maudlin waif primitive to save the U.S.

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x465189

Oh my.

The maudlin waif primitive:

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Mon Jul-20-09 08:26 PM
Original message
 
Why Single Payer could save the U.S. 

None but the most obnoxiously stubborn or terminally dense could deny that the United States is in a epic level health care crisis. Especially considering the long-term prospects of decent employment and continuing levels of home ownership. The very notion is decried as "socialism," but the fact remains that the incredibly profitable insurance industry is a huge parasite sucking the life blood from our economy minute by minute and day by day. Every citizen who is driven into bankruptcy by medical bills, who is forced to default on a mortgage, or loses a job because of medical issues, is just another blip on the economic disaster radar screen. These are people who cannot, as things stand, offer anything to the overall economic engine.

People who might have a great entrepreneurial idea are held back from doing anything about it for fear of losing medical coverage for their family--easily as important as straight income when the chips are down. Even inadequate insurance is better than none at all. So people don't take that one chance that might springboard themselves and others into a real position of contributing something worthwhile to the economy.

Big corporations are also faltering, partly because of the immense burden this current system puts on them. Not only do they have to pay part of the bill for their employees coverage, they have to maintain staff members to deal with the immense bureaucracy that's been constructed by the insurance industry to make getting a straight answer all the more difficult. What's covered, what's not? Well, that's more or less decided on a case-by-case basis, isn't it? Which makes insurance one of the few things in this country that IS decided that way. And we all know the reason why is because it improves the profit margin.

And let's not even get into small businesses, who either cannot afford to offer any insurance, or are forced to offer the barest minimum because of what the premiums do to their ability to compete in the marketplace with larger companies offering the same product or service.

Americans and American businesses are paying billions of dollars a year to support a system that gives them NOTHING in return but red tape and bureaucracy and people are actually arguing that having only ONE insurer will somehow create a monolithic bureaucracy that will screw everything up? Nonsense.

We would ALL be served by taking the responsibility for health care off the employer and giving it over to the government to manage. Would-be entrepreneurs, corporate fat-cats, and small business owners alike. Not to mention the average citizen who just wants to get Johnny that operation without going so far into the hole that there isn't a ladder made tall enough to affect an escape.

No, Single Payer won't fix the economy. But, given everything else that needs to be done, it's a good first step in the right direction.

This Frankenstein's Monster of health care isn't going to ever be able to get up and walk away from the table, no matter how much electricity we pump into it. It will never be anything more than a shambling corpse given a semblance of life and just awaiting the torch-wielding villagers to put an end to its misery.

What kind of person, what kind of nation, puts the health of a parasite above its own well-being? A severely deluded one, that's for sure. The parasite is called the Insurance Industry and the cure is called Single Payer.

It doesn't get any simpler than that.

I didn't read but the penultimate paragraph, because it's from the maudlin waif primitive, and one can predict what the maudlin waif primitive is writing long before one reads it.

Anyway, the penultimate paragraph, the boldened area.

Wouldn't that be us, compelled to support the likes of the subway cat and probably 4,900 other primitives (the maudlin waif primitive himself excluded, because he does work for a living)?  Wouldn't that be us, supporting the parasites eating away at our financial stability?

Primitive comments, selected at random:

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Mon Jul-20-09 11:54 PM
Response to Reply #6
 
8. Actually, that argument really doesn't make any sense... 

Most U.S. corporations haven't done more than given a token amount into the health care fund of their workers, and have contributed even less than that (Wal-Mart). If it was about controlling the workers, they would've been on top of it the whole time, using it to lever themselves into the position of being able to hire and fire based on medical conditions etc...

Or so it seems to me.

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jul-21-09 05:00 AM
Response to Reply #10
 
11. Thanks... Glad you liked it.

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jul-21-09 06:57 PM
Response to Reply #18
 
19. Nope... 

I decided I'd best stay out of that one, so I didn't post anything else.

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jul-21-09 05:48 AM
Response to Reply #12
 
13. I don't want the doctors and nurses to be public employees and vulnerable to what civil servants are in California right now.

I want them operating independently of such things.

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jul-21-09 02:55 PM
Response to Reply #14
 
17. One has nothing to do with the other... 

I don't want them to be added to the class of people who can be "downsized" by the gov needing to cut costs. You put thoughts in my head and words in my mouth based on nothing but supposition. We can't afford another several hundred thousand people whose livelihoods and efforts to help can be downsized out of existence by a budget crisis like the one we see in California.

I have no issue with private medical entities given proper oversight and a single payer system. There is no evidence that getting rid of such will have any long term benefit to our health care, and plenty of reasons to see why it might not be a good idea to do so.

I'd be happy just to GET what most industrialized countries already have...

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jul-21-09 02:48 PM
Response to Reply #15
 
16. That's not what it said... 

"Employees of the Federal Government."

[Carl]

When oh when will one of them ever admit that the cost of insurance is so high because of the medical liability the left has foisted on it?

Not once ever have I heard it mentioned and am still curious what they think will become of that if the gov was somehow in control.
Has anyone heard malpractice issues discussed,if they will be allowed and what entity will pay and who will decide if justified and how much?

[USA4ME]

This is from the primitive who in another thread said ...

Mythsaje

I'm far more concerned about people with a profit motive standing between us and our doctors than a government that doesn't have such a motive (and better not ever develop one).

The primitive ignores that's exactly what the gov't will do, that is, ration healthcare and do the exact same thing he believes is happening because of the "profit motive."  You're talking gov't bureaucrats here, and liberals at that.  Would it surprise anyone that under gov't healthcare that once one becomes "an economic burden" then the only care available will be if you choose euthanasia?  I remember liberals talking about the need to do that back in the mid-70's.  I have no reason to believe they've changed their spots.

.

[GOBUCKS]

I'm far more concerned about people with a profit motive standing between us and our doctors

Has DUmmy Mythsaje expounded on the Kenyan's musing that his own grandmother probably should not have
been allowed a hip replacement on Medicare, since she was old and sick anyway? But presumably, if the pain became bad
enough, the Kenyan's plan would have allowed her some "end of life counseling".

It's really remarkable that DUmmy Mythsaje has enough time, aside from uncrating melon ballers at Target,
dispensing tax advice, and dodging water leaking down from the upstairs neighbor's toilet, to compose these
bloated Pittian essays. Pitt could do them easily, since the only demands on his time were drinking, and squashing
the huge black spiders he saw crawling on his walls, but DUmmy Mythsaje is a busy man.

[jukin]

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Tue Jul-21-09 05:48 AM
Response to Reply #12
 
13. I don't want the doctors and nurses to be public employees and vulnerable to what civil servants are in California right now.

I want them operating independently of such things.

YEs, we can't have that.  While the private industry in the  golden state has bled almost a million jobs the state has actually hired almost 5000 new net employees. 

What a maroon.

[blitzkrieg_17]

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[miskie]

Ill put this in story form, so any primitives that happen to be reading this thread may understand. Ill even start it the traditional primitive way.

SO , lets travel on a thought experiment together. And lets compare it to food -Government run single payer is like getting a hamburger and some fries, and those who want their own private insurance are those who want to eat steak and a baked potato. Everyone has a choice, you can either have the all-you can eat burgers & fries, or get that nice steak and baked potato dinner, for $25.00 . Lots of people who cant afford the steak are going to be happy with the burgers. Lots of single people and younger people who really don't get hungry that often will take the burger as well. Here is the problem.

Steak comes from cows - as does hamburger meat.
Fries and baked potatoes come from potatoes.

And someone is going to need to pay for it - the ranchers aren't going to raise cattle for free. The farmers expect to get paid for their potato harvest. And so, the cost differential is going to get shifted onto those who buy the steak dinner. What was $25 is now $50 for the same service.

Sooner or later, those who buy the steak are going to say to themselves, 'The hell with steak -- It costs too much ! - Gimme a burger with extra pickles' - which puts more burden on those who continue to buy steaks.

As the steakhouses lose business to the burger joints, they will have to cut costs - Some will merge into giant restaurant chains, other will close their doors. Others still will remodel into even more burger joints. Eventually though, even the big chains will lose business, and downsize, change business ventures, or close altogether - leaving virtually no steakhouses behind for anyone except the very wealthiest of all.

The few steak dinners they eat, even at a thousand dollars each, do not cover the cost of the millions of burger eaters. And the ranchers and the farmers still need to get paid. Where is that money going to come from ?

Once you answer that question primitives, you'll understand the problem with 'single payer' and until Team Obama actually addresses the issue with facts instead of soundbites, no rational person should support it. It has nothing to do with 'death panels' 'socialism' ' hating Obama' ' wanting the United States to fail ' 'discriminating against the poor ' or anything else most of your talking heads have spewed. It is an illogical solution.

[Chris_]

That's the biggest pant load I have read in some time. What is really amusing is that it fancy's itself as a writer....it isn't.