Why do liberals not understand that national health care would be a disaster?

Question

I know there are problems with people who have no insurance but if we had a federal funded health care system the problems would be way worse than now with waiting lists etc. Plus every hardworking taxpayer would be paying for everyone else. Aren't our taxes high enough already? Besides it never fails to amaze me the amount of young women getting pregnant and then depending on medicaid to pay for everything. Where is the common sense? Maybe if medicaid wasn't so readily available to these people they would use their heads more and realize having a baby is alot of PERSONALand not GOVENMENTAL responsibility.

Sorry, I meant Governmental.

Greg R, I fail to see how it is much different. My point was that when these people get stuff for free they abuse the system and for some reason they feel it is a government responsibility to take care of them and their children. I am all for helping the needy, I just don't think it should be under government control. I don't want others telling me what I need to do with my hard earned money.

Answer 1

i've often asked myself this question also. politicians often have a hidden agenda behind pushing social policies, so i'm very wary of anything that they suggest that is suppose to help the public. the public, who are so tired of being stretched for money may see this as a means of relief, but as you said - someone will have to pay for it & it will be tax dollars. instead of pushing for national health care, why don't the politicians push for a lower rate & a cap on the fees for medical care that we have already?

Answer 2

The that is most favorable is that which allows ( for lack of a better term ) you to take a chunk of what you owe in income taxes to buy the insurance. For example, if you owe $5000 in income tax, the government/IRS, with prove, will allow you to pay only $4000 with the remaining $1000 to go for your health insurance. The government under this program does NOT administer the health benefits, they only make sure that you have it and it is funded legally. So it does not raise your taxes and does not put the government into the position of being the health care provider/manager. As for the comment about women not having a babies and becoming more responsible, who are you kidding? that is a whole different problem anyway, and from the read of your post, you clearly have homework to do on the subject.

Answer 3

Well...first of all, what we have now IS a disaster. Children going without health care, the working poor without. It is currently a disaster. I see your point about high taxes, but isn't the problem that taxes are spent on the wrong things? This war for example. The costs are insane and far outweigh any benifit we will see. Instead of complaining about taxes being spent to make sure all American's have health care, look at all the waste our taxes are already being spent on. Bridges are falling in MN because of the waste in Congress. Exclude the war and look at all the ridiculous waste and coruption. The problem is NOT with paying for universal health care, but with all the money we waste on other stuff. We would be spending less on jails, for example, or medicare later in life, if all children had early, quality care. As an aside, I'm curious about who you know that is a 'young woman' who expects everything to be paid for after getting pregnat. What is the number (amount) that you are so outraged about? Can you provide the data for this? The only people I know that have had babies and expect it to be paid for are those who have great health care (in other words the rich). So, in your logic, the rich should have babies paid for (via insurance) and the poor should not, right? I don't get it. ALL women should have access to quality care that does not break the bank in order to raise healthy children. It is the responsibility of society to ensure children are born healthy. This is another problem with your thinking. The fact that you would punish the low income woman who gets pregnant, by punishing the child she is to give birth to. Would you prefer an abortion? In reality, the care is for the child and not for the mother as taking care of the mother protects the unborn child. If you are pro life, I couldn't imagine you'd be against it.

Answer 4

Let's first of all clear up a generalization: all liberals do not agree with nationalized health care. It's just that most conservatives are either wealthy, in which case they'd never need it and don't want to pay taxes for it, or they're not educated about it and see anything nationalized as socialist, European, and therefor bad.
Nationalized health care may not be a panacea, but it is certainly better than what the US has, which is nothing. not to turn the question back on you, but do you believe the current system, or non-system is the best? If not what would you propose to make sure everyone gets the health care they need?

Answer 5

The most common response I read is because liberals want control over the citizens. But isn't that what the neo-cons want to retain through legislating morality.

As more and more corporations begin reducing and eliminating medical benefits and more and more people must pay for their own, we will move to a system to cover all Americans. Additional coverage will be available to those who can pay higher premiums.

As a business owner and the only employee, I have had to buy insurance for myself and my family. The rates are outrageous and the insurance companies are set up to reject most claims several times before even paying a small amount of a claim.

As long as insurance companies can buy political votes, not much will change. Voters in America must wake up and vote out all incumbents to change the mire we are currently wading through.

Answer 6

First of all two the person who recomended Sicko, thanks for supporting a balntantly one-sided rant.

Second of all, compare Canada and the US. The US has over 300 million people, Canada has over 33 million; 1/10 of the people. I'll admit that makes it easier to fund such a program, but it also makes running it 50 times harder, why 50, because the fed will need to increase the buerocracy to run it, which will in turn increase the const to not be 10 times as much, but to be even more than that.

So in short, I argue that it wouldn't work very well mainly oweing to the sheer size of America in proportion to country's that already have it. You can't simply calculate costs by times the cost by whatever the difference in population is, because you then ignore other costs involved in running the program.

And then there is the matter of free choice. America was built on freedom, and intially, was designed to limit government's role to almost nothing. Unlike the Canadians and the Brits, Americans tend to despise tyranny in their lives; ie I should have the choice whether to participate in the program, and if I choose not to than I should also be given the chance not to fund it.

Yes, it morally right ot help the poor and truely needy, but it is stupid to force people to help; as a earlier do-gooder said.

Answer 7

The true fact is that waiting lines are quite common in U.S. Emergency rooms. This is primarily because of uninsured people using emergency care as a source of free medical care. Doctors can refuse parients that cannot pay, emergency rooms cannot. In nations with universal health care/socialized medicine, there are actually shorter waiting times and the so-called waiting lists do not exist.
We are already paying for those who cannot afford health care. Insurance premiums rise as health care costs rise and one cause is unpaid health care bills. The unisured are cahrged more than the insured and when they don't pay, the cost is passed on to those who can pay. It is high time we got something for the taxes we pay.

Answer 8

1) A good portion of the "hard working tax payer" are those without medical care, who are for universal health-care. . . I'm one of them.

2) We don't have universal health-care now, and people keep popping out babies that they can't afford to take care of . . . how can you be so sure that modifying the health-care system would increase the number of babies people have?

3) The reason waiting lists would be longer with universal health-care is because the people who need medical attention who have been unable to acquire it would now have access to it . . . the lines wouldn't be long forever -- just until the people who needed care got the care.

Answer 9

Health care for the poor is already subsidized. Those that are very wealthy don't worry about it at all. Those with insurance that value their credit rating pay everything that is charged them. Those without insurance and/or those that don't have a credit rating to worry about, pay little and are (more) ruined financially. A national healthcare system would merely legitimize this cluster**** system of blackmail and ruin.

Answer 10

Everyone talks about how great Gov't health care would be but just think about it. They can't keep up with the money we have to give them now. Do you really think they can keep up with this. Even in Canada, Prime Minister Harper has talked about how changes have to be made in their system because of people having to wait for weeks for appointments.