[Kosh]

I'd much rather have a quirky socialized insurance system than no insurance.


Just for the record, the cost of just having all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed is a little over $1,000.

[Fury]

This is one of the many things I have never really understood in american society. In here health insurance is something you naturally have, you don't need to actually get and pay for it. The state pays for our health insurances, and in a way we pay it pack in form of taxes. But its not something that people will lose their homes over, or actually get in any sort of financial trouble. At least not that I am aware of.

[Descenterace]

Originally posted by aldo_14


So the right to life isn't a sacred right.

wow, sucks to be American.

With every right comes a responsibility.

With the right to life comes the responsibility to pay for it, obviously.

[icespeed]

weird. in oz we ***** and moan about medicare (our healthcare system) and how the gov's screwing it all up, but it's actually quite good. i don't think anyone's lost their home or something similar because of hospital debt. and they emphasise in our course the importance of a good history-taking- 90% of disorders can be diagnosed, or at least can be suspicioned, on a good history. tests are only ordered when absolutely required for treatment-regime determination purposes or differential diagnosis (oh yeah, and the other 10% undiagnosable stuff) because most of them are frickin expensive.

[Turnsky]

hey, why spend money on something that can help lengthen human life, when you can spend it on something that dramatically shorten it?

[icespeed]

was that sarcasm? i don't have any sarcasm receptors. you have to tell me these things.

[Kosh]

Originally posted by Mr. Fury
This is one of the many things I have never really understood in american society. In here health insurance is something you naturally have, you don't need to actually get and pay for it. The state pays for our health insurances, and in a way we pay it pack in form of taxes. But its not something that people will lose their homes over, or actually get in any sort of financial trouble. At least not that I am aware of.

What it comes down to is three things:

1.) Social Darwinism

2.) Whenever americans here the word "tax" they go into a fit about how awful they are. Despite that, they still demand good police, a good education system, and (most importantly) good roads. They seem incapable of making the connection that all those things are funded by taxes. When you cut taxes, performance in all of those things goes down hill.

3.) American stupidity.

[Turnsky]

Originally posted by icespeed
was that sarcasm? i don't have any sarcasm receptors. you have to tell me these things.

very much so.. this forum needs sarcasm tags.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Rictor


Of course. NHS is a dirty, dirty socialism.


There is no right to life. There is a right (in theory) not to die from X and Y and Z, but outside of that - **** happens. The arguement can be made that the state isn't responsible if you get sick or injured, so they are under no obligation to help you out. Of course, many would beg to differ, and I would partially agree. But people do not have a right not to be f**ked over by life.

Article 3, Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines a right to 'life, liberty and security of person'.

  I view this, combined with Article 25 and possibly 28 & 22 - and general human decency (this being the most important reason IMO) - as supporting a right to have treatment available for illness.  In which case article 2 would make allowing or denying treatment based upon the ability to afford it also be wrong.

(http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)

Originally posted by Descenterace


With every right comes a responsibility.

With the right to life comes the responsibility to pay for it, obviously.

So poor people deserve to be ill and die?

[Nuke]

Originally posted by Maeglamor

[color=66ff00]Actually it wouldn't be so bad if malpractice insurance didn't cost a ****ing fortune because money grabbing asshats want to bleed the system dry.

The hospitals are mired in high paid suits passing the buck to the lowest end of the 'food chain', medics are assualted by both patients and their families/visitors and the only people really getting any benefit out of the whole affair in the long term are lawyers.

*fumes*
[/color]

layers have their dirty little hands in many aspects of american life. its just something that happens in a government that requires endless beurocracy to function properly. its just as bad as the dependancy on expensive to operate diagnosis hardware. pressure from lawsuits makes hospitals want to be more sure about how accurate a diagnosis  is. so they are gonna force tests on people who cant afford it. so its simply another factor, malpractice causes lawsuits, which causes the need to have malpractice insurance, which forces hospitals to be more perfect in their operation (which is more expensive). insurance companies jack people, lawyers jack people. hospitals jack people to pay off the lawyers and insurance companies. if you have health insurance, you will probiblly get jacked by your insurance company. if you dont have insurance you are just screwed. yep, sounds like the system is working fine.

[Descenterace]

Originally posted by aldo_14
So poor people deserve to be ill and die?

This forum definitely needs sacasm tags.

[vyper]

Or in this case, Sarchasm tags.

[Charismatic]

Originally posted by Deepblue


That's life insurance.

Some insurance.. hehe


Btw, what American Dream? **** the system and squeze money out of the middle class people for your own petty self interest? Sure some dream.. oh wait, its reality.

[Ulala]

I think the original American Dream comment was also sarcastic...

[Ford Prefect]

Oi gevalt. I was joking. Do I seem like someone who believes in crap like that?

[IceFire]

We pay tax's big time to fund our healthcare system.  I prefer it this way.  The government pays money when I need it...

Glad I don't live down there...

[Tieowbeijas]

But high taxes don't have to equal good everything, just take Sweden.
We have an effective tax rate of ~50%, first 30% comes off your salary, then everything you buy have some tax on it, that I can't remember the english word for it, that usually is 25%, some stuff like food and "culture" (books and crap, might even include video games "soon") have lower whilst alchohol and tobacco have much higher.
Still we have awfull eldercare in most places, schools are crap in the bigger cities, there are too few police officers (in the "county" I live in we have no full time police, just one guy who is here two days per week, the "county's" population is around 10 000) and we have had major cutbacks on our military (not saying that this is a bad thing, since the russian ain't a problem these days).

But the health care is pretty good here, 'cept for dental care which costs an arseload since they changed the insurance system for it. You used to pay ~20% of it yourself whilst insurance (that you get from the state) covered the rest, now it's the other way around and it makes it pretty damned expensive to go to the dentist if you don't have a job title of "CEO" or something else that grants insanely high salary.

[EtherShock]

If you are talking about taxes on imported goods, the correct term would be a tariff. I'm also glad to see both sides of the story here. I wish we would at least give national healthcare a try, but then again, I also wish for the right to a higher education, with the bill footed by Uncle Sam.

The thing most of us dislike about taxes is that a big portion is not going towards my/our interests. Most of our taxes go to social security, followed by military after that, then I believe medicare/medicaid. I can't speak for the general public, but the military certainly isn't in my interests. Then you have those people who whine about the ones that take advantage of government programs, such as welfare, and they get pissed over that. There are some people with food stamps that eat better than those that don't have them, another common complaint. People on food stamps probably eat better than I. >.<

There are ways to deter moochers, but tax-haters don't want you to know that, because they're only looking out for themselves, which I can't blame them for, but I disagree with.

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by Tieowbeijas
But high taxes don't have to equal good everything, just take Sweden.
We have an effective tax rate of ~50%, first 30% comes off your salary, then everything you buy have some tax on it, that I can't remember the english word for it, that usually is 25%, some stuff like food and "culture" (books and crap, might even include video games "soon") have lower whilst alchohol and tobacco have much higher.
 

I presume you mean VAT (value added tax IIRC)

[Kosh]

But high taxes don't have to equal good everything, just take Sweden.

Higher taxes do not necessarily mean better everything, but there is a greater chance of it being better. I have a perfect example of that:

The prison system in my state.

Some of the prisons have been having to prematurely release some of its prisoners because the state doesn't have the money to keep them in jail. Even though they are releasing people for non-violent crimes, it still makes people uneasy.