Hello Robo,
I see you are finally now responding to my first post #94 of this thread. And you are doing this after wrongly claiming that I never did respond to the OP and had no intention to:
I see again, as usual you’re planning to IGNORE the topic of the OP and scatter your opinions all over this thread to cover the fact that you have little to no intension of answering a dime’s worth of the OP questions. I’ll only humor that quest for so long!!!!!
Do you have a problem with acknowledging it when you made a mistake? No apology for claiming I had no intention to answer the questions of the OP; when in truth I already had? Refusing to admit to mistakes could lead to having inaccurate political views and believing in things which just are not so.
There’s an old saying, “you get what you pay for!” If you believe America will ever actually institute a national NON-profit healthcare system I do believe it could never happen here short of finding a way to unseat every corporate puppet politician in the swamp and replacing them with certified saints directly sent from the god of perfect socialism, of which there is absolutely no such animal, but maybe y’all lefties can pretend to invent some and force them down the throats of the uninformed and damned fools. And even if you did/do manage to institute an actual NON-profit healthcare system, (impossible), it wouldn’t work for at least 100 different reasons, the main one being it would be a totally NON-incentive operation, employing sackers and idiots and all day computer porno watchers, delivering next to nothing in services, advancements in equipment, procedures and medications.
You are entitled to your opinion. The problem with it is: Non-profit Universal Health Care already works so well in other countries. They spend less, live longer. Nobody goes medically bankrupt. I don't understand why those concepts might be distasteful. Those sound like good things to me. Why should people work hard without the reward of more profits? Ask most American workers. They don't get the profits if they work harder. They get to keep their job.
Most American workers are very diligent in their work and they have zero incentive for working hard other than if they don't work hard they lose their job. People like doing a good job and accomplishing things. Our entire military operates without capitalism. Very dedicated people who believe serving their nation is an excellent motivator. In the UK, health care professionals get advancement and higher pay if they produce better results, ie, their patients are healthier. Makes sense to me. They are proud to serve their nation just like those in the military. And let me tell you something. The people in the military are not a bunch of slackers.
I said, in response to the question of what quality of services should be provided: "Whatever can be reasonably provided. If a treatment is too expensive, logically that cannot be provided."
Not even to those who can afford it? Why not?
I don't see why that should be precluded. If a rich person wants to pursue a prohibitively expensive treatment, he should be free to do so on his own dime.
Then everybody should be paid the same, right? How much?
No, I didn't say that. I think health care professionals should be paid well for what they do. I think doctors should be well-off, but I do not think doctors should be making a killing or be getting super-rich by over charging for saving people's lives as those people go broke paying for it. And some of them die for lack of ability to pay.
If care is needed immediately then it should be provided immediately. If it is not life-threatening then go into the queue.
I’m not buying ambagious answers! When do waiting-time become unacceptable and how do you prevent them or shorten them?
We already have wait times under our current system. Some doctors don't even accept new patients at all, so the wait time for that doctor is infinity. To reduce wait times, the obvious solution is to have more capacity to provide services. So our medical school capacity needs to be expanded. Part of the problem with that is that is not happening. Ivy League schools do not expand. They simply become more and more elite. The size of each class each year remains the same. That is hurting our nation, adding to the class war. Doctoring is nothing but knowledge and skill plus experience. It's not like doctors are special. They are just smart dedicated people. Guess what. There are LOTS of smart dedicated people. We can and should train more doctors and medical professionals.
We should tax the super-rich more to pay for free college to produce the medical workers our nation needs. Leaving it up to the elite institutions is failing our national needs, falling short of demand. We need great new schools with expanded capacity to churn out doctors at an unprecedented pace. There is nothing about practicing medicine that is magical or voodoo. It has become far too exclusive. We should have so many doctors that doctor pay becomes more in line with any other workers. Doctors are not god and it is time they stopped getting away with acting like they are so special. They are just people doing a job and their attitude needs to change. The cushy days of being an exclusive doctor need to be OVER. It should be about administering quality care on the scale needed by the nation, not getting rich or gaining prestige.
Seems simple only if you can produce a credible plan of expansion! [That can be done] What’s causing the wait times and what’s your plan to shorten them? [insufficient capacity] What if there’s way too many patients for the amount of doctors? [That's the case] What if there’s not nearly enough doctor’s offices and hospitals for 300, 400; 500 million people? Where do you find the money for more? [tax the super-rich] More medical schools? [Yes, government ones] Do you lower the standards for graduating doctors?
No, you find more efficient ways to teach the knowledge. It's not magic, right? It is just knowledge. Smart people can learn it. There are a lot of smart people who never get the chance because they are not from a rich family. Our current system leaves a vast potential completely untapped because of exclusivity.
What about malpractice law suits? Who pays those bills?
Good question. Maybe we need to revamp that whole system, too. I would favor a National Health Service. Perhaps we should look at how malpractice is handled in the UK. Doctors tend to hate lawyers. Doctors also have a tendency to think they can do no wrong. But they are not perfect. Doctors are not god. The are humans and they can make mistakes. Maybe if all doctors worked for the government, then the government would stand behind them when they mess up. And then perhaps the government would be motivated to make certain that bad doctors are eliminated from the system. Solving malpractice settlements could protect doctors and reduce the cost of health care.
Well friend I never understood the progressive nightmare! What degree of justice do y’all find in punishing the successful among us when they provide the opportunities to share in the wealth to every employee they create?
That is a total misnomer. Nobody from the left talks about punishing success. Those are words put into the mouths of the left by the right. If you would listen to what we actually say you would have a better idea of our positions. If you just want to regurgitate rhetoric that orginated on the right then that won't accomplish any understanding or constructive dialog. That would be the same as making a mistake and then pretending you never made it, glossing right over it, brushing it under the carpet. Well, one can fool oneself like that, but it is becoming increasingly impossible to fool others. And there is no way you can fool everybody. The world thrives on progress. Being progressive is being part of the world that naturally progresses. Things change and we are taking control of the changes. We are changing our nation for the better. We are making America a better place to live. Universal health care is part of that.
Of what amount of justice is it to reward the lesser successful among us when most often it’s their own decisions in life that has guaranteed their lesser success?
That amounts to blaming the poor for being born that way. The super-rich aggressively act to close doors and shut out chances for success for the disadvantaged, then blame them for 'making poor decisions.' Not buying that line of poppycock. Equal opportunity is a myth. Upward mobility is hardly existent for the lower half of the nation. And ya wanna know what's more? That level of available opportunity is getting harder to reach as time goes by. When I look back on my life and I think about the opportunities I seized, those don't exist any more. I couldn't take a protege under my arm and teach him how to be successful the way I was. The jobs I did don't exist any more. I was lucky to get while the gettin was good. I would not want to have to start out fresh as an 18yo in today's world. It's tougher now.
I’m a true capitalist friend. I believe everybody should pay the same for everything regardless of their success or lack thereof and have the freedom to support private charities for the wounded veterans of our wars and the folks that haven’t the physical or mental abilities to provide for themselves I only call welfare programs and corporate subsidies constitutional when they’re State programs and they’re unconstitutional when they’re federal programs. I say if the folks want a Single Payer healthcare program let them pass a constitutional amendment for a federal program if that’s their wish or let them promote and pass State legislation to institute a State Single Payer program.
If it takes a US Constitutional amendment then maybe that is what we will do. We are strong. We are growing in number and we demand a government that Promotes the General Welfare. It is a crying shame that the richest nation on Earth can't provide health care for all in this nation. That is just shameful. Especially when some are SO rich. That's just not right. We are going to fix that one way or another. The numbers are on our side. There are more of us who feel this way than there are of you who want to keep everything exclusive and only available to the rich. Greedy capitalists pushed it too far, made health care too expensive. Push has come to shove. Mark my words. The old days are done. We are fixing this with you or without you.
