Is what John Stossel is saying about healthcare getting through to anyone?

Question

http://www.glennbeck.com/news/09142007a.shtml
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3580676&page=1
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/09/cuba_has_better_health_care_th.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/another_bogus_report_card_fo1.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/why_the_us_ranks_low_on_whos_h.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/let_wisconsin_experiment_with.html

Take your time, come back to it.

Answer 1

Judging from some of your answers, it seems he is not getting through to very many. Putting the US government in charge of health care would be similar to putting the wolves in charge of watching over a herd of sheep.

Increased competition is the answer, not some socialistic program that will enable our inept government to waste more of our money.

Answer 2

The problem with the message is that the facts are being skewed. According to the BBC the average wait time for necessary medical care is less than 48 hours. This is not much worse than our own medical care. So while John Stossel can point out the worst case scenarios throughout the world there is still a need for us to balance it with looking at the other side of the story.

The biggest thing is, guess what, universal healthcare is not free! There are those catch phrases all over, but there is not a campaign idea out there that is not backed by the idea that only those living below the poverty line are going to get completely free healthcare. Most candidates out there have designed their system, not on any other model directly, but based it on the Medicaid system that is already in place. Plus there is always the taxes, when this system goes in place, it means a raise in income taxes. It is a choice, either we keep the status quo where hundreds of thousands of people die each year because they cannot afford to pay the bill to see a doctor and get the medicines, or we change things. Personally, I have looked at the model provided by both John Edwards and Barack Obama, both of them are nearly identical, and there is only mention of free healthcare for one group, those living in poverty.

Answer 3

I say we get about 10 different political views on how the healthcare system should work; divide the country up accordingly( of course we'd need like the smartest most neutral guy we could find at some university whos not being paid by some big corporation to figure out how to divide thecountry up most "fairest"), and see who wins...meanwhile the insurance companies would take a plunge and maybe, just maybe we wont do something stupid!

Answer 4

But doesn't the free market price out people with rare or expensive diseases? Why should private insureres cover someone who has a lifelong debilitating disease? No profit there, so coverage is dropped or becomes unaffordable. Guess that would get rid of the disease though...

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS
1)Who thinks this will be free? We all know taxes will pay for it.
2) Why would I care if the government is making my health care decisions or if some corporation who owns the insurance company and hospital group is making my health care decisions? Given the choice between those two and the realization above that we cannot simply trust this to free market forces, I would rather remove profit from the equation.

Answer 5

Stossel is a corporate shill, has always been a corporate shill but yeah i understand what he's saying. what he's saying is that the Medical Industrial Complex isn't into healing people ... it's into making a profit and if you get very sick and can't afford the health care costs you can just go ahead and die. if the Medical Industry can't profit from your pain you're dead meat.

PS. Big Pharm doesn't look for CURES for diseases. they look for TREATMENTS that keep you dependent and paying them for the rest of your life. in America only the wealthy deserve to survive a catastrophic illness. a blue collar peon can be replaced with yet another blue collar peon. yay for our capitalist social Darwinism! ruthle$$ly profiting from the misery of others is the American way.

Answer 6

Loud and clear! It's amazing that this is even a debate in America. Anyone with a decent high school education learned the famous yet simple economic principle back in freshman year.... 'there is no such thing as a free lunch.'

How anyone in this capitalist country can believe in 'free health care' should be a staggering news headline in itself. This is the one rare instance where I am thankful for powerful special interest groups. The insurance industry will pay off enough politicians to make sure socialized medicine never gets through both houses of Congress.

Answer 7

Health savings accounts are great for the wealthy, but worthless for the poor.

The biggest benefit is that healthcare expenses become tax deductions. This means that a person in the top tax bracket gets a 35% discount on health insurance, while a person working at Wal Mart gets no discount, as such a person probably doesn't earn enough to be taxed anyway, so a deduction is worthless.

Answer 8

well wouldn't it be great, if my $8900.00 in medical bills (i was in the hospital a few days) would have been paid by the government instead of my own hard working ***? yea, that would be AWESOME. why is it that I don't get this as well? oh it's only for the people that can't afford it? well I can't afford that, but I have to pay it. how does that work?

Answer 9

I've never seen a man say so much... yet cite so little?

he talks about all these stats and how they are wrong...

but he DOESN'T SHOW YOU HOW.. .he just tells you "they're wrong" and how he thinks they are wrong, but he doesn't tell you where he gets his info?

he's busy slaming the WHO and talking about how he looks at the stats... but doesn't mention any numbers that support him?

he's like a magician... he shows you what the other guys are saying... then takes it behind a curtain... and brings it out again and explains how it's wrong... but theres almost zero explanation of what's going on behind the curtain...

basically, I would have to take like hours of my life to go RE-DO his calculations myself, because he doesn't cite anything... why not cite them if it's true and give the real numbers?

Answer 10

my GF is Canadian and they thought she had kidney cancer, it took 4 months just to get a test and 8 months to get the diagnosis, (no cancer) but she needed surgery and that took a year, but it was free.