hanimmal
Well-Known Member
I have been trying to figure out the opposition to this bill.
Now I think I finally somewhat understand (not that I agree with it) that many people feel like the government is doing too much. This is just like how I feel about religion and how it is involved with the government.
And I can understand that you may feel like the government has been too involved in everything since basically the civil war. And that no matter how good a program is or intended to be, you do not want it. Because it is another intrusion that eventually is going to become outdated and a sinkhole of corruption and waste.
I can see that argument and how it is valid.
But we have to change the system because it is not working and getting more and more out of hand.
I think you feel that people need to look after themselves, and they need to plan ahead, but realistically you know that is not something that will happen. People will always make bad decisions and end up with nothing.
So what should be done at that point? Do we just let them die in the streets? Because even that has risk of spreading diseases to us, and we will still have to pay for body removals.
So instead do they become wards of the state? Because then we still have to pay for them.
And I understand that you may be afraid of where does this handholding all stop. That is valid, but there are only a couple things that we need as humans to survive: Food & Shelter. And a few more that help us to be productive to society: Health, Education & Transportation.
The first two are costly and have virtually no return on the money spent. But the last 3 are investments into the future.
If people become educated they can help society with their skills. If people are healthy they can work better and become more reliable. And if people have a well run transportation system not only do goods flow from business to business better, but also the employees can get to their jobs to be productive.
Those three things elevate the wealth of the country.
These things should be looked after in our society. And when I say shelter I do not mean a house. I mean basic shelter (think Jail cell). If people want to increase their homes into a better place, they pay for it.
If we can make sure that every American citizen has access to those, then the government would only have to deal with what it is set up to do, our protection.
Public Option
Now people keep talking about this public option and how much money it is going to cost.
But they don't seem to get that when people go to the ER we all have to pay for it if they cannot?
And the middle class folks that get these huge bills that they cannot pay for, guess what they go bankrupt and, we pay for them yet again.
I really don't understand why that is so hard to get.
And this is for the millions of people that can almost afford it, but don't because it is just out of reach and they are fairly healthy. Insurance is not there for when you don't need it, if it was it would be called health service.
Insurance is a way to keep the money that individuals have to put out of pocket reasonable. If 10 people pool their money and put in the same amount every month then if one gets sick they draw from that pool to pay for it.
Usually it will grow, because we tend to not need it all the time. But it is needed for those times that we are not healthy.
Now if those 10 people decided to dump that 1 that got sick so that he/she doesn't pull money out of the pool, then that person is screwed.
That is part one of this bill, to stop insurance companies from doing that.
The second is to bring costs down in the medical field. Right off the bat, you have the ER not being used for everything that will bring down costs.
Then you have the fact that people will actually be paying what they can into the system. It may be subsidized so they pay a reduced price, but they will be paying something into it. So there is some more money in the system.
After that you still need to come up with some money. One thing that Obama said was he would like to see the tax write off
of charitable contributions leveled out. Because right now if you are wealthy you can dump more money into the tax write off charities and get a far higher tax break than if a middle class person made a donation.
By taking this away the wealthy would still benefit, because it is still a writeoff so they would get back more money than if they don't make the contribution, but if they decided it is not enough (which is a stupid thing to do) then they would just pay full taxes on it. Whichever they chose it would be enough to cover this bill.
So the costs can be taken care of.
So the next argument against it is not enough Doctors.
That is another false argument. There are enough doctors to cover every American citizen and then some.
The thing is that today most of them are specialists and not general MD's. But they still have the tools to do the job. We have plenty to get this done.
So next is the argument about wait times.
People like to talk about these several month long wait times to get surgery on cancers. But what they fail to realize is that the cancers are being found! In America if you do not have insurance (even if you do in a lot of situations) you are not getting your cancers found until it is much further advanced (because you felt something wrong and got it checked out).
If we go to a preventative care model those cancers get found much earlier. So that you don't wait until 5 years later to find the tumor.
If you can realize this, then you can realize that those 7 months to get surgery on a tumor is still 4 years earlier than it would have been dealt with here in America.
And they would not put people on the waiting list that have severe cancer that needs to be dealt with right away, they would still be first in.
So the only real argument with this insurance program comes down to people just not wanting another government program. And that is understandable. And very valid. But I would ask you to understand that this is good for the country.
The country depends on a healthy educated workforce to stay ahead in the world. If we continue to allow our workers to fall behind the world in education and health it will only be a matter of time before we use up all of our wealth and fall behind. This would be an investment into one of those, but at least it is something.
And for the record I do not think that this is the ideal way to do this, I think a much more comprehensive and widespread fix is needed, but this is at least a step in the right direction.
Now I think I finally somewhat understand (not that I agree with it) that many people feel like the government is doing too much. This is just like how I feel about religion and how it is involved with the government.
And I can understand that you may feel like the government has been too involved in everything since basically the civil war. And that no matter how good a program is or intended to be, you do not want it. Because it is another intrusion that eventually is going to become outdated and a sinkhole of corruption and waste.
I can see that argument and how it is valid.
But we have to change the system because it is not working and getting more and more out of hand.
I think you feel that people need to look after themselves, and they need to plan ahead, but realistically you know that is not something that will happen. People will always make bad decisions and end up with nothing.
So what should be done at that point? Do we just let them die in the streets? Because even that has risk of spreading diseases to us, and we will still have to pay for body removals.
So instead do they become wards of the state? Because then we still have to pay for them.
And I understand that you may be afraid of where does this handholding all stop. That is valid, but there are only a couple things that we need as humans to survive: Food & Shelter. And a few more that help us to be productive to society: Health, Education & Transportation.
The first two are costly and have virtually no return on the money spent. But the last 3 are investments into the future.
If people become educated they can help society with their skills. If people are healthy they can work better and become more reliable. And if people have a well run transportation system not only do goods flow from business to business better, but also the employees can get to their jobs to be productive.
Those three things elevate the wealth of the country.
These things should be looked after in our society. And when I say shelter I do not mean a house. I mean basic shelter (think Jail cell). If people want to increase their homes into a better place, they pay for it.
If we can make sure that every American citizen has access to those, then the government would only have to deal with what it is set up to do, our protection.
Public Option
Now people keep talking about this public option and how much money it is going to cost.
But they don't seem to get that when people go to the ER we all have to pay for it if they cannot?
And the middle class folks that get these huge bills that they cannot pay for, guess what they go bankrupt and, we pay for them yet again.
I really don't understand why that is so hard to get.
And this is for the millions of people that can almost afford it, but don't because it is just out of reach and they are fairly healthy. Insurance is not there for when you don't need it, if it was it would be called health service.
Insurance is a way to keep the money that individuals have to put out of pocket reasonable. If 10 people pool their money and put in the same amount every month then if one gets sick they draw from that pool to pay for it.
Usually it will grow, because we tend to not need it all the time. But it is needed for those times that we are not healthy.
Now if those 10 people decided to dump that 1 that got sick so that he/she doesn't pull money out of the pool, then that person is screwed.
That is part one of this bill, to stop insurance companies from doing that.
The second is to bring costs down in the medical field. Right off the bat, you have the ER not being used for everything that will bring down costs.
Then you have the fact that people will actually be paying what they can into the system. It may be subsidized so they pay a reduced price, but they will be paying something into it. So there is some more money in the system.
After that you still need to come up with some money. One thing that Obama said was he would like to see the tax write off
of charitable contributions leveled out. Because right now if you are wealthy you can dump more money into the tax write off charities and get a far higher tax break than if a middle class person made a donation.
By taking this away the wealthy would still benefit, because it is still a writeoff so they would get back more money than if they don't make the contribution, but if they decided it is not enough (which is a stupid thing to do) then they would just pay full taxes on it. Whichever they chose it would be enough to cover this bill.
So the costs can be taken care of.
So the next argument against it is not enough Doctors.
That is another false argument. There are enough doctors to cover every American citizen and then some.
The thing is that today most of them are specialists and not general MD's. But they still have the tools to do the job. We have plenty to get this done.
So next is the argument about wait times.
People like to talk about these several month long wait times to get surgery on cancers. But what they fail to realize is that the cancers are being found! In America if you do not have insurance (even if you do in a lot of situations) you are not getting your cancers found until it is much further advanced (because you felt something wrong and got it checked out).
If we go to a preventative care model those cancers get found much earlier. So that you don't wait until 5 years later to find the tumor.
If you can realize this, then you can realize that those 7 months to get surgery on a tumor is still 4 years earlier than it would have been dealt with here in America.
And they would not put people on the waiting list that have severe cancer that needs to be dealt with right away, they would still be first in.
So the only real argument with this insurance program comes down to people just not wanting another government program. And that is understandable. And very valid. But I would ask you to understand that this is good for the country.
The country depends on a healthy educated workforce to stay ahead in the world. If we continue to allow our workers to fall behind the world in education and health it will only be a matter of time before we use up all of our wealth and fall behind. This would be an investment into one of those, but at least it is something.
And for the record I do not think that this is the ideal way to do this, I think a much more comprehensive and widespread fix is needed, but this is at least a step in the right direction.
