First, Canada, US, apples, oranges. People normally use the medicare and medicaid systems in this country to show why a government subsidized and run program wouldn't work for the entire population. Unless Canada has a comparable population, had comparable issues in the medical industry when they passed Medicare, comparable population density, comparable social issues, and the reform in question is comparable to the Medicare system in Canada, there really isn't much relevance in comparing them at all. How many times must this myth be squashed? Uninsured not main reason for ER crowding | Health | Reuters JAMA -- Abstract: Uninsured Adults Presenting to US Emergency Departments: Assumptions vs Data, October 22/29, 2008, Newton et al. 300 (16): 1914 You know why? Simple as that. Also: Now, like I said, comparing the two is pointless. Especially if you're gonna try to compare the reasons for Canadian wait times versus the hypothetical reasons we'd have wait times based on a reform we know little about if it theoretically passed. I just wanted to point out how Wikipedia has officially jumped on the health care reform boat, they even have a webpage that compares the two! Comparison of Canadian and American health care systems
^This! The government has to earn our trust imo, cuz it's done a damn good job of destroying it. Till then, it's intervention is not wanted, expect for the people who really buy into the whole 2 party system and election system so they think that each administration is actually different than the previous one. If/when it does take most of the steps that would prove to us that they are on our side, then I might consider letting them fuck with my wallet as it pertains to my health.
How much money do you actually have saved to make good on that deal! My guess is not enough, and you are just hoping the worst doesn't happen. If it does you are currently willing to pass that debt directly to the rest of us. So I you go on being arrogant and uninsured, and we'll all just be your safety net and as you put it "suck it"
what are you trying to say... if you want a doctor to go to school for 8 years, you shouldn't force the population to make him do so, just because he can benefit you all. The doctor will only have long lines and will have no competition to driving costs down. Where as a doctor going to school for 8 years, then covering those who will afford to pay him, makes a lot more sense, this sounds like the housing bubble x a million.
I am saying, It's all well and good to say you will not pass on your costs as an uninsured individual, but if you don't have money saved for medical bills.. It is just talk.
I am saying, it's all well and good to be concerned with rising health care costs due to cost shifting from the unpaid medical bills of the uninsured, but to take a generalization, and try to apply it to a specific person you know nothing about... to talk shit to them out of fear of this occurring, when you know nothing about that specific persons health... To attempt to demean, belittle, or patronize them for the potential of something happening that hasn't happened yet... For all you know, I could suffer in silence till I die alone and uncared for in my apartment. How will that raise your bill? Please, stop trying to demonize me for something that might happen in the future. You don't know the future, and I don't either, and you only sound like a presumptuous fool saying the crap you do.
I dunno, I guess know one wants to be a dentist, I sure as shit wouldn't. They can make a shit ton of money though, my moms cousin who lives in England is a dentist who specialises in reconstructive surgery, and he has a 7 bedroom house, a 911, and a dope BMW.
I'll assume I am correct that you have very little put away for the emergency you say you can pay for up front. I have to assume that, because you avoided/ignored the question. Whether you get sick or not, you are using us as your insurance. It is more likely that you will need serious medical attention at some point, then it is you will never need it. Healthy people can be injured or grow ill at anytime, if you do not have in insurance, and no money saved... Guess who gets the bill? You said you don't know what your future will hold, and not being insured means you are willing to use us as you safety net, today! Statistics from the Blue Cross Blue Shield showing most people get sick ,and the uninsured pass costs on. -Six in 10 adults over the age of 18 have at least one chronic condition. -The cost of treating chronic illness accounts for 75 percent of healthcare spending. -Uncompensated care for the uninsured added $922 to the cost of employer-sponsored family coverage and $341 to the cost of employer-sponsored single coverage in 2005.17 Uncompensated care for the uninsured added $922 to the cost of employer-sponsored family coverage and $341 to the cost of employer-sponsored single coverage in 2005.17
Why are you claiming to know his financial situation? It's not really relevant and even if you believe it is, you're never going to find out what it is. Those stats are ridiculous. Of course 6 in 10 of adults over the age of 18 have at least one chronic condition. Do you have any idea how many "chronic conditions" there are? A chronic condition could be asthma, or it could be heart disease. Chronic conditions aren't always life-threatening and someone can be healthy and still have a chronic condition. Being sick =/= having a chronic condition. Also, what other types of health problems are there? Ones that happen by accident? So, it makes sense that only 25% of health care spending is spent on accidents while the rest is spent on chronic conditions. Finally, not all chronic conditions last forever. While they may last a while, some are curable or heal over time.
Exactly. Unless you have several hundred thousand dollars saved up in case you have a medical emergency, we are his insurance policy. But you can predict the future enough to know that you don't need insurance? I was going to have a natural child birth, too. I know from first hand experience that when you are in pain, what you SAY you are going to do, and what you really do, are two entirely different things. Your high horse becomes a lot shorter when you are in so much pain you can not see straight. You could also be walking down the street tomorrow and collapse. You could have a $20,000 hospital bill before you are even conscious enough to refuse. But I suppose that could never happen to you, right? So please, don't talk out of your ass about what you are going to do when you get sick. Like you said, NOBODY- not even you with your superior intelligence- can predict the future. That's the point of insurance in the first place. The entire Libertarian philosophy is built around the idea of personal responsibility. If everyone takes care of themselves, then others won't have to do it for you. Health insurance is an absolute necessity for taking care of yourself in modern society. When you actually practice what you preach, and start taking personal responsibility for your own health, then your arguments will have some credibility. Unby is the one who keeps bringing up his financial situation. Even though it's all just anecdotal, he must think it's important for him to keep telling us about it.
Yeah, I have a chronic condition too. It's called Bronchitis. Now, I could go to the doctor and get some meds for it, but instead I buy weed and alleviate my own symptoms. You don't know me, you don't know my medical conditions or health in general, you don't know my financial situation, etc, etc, etc. Like I said, for all you or I know, I could get something serious, and simply fucken die, without incurring any medical bills. If you have a problem with that extreme example, then try the one I mentioned before, I have a mild illness that could actually cost a lot because of the ridiculous prices in a broken health care system, so I get high instead. That's my health care right there. Cannabis. Do you pay for it? No. Can I afford it? Yes. So fuck off. Now your implying you know what kind and severity of pain I've felt in my life too! Amazing. By the way, I have been walking down the street and collapsed.
LOL, how are you honestly going to tell him what he is going to do when he is faced with a medical emergency. I've never gone to the hospital after a razor blade went down the center of my index or the time when my lips went through my lip. Yet you know what he is going to do over any little possibility? Oh yeah, you're the same person calling me a racist because i said White and Hispanic, oh yeah i forgot that means i must be white or hispanic, choose who i'm prejudice against, oh wait, i never said ANYONE deserves healthcare. I said you DESERVE to pay for your own, no matter if you are white, black, hispanic, or a fucking smurf. It isn't m responsibility to always have to work harder to provide for others, that ain't how the world works sweety, neither does slandering, you learn all your argumentative tactics from the mainstream Media? It's funny, we're all on this message board because our government prosecutes us, incarcerates us, throws us behind bars because of a simple plant. A simple plant which we all think has medicinal purposes, that free plant is anything but free, that plant will take away your right to vote. Even though its a free Natural medicine, our government knows best for us with Universal Healthcare right? Don't fix the already broken system, don't let people naturally heal themselves, send them to jail for it so we can make more profits through Privatized Jails and the Black Market where people spend the same price for an OZ of gold as they do on their marijuana. A plant which is in no short commodity and will always re grow.
This is your... "logical evidence"... that you will never in the future end up with a large medical bill that you can't pay for? It's just anecdotal, and someone with far superior intelligence than me once said: "anecdotal evidence is crap". I do not care what you've experienced in the past. I'm talking about what could happen to you tomorrow. You can claim any bullshit story you want, but the fact is, unless you defy human nature, you are just as likely as anyone to end up in the hospital.
But their legalizing it, right! I can't believe people don't see through the bullshit behind medicinal MJ. Yes, it has medicinal value, but it's not a medicine of last resort, it aids with many different illnesses of varying severity, and its relatively benign. Drug dealers charge the prices they do because they deal in an illegal substance in a black market, so the price reflects the risk to their life and freedom they take by choosing to deal. Now, by going about legalization through this medical MJ crap, they are charging just as much and even talking about levying even more ridiculous taxes on it. Why? So they can have their cake and eat it too. MJ will be legal as a medicine, so everyone who is in jail for nonviolent cannabis offenses can be kept there. That way we can keep all those prison guard and security jobs. They can charge ridiculous prices on it since its recognized as having only medicinal value for the most serious ailments. And they leave the door wide open for the FDA to exert tremendous control over it and the market by categorizing it not only as a medicine, but one only of last resort. You know what that means? It means cannabis is going to be heavily regulated and monopolized by a big corp while home grows will be illegalized. It'll mean artificially inflated prices, standardized method of consumption (rolling it in a cig, so people like me, with a vape, will be assed out) and even bastardizing it by adding a plethora of other chemicals like they did with tobacco. And what better way to guarantee a complacent and conforming population than to offer them the drug of complacency?
^ fuck all that noise, when i have my own house i'm just going to get a medical card and grow my own damn weed at that point i wont give a shit whether or not it's legal
Yup and just like any other member of a species made up of unique individuals, when I actually end up in the hospital is totally up in the air. Some people go there at childhood once or rarely, others end up there at childhood and go frequently thereafter, others go for the first time as young adults, and go rarely, others visit it frequently, others don't end up there till middle age, and only once or rarely, others go frequently thereafter, others don't end up there till they are seniors or elderly, etc, etc, etc. And the reasons they go differ greatly, thus the bills they incur are highly variable. Some that only go ones end up with a huge bill, some that go more frequently don't. So yeah, you can claim any bullshit story you want, but the fact is, unless you defy human nature, you don't know when I'll end up needing medical attention, if I'll actually seek it or get it, how much it'll cost me, how the health care and insurance industries will be like when I do end up there, whether I will have insurance or enough to pay out of pocket by then, where I'll be living when this happens etc etc etc. I can't believe you honestly can't see how presumptuous, stubborn, and impudent you come across trying to maintain and justify this line of reasoning. P.S. - Nowhere did I say never. And just so you know, personal anecdotes are the only relevant info when someone uses me personally as a example to justify their opinion. You guys want to invoke my unique circumstances, well the only things that'll matter in that case are.. my unique circumstances! How can you not see this? You want to talk in terms of statistics and generalizations then yeah, anecdotes don't account for much. But insist on using my specific circumstances, and you're bound to get stomped for your incorrect assumptions and inapplicable conclusions based on my personal experiences, life, stories, anecdotes.
It is almost impossible to read your dribble. You are unappreciative, and arrogant. Most of us you disagree with, just honestly want you to have more affordable health insurance options. Both so you can be independent and not a future burden on the badly wounded health care system. How can you not see that you are ill prepared for your future, and are just hoping to be healthy and accident free. In the mean time, it seem to be fine with you if we are all your safety net so you can afford to smoke off your bronchitis. If you honestly think that marijuana, will be your "health care" so you don't need insurance you are even stupider than you present yourself. My advice is get on that medicare you say you qualify for, and see a doctor for your bronchitis before you need a new lung. "The only clinically significant medical problem that is scientifically linked to marijuana is bronchitis. Like smoking tobacco, the treatment is the same: stop smoking." Dr. Fred Oerther, MD, 1991. "No drug is always safe for everybody, but after 150 years of scientific study, the only proven health problem from cannabis is that its smoke can be linked to bronchitis." Cannabis -- Marijuana Still gonna try and smoke off that Bronchitis?