Discussion: Healthcare

[The Senator]

I don't know why we're really having a debate over Obama's name.

It would be uncalled for if Malice referred to him as, say, Obama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein Obama, as a few conservative bloggers have referred to him as.

When Obama was a teenager, his friends knew him as "Barry Hussein." Hence why the popular blog Wonkette refers to him as such, on a regular basis-- and from what I can tell, it's a fairly pro-Obama website. They haven't been criticized for using his middle name. Is it only okay to use his middle name if you like the guy?

Lighten up, folks. If Malice referred to Obama with, well, malice, then I could see the argument. Such as when Rep. Jack Kingston repeatedly referred to him as Barack Hussein Obama during a speech on national security when he appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher." But Malice didn't do that here, so there's no reason to turn this into an "OMG! He said his middle name! How horrible!" thread.

 

[Mr Sparkle]

The government will NEVER be that efficient.

so, building the most efficient military machine in the western world, and having the most advanced technology when it comes to armament, and an arsenal of WMD's that could set the entire world back into the stone age, along with biological warfare so terrifying that if we truly knew about it, we'd never get a good night's sleep again.

totally doable.

free healthcare.

im-possible.

 

[Damiean Dark]

so, building the most efficient military machine in the western world, and having the most advanced technology when it comes to armament, and an arsenal of WMD's that could set the entire world back into the stone age, along with biological warfare so terrifying that if we truly knew about it, we'd never get a good night's sleep again.

totally doable.

free healthcare.

im-possible.

Exactly. a terrible double standard they dont bat an eyelid at BILLIONS spent on wars but the mere mention of hiking taxes slightly to give something away for free causes them sleepless nights. the only one thing that concerns people in a discussion on Universal healthcare is how much it will cost them in taxes not all the people it would help its me, me ,me anyone who isnt at a certain financhal level or gets into serious problems paying for treatment can rot.

 

[Damiean Dark]

And your Hussein comment was uncalled for.

 

[Handsome Rob]

Exactly. a terrible double standard they dont bat an eyelid at BILLIONS spent on wars but the mere mention of hiking taxes slightly to give something away for free causes them sleepless nights. the only one thing that concerns people in a discussion on Universal healthcare is how much it will cost them in taxes not all the people it would help its me, me ,me anyone who isnt at a certain financhal level or gets into serious problems paying for treatment can rot.

1. How is it a double standard to want the federal gov't to limit itself to the powers granted to it in the Constitution?

2. How much something costs in taxes is a REAL concern--I believe you established your double standard by talking about BILLIONS spent on wars.

3. There is no such thing as "free" healthcare--someone always pays, if you don't. AND, I happen to believe that the people as a whole would best benefit from a truly competitive health care industry (which we currently don't have). So, don't try to pin opposition to universal health care all on selfish motives.

We do need reform to our health care industry, but we don't need the federal government taking over.

 

[Handsome Rob]

If government-run health care is such a great idea, then why do people pay thousands of dollars to come to the U.S. for operations? Why is Canada experiencing a severe shortage in qualified medical professionals? Why are the top medical experts in the world moving to America in order to practice?

Here's another question . . . why haven't the gov't-run healthcare supporters responded to this post? t:

 

[Addendum]

I'm skeptical of government run healthcare, but I at least give the supporters for it credit for offering a solution to fix the state of health care in this country. With the way the HMO's currently operate, something needs to be done.

As for using Obama's middle name, yes it's his name, but he can choose to use his middle name or not, just like Hillary chooses to use her maiden name or not. However, it does seem to me that some use it for the most juvenile of reasons

 

[Tron5000]

Here's another question . . . why haven't the gov't-run healthcare supporters responded to this post? t:

I've been wondering the same thing. I've yet to see an example of a nation with government-run health care that is more desirable than the solutions offered by a free-market economy.

Competition, not consolidation, drives costs down and provides for better services. Once you remove competition from the marketplace, there is no longer an incentive to attempt to provide better services at a lower price than the next guy. Without competition, services go down and prices go up. Very basic economic principles at work here.

 

[Mr Sparkle]

If government-run health care is such a great idea, then why do people pay thousands of dollars to come to the U.S. for operations? Why is Canada experiencing a severe shortage in qualified medical professionals? Why are the top medical experts in the world moving to America in order to practice?

money?
duh.
it doesn't mean that the healthcare is better, just that you are able to charge exorbitant amounts of money for the same service you provide elsewhere.
the people going to the US for treatment, don't spend just thousands of dollars, they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, your question apparently assumes that everyone in the world HAS that kind of money, or worse yet, advocates the idea that if you DON'T have that kind of money.

tough ****.

shouldn't have gotten sick in the first place right?
I also wonder why proponents of the super-awesome "better be rich to be healthy" system always neglect to mention France's healthcare system, which happens to kick major ass.
while one of the most expensive in Europe, it is by far one of the most effective and at half the cost of the US seems to be working quite well.
also not mentioned?
the UK.
which again, while not trouble free is certainly better than the US system.
the mentality of the people against this seems to be " I don't want to pay for your sickness"
well, you live in a SOCIETY that's the whole point of a society to provide protection when some need it, because YOU may need it at one point.

 

[Tron5000]

Canadians seem to realize that privatization is the future, and indeed salvation, of their health care system (currently government-run).

http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/247756

Private medicine: the future of health care

By Charles Moore
For the Times & Transcript
Published Monday March 24th, 2008
Appeared on page D7
With more than 3,500 Nova Scotians queued-up for orthopedic surgery, some for as long as three years, and another 7,000 reportedly waiting to have their health issues evaluated by an orthopedic surgeon, the provincial government announced last week it will spend $1 million to subcontract about 500 surgeries to a private surgical clinic to ease the backlog.

This sort of public/private partnership makes eminent good sense, is long-overdue, and points to the future and possibly the salvation of health care in Canada. Nova Scotia is spending nearly 50 percent of its provincial budget on health care with expenditures increasing eight to 10 per cent annually compared with a 2.7 percent annual increase as recently as 2003.

If the current trend-line continues, the province will be spending 60 per cent of total revenues on health care by 2015 (and a bizarre 83 per cent by 2026). Something has to give, and incorporating a degree of privatization, a strategy that has been hugely successful in Europe, has to be an important part of any viable solution to the health-care crisis, not only in Nova Scotia but across Canada.

A substantial shift to privatization of health care delivery (while maintaining public funding for treatment) will be the most effective way to diminish the extortionary power of health care unions and get health care spending back under some semblance of control. It is absolutely imperative that we contain the cancer-like growth of health care spending and attempt to reduce it, at least proportionately.

Even socialist Sweden and public health pioneer Great Britain allow mixed public/private health care delivery. No other Western developed country places the extreme constraints on private health care delivery that Canada does, in dubious company with totalitarian states like North Korea and Cuba. When Sweden In the early 1990s decided to experiment with publicly-funded private services and contracting out, results were dramatic. Costs for lab and X-ray services reportedly fell by nearly 50 per cent. For privatized home care, ambulance service, nursing homes, and hospitals, annual costs fell by as much as 30 per cent.

Hysterical, fear-mongering, reactionary howls go up whenever anyone suggests making significant changes to Canada's medicare system (which, paradoxically, everyone agrees is not working well). Strident objection to any sort of medical facility privatization (except for abortion clinics of course) from unions, and their political wing -- the NDP -- vowing to fight any sort of privatization every step of the way, is objectively compromised by the fact that they (correctly) fear a dilution of union leverage to extort higher wages and benefits from the single-provider government by means of strike threats. Some of us think such dilution would be a good thing.

"If you allow private delivery of health care, it will siphon off personnel from the public system," shrill the naysayers. That would be as opposed to the present exodus of Canadian doctors and nurses to greener pastures in the U.S.?

A domestic private industry option would keep some of these those medical professionals who are dissatisfied with working in public health care here in Canada. After all, what's important to patients is getting treated on a timely basis, not the civil-employee status of who treats them, and if treatment remains funded by medicare, what's the problem? I think a new, public/private health care model for Canada, properly sold, would not be nearly as unpopular as the ideological, dog-in-the-manger left would have us believe.

Those of us with a more balanced perspective than the grim-faced lefty Cassandras who view any contribution private medicine might make to health care delivery in Canada as an assault on the ideals of the Canada Health Act, view private facilities like the Nova Scotia clinic as assets that could attract more skilled medical professionals to practice here with the knowledge that they can earn extra income outside the public system, and thus improve the general quality of health care in Canada.

A 2002 report prepared for the Romanow Commission on Medicare by Dr. Raisa Deber of the University of Toronto (available on the Commission Website), concluded that most health services delivered in Canada are performed by private entities anyway -- doctors operating as private corporations, individually run hospitals, and private diagnostic and lab services.

Dr. Deber's paper suggests for-profit providers are more visionary and better able to adapt, and that "existing not-for-profit organizations appear to be less nimble, innovative and flexible than their for profit counterparts."

It's time Canadians took off the tunnel-vision goggles, stopped listening to the self-interested caterwauling of the NDP and the unions, and faced the fact that rigid interpretation of the Canada Health Act is utopian idealism. We need to improve timely access to medical services, and private facilities can be part of that effort, rather than continuing to pretend that a purely socialized medicare system can do the job without long waiting lists and taxing us into bankruptcy.

n Charles W. Moore is a Nova Scotian freelance writer and editor whose articles, features, and commentaries have appeared in more than 40 magazines and newspapers in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia.

 

[Tron5000]

Looks like the British socialized-medicine model is working out great. Just ask these women:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=540248&in_page_id=1770

Maternity units are turning away women in labour because they have no room, figures show.

More than four in ten NHS hospitals refused to accept expectant mothers at least once last year.

The figures, from 103 of the 147 NHS trusts with maternity services, were obtained by the Conservatives under the Freedom of Information Act.

They show that almost one in ten trusts closed more than ten times last year.

And the University of Leicester Hospitals Trust - one of the biggest NHS providers - closed 28 times.

In all, 43 trusts said they had closed their maternity unit, or had been forced to send women to another hospital, at least once in 2007 because they were full.

The Tories said it contacted all 147 trusts providing maternity services in England.

But several with maternity units that have recently closed or downgraded, or are facing such changes, did not respond. Hundreds of thousands protested last year about local shake-ups that could result in downgrading or closure of midwife-led and consultant-led maternity units.

Or you can just listen to these Brits who have been "sentenced to death":

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...ain.html?in_article_id=544112&in_page_id=1774

Hundreds of patients with a rare lung disease will be sentenced to death by plans to stop doctors prescribing a range of drugs on the NHS, it was claimed last night.

Campaigners have condemned proposals by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to withdraw the drugs because they are too expensive.

The condition, pulmonary hypertension, affects an estimated 4,000 people in the UK.

Only a quarter of these need the most expensive level of treatment.

Yet the plans by NICE, the Government's drug rationing body, mean no life-extending therapies will be available to new patients because the cost of the most expensive exceeds its threshold of £30,000 per head.

Only the cheapest drug used to combat the condition will remain available for patients.

The impotence drug Viagra is valuable in combating pulmonary hypertension's symptoms of breathlessness but sufferers say it will not prevent the heart failure the disease can induce.

Lung specialists currently combine it with inhaled or infused drugs such as prostacyclins for the most seriously affected, which can add £40,000 a year to the £12,000 cost.

Another group of drugs, endothelin receptor antagonists, are also under threat.

The cost of the most expensive treatments is on a par with approved HIV treatments or keeping one criminal in prison for a year.

The final decision, to be taken in July, will apply to England but doctors believe Scotland will follow suit.

Patients with pulmonary hypertension are usually diagnosed in their 40s and 50s and the time from diagnosis to death is only 30 months without effective treatment.

The disease causes blood pressure in the pulmonary artery to rise. Those who go downhill need hospital care - with a lung transplant the only other option.

Professor Andrew Peacock, one of the world's leading experts on the condition at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, said: "One of the drugs we routinely use for the very sickest of the sick patients, prostacyclin, we're not going to be able to use at all.

"We're going to have to say to people, 'Sorry, no treatment. You're just going to have to have palliative care and you're going to die basically'."

Anna Baker, 25, a mother, from Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire, was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension just over a year ago.

"This medication has given me my life back," she said. "I have to take the drug via a small pump 24 hours a day. I still get tired and have to limit what I do, but I have the confidence to do normal everyday things that just weren't possible last year."

As an existing patient, Mrs Baker will continue to get the expensive drugs prescribed on the NHS.

But she said: "I think it's outrageous that people with pulmonary hypertension in future might be denied the treatment."

NICE said its appraisal recommendations are preliminary and "may change after consultation".

 

[Zen]

Here's another question . . . why haven't the gov't-run healthcare supporters responded to this post? t:

Because is a simple question. with an easy answer.

Money.

Doctors come here because there are more rich folks here than anywhere else... if canada was the richest nation in the world, you could easily set up practice there and charge an arm and a leg for your greatness...

however... implementing socialized healthcare does not remove a great surgeons ability to charge more under private practice.

unless your great scheme is to keep socialized healthcare out of america to subsidize high prices to keep great surgeons here through a situational monopoly... Bizzare. i dont see what your point is...

the fact that we have great medical personel here has nothing to do with the healthcare system, it has everything to do with the people here who have the money to entice them to practice here. poor people still cant afford healthcare... in the richest goddamn country in the world.


Obama's plan does not force every human in america to buy healthcare... his single payer plan is more in line with the current situation of our healthcare system than hillary's

our healthcare system has to shift from treatment of illness to safeguarding ourselves from illness. poor health assistance is more costly in the long run and we have to address that, we could save billions in the long run if we learn how to effectively convince people how to lead healthier lives.

Prices for precriptions and medications have to be adressed, companies are taking advantage of the american people in an almost monopolistic style... aids vaccines in africa are sold at cost for a dollar a day. thats not financed by american profits.... thats the cost, 1 dollar a day.

they make billions and billions. pure capatalists should encourage competition to lower the prices or face hypocracy.


The experts have said Obama could pay for his plan mostly through steps that the candidate has already said he would take allowing President Bush's tax cuts on dividends and capital gains and on those making more than about $250,000 a year to expire in 2010 instead of acting to make them permanent.

The rest of the $65 billion funding could come by raising taxes on inheritances worth more than $7 million. Many Democrats want to repeal Bush's elimination of taxes on estates worth more than $1 million. Obama wants the exemption to be higher but i dont think hes actually come out and said exactly where.

And.... if you fix the mismanagment of money in the war on Iraq... give some serious transparency, stop paying haliburton bonus's to spend money (seriously they blow up trucks with flat tires because they will be paid to rather then replace the damn tire! do you want a link? ) you could save billions by opening up competition against haliburton IF WE MUST STAY THERE...


and of course, we could get out... and focus on our own country, hire some air marshalls, get some of that equipment that had national security hunt down a car that had radioactive sensors going off... turns out the lady had a cat in the car who recently underwent radiative cancer treatment. get some more of those sensitive instruments for real security, and the other money could help finance universal health care.

there are ways to do this. if America could get realistic about this war by holding the contractors more then acountable and transparent, or if we could get out of there altogether... theres alot of money which should be spent over here not over there.

we are over there to help the Iraqis... where all the goal posts again? its a civil war over there now, its not about terrorism...

so are you telling me we should spend all that money over there to help them set up a democracy while our economy and social programs crumble?

i dont agree with that.

democracy cant be implanted... these people have to fight for it and tenuously hold on and get it for themselves just as we did. or else it wont feel legitiamate. think about that... the Iraqii government for ages... will not feel legitamate to muslims if they dont set it up themselves. we should have killed saddaam... removed the bathists... and let the Iraqiis do there own thing. there should have been better organization with us and the iraqii people.

and now we are supporting Iraqiis over americans? and the people who hardcore support this are the ones who get to declare whos "un-american"


???

seriously?


Healthcare can be done, if you can muster up the kind of strength americans once had as a people... the greatest generation of americans (our grandparents and great grandparents) would be able to do it... we're to busy with our ipods and materialistic amenities to be true patriots. complacent in our own mediocrity.

 

[Gilpesh]

Don't worry... no one understands medicine or disease prevention in our government.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/mccain-stumbles-on-hiv-prevention/

 

[Tron5000]

As soon as the government controls the health care system, they control how much doctors and hospitals can charge. They can tell each person in this country exactly what doctor they have to see for their coverage. This dries up the money here. Once doctors no longer have to compete with one another based on services and prices offered, once the competition is gone, there will no longer be a motivating force for health care professionals to practice in America, unless they're doing it simply out of the good of their hearts. The doctors will cease to make money and, just as has been the case in other nations with socialized medicine (see: Canada and Great Britain), they will begin to go somewhere else to make money. Unless there is a huge black-market demand for health care, which there likely would be, but at much higher risk to both doctor and patient.

 

[Zen]

Looks like the British socialized-medicine model is working out great. Just ask these women:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=540248&in_page_id=1770




Or you can just listen to these Brits who have been "sentenced to death":

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...ain.html?in_article_id=544112&in_page_id=1774

imagine what would happen if they went back to the old system...

christ even more people would die... reality is kinda nasty isnt it? actually imagining people dying is upsetting, it sucks that the only time you considered it was when it helped your argument...

are you going to somehow argue that the old system somehow helped more people??

Fallacy.

there system is overburdoned.

show me some articles that cite the health of the british population going down because of this and then ill start to understand.

untill then, keep remebering that people are dying and this is a situation that needs to be fixed either way, we could use your support... especially if you have a better answer than universal healthcare

 

[Tron5000]

And just one issue: if I'm not sick and don't require medical treatment, I will still be paying into this government-run health care system. I receive no treatment, so that means the money the I paid will go toward providing health services for someone else. Now exactly what in the world gives the federal government the right to take the money that I earned and to use it for the health services of an individual who did not earn that money? Can someone please show me the language in our Constitution that grants that right to the federal government?

 

[Zen]

As soon as the government controls the health care system, they control how much doctors and hospitals can charge. They can tell each person in this country exactly what doctor they have to see for their coverage. This dries up the money here. Once doctors no longer have to compete with one another based on services and prices offered, once the competition is gone, there will no longer be a motivating force for health care professionals to practice in America, unless they're doing it simply out of the good of their hearts. The doctors will cease to make money and, just as has been the case in other nations with socialized medicine (see: Canada and Great Britain), they will begin to go somewhere else to make money. Unless there is a huge black-market demand for health care, which there likely would be, but at much higher risk to both doctor and patient.

actually, private practice would still be completely alowed.



if your rich, and you want that... go pay for it. the united states has become the private practice for the world.

 

[Tron5000]

imagine what would happen if they went back to the old system...

christ even more people would die... reality is kinda nasty isnt it? actually imagining people dying is upsetting, it sucks that the only time you considered it was when it helped your argument...

are you going to somehow argue that the old system somehow helped more people??

Fallacy.

there system is overburdoned.

show me some articles that cite the health of the british population going down because of this and then ill start to understand.

untill then, keep remebering that people are dying and this is a situation that needs to be fixed either way, we could use your support... especially if you have a better answer than universal healthcare

I just showed you 2 articles on 2 different failures of the British socialized medicine system. If you would like to see more, you're free to. It's called the internet.

Search "British Health Care Disaster" on Google News or Google Blogs.

 

[Tron5000]

actually, private practice would still be completely alowed.



if your rich, and you want that... go pay for it. the united states has become the private practice for the world.

Oh, but if you're not rich, you'll just have to wait 10 weeks for an MRI on someone else's dime.

The money in private practice will dry up as soon as the government controls the health care system. And even if were true that wealthy people could still receive treatment in this country, the howls would come: "Hey, he gets better health care than I get! That's not fair! I thought we were all supposed to get coverage!"

The well will run dry. If this is not the case, then why are Great Britain and Canada currently facing shortages of health care professionals?

 

[Zen]

And just one issue: if I'm not sick and don't require medical treatment, I will still be paying into this government-run health care system. I receive no treatment, so that means the money the I paid will go toward providing health services for someone else. Now exactly what in the world gives the federal government the right to take the money that I earned and to use it for the health services of an individual who did not earn that money? Can someone please show me the language in our Constitution that grants that right to the federal government?

if we are not being invaded and you still pay for the production of tanks... now exactly what in the world gives the government the right to take the money you earned and build up a ludicrously large military?? can someone please show me the language in our constitution that grants that right to the federal governemnt... no standing armies and all that...?

healthcare is a right, night a priviledge

ohh and what you just described was private insurance... only now your paying the government. its the same damn thing. when you pay insurance your not sick... someone else is reaping the benefits who may not have paid as much as you...

 

[Mr Sparkle]

as opposed to right now, your US system works so well that every doctor in Tijuana says " we accept US insurance" and every dentist's office in the region makes a killing.
also, I like the rationale that doctors got into medicine strictly for the money.
I don't know about the people you hang around with, but while all the doctors I know like money, they studied medicine to help people, to make them well.
the way you comodify the health of the people is rather chilling.
" the doctors will cease to make money"?
that's not even an argument as that is obviously never going to happen.

and, I don't need to tell you that quoting the daily mail is pretty much like quoting fox news, again, I don't see how pointing out flaws ( which I don't remember anyone saying th system was perfect) is somehow illustrative of how it " wouldn't work" because I can come up with thousands of articles about the current healthcare system in the US and how it doesn't work at all.

how about something nice , cold and non partisan.

One-fourth of American respondents are either "very" or "somewhat" satisfied with "the availability of affordable healthcare in the nation," (6% very satisfied and 19% somewhat satisfied). This level of satisfaction is significantly lower than in Canada, where 57% are satisfied with the availability of affordable healthcare, including 16% who are very satisfied. Roughly 4 in 10 Britons are satisfied (43%), but only 7% say they are very satisfied (similar to the percentage very satisfied in the United States).

Looking at the other side of the coin, 44% of Americans are very dissatisfied with the availability of affordable healthcare, and nearly three-fourths (72%) are either somewhat or very dissatisfied. The 44% in the United States who are very dissatisfied with healthcare availability is significantly higher than corresponding figures in either Canada (17%) or Great Britain (25%).

source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/8056/Healthcare-System-Ratings-US-Great-Britain-Canada.aspx

In Great Britain, satisfaction with access to affordable healthcare (43%) is consistent with satisfaction with quality (42%). In Canada, satisfaction with access to affordable healthcare (57%) is slightly higher than satisfaction with quality (52%). But the most dramatic variation in satisfaction with these two facets of the healthcare system occurs in the United States, where only 25% are satisfied with the availability of affordable healthcare, but 48% are satisfied with quality. Once again, this dichotomy seems to support the hypothesis that private healthcare encourages high-quality standards, but may be a barrier to access and affordability.

seems kind of definitive doesn't it?

 

[Zen]

Oh, but if you're not rich, you'll just have to wait 10 weeks for an MRI on someone else's dime.

The money in private practice will dry up as soon as the government controls the health care system. And even if were true that wealthy people could still receive treatment in this country, the howls would come: "Hey, he gets better health care than I get! That's not fair! I thought we were all supposed to get coverage!"

The well will run dry. If this is not the case, then why are Great Britain and Canada currently facing shortages of health care professionals?

no... he had to pay for it, the fact that they get coverage at all is enough... who cares if rich people pay exorbant prices to get seen by the best doctors in the world... they subsidize private medical practice for themselves... or they go to the FREE hospitals and wait like everyone else.

 

[Mr Sparkle]

healthcare is a right, not a privilege

exactly.
the benefits of living in a civilized society.

 

[Zen]

as opposed to right now, your US system works so well that every doctor in Tijuana says " we accept US insurance" and every dentist's office in the region makes a killing.
also, I like the rationale that doctors got into medicine strictly for the money.
I don't know about the people you hang around with, but while all the doctors I know like money, they studied medicine to help people, to make them well.
the way you comodify the health of the people is rather chilling.
" the doctors will cease to make money"?
that's not even an argument as that is obviously never going to happen.

and, I don't need to tell you that quoting the daily mail is pretty much like quoting fox news, again, I don't see how pointing out flaws ( which I don't remember anyone saying th system was perfect) is somehow illustrative of how it " wouldn't work" because I can come up with thousands of articles about the current healthcare system in the US and how it doesn't work at all.

how about something nice , cold and non partisan.

One-fourth of American respondents are either "very" or "somewhat" satisfied with "the availability of affordable healthcare in the nation," (6% very satisfied and 19% somewhat satisfied). This level of satisfaction is significantly lower than in Canada, where 57% are satisfied with the availability of affordable healthcare, including 16% who are very satisfied. Roughly 4 in 10 Britons are satisfied (43%), but only 7% say they are very satisfied (similar to the percentage very satisfied in the United States).

Looking at the other side of the coin, 44% of Americans are very dissatisfied with the availability of affordable healthcare, and nearly three-fourths (72%) are either somewhat or very dissatisfied. The 44% in the United States who are very dissatisfied with healthcare availability is significantly higher than corresponding figures in either Canada (17%) or Great Britain (25%).

source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/8056/Healthcare-System-Ratings-US-Great-Britain-Canada.aspx

In Great Britain, satisfaction with access to affordable healthcare (43%) is consistent with satisfaction with quality (42%). In Canada, satisfaction with access to affordable healthcare (57%) is slightly higher than satisfaction with quality (52%). But the most dramatic variation in satisfaction with these two facets of the healthcare system occurs in the United States, where only 25% are satisfied with the availability of affordable healthcare, but 48% are satisfied with quality. Once again, this dichotomy seems to support the hypothesis that private healthcare encourages high-quality standards, but may be a barrier to access and affordability.

seems kind of definitive doesn't it?

^This^

i dont like quoting a post just to bump it...

but i like how sexy this post is

 

[Tron5000]

if we are not being invaded and you still pay for the production of tanks... now exactly what in the world gives the government the right to take the money you earned and build up a ludicrously large military?? can someone please show me the language in our constitution that grants that right to the federal governemnt... no standing armies and all that...?

healthcare is a right, night a priviledge

ohh and what you just described was private insurance... only now your paying the government. its the same damn thing. when you pay insurance your not sick... someone else is reaping the benefits who may not have paid as much as you...

Can you show me the verbiage in the Constitution that says that American citizens have a right to health care?

Can you show me the passage in the Constitution that grants the federal government the power to mandate health care for all its citizens?

I CAN show you where the Constitution empowers the federal government to provide our nation with a military.