These discussions are interesting on some level but it's important to remember that the country is going broke. Spending is out of control and there is no political will to restrain it. You want some form of universal health care? Let whatever party has the balls to do it, do it. It can't be sustained. Just as SS, Medicare, government pensions, infrastructure maintenance and everything else desired by whomever desires it can't be implemented or sustained. The unfunded liabilities this nation has assumed are a ticking time bomb.
Yeah, let's all be really healthy before the nation succumbs to anarchy. The healthiest and the most cunning will survive.
We have a nation populated by far too many that want far too much. We have politicians who get elected by promising to be Santa Claus all day, every day and to everyone. It cannot go on. The bag of tricks is empty.
The first person who chimes in that the rich can cover all this shit will prove themselves to be the idiot that they are.
Wake up and start thinking with reality being the primary motivator. You want bread and circuses and you're ignoring that the Big Top Tent is on fire. The elephants, the donkeys and all the other circus animals have their escape plans finely honed. Getting these assholes out of office is our only hope.
But in the midst of all this you want somebody else to pay for your healthcare. What a bunch of dopes.
Its been "going broke" for fucking decades so stop that horseshit fearmongering. Literally the only reason that we "won" the Cold War is that we bet that the USSR would go broke before we did on rampant out of control defense spending (that by the way once we started we've refused to do anything but let that keep growing). We've dealt with worse shit than this, but for some reason we have one group that just wants to tear everything down and when people say fuck that they throw up their hands and start screaming that everyone is fucked.
I think you protest too much, after all the "fiscal conservatives" and Tea Party are ready to solve all our budgetary issues. Have fun with that, when everything is in shambles and you're still paying taxes to prop up a government that exists solely to limit itself.
Gee, what would force chaos, people miserable and potentially dying because of the shitty state of health care, or being able to get their health problems treated? Real fucking genius logic there.
We more than have the resources to provide what people really need (health care, education, food, energy, social welfare, defense, and much more). Throwing up your hands and whining just shows you're every bit to blame. And that's all you're fucking doing. That's funny considering the President (and Republican majority in Congress) that just got elected on a platform of gutting the fucking government like you seem to want, well gut it so we can put all our money towards "defense" and building a wall that won't accomplish jack shit. Bag of tricks is empty? Are you fucking kidding? That's all the Republicans have any more is a bag of tricks as they're doing nothing but outright trying to fuck over everyone but the wealthiest.
Get the fuck over yourself. No one says the rich can cover all this shit. But they absolutely are not paying a fair share of their gains, many of which come from deliberately fucking over the rest of the country.
Wow, even your analogies are fucked in the head. Not sure if you've noticed but circuses are actually at an all time low in popularity. Bread and circuses? Hahaha, WTF? So people wanting decent health care, education, etc, that's a circus to you? That certainly helps explain a lot about your post. Escape plans from what? WTF is this doomsday shit you keep spouting off? You're yelling that other people are being insane, listen to yourself, you have no plan for fixing anything and you and people like you actively seem to want things to go to shit just so you can be right about something for once in your fucking miserable lives. Ok, and who are we going to replace them with? The fucking Tea Party? Outright Socialists? Communists? Fascists/Nazis? Because pushing out moderates is going to fill the government full of extremists.
Bullshit. How the fuck would us paying taxes that would go to fund single payer, not be us paying for our healthcare? Seriously, what the fuck, is that the problem you idiots that keep spouting this "people want someone else to pay for their shit" nonsense have is that you're too stupid to understand that paying taxes means it is absolutely you helping pay for it? Are you one of those shit for brains that wants to bitch about taxes but then remove yourself from any critical thinking about maybe getting them to use your tax money better? You can only think "less taxes" and that's all? Some people want the government to spend the tax money they're already getting in better ways. Instead we've got one side that says they want to cut taxes (but doesn't, well other than for the wealthiest), and whose only "fix" is to gut all the programs and privatize them (where they'll be massively underfunded, guaranteeing their failure far more than how they are now).
Talk about dopes.
Good lord you are asking for an awful lot of personal details. I am genuinely fucking sorry every time I share here on Anandtech.
Yes.
I used private insurance. The V.A. only took care of my kidney stone issues. And they dealt very poorly with my kidney stones. The local hospital did a much better job so I tried to use them when possible.
And before Obamacare, my insurance covered me much better for everything. Routine checkups, kidney stone issues, misc. crap. I liked it a lot better.
Now I am done sharing personal info with you. Thanks and good night.
Good lord, maybe I don't know, not start by throwing your personal shit out there if getting called on your argument bothers you so much? Well that makes two of us.
I love how you blame Obamacare despite your health issues starting several years before Obamacare went into affect. But its all Obamacare's fault. Nevermind that insurance costs for many people were already out of control before Obama was even President (and that for many of them, Obamacare helped reduced how much they were ballooning; not to mention the literally millions of people that didn't have health insurance before). I'm sure your private insurance was perfectly ok and problem free. I'm sure it wouldn't have changed ever. I'm sure your costs weren't going up before Obamacare. I'm sure your health issues weren't getting worse (meaning you want the extra coverage you'd need, you're absolutely going to be paying more). I'm sure that if you tried to do something about raising costs, like switch plans in the alleged "free market" insurance market, that other companies wouldn't tell you to pound sand (or pay a lot more) due to your pre-existing conditions.
Obamacare has plenty of shortcomings. It would still even if it wasn't constantly fucked over for nothing more than political reasons. I'm not sure what that has to do with single-payer though either as it isn't even remotely close to that. As for the V.A., that is a simple fix, instead of saving jobs for shit that the military doesn't want (like building tanks), put those people to work supporting V.A. health care. The state of V.A. care is actually one of the reasons plenty of people want universal health care, so that instead of you having to deal with the stupidass V.A. setup, those people could just go to any hospital and be covered and not have to deal with the V.A. mess.
Your 8 out of every 7 doesn't make sense because, well obviously it doesn't make sense, but also because it is blatant bullshit. Not sure why you're trying to blame Democrats for all of that either.
Would we be better off?
I doubt it. I can't imagine it would be done in a way that wasn't half-assed.
I agree with those who might argue that a regulated health care market that addresses cost could be a better place to start than working out how taxpayers can foot the bill.
(disclaimer: didn't read op)
The problem with that thinking is that's already true of every other situation. It almost certainly wouldn't be any worse than what we have now or before the ACA. Plus, then your argument is more about the people in the government and not single payer. You think every other country that went that route doesn't/didn't have plenty of government issues? Yet somehow they managed to get it to work. Doing a push for single-payer would basically require dumping the piece of shit politicians too, which would help our government function better. Its not a coincidence that many of the politicians that support so many things that actively are against the public's interest are ones vehemently deadset against stuff like single-payer. In order to get the latter, we'd have to get rid of the ones obstructing it. Oh and in order to get to single-payer we'll have to do something about lobbyists.
Guess what, you're not going to get that without a move to single-payer. The only way that you'll get conservatives onboard with regulating health care costs in any serious capacity is if it is paid for by the government through taxes. Regulated market only makes sense as a transition to single-payer, as to keep insurance companies from trying to fuck people over, you're going to have to regulate them basically to the point that single-payer would be a no-brainer (as it would come with less costs and more ability to deal with issues). And realistically, a move to single payer would require that, as there would need to be a transition period. And we'd have to regulate it quite a bit to keep companies from trying to get all the profit they can before losing their golden goose.
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