Government run healthcare... a Greek tragedy.

[Bonestorm]

I think you are confusing our costs with what the government spends per capita.

Our total costs are more expensive than Greece, however that accounts for people covered by insurance, what the insurance pays as well as what they pay.

Greece has the benefit of having protection of NATO, which is pretty much the US, and therefore almost no spending on military.

One of the first things we need to do is deal with costs of health care rather than hiding the real costs in government mandates and thus ensuring our eventual Greekism of our economy...

Actually, no. I'm not at all confused. Our government pays substantially more than the Greek government, and many others than provide universal healthcare, as a percentage of GDP and per capita. Look it up. And then there is private spending on top of it. It's insane.

 

[DamnYankee]

An overreaching government is the tired, worn out idea, Apple. Or does Obama mean that the Constitution is tired and worn out?

 

[DamnYankee]

This is what Apple wants for America:

Children are being abandoned on Greece's streets by their poverty-stricken families who cannot afford to look after them any more.

Youngsters are being dumped by their parents who are struggling to make ends meet in what is fast becoming the most tragic human consequence of the Euro crisis.

It comes as pharmacists revealed the country had almost run out of aspirin, as multi-billion euro austerity measures filter their way through society.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-Greek-parents-afford-them.html#ixzz1jCtYGGjM

 

[Bonestorm]

why not simply expand medicare? oh no...obama has to have his own "plan"....we can't do things the easy way because his ego can't comprehend that. obama's plan is horrible. we need to expand medicare and resolve the wasteful spending within medicare.

Maybe in fantasy land expanding Medicare to everyone would have been possible, but not in the real world.

 

[The Dude]

LOL You forget. I come from a family of physicians. When it comes to this topic you'd be wise to study how other nations, who have reformed their health care services have implemented those changes. If you use the current US model you could have a problem. With health care reform there will be substantial changes to the market so using current market conditions is not a good premise to base an investment on. IMHO.

With all due respect, many doctors don't make good investors cause they don't have time.
A couple basics. Captive market, insurers remain an important cog thus profits needed to sustain.

 

[apple0154]

Post roads are constitutional; Obamacare passed by a 50 plus one majority is not. I'll never get used to the idea that the Constitution can be ignored.

Why did the Founding Fathers even bother forming a country? Well the answer is, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Sounds like they wanted a nice place for the people to reside. They even mentioned promoting (Promote: to help or encourage to exist or flourish; to aid in organizing) the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty. Isn't ones health considered their general welfare? Isn't health a blessing? Why do you have a problem with the President trying to make life better for the citizens? How can any reasonable person accuse a President of ignoring the Constitution when the Preamble, the Founding Fathers' intentions regarding the Constitution's meaning and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve, specifically instructs such actions?

 

[apple0154]

try being more honest orange peel

Hey! You wrote, "he had control of both executive and legislative branches.....no excuse apple. he could have done anything he wanted."

I agree he could have done anything but he was a gentleman and tried to work with the Repubs.

 

[DamnYankee]

Why did the Founding Fathers even bother forming a country? Well the answer is, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Sounds like they wanted a nice place for the people to reside. They even mentioned promoting (Promote: to help or encourage to exist or flourish; to aid in organizing) the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty. Isn't ones health considered their general welfare? Isn't health a blessing? Why do you have a problem with the President trying to make life better for the citizens? How can any reasonable person accuse a President of ignoring the Constitution when the Preamble, the Founding Fathers' intentions regarding the Constitution's meaning and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve, specifically instructs such actions?

You're an idiot for trying that lame argument again. If the preamble meant unlimited government then there would be no need for the body of the Constitution. James Madison predicted your argument and calls it an "absurdity" in Federalist 41:

It has been urged and echoed, that the power ``to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms ``to raise money for the general welfare. ''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are ``their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare. '' The terms of article eighth are still more identical: ``All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury,'' etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!

Epic FAIL on your part.

 

[apple0154]

You just stated that some don't. And some pay a higher percentage then others, yet use the system less, if at all. How is that fair?

It's just as fair as people who don't have children are obliged to contribute to education. It's just as fair as those who oppose wars are obliged to contribute to the war budget. Or the physically challenged contributing to Federal Parks that have difficult walking trails.

It the cost of being a member of society. Why should thieves and crooks be compelled to pay taxes towards law enforcement personnel who work directly against their interests?

It's called "life".

 

[SmarterthanYou]

Why did the Founding Fathers even bother forming a country? Well the answer is, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Sounds like they wanted a nice place for the people to reside. They even mentioned promoting (Promote: to help or encourage to exist or flourish; to aid in organizing) the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty. Isn't ones health considered their general welfare? Isn't health a blessing? Why do you have a problem with the President trying to make life better for the citizens? How can any reasonable person accuse a President of ignoring the Constitution when the Preamble, the Founding Fathers' intentions regarding the Constitution's meaning and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve, specifically instructs such actions?

your continued interpretation of the general welfare clause is at direct odds with the framers, not that you ever bothered reading their documents.

 

[SmarterthanYou]

It's just as fair as people who don't have children are obliged to contribute to education. It's just as fair as those who oppose wars are obliged to contribute to the war budget. Or the physically challenged contributing to Federal Parks that have difficult walking trails.

It the cost of being a member of society. Why should thieves and crooks be compelled to pay taxes towards law enforcement personnel who work directly against their interests?

It's called "life".

theft by taxation is 'fair' and 'life'? is that your ideal society? that the government steals from one segment to provide for another?

 

[apple0154]

this is how you fail.

so you either don't know or don't care who can afford it and who can't, just so long as you get it for free? and you still don't understand human nature?

I understand human nature sufficiently to know dozens of countries representing diverse populations all agree on government medical.

Back to you.

 

[apple0154]

An overreaching government is the tired, worn out idea, Apple. Or does Obama mean that the Constitution is tired and worn out?

Overreaching? A government concerned with the welfare of the citizens is overreach?

The tired, worn out idea is the same idea Greenspan operated under, for years, until the financial world almost crashed. The invisible hand of the marketplace, unguided, becomes the insidious hand.

 

[USFREEDOM911]

Why did the Founding Fathers even bother forming a country? Well the answer is, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Sounds like they wanted a nice place for the people to reside. They even mentioned promoting (Promote: to help or encourage to exist or flourish; to aid in organizing) the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty. Isn't ones health considered their general welfare? Isn't health a blessing? Why do you have a problem with the President trying to make life better for the citizens? How can any reasonable person accuse a President of ignoring the Constitution when the Preamble, the Founding Fathers' intentions regarding the Constitution's meaning and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve, specifically instructs such actions?

The word you keep trying to promote and it doesn't mean what you keep trying to designate it as.

 

[apple0154]

This is what Apple wants for America:

Children are being abandoned on Greece's streets by their poverty-stricken families who cannot afford to look after them any more.

Youngsters are being dumped by their parents who are struggling to make ends meet in what is fast becoming the most tragic human consequence of the Euro crisis.

It comes as pharmacists revealed the country had almost run out of aspirin, as multi-billion euro austerity measures filter their way through society.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-Greek-parents-afford-them.html#ixzz1jCtYGGjM

I wonder if these owners have any aspirin.

Large Lounge with round tower, granite fireplace and dining area, fully fitted luxurious Poggenpohl-kitchen (made in Germany) in high-gloss walnut & South African granite with a separate utility kitchen, 3 spacious bedrooms (all with sea views), 2 bathrooms, separate guest toilet, second lounge with fire place, Laundry Room, separate apartment for guests or staff with fully fitted top quality kitchen, bathroom with separate toilet, bedroom and large covered terrace, 2 large covered verandas, 2 garages, cellar storage rooms.
Price: 1.5 Million Euro.

Four bedrooms with private bath cupboards, the master bedroom with fire place
fully airconditioned
large entrance hall
very large living room with fire place
big dinning room
big open kitchen with cocking preparation food bench 2nd sink cupboards storage place.
complete electrical equipment and appliances of all kind
secret safety box
internal wooden staircase leading to the castle
independent one bedroom flat fully furnished and equipped 36.13sq.m
telecomanded garage 80 sq.m. and 2.7 m. High
storage 15 sq.m.
generator of 12 Kwa power
open parking
Satelite t.v
Price: 1.5 Million Euro

 

[SmarterthanYou]

I understand human nature sufficiently to know dozens of countries representing diverse populations all agree on government medical.

Back to you.

so dozens of countries representing diverse populations all agree that it's great receiving free medical care from their government. and that tells you what about human nature?

 

[apple0154]

You're an idiot for trying that lame argument again. If the preamble meant unlimited government then there would be no need for the body of the Constitution. James Madison predicted your argument and calls it an "absurdity" in Federalist 41:

Epic FAIL on your part.

The health of the citizens is not unlimited government. Just as that excerpt mentions defence while it does not specifically mention nuclear missiles or radar equipment it mentions general welfare without specifically mentioning medical care. Besides there being nothing worth mentioning in regards to medical care any intrusive procedures invariably resulted in more damage; ie: infections.

The absurdity is believing the Founding Fathers would have preferred people die rather than have access to available medical care.

 

[apple0154]

your continued interpretation of the general welfare clause is at direct odds with the framers, not that you ever bothered reading their documents.

How can my interpretation be at direct odds when the Framers had absolutely no knowledge of today's medical care? Unless they were Nostradamus they never even conceived of the medical procedures and drugs that would be available to save lives. The error is believing the Framers didn't give a damn about people's lives which would be bizarre considering they went to a lot of trouble to set up a good government/country.

On that note it's bedtime for Apple. I'll pick this up in the morning.

 

[Bonestorm]

With all due respect, many doctors don't make good investors cause they don't have time.
A couple basics. Captive market, insurers remain an important cog thus profits needed to sustain.

Insurers have a 2% margin. There's money in healthcare but not in insurers, and it isn't likely to get better with the 80:20 rule.

 

[apple0154]

theft by taxation is 'fair' and 'life'? is that your ideal society? that the government steals from one segment to provide for another?

When you pay $10.00 to see a movie that cost millions to make are you stealing from the Studio Company? When people use public transit are they stealing? When you visit a public park in another State are you stealing from those people? You didn't contribute to the park's costs, did you?