Universal Health Care

I thought I'd inject this anecdotal glimpse at "for profit" healthcare excerpted from today's Washington Post:

In August 2005, doctors at Urological Associates, a medical practice on the Iowa-Illinois border, ordered nine CT scans for patients covered by Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance. In September that year, they ordered eight. But then the numbers rose steeply. The urologists ordered 35 scans in October, 41 in November and 55 in December. Within seven months, they were ordering scans at a rate that had climbed more than 700 percent.

The increase came in the months after the urologists bought their own CT scanner, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Instead of referring patients to radiologists, the doctors started conducting their own imaging -- and drawing insurance reimbursements for each of those patients.

Who are the irresponsible exactly nero?

And what about the poor who simply cannot afford the unspeakable cost of healthcare to begin with?

And what about the poor who simply cannot afford the unspeakable cost of healthcare to begin with?

Ah, well, you see, for Nero, that is their fault for being poor. :brickwall:

Yes, you could say so. "If God loved poor people, he would not let them get sick."
But seriously, instead of forcing others to pay for them why not create a real free market system where they can provide for themselves. Which is what we try so hard to eliminate in the name of fairness.

But seriously, instead of forcing others to pay for them why not create a real free market system where they can provide for themselves. Which is what we try so hard to eliminate in the name of fairness.

I oppose universal health care. Mainly for the reason that it is unfair to have the responsible pay for the irresponsible.

Most of the unemployed are young people who rather have a nice car and people who would be eligible under existing government programs but can't be bothered with the paperwork.

Which do you imagine is the more practical road to take?

1) To somehow do what has never been accomplished - create a perfect, idealistic free market economy in which everyone is well off

or

2) To make slight adjustments in the current system in order to alleviate the unnecessary suffering of millions of people

Which is more likely to be possible in the next two years?

So Nero, it so happens that tuberculosis is a highly communicable and deadly disease that predominantly affects poor people. If someone is poor due to irresponsibility, are you willing to catch tuberculosis because they will go untreated for lack of responsibility? How about measles -- measles still kills nearly 1 million kids a year worldwide, and it's so contagious that sustained transmission will happen if under 95% of the general population is functionally immune -- so are you willing to have your children catch measles just because poor people can't afford to be vaccinated?

If they're unemployed then how do they get their nice cars?

Who said anything about idealistic and perfect? What a strawman

The free market is the natural situation, we just need the government to quit meddling with it.

I'm not sure what you are referring to. But I am the one proposing slight adjustments to the current system.

That is your point? We can't ever be un-oppressed so we better deal with it? I though I was a cynic.

The government should protect me from tuberculosis and for example quarantine those people.

Are you, Caroline, saying that people who don't know Bob should be robbed by the state to save Bob from turburculosis? Awww, where's the justice in that? :sarcastic: