Obamacare - Pay for insurance or go to jail

Switzerland also allows these private companies to offer supplemental, for-profit plans as health insurance products, but the insurance that the government mandates the citizens buy is non-profit.

Switzerland is a fantastic country IMO. I've lived and researched in CH for a while a few years ago, liked it so much that I may emigrate there someday. They have a very simple, streamlined attitude toward everything, which to me is quite appealing.

I think you guys have the same problem we have here in Canada that keeps us from reforming our health care system to make it better as well.

Shrill hysteria.

I really don't get why the US must look at Canada, or Canada has to look at the US for health care advice.

We do adopt practices from each other, but our systems are completely different, and will ALWAYS be different.

I really don't care what else they offer.

What I'm interested in is how they can provide such a high level of health care without using a single-payer system. Or, a government run Medicare plan.

I agree... we let them copy our Constitution... least they could do is let us copy their Medical system.

What? Medicare is a government program. That is already a reality. And if you meant you didn't want Medicare to be for everyone, how would that be different than a single payer system?

Maybe I'm just drunk, but that sentence makes no sense to me.

The word "non-profit" isn't even mentioned in that post! How exactly then were you showing your support for the 'non-profit angle over the government option' when you don't even mention it? Through telepathy?

In fact, looking at your post further, it appears you were actually deriding/dismissing the cost controlling measures that must be part of any UHC-style (umbrella term) model.

Uh.... A Co-op is a type of non-profit your drooling idiot.

Read it again...

how they do it WITHOUT running a single-payer system or a government run program like Medicare.

no comma.

you dumbass.

The mandated-purchase plans in Switzerland are non-profit. There are other factors as well, but as was said in an above post, that pretty much is the whole reason, period.

Damn Obamaphobes

Barackilljoys indeed

Coops are more fraught with problems than the public option is. They are a dying business model, and are poor simulacra for any real sort of non-profit health care system. They already operate as private insurance companies do (ie, they wouldn't function here as they do in Switzerland) and the regulatory framework alone in the US would be prohibitive of their ability to be successful. Sorry, but it really is kind of the worst idea out of all of them...

And even if we wanted to change the health care regulatory framework at a national level in order to create a more favorable environment for them, the fact is, the Obama Administration isn't willing to make those changes. They have already assented to making those regulations more strongly favorable for the insurers.

That's entirely consistent, considering that one major aspect of socialism is a marriage between government and corporation. Recipients of the bailouts agree!

And you do it again. You act like I threw 'co-op' out of nowhere and jumped on WHEN THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT AND EVEN TITLE OF THE THREAD YOU REFERENCED AND CLAIMED THERE WAS NO MENTION OF A NON-PROFIT.

Seriously, just admit you didn't know what the fuck you were talking about and walk away while you are behind.

It's getting embarrassing.

No, you referenced the thread first, it wasn't even mentioned here until you brought it up and then only to try and reinvent it as somehow supporting your own misgivings in this thread. Now, you can bluster all you want about it, but SHOUTING isn't going to change that, nor is it going to change the fact that you obviously don't recognize the systemic differences between why a coop-like option works in CH but wouldn't work here.

But even putting that aside, the fact that you even suggest the co-ops as a viable alternative, or somehow representative of a functional national non-profit model, shows that you throw terms around without a grasp of how and why they do or don't work.

In fact, twice now in this thread you have done this. It was the same thing that you did earlier with mandates -- which ended up being "Well, in and of themselves, they're good" -- and now you're doing it again by trying to make nonprofit synonymous with coops.

No, coops would not be an effective non profit health care model for the US. To consider them as a veritable nonprofit alternative is quite frankly, ludicrous. It's that simple.

Yeah the ways by which Obama is ensconcing the well-being of corporations is staggering! I mean, if you are going to practice socialism, at least be robbing the corporations and giving it to the people! Instead, with Obama, all we've been seeing is households being lined up to pay out more so that the corporations remain solvent. In another thread, I mentioned the increased share of household income that is projected to go to health care under the plans being considered. That is just one of the latest examples of this kind of thinking.

Corporations did quite well under Hitler and the Nazis.

Until the 8th Air Force came along.

LOL, WUT?

Socialism is many things, but Corporatist it is not (fearmongering aside). I think you've got it confused with Fascism.

d. Socialism. Socialism is an ideology that, at its most elemental level, is
defined by the belief that a society could exist in which individuals control
the means of power, and therefore the means of production, and are not
subjected to the ownership, control, or power structures of others. In
application, however, the de facto meaning of socialism has evolved and
branched to a great degree, and though highly politicized, is strongly
related to the establishment of an organized working class, created through
either revolution or social evolution, with the purpose of building a
classless society. It has also, increasingly, become concentrated on social
reforms within modern democracies. This concept and the term Socialist
also refer to a group of ideologies, an economic system, or a state that
exists or has existed. In Marxist theory, it also refers to the society that
would succeed capitalism, and in some cases develop further into
communism. Marxism and communism are both very specific branches of
socialism. The two do not represent socialism as a whole. In modern
socialist theory, it is in the pursuit of the goal of creating a democratic
society that would form the backbone of an ideal welfare state.

Well, I don't know what to think about the Hitler comparisons, there is after all the requisite Godwin Law to consider, but if we put that aside for a moment, it is kinda hard to ignore that there are many commonalities in how they ascended into power, their styles of governance (propping up the corporations on the backs of the public) etc. And of course, the cult of personality, as we see the BOTS perform day in and day out, is strikingly similar to that which was observed in pre-WWII Germany. However, just don't mention fascism, because heaven forbid anybody actually think about what exactly is the end outcome if cults of personality go unchecked.

But, I also want to say (and I know you weren't implying this in your post, just going off on my own tangent here) that I think the Obamas are well intentioned. For me, it was never about they're "teh evil" (as I know it isn't for you either), it was always a matter of experience (which btw ironically is another problem with coops -- even their own National Association is saying that there hasn't been enough experience with them to be a national model). Anyway, it was always a matter of "well, is he experienced enough to know what he is doing' that was a drawback for me personally when it came to Obama.

But, as people, I think both the Obamas mean well and do want what's best for the country. I had the opportunity to interact with Michelle again earlier this summer when she was staying at the Palace in SF. She is a big fag hag whom the gays call Blackie-O and whatever her other misgivings, she does at least try and be a good friend to those whom she considers true friends. That is why I have tried to at least minimize any personal attacks on them -- even if I do call them out on using the race card flagrantly and inappropriately, I think the personal attacks are wasteful and sometimes silly.

Besides, who needs that anyway? President Obama gives you quite a bit to work with without even the need for those kinds of characterizations.

LOL, NOPE!

Socialism.

No, I don't think they're evil, but there's an old saying, "The fires of Hell are fueled with good intentions."

America's been headed down this road for a long time. The Obama's are the product of their environment.

Sorry, but that definition has already been debated upon (look up Life magazine Nazi life in color' thread) and both sides of the aisle agree it is one of the most concise definitions of socialism.

The source is:

Special Operations and
International Studies

Political Military Analysis
Handbook

Advanced Regional Analysis Course
United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare
Center and School
Fort Bragg, North Carolina 28310

Not everything is found in army manuals, Anc.

Are they putting Kool Aid in your MREs?

Sorry Muad, you've got your terms wrong. Corporatism is a core tenet of fascism, not socialism.

I was always taught that Facism is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from socialism.

Here's the flaw in your reasoning, Anc:

You say the problem is that hospitals will treat people even if they can't afford to pay. Then you turn around and say the solution to that is to charge them. Well if they couldn't afford to pay in the first place, then why are they suddenly going to be able to pay once you've added another layer of bureaucracy? And if they can't afford to pay the penalty will be to charge them many, many times more than they couldn't afford to pay in the first place?

Well, I suppose the other option would be to throw them in jail for a year. Then they not only get free healthcare, they get free room and board. And the prison population swells. Aren't you hippies the ones that are always bitching that people shouldn't go to prison for victimless crimes like smoking pot or getting a hooker? How do you reconcile that with throwing someone in jail for a year because they can't afford health insurance?

Not especially opposite. They're both about stealing money and giving it to people who didn't earn it and don't deserve it, just a question of who those people are. Also, fascists are usually a little more subtle about it, not outright stealing, but rather enacting regulations to discourage or even outright prevent just outcomes.

EDIT: meh analogy deleted. Needs work.

The problem isn't just the people that can't pay insurance, but the people that don't the 22-34yo that think they are too young and healthy to need insurance.

Truth is, it's a gamble better than coin flip. Most won't need it. However some will.. usually in an auto accident, which most don't consider) which then weighs down the system. And then even the ones that don't bankrupt the system now, don't pay in when they are young and healthy but then either join up once they are old and sick/got a spouse and kids or don't and go straight to everyone else paying for them.

The same reason people that can't afford washers and dryers are able to afford laundromats?

So you're going to tell them how to run their lives. For the 2-3%* who gamble by not having health insurance and lose, you're going to punish the other 97-98% who DON'T need health insurance, by telling them how they can spend their money.

Shit, it's bad enough that the Government has been stealing 15% of my paycheck for 25 years to stick into a legal Ponzi scheme, now you want them to steal another, say 15% (when I was that age I wasn't making $19,000 a year) from me?

Fuck you. Give me that 30% and let me invest it. That's around $6,000 a year I could put into an indexed no-load mutual fund. Running the numbers through this compound interest calculator, that comes up to something like $185,000 in wealth creation the Government would steal.

And that's free money. If I was putting away the $4,000 for retirement I put away IRL that's another $130,000. So by taking away choice because some people have the bad luck to get sick or get in an accident, you're taking away over 1/3 of a million dollars of retirement money someone could sock away over 25 years--and that's someone making less than $20,000 a year.










*Don't know what the actual numbers are.

You know what? The fucking US Government is the LAST person who should be telling me how to spend my money. Last December I wrote a check for a new car--no financing, no loans--I paid for the motherfucker out of my pocket. And, going over the numbers, I think I can pay cash for a house too, if they'll take my offer. And I'll still have enough in the bank to live on it for a year or two.

On the other hand, the Federal Government is a million zillion dollars in debt and they're running a zillion dollar annual deficit. They should NOT be lecturing ME on fiscal responsibility.

Fixed that for you.