We have medicaid. Which is only for people with low incomes that can' t afford it. Everyone else either gets health insurance from their employment or chooses it themselves.

ORIGINAL: locopuyo

We have medicaid. Which is only for people with low incomes that can' t afford it. Everyone else either gets health insurance from their employment or chooses it themselves.

And the health insurance companies are garbage.

It basically covers shit I can already afford without healthcare. I don' t need healthcare to cover $20 worth of antibiotics, I need it to cover $500,000 surgeries, which it doesn' t.

That shit should be ***ing illegal, they need to be FORCED to pay atleast 90% of expenses for everything, not just for a $20 bottle of generic pills.

It' s extortion. Health care is an essential service period. Imagine if your house was on fire and you had to hand the fire department 100,000$ before they put it out and try to rescue peope trapped inside.

Drug companies in the US are making Billions on medicine. No one should make that much profit off of medication. Even if you make the argument against subsidising the drugs with tax dollars, you should at least put controls on the people selling them so they don' t make a 1700% markup.

ORIGINAL: Agent Ghost

God save America.

He' s not right. You want to know why I vote Republican? Because when broken down to a basic level Republicans are for smaller government and don' t expect the government to coddle people.

If you think Republicans represent traditional conservatism you' re living in a ***ing dream world. They pissed away hundreds of billions in an illegal war. They spend more than the democrates would have except the spending didn' t benefit Americans. Bush basically stole money from social security to kill half a million Iraqis for no reason at all. The current republican party needs to be lynched.

My philosophy is that there is no supreme system. Every country in every year is different, and thus demands different strategies for optimal success. In most cases we need to change governments just to fix the *** ups from the last guys.

America is the richest country in the world. It' s pretty disgusting that they don' t have basic things like health care. Americans have ***ed themselves.

It' s about the balance of power. I don' t like a big government making useless laws and effectively taking a giant shit on our freedom but at the same time I don' t want to a small government to step aside and let big corporations take advantage of citizens. The ideal is to keep the balance of power with the people.

I should really rephrase what I said, I shouldn' t have said " vote" Republican since I' ve never voted even though I was a registered voter since before the last election. I should have said I am a Republican.

To be honest a lot of what you said is very correct. The current Republicans in power aren' t exactly following real conservative values which is upsetting. Those are people though, not the ideals of conservatism. Politics and politicians as a whole are corrupt. All the different parties are f*cked up.

I' m a conservative republican but I do agree with some liberal views. That is why the balance of power and the democratic election system is great. When sh*t gets fucked up you can replace who' s running the country in four years.

No matter who gets elected things get f*cked up. People will bitch and complain. It' s inevitable. The only thing you can do is vote for the person that best depicts your values (even though once they are elected they normally turn out being completely different then what they ran as) and hope for the best. I probably won' t vote (again) this election and if I do it will be a write in because in my eyes both candidates are garbage.

I' ve been raised a conservative. I' ve seen the ideals work first hand. Of course it was on a small scale since it was my family and like anything else once taken to a large scale things get messed up along the way. Still, ideally I think people should work hard and be rewarded for it. All I can do is try to vote for somebody that feels the same way and try to make it happen.

Youre a stupid ***, emofag. The more power you give to a government the worse. I would rather pay a private corporation than have to pay for mediocre healthcare from the government for myself and the unemployed whore down the street with 5 kids. Look at Canada. If they need a specialist they come to America for it. The only good thing about national healthcare is it makes routine doctor visits possible for poor people. But in the end, who cares about them anyway? I dont want to live in a communist country where we' re forced to support people who wont support themselves.

You are very ignorant. Which wouldn' t be such a problem if you were blissful instead of angry and hostile.

It appears your education system has failed you. Who do you blame for that one?

Hey Dag, ...where ya been?

ORIGINAL: emofag

ORIGINAL: locopuyo

We have medicaid. Which is only for people with low incomes that can' t afford it. Everyone else either gets health insurance from their employment or chooses it themselves.

And the health insurance companies are garbage.

It basically covers shit I can already afford without healthcare. I don' t need healthcare to cover $20 worth of antibiotics, I need it to cover $500,000 surgeries, which it doesn' t.

That shit should be ***ing illegal, they need to be FORCED to pay atleast 90% of expenses for everything, not just for a $20 bottle of generic pills.

You can get that insurance, it costs more. Health insurance is a big scam.

ORIGINAL: locopuyo
You can get that insurance, it costs more. Health insurance is a big scam.

I know, I had a Appendicectomy and was billed $32,000. I had to pay like $800 out of that, and this is considered one of the cheapest surgeries. They stick two needles into you, suck your apendix out, and it takes like 45 minutes.

Apparently in europe the hospital' s cost with equipment and labor is like $2,000 to perform the surgery, so they are making a nice profit here. It probably is alot easier to have free healthcare when the hospitals aren' t out to make a 1500% profit. Insurance companies are only part of the problem.

I like how hospitals say they lose billions because of having to operate on uninsured people, what they mean is they lost billions in POTENTIAL PROFIT, net loss isn' t even in the millions.

The USA is the only western first world nation that doesn' t have national healthcare. It' s pathetic. And the reason is because it' s big business for pharmaceutical companies. If you think otherwise then you' re fucking clown.

Well said very well said.

VX, while I see how that sounds ideal and all in terms of health care I have to ask how the tax brackets work in your country. Here in the US the more you make the larger percentage of your salary is taxed. I see that as being quite unfair. The reasoning behind it is apparently the more money you make the less you really need. How is it the government' s right to decide that? As you make more money and rise the in the class standings you are basically being punished for it by having to pay more and more. It' s their money, they earned it, and I don' t see why the government is taking that from them. I' m all for the idea of a flat tax. I think everyone should have a fixed percentage of their income taxed, not this varied crap we have.

Taxes here are insane, we are one of the top taxed countries in the world. It also changes here, if you make a decent amount of money you pay 70% of your last made dollars.

The lowest tax is around 48%

ORIGINAL: Nitro

ORIGINAL: Torr

On the healtcare issue, I think what dan was trying to say is that we have some of the best doctors because they get paid a lot to become really good and if we have a national healthcare that pays more basic rates and doctors have less control over how much they make they might not be inclined to do what they do so well. Now I am not saying that all doctors are this self serving and that they won' t getting paid very much, but as an overall the medical field is very capitalist in america and so taking the capitalistness(probably not a word) out of may hurt it.

Rubbish. You either do your job properly or you find yourself without it.

The way it' s set up right now - only the people with money are getting the best healthcare. Everybody should be getting the same level of treatment.

We have had free healthcare - paid for through taxes for 60 years. It covers everything from dentistry to long-term chronic illnesses. Treatment is free, save for small charges for prescriptions if you' re gainfully employed. If you' re unemployed, elderly, a child or on a low income then prescriptions are free too.

The USA is the only western first world nation that doesn' t have national healthcare. It' s pathetic. And the reason is because it' s big business for pharmaceutical companies. If you think otherwise then you' re fucking clown.

Nitro it' s all well and good having the NHS however it is run like a corporation and mismanaged like some third world government, too much red tape before anything can be done, waiting lists are far to long for operations (mainly due to the amount of free loading immigrants and terrorists who think they are owed something by coming to the UK.) The NHS will be a thing of the past in the next 10 or 20 years with more and more people willing and wanting to pay for treatment mainly because it is quicker and there is less risk of infection because of the low intelligent muppets they employ to clean the hospitals cannot do the job properly. To prove the point my Mother needed a knee replacement last year (aged 68). the NHS wanted her to wait 18 months, I added her to my private healthcare scheme and after waiting 2 weeks to see the consultant (becauase he was on holiday) 4 weeks later she was having the op and was being treated like a Queen. My Mother worked in the NHS for 18 years and was shocked that it would take so long.

Granted, ...it' s certainly not perfect, but there' s no viable alternative. If you have the money then go private, but what about the people who don' t have the money? The amounts charged in the US are extortionate and in many cases, if you don' t have insurance you' re screwed. The simple fact of the matter is that every nation should have free health care for all. There will always be private firms to turn to if you have the reddies.

Wasn' t there a documentary (by Torr' s long lost twin) about the health care system in the states? If i remember correctly, there was a guy who didn' t have health insurance and managed to cut off 2 fingers in some freak accident... but couldn' t afford to have them both re-attached and so had to choose the cheapest, which was still several thousand dollars.

I don' t understand how any doctor/surgeon could work like that - the only reason not to re-attach both fingers, it being physically possible, because the guy couldn' t afford it? GTFO!!!

I don' t understand how any doctor/surgeon could work like that - the only reason not to re-attach both fingers, it being physically possible, because the guy couldn' t afford it? GTFO!!!

So, if a person needs cancer treatment in the US, and has no insurance/money, the doctors just go " too bad" and let them go off and die?

ORIGINAL: Nitro

Granted, ...it' s certainly not perfect, but there' s no viable alternative. If you have the money then go private, but what about the people who don' t have the money? The amounts charged in the US are extortionate and in many cases, if you don' t have insurance you' re screwed. The simple fact of the matter is that every nation should have free health care for all. There will always be private firms to turn to if you have the reddies.

Wasn' t there a documentary (by Torr' s long lost twin) about the health care system in the states? If i remember correctly, there was a guy who didn' t have health insurance and managed to cut off 2 fingers in some freak accident... but couldn' t afford to have them both re-attached and so had to choose the cheapest, which was still several thousand dollars.

I don' t understand how any doctor/surgeon could work like that - the only reason not to re-attach both fingers, it being physically possible, because the guy couldn' t afford it? GTFO!!!

It does make a mockery of the hypocratic oath that medical professionals are supposed to take and uphold.

Yep.

And chemotherapy costs between $30,000 and $60,000 (?) a treatment. I' m not sure exactly what a " treatment" is, ...whether it' s per course or per patient, but if you don' t have insurance you' re either going without or you' re going to be billed for the costs.

Claiming bankruptcy when the hospital takes you to court for not paying is the only route for a lot of people, and there are what 50 million people in America without health insurance?

With the way the population is supposed to increase, there is going to be some very serious repercussions regarding healthcare in the next 40 or so years....I' ll be ok though, by then I will be 6 feet under in a nice oak casket.....it pays to be an old fart sometimes...lol

So, if a person needs cancer treatment in the US, and has no insurance/money, the doctors just go " too bad" and let them go off and die?

Yep You got this is exactly how things are in America. Even if you have insurance most companies want cover such a treatment. America The Big Ass Rip Off.

Yeah America is one of the riches companies ( Yes I mean Company not Country ) it didn' t cost anything for them to build it. Salvery was so wrong and to this day my black people don' t get a thank you or apology hell we don' t even get a slap on the ass . More like spit in the face if you ask me. This is just what I think.

Robbing a bank is so justified in America I for one support bank robbing the government. You guys don' t know how bad I hate this Company. ( Yes I mean Company not Country )

ORIGINAL: mikayd2

Salvery was so wrong and to this day my black people don' t get a thank you or apology hell we don' t even get a slap on the ass .

Wut?

I just saying that it was wrong and it just goes over looked like he never happened.
They say racism has past but I don' t think so.

ORIGINAL: mikayd2

So, if a person needs cancer treatment in the US, and has no insurance/money, the doctors just go " too bad" and let them go off and die?

Yep You got this is exactly how things are in America. Even if you have insurance most companies want cover such a treatment. America The Big Ass Rip Off.

Yeah America is one of the riches companies ( Yes I mean Company not Country ) it didn' t cost anything for them to build it. Salvery was so wrong and to this day my black people don' t get a thank you or apology hell we don' t even get a slap on the ass . More like spit in the face if you ask me. This is just what I think.

Robbing a bank is so justified in America I for one support bank robbing the government. You guys don' t know how bad I hate this Company. ( Yes I mean Company not Country )