• Elizabeth Warren slams calls for Democrats to move to the center, says party 'won't go back'
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[QUOTE=FinalHunter;52577101]I'm not arguing against better healthcare, I'm arguing against universal health care. Our healthcare system is restricted by all the regulations imposed on it. Our healthcare system is not a free market. You can't drive around and go to all the places that offer an x-ray and ask, "Hey how much will this cost me?" They won't tell you, they'll start asking about insurance. It's the same as going to get a cup of coffee and they go "We'll tell you how much it costs after you drink it." You know Lasik used to be $20,000 and now it's $3000-4000, why is that? Insurance doesn't cover lasik so how could this be? Well it's because people saw it was profitable to go to school and become optometrists or whatever else and competition and supply drove the price down, and innovations in technology and manufacturing made it cheaper. Is it right for you to have a sick kid in the hospital and all you ask for them to do is keep him alive, and then they hand you a bill for $500,000? No, of fucking course not. Stop acting like I'm advocating putting people in crippling debt for life just to save their children. [B]On another note, insurance companies shouldn't have any obligation to accept people with pre-existing conditions. That's the same thing as burning your house down and then getting fire insurance and expecting them to pay for it.[/B] Yes.[/QUOTE] Okay, I'll get to your other bullshit later but this? No. You have no idea what you're fucking talking about if that's your analogy. No. Fucking. Idea. Pure fucking ignorance [editline]15th August 2017[/editline] I doubt you have any first hand experience with any of these subjects as it regards to pre-existing conditions or the like, so yes, be prepared to call me "Emotional" once again, because you are a selfish fucking person. [editline]15th August 2017[/editline] I literally work in insurance, I can go ask the fucking underwriters of a major company how bad that analogy is. Should I do that? [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Are you like unable to chill?" - Craptasket))[/highlight]
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;52577101]I'm not arguing against better healthcare, I'm arguing against universal health care. Our healthcare system is restricted by all the regulations imposed on it. Our healthcare system is not a free market. You can't drive around and go to all the places that offer an x-ray and ask, "Hey how much will this cost me?" They won't tell you, they'll start asking about insurance. It's the same as going to get a cup of coffee and they go "We'll tell you how much it costs after you drink it." You know Lasik used to be $20,000 and now it's $3000-4000, why is that? Insurance doesn't cover lasik so how could this be? Well it's because people saw it was profitable to go to school and become optometrists or whatever else and competition and supply drove the price down, and innovations in technology and manufacturing made it cheaper.[/QUOTE] And what happens when the all-too-common scenario arises where what's worst for the consumer is also what is most profitable? The free market can handle things competently when and only when fair competition exists and when what is best for profits happens to align with what is best for the consumer and what is best for the worker. In reality, more than one of these things being the case is uncommon. [QUOTE]Is it right for you to have a sick kid in the hospital and all you ask for them to do is keep him alive, and then they hand you a bill for $500,000? No, of fucking course not. Stop acting like I'm advocating putting people in crippling debt for life just to save their children. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE]On another note, insurance companies shouldn't have any obligation to accept people with pre-existing conditions. That's the same thing as burning your house down and then getting fire insurance and expecting them to pay for it.[/QUOTE] Even though you don't intend them to be these are contradictory statements. [QUOTE][QUOTE]do you really believe in capitalism, in only getting out as much as you put in[/QUOTE] Yes.[/QUOTE] Then go live in the wild, because as long as you participate in society at all you're taking more than you're giving and betraying your philosophy.
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;52577101]I'm not arguing against better healthcare, I'm arguing against universal health care. Our healthcare system is restricted by all the regulations imposed on it. Our healthcare system is not a free market.[/QUOTE] You're quite right. It's not a free market. It's a corporatist market. It's one that's been lobbied for, by those corporations, to hvae those rules that are most beneficial for them, and hurt you. You blame the government and run into the arms of these companies and see no logical problem with that. That's absurd. [QUOTE] You can't drive around and go to all the places that offer an x-ray and ask, "Hey how much will this cost me?" They won't tell you, they'll start asking about insurance. It's the same as going to get a cup of coffee and they go "We'll tell you how much it costs after you drink it."[/QUOTE] Because hospitals and insurerers have deals that lower the costs for the trade in of bringing in a higher number of clientel. You don't have the discounts they get because you don't represent the interests of a pooled group. Why would you get a better rate for the use of these services than major companies? You just want an idealistic capitalist utopia. [QUOTE]You know Lasik used to be $20,000 and now it's $3000-4000, why is that? Insurance doesn't cover lasik so how could this be? Well it's because people saw it was profitable to go to school and become optometrists or whatever else and competition and supply drove the price down, and innovations in technology and manufacturing made it cheaper.[/QUOTE] So lasik industry = the healthcare industry? I don't even want to get into how empty this is, but there's no useful comparisons here. [QUOTE]Is it right for you to have a sick kid in the hospital and all you ask for them to do is keep him alive, and then they hand you a bill for $500,000? No, of fucking course not. Stop acting like I'm advocating putting people in crippling debt for life just to save their children. [/QUOTE] But you quite literally are advocating for that so why would I stop acting like that when YOU'RE the one advocating for that as the best solution because you refuse to believe that universal healthcare can do anything right. So yes. You are advocating for exactly that. Everything you've said up to this point is advocating for that exact thing. In fact, the sentence right below this about pre-existing conditions? [B]YOU ARE LITERALLY CONDEMNING PEOPLE.[/B] [QUOTE]On another note, insurance companies shouldn't have any obligation to accept people with pre-existing conditions. That's the same thing as burning your house down and then getting fire insurance and expecting them to pay for it. [/QUOTE] No. It isn't. To make your comparison apt, and fitting Getting pre-existing condition coverage is like calling into a underwriter to get fire protection a day after your house burnt down. Pre-existing conditions are things that exist beyond the control of the insured in question. There is nothing about your analogy that is apt, it just shows how little you understand this despite feigning expertise as you are one to do. [editline]15th August 2017[/editline] Uh oh final hunter is a victim of me being mean apparently and has turned in his resignation to this thread because i've "Silenced" him, somehow. Oh and as rich as this is, he never posted a single number, statistic, or anything to support his side of the argument but he's quit the argument in part because I didn't do that. Fucking rich
[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52577179]The free market has no place in healthcare because there is no incentive to be better. You probably don't remember the "good ol days" before obamacare, you know, where all of the insurance companies colluded with each other and you basically payed the same price regardless of company or policy. Probably don't remember the SEC desperately attempting to regulate the insurance companies, only failing miserably because they'd continue to find further loopholes in the system. You probably don't remember the days of "but i have insurance" "yes, but your insurance denied your heart transplant because THEY deemed it not needed". That's right, those "evil" regulations prevent insurance companies from doing that now, but I guess we need to get rid of those, because how dare we regulate the industry who's sole purpose is to render care and aid to those who are sick, injured, or maimed. It boils down to this: you want the free market to rule healthcare? Fine. Then it's perfectly legal for a hospital to turn you away because you can't pay. Regardless of how injured you are. Because under a free market the healthcare system exists not to treat illness, nor does it exist to preserve life, but instead exists to make money, and those who can't pay are merely a burden to the system. That's right, you've damned the poor to death, but its fine because "fuck you, I still got my money".[/QUOTE] I don't get how he can believe he's not advocating for what he's literally advocating for.
[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52577263]I get where he's coming from, I really do. If our current government offered to implement universal healthcare i'd be next in line to immigrate to Norway (or Canada, number 1 and number 2 choices, respectively). Why? Because the current government is completely and utterly incompetent, and couldn't be trusted to make a sandwich, much less a healthcare system.[/QUOTE] well sure, but i very much agree with Scorpio on what he said about this just last page. [QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;52576941]I love how the same people who vote for the guy who publicly stated that we should just let the health care market collapse complain about the government not working properly the people who complain about how terrible the government is are 90% of the reason it functions so poorly[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;52576904]We all utilize police, without them there would be disorder. We need public fire services because [B]what are you going to do if you can't afford them? Let the fire spread and do damage to others?[/B][/quote] [I][B]"What are you going to do if you can't afford your cancer treatment?"[/B][/I] Given the ripple-effect that inadequate healthcare has on other aspects of our society (bloated government subsidies, lack of preventative care, higher costs due to delayed treatment, skyrocketing middle-class debt) you're actually making a very good case for single-payer. [QUOTE]My health conditions are exactly that, MINE. If others want to help pay for them, that's their prerogative, but I have no right to infringe on the rights of others to attain the care I feel I deserve. Canada has roughly the same population as the state of California, and almost 10x less people than the United States. The costs of even attempting to implement universal healthcare would be astronomical - medicare alone is a financial disaster.[/QUOTE] Canada has significantly lower healthcare costs [B][I][U]per capita[/U][/I][/B] than the US. Population size is in no way a limiting factor. In fact, the higher our population the more [I]astronomical[/I] our healthcare savings will be. You do understand why we have such ungodly healthcare costs in the first place right? It's because of the bureaucratic red-tape that exists to facilitate the health insurance industry. [B]Fully half of every dollar you spend on healthcare goes to your insurance provider.[/B] Take the insurance companies out of the mix, and you solve the bulk of the problem. It's surprisingly simple. [QUOTE=FinalHunter;52577015][B]We don't live in an ideal world.[/B][/QUOTE] "We don't live in an ideal world" is your excuse for the barbaric, pay-or-die, Russian Roulette game that is our healthcare system? When literally every other industrialized nation on earth has figured out how to guarantee healthcare to every man, woman, and child as a right, at significantly lower per-capita cost than the US? "We don't live in an ideal world?" Really? That's your fucking excuse? For every milestone of progress we've ever achieved as a society, be it the federal minimum wage, social security, the Clean Water Act, or any other number of progressive policies, there have been thousands of useful idiots standing on the sidelines, hands thrown up in apathy, saying shit like "Life's unfair, why bother?" The very fact that you are alive, healthy, reasonably free, working 40 hours a week, driving a vehicle bound by federal safety regulations, etc. etc. is because someone, somewhere, at some point in history, actually [I]gave a shit about you[/I] and fought for all those things. And here you are, shrugging your shoulders and grumbling about [I]not living an in ideal world[/I], trying to justify your own selfish outlook, while your countrymen are dying. "We don't live in an ideal world" is nothing but a lazy man's excuse for inaction.
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;52577101]On another note, insurance companies shouldn't have any obligation to accept people with pre-existing conditions. That's the same thing as burning your house down and then getting fire insurance and expecting them to pay for it.[/QUOTE] That's not an accurate analogy at all. An accurate analogy would be a fire insurance company refusing to cover your home because you live in a fire prone area. Arguably you're the one who'd most need that insurance, which is exactly why companies wouldn't want to provide it to you. This is why health insurance makes no sense as a for-profit industry. The need for profit actively discourages them from providing insurance.
[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52577291](like people showing up to the ER with a sore throat).[/QUOTE] To be honest, this has to be so, because most doctors are your usual 9 to 5, so if you wake up in the middle of the night with chest pains, you either go to ER, because it can just be a flu or either wait it out and hope it's nothing dangerous. I mean, sometimes you also have those small mini-clinics out there like ConvenientMD, but even those have schedules, and demand insurance.
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;52577101]Yes.[/QUOTE] nope. because Elon Musk wouldn't have been any less valuable to the economy or the world if he were born with motor neurone disease, or needed chemotherapy before his sixth birthday. Franklin Delano Roosevelt unfailingly lead your country through its most horrific years purely through his genius and work ethic, and you'd have happily left him to die if he'd gotten polio twenty years earlier than he did. no, you don't believe in a free market. you believe in a market where merit means nothing.
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;52577015]We don't live in an ideal world. Look at how much money the government wastes, you think universal healthcare in the United States would be some cost-efficient endeavor where everybody gets what they need on a timely basis? Don't think so.[/QUOTE] I like how you just brushed over what he actually said and just gave some bullshit non-answer.
[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52577414]Comes from a lack of understanding of what an ER actually does, most people who do this are poorer, as they can't afford to have a standard doctor.[/QUOTE] Well, you are correct, people who are poorer and do not have a doctor, have to go to ER. As I said, you don't know if those chest pains are serious - or just a flu. What else are you gonna do, though? I technically have a primary physician, but I live at least 2 hours away from the hospital she practices in. When I went to a local hospital, my choices were either to come back when doctors were around, or to go to ER.
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;52576660]Because I think the government is shit at almost everything it tries to do, and I don't want it to have any part in our healthcare. Increased taxes and increased national deficit is not an "actual fix."[/QUOTE] The government is hugely involved in healthcare, not just in regulating it but also covering it. Medicare and Medicaid are hugely popular programs that have essentially become untouchable in the legislature. [QUOTE=FinalHunter;52576693]Another reason I don't want universal healthcare is because I don't think healthcare is a right, and I don't want to subsidize your care with my money. [/QUOTE] Whether or not its a right is completely irrelevant and you already subsidize other peoples care with your money. [QUOTE=FinalHunter;52577015] You just want some ideal socialist paradise where everybody contributes what they can and gets everything they need no questions asked.[/QUOTE] Dude you are talking like national healthcare systems don't already exist in most countries that are more cost-effective than the American system. This shit ain't some utopian idealism. [editline]15th August 2017[/editline] As far as our government being shit, try stop voting Republican.
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;52577015][B]We don't live in an ideal world. [/B]Look at how much money the government wastes, you think universal healthcare in the United States would be some cost-efficient endeavor where everybody gets what they need on a timely basis? Don't think so. [B]You just want some ideal socialist paradise[/B] where everybody contributes what they can and gets everything they need no questions asked.[/QUOTE] man us europeans must live in some incredible parallel universe
The democratic party should move further to the left. They've essentially been governing as eisenhower republicans since Clinton. I already see a lot of big name democrats advocating for universal healthcare, so that's a big shift in itself.
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