Why are people thinking Obama can magically create jobs out of this air.

Let them do this! It's a win-win for us every time this happens. If enough companies would do this, we could do away with the parasitic for-profit HC insurance industry altogether.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Let them do this! It's a win-win for us every time this happens. If enough companies would do this, we could do away with the parasitic for-profit HC insurance industry altogether.

Cycloptichorn

Perhaps we could also do without the "parasitic, for-profit" pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, clinics, laboratories and medical practicioners as well.

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Fido wrote:

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Do you think it is in some respect better for individuals to go broke trying to keep their health and health insurance and lives while the economy and government are doing great???

Our federal and local governments are not doing great! Our economy currently has some 25 million folks unemployed; that's not a sign of a good economy.

So long as the government must still care for all who cannot find work, or otherwise support themselves, and yet deny to itself the power to tax those who have benefitted from this country, its wealth, and its government, then it should flounder around, paralyzed to do little good, or much evil...Tell me how many people are unemployed...What does that tell you??? The fact that of those employed, only twenty percent are actually employed in production, and all the rest are in service and finance... And that twenty percent in production account for 80% of our exports... What does that tell you???

What I take from it is this fact : A small minority can create such a great amount of value that the whole society can essentially be supported by them, doing nothing or nothing directly productive, only serving others directly or indirectly... If there are 25 million unemployed which does not really reflect all outside of the work force in one fashion or another, clearly those working are working too many hours to keep others not working at all... All the people are supported, though some poorly, and some better than poor, but profits soar, and government stuggles to keep up with more and more, non tax paying, non profit making, non productive people... Isn't the eight hour work day obsolete??? Aren't starvation wages for so many obsolete... If income must pay the support of government, shouldn't the government ensure workers can pay taxes??? The problem is simple and the solution is simple too... The commonwealth has been put into private hand in the belief that there, good would result... Whether in private or public hands, the commonwealth must still support all the people and the government... This is thought an unreasonable obligation by the rich; but if they do not do so, or cannot do so, then the government that support them will fall... And there will be hell to pay...

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Public health is a public problem and one we should all deal with together, and if it is too expensive then tax the profit out of it, and by that I don't mean bloat it up with highly paid relatives sitting on the assess picking up paychecks for nothing... I mean; Make Certain people are paid enough to afford their health, make certain people are not poisoned as the price of having a job or an address, and make certain people pay for all risky behavior without a general benefit...

All good points, except for the reality that taking away the profit motive will reduce quality. If you have kept up with the news on company sponsored health care, you would know that a greater portion of their premiums are being transferred to the worker while their salaries remain stagnant – and the CEOs and officers rake in millions in salaries and bonus. Greed has taken over our economy.

Yes greed; and the thought that it is inevitable makes it acceptible, kind of like everyone having crabs or worms... It is hard to say that the profit motive has a positive effect on health care when more stress, more bankruptcies, and much more pain and suffering, denied care, and death have all resulted from profiting from what all find so necessary...

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I worked at a risky profession and my boss paid for workman's comp insurance at a high rate because of the risk, and that risk and cost was one of the things that had to be accounted for in the price of the product... What if some one wants to low ball all the costs by enderestimating the costs the wages and the benefits, and then throws his employers on the public health system when they get injured...

I'm aware of how workers comp premiums work, because I worked in management for most of my working career.

That's the danger with Obamacare: Many company administrators have threatened to pay the $2,500 penalty for not providing health insurance, and load their workers onto the federal mandated system.

I don't think Obama care is going to work... What they needed was the courage to tax, and a single payer system... What they got was a half assed piece of nothing... The insurance companies have not sucked enough blood, and must be allowed time to find some other weakness to exploit, as if they could not see this coming... It is too little too late; but all those who could not pay, and all those who would never be able to pay were going to bring down the whole government program, and at the same time all those bills not paid from any other source had to be loaded onto those with insurance, putting it out of the reach of more and more people...The more people without insurance, the more the system goes critical..

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Because as we have become a society without health insurance the cost gets paid by fewer and fewer providers who must pick up the cost for all who cannot pay... If government said: Everyone self employed and everyone employed must ahve insurance then the cost would be spread...Certainly, if they taxed all who made their millions shorting their workers and denying them living wages, benefit, retirement and insurance, and who then closed up and exported capital hopeing to import products to sell in our dying market, then there would be no problem... You see, even primitives had to make enough to support themselves into old age, and they too had to pay for their healing... If we have been reduced to a hand to mouth existence to have a handful, 1%, living like Gods with more than they could ever use; then it is time to take it all back... The only reason there is a deficit is that the government refuses to tax those who have actually known some benefit from the economy and government...

I don't have any challenge for your above thesis; governments operate at the level of incompetence that are allowed by us voters. We have met the enemey, and...

If you don't think that a government managed health care system with a single payer under government control won't kill investment in new drugs, new techniques and new laboratory, hospital and diagnostic facilities then you haven't been paying attention.

Germany doesn't have a single payer system. There is competition among insurance providers and a relatively free market among providers.

However Germany does have a looming demographic problem, which, combined with a disinclination to assimilate immigrants on a large scale, will possibly break the long-standing run of a healthy, export driven economy.

here are also some cultural differences between this country and Germany that, in my view at least, would make duplicating the German model very difficult for us.

You're right though: I do read the WSJ regularly.

. They do have a public health system and only those who make above a certain amount qualify for the private system.

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However Germany does have a looming demographic problem, which, combined with a disinclination to assimilate immigrants on a large scale, will possibly break the long-standing run of a healthy, export driven economy.

Possibly true but hardly relevant to this discussion. Always worth throwing in a barb or two at Europe tho, right?

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here are also some cultural differences between this country and Germany that, in my view at least, would make duplicating the German model very difficult for us.

What are those differences?

You are grasping at straws in an attempt to defend the indefensable.

Fido, I know you've been following the philosophy threads, and two links were provided to explain about human irrationality and social interactions.

The majority of people believe in Satan and flying saucers, and within our social fabric, we have social intercourse with the same people who are irrational - including our doctors and politicians. We live in this irrational world trying to make sense of reality, but our environment is so screwed up, how are we expected to survive with our mental and physical health intact?

Most humans believe in one god or another, and believe they will be granted everlasting life if they live according to their religious laws. They go around making it miserable for gays, lesbians, and members of other religious beliefs. They even go and kill their "brethren" in the name of god.

We're doomed!