This is en example of why the MSM is so dangerous

What's your take on insults as a substitution for substance?

If Lietard were limited to just substantive posts, his count would only be about twenty and they'd all be in Media Central.

Why do you need a job when it's free?

Oh that's right......

It's not free medical care. You pay for it with every paycheck.

And having to wait a long time for the government to give you a spot on the operating table is rationing.

No, I don't believe it does that at all.

Why not? You said: A is better than B because the government will ruin B. You then admitted that the government will also ruin A. So now why is A better?

Where have I claimed that 'A' was better?

There are very few services I would have administered by the government, and that narrow scope would be dictated by a limited role that doesn't allow for "social safety net" programs. So if you're equating NHS with....say....a standing military force, you're gonna find that it doesn't gain you much traction with me.

I think you've completely lost track of the argument now. You argued that a free market solution was better than a UHC because the US government would fuck up a UHC. You then admitted that it also fucks up the free market. Thus, the argument "US government dumb" does not help you make that choice.

Wow, you are disconnected from reality, aren't you? It's one thing to ask someone to back up a fact with a link. It's quite another to just ignore something that EVERYONE knows is happening in Britain and Canada. Several of the people who post on this board live under those systems and have reported the same. So you'd better find another rebuttal, grasshopper. Do you need a link to prove to you that that sky is blue and water is wet?

Moron.

Yeah, nothing to do with your shifty business.

Seperate considerations. A free market is preferable regardless of the outcome, but I say the government is virtually guaranteed to make a writhing clusterfuck of the whole affair.

Fucks it up by rendering it no longer a free market. Careful with that distinction.

That only helps to decide against the government option. It does not supply any alternatives of it's own.

The government will fuck up a UHC option.
The government will fuck up a free market option.

Why does that only speak against the UHC option?

It speaks against government involvement. It does not speak against the free market option because it ceases to be a free market the moment the government is permitted to fuck it up.

Link?

Wow, your standards sure changed fast.

This was the post I was disagreeing with:

Patently, totally, and completely untrue. The DMEPOS I used to work for had a contract with the VA, serving all of their patients in Alabama. I personally visited hundreds of veterans in their homes to explain to them why they were being rationed (not getting what they needed or deserved).

Their system cost the life of one man in particular that still infuriates me to this day. I befriended a retired Army Colonel that spent three and a half years in a Nazi POW Camp. The United States Government finished what the Nazi's started.

I believe it's spelled L-a-D-o-u-c-h-e.

First of all, if your covered under your policy, the insurance company is handcuffed. You will win. What I have observed with the government is that all rules are subject to change for the sake of convenience and you can't do a damn thing about it. If you can't accept that, and still believe the insurance company has just as much power to fuck you, then consider this: What if your doctor was employed by the insurance company? In the military, we had what were called "smart docs". These are doctors who will structure their diagnosis and care so that it is in the best interests of the military and not the patient.

None of which entail interference in the medicine market any more than in any other aspect of life. In a world where the latter mattered (in the only empirical study of the effects of introducing limited liability to a marketplace without it, practical effects were found to be negligible, or even deleterious to business, causing many to remain or return to unlimited liability - of course, that option is, thanks to the government, effectively no longer available except to the smallest of companies), you might find a case for abolishing limited liability, but you have no basis for interfering in health care. Furthermore, by interfering in that market, government distorts prices, and the information conveyed by them. Your only recourse then is to violate property rights to the point of their abolition, and, even "just" in medicine, that is completely unacceptable.

Not in the least, if you're going so far as to say the enforcement of property rights unduly affects the health care market . Rather I'm saying that that's not enough to justify interference in the health care market unless it's enough to justify interference in every market and every human activity.

The hell you say!!

What the fuck do you know? You're just a right wing lunatic.

Alphaman, Raoul the Red Shirt, Liet, Garamet, 14th Doctor, Dan Leach, RickDeckard and that stupid German (he knows who he is ) are the only ones smart enough to know what is and isn't in the upcoming healthcare bill.

YOU KNOW NOTHING!!!!!

You're experiences in the system are at best an ignorance of how things work and at worst a flat out lie coming from you.

Obama's plan will reduce costs across the board. It will not do that by restricting access to healthcare to sick people. Nope. Not going to happen. There will be no rationing. No one will be denied any treatment or medical procedure.

It's all those rich people and businesses who will pay for everything.

Just like you pay for so many other things you take for granted.

Your point?

No one has to wait for emergency surgery, and non-emergency surgeries are scheduled in order of priority.


Tell me, if the American system is so great now, why would changing it suddenly lead to rationing? Are all the doctors and clinics and MRI machines going to move to Mexico? Are there millions of people who'd suddenly get in line for complicated surgeries they previously couldn't afford?

No, they're just gonna get smothered in paperwork, starve waiting for reimbursement, and in general put off of the medical profession entirely by the higher overhead and lower compensation. Fewer and fewer doctors, serving a base of patients milking the new "free"' system.

That it is not as you say: FREE?

When you say something is free that means you don't pay for it.

Lies. It's been pointed out the huge wait times.

The Canadian Health Care system is a failure.

No, a lot of doctors are going to say, "fuck this shit" and retire.

The clinics will go out of business.

And it's been shown whenever something is free people use more of it and use it more often.

That as far as I know is not true, because the insurance company can use various loopholes to drop you. I've read stories about insurance companies essentially finding pre-existing conditions where there were none and about their using minor paperwork screw ups to reject claims.

I think pretty much the same thing happens in private practice, where doctors either structure their diagnosis based on what would save the HMO money rather than what would serve the patient the best.

Just for the record, I don't claim to know what is or what isn't in the upcoming healthcare bill in any great detail.

I don't believe that there are the "death panels" such as Palin referred to where the government would suggest elderly or sick people be terminated, and invite anyone who thinks that is in the bill to show specifically where it states that such a thing could be created.

I haven't made a claim that it would improve health care overall or even in specific areas. All I've done is question the notion that it would somehow be easier to fight private insurers than the government in problematic cases. I think in either situation you'd have a pretty steep uphill climb.

As for rationing care, I guess it depends on how you define that term. To a certain extent, rationing exists now under a mostly private system of health care. It has to, as there's a limited set of resources to allocate.

No private insurer gives every patient (or even most patients) everything that patient might want exactly when that patient wants it.

That's why you generally have to wait a while before even a basic checkup. That's why emergency rooms use triage.

If you're talking about "rationing" in terms of "everyone will be capped in terms of the maximum amount of care they can get," I'd have to say I'm doubtful that will happen.

Of course that happens under the current system. Lifetime caps on insurance coverage are the norm, and once you meet the cap under one policy you assuredly have a disqualifying preexisting condition for the next. Your only option for individual coverage at that point is to deliberately impoverish yourself until you qualify for Medicaid.

Canada has no problems with wait times and access?

So...they are just wasting time and money with all these programs, strategies and committees for trying to fix the not-problem?

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/qual/acces/wait-attente/index-eng.php

I meant the opposite extreme, where someone who is willing and able to pay for additional health care is barred from doing so by government edict.

Ok, so you think insurance companies are just as bad. Fine, I won't argue that. I hate insurance companies. My whole point was to counter Alphaman's ridiculous notion that the government has never fucked people intentionally when it comes to health care. They do it all the time. Every single day of the year, even on holidays. It is my belief that UHC will actually exacerbate this problem. I won't even get into the gross inefficiency and confusion that comes with it. Ask Anc about TriCare sometime. So far, all you've countered with is that insurance companies do the same thing.

It's the same extreme for anyone who actually needs insurance. People who can pay out of pocket past a lifetime cap are generally wasting their money purchasing insurance in the first place.

So, when you hack away all the bullshit and unfounded claims, the only net "improvement" all of this offers is a more overt display of squeezing the evil rich to fund heathcare for people who can't afford it? Do I have that right?

Nope, they'd be squeezing all of us to fund healthcare for everyone.

Sure, no one in congress would be stupid enough to say they'd get rid of the privately-funded clinics...but when small business can't afford to pay for healthcare and the bazillion of dollars in taxes just to keep their places running, you can bet more and more people are going to say "fuck this" and not pay for private health care anymore. And since most of their employees may not be able to pay for care out of pocket, guess where they're gonna go to?

There's a reason why the Indians on the Reservations say "Don't get sick after June."

Why do Indians on the Reservations say "Don't get sick after June"?