a comparison with a solid historical fact and you call me weak?

I could have very well used Soviet Russia, The Turks in the 1920's, a string of Roman Emperors like Nero, Communist China, etc. etc. all instances of Governments committing crimes against their people because they have too much power, appeasement of Hitler is in the same vein as appeasement of Federal Tyranny that is going on today in the U.S.

You can't even back up any of your points.

[Shadow]

Socialized health care is not a crime against the people. Therefore your analogy is meaningless and at worst does nothing other than make the argument black and white, which is the reason so many compromises had to be put in and why the health care bill sucks so much compared to anywhere else in the world.

[Death]

I make a comparison with a solid historical fact and you call me weak?

I could have very well used Soviet Russia, The Turks in the 1920's, a string of Roman Emperors like Nero, Communist China, etc. etc. all instances of Governments committing crimes against their people because they have too much power, appeasement of Hitler is in the same vein as appeasement of Federal Tyranny that is going on today in the U.S.

You can't even back up any of your points.

Reductio ad Hitlerum, my favorite irrelevance fallacy. You compared someone responsible for countless deaths to you having to have insurance. It's i n s u r a n c e, you need it in this country in the first place and always have.

And how, pray tell, do I back up my points when I am talking from my experience, the experience of those I know, and simple common knowledge? Don't be Foxy about it, you're better than that. Maybe I am a little annoyed about the fact that I have an on and off permanent limp because I broke my ankle and couldn't get it checked out because we would have lost our house (with insurance and a working class family) but oh well. But heeey, who needs a working class, if we die by 60 then lots of money is saved, amirite?

That is classic though. "I like chocolate icecream better than vani-" "YOU CAN'T BACK THAT POINT UP SHUT UP NAZI"

[Juska]

Look, I didn't call anyone a Nazi. All I did was point to similarities in situations.

You couldn't get your ankle checked out after you broke it even though you had insurance and a house? Please, give me a break that is complete lie.

If you owned a house you could have very easily used it as collateral to take a out a loan to cover the medical expenses associated with a broken ankle. I don't know what your deductible was or what type of insurance you had, but I can see how you got screwed by your insurance provider or plan and as I've said before I'm all about insurance reform.

If you didn't actually own your home I can see how having to pay medical bills would of deprived you from having a place to live and so you made the decision to forgo medical treatment, that I can understand and be sympathetic to, but to say that because you've had that experience it in some way justifies forcing others to pay for insurance they don't want is a little ridiculous.

Or if you did own your home, but decided that avoiding debt was more prudent then getting treatment, then that is something I can wholeheartedly understand. Being in debt is like being enslaved, but then you made a decision and must accept responsibility for your action.

"It's i n s u r a n c e, you need it in this country in the first place and always have." - quoted from Death

That's a blatant lie. You do not need to have health insurance and you most definitely did not always have to have had it in this country. Health insurance is largely a phenomena of the last hundred years and if you think that "always" means the last hundred years, well then I guess I can understand why me and you don't see eye to eye.

Once again, someone with cash to pay medical bills does not need to have health insurance.



If you die at 60 technically it will save the Federal Government a lot of money, because they won't have to provide medical and pension services for you, and because we have to pay taxes to the government technically it will save everyone money. So you dying at 60 saves everyone money, including me and your children and your neighbor and that guy two towns over who runs an auto-shop.

On the other hand you living to 100 and being able to provide for yourself without the government saves everyone the same amount of money, except for you since you need to pay taxes for another 40 years, but heck then you could live a bit longer.

If you want to talk experience we can talk a little experience, my family has been dealing with the IRS over back taxes for the last 15 years because when we sold our dairy cattle certain tax laws weren't made known to us until a later date. My father has a nerve condition were the antibodies in his body are killing the nerve cells in his lower leg, we have insurance but of course it doesn't cover everything. We don't make enough money to live and completely cover medical bills, our church raised over $10,000 over this Easter to help us pay for medical bills. Charity from people in action. My parents make $70,000 a year, and have four kids, two of which are in college and one who will be soon, it was only four years ago that we were able to buy a house, which we still owe a lot of money on, we don't expect or want the government to swoop in and take care of our problems, we have control over our lives to live the best way that we can and that is what we want. My family makes too much money to ever be considered needy by the government, but it doesn't make enough money for the government to show up and take what we have to give it to those people who don't, if people are in need let us decide and let us help them, just like our church congregation helped us.

[Death]

Dude I'm not kidding, I don't debate people who bring Hitler up, sorry.

[Alazar is Back]

I think this debate is as simple as this. Why should the government be able to tell me what I can and cannot do? There are obvious things that protect others rights, but if I do not want health care I should not have to have it. Or pay for my lazy neighbor to have it.