Why do Liberals think government control of health-care is free?

Question

What is free about it, just that you don't have to pay money for a quick fix, getting second-rate care?
Do most people understand the REAL price in Universal Health-Care? Your freedom to choose?
My good friend is English, her daughter has illnesses, yet she waits in at least a 3 week line to be seen by ANY doctor, never the same one, either. No, she doesn't pay anything, but her daughter remains sick. Her son has had a hole in his heart since birth, and constantly in and out to hospital, and seeing doctors. He remains unhealthy, and always seen by different doctors. Their docs are so mixed-up, paper work a mess, jammed up to the hilt. Is this the kind of Health-Care you want for your children?
My other English friend, and his two kids didn't get to see a dentist for two years because the system is so jammed.
Do you want this kind of Dentistry controlled by your government for your kids? What about for yourself?

Answer 1

I am just ticked that anyone in their right mind would want the government to collect my money for health care!

I will pay for my own, and make my own choices!

There are plans for poor people with medicaid, and for poor children, SCHIP covers those above the poverty line.

Now just who do you want my tax dollars to go to? Reforms in any industry would get my nod.
Keep the government from controlling my life doggone it! The government does not need to dictate my health care.

Answer 2

It's not "free." Nobody fantasizes that it's "free," and there are successful, working universal health care programs going on in other countries. I wish people would just stop trying to pretend otherwise.

The Republicans passed, and Bush signed, a prescription drug benefit bill that is nothing more than a corporate welfare bill for the drug and insurance industries.
This bill prevents seniors from buying cheaper drugs in Canada, it prevents Medicare from negotiating cheaper drug prices through bulk drug purchases, and it pays HMO's for signing people up.

It appears that Bush, and the Republicans in Congress, are only concerned about the heath of the bank accounts of their super wealthy financial supporters.

The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship. 28 industrialized nations have single payer universal health care systems.

Federal studies by the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting office show that single payer universal health care would save 100 to 200 Billion dollars per year despite covering all the uninsured and increasing health care benefits.

The United States spends 50 to 100% more on administration than single payer systems.

Answer 3

crabby -Please understand and read something.
Thier so called fix is a ruse. In thier bill they want to "give"
health care to anyone, note the word anyone, that is a familiy
of 4 making $82,000 dollars a year up to the age of 25.
If you are making that kind of dough you could afford your own private health care or more than afford the one that your boss offers at that job. If anybody makes over $40,000 a year you are typically in a job that offers an optional health insurance. If you don't sign up for it whose fault is it. It's not the goverment. It's yours.
While I know that even if you don't carry your own insurance
and you get hurt or sick you can walk into any hospital and get treated. Today and right now.
If they really wanted to fix the problem they would do something about the current law systems that have driven up the cost of health care as it is. Your doctor is human and makes mistakes but the insurance that he has to pay and run extra test to lessen his chance of being sued has been a major increase in the medical profession. After all most of those people on captial hill are "ex-Lawyers". go figure.
Check your history on goverment programs. Once they start they never stop and they only get more expensive. And they are alwasys slow to respond.

Answer 4

You are not comparing like with like.

England spends 7% of its GPD on health care. The US spends 15%. It is not surprising that the quality in England is worse. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys. This has nothing to do with universal health care. Germany is a better comparison to the US because it spends 11%. The problems you describe (shortages) are unheard of in Germany.

Your English friends DO have a choice. They could easily go to better private doctors with their kids if they paid an additional $100 per month. But they continue to rely on the underfunded state system.

Oh, so they can't afford to spend an extra $100? Guess what would happen if they lived in the US? Their kids would get NO treatment at all.

Answer 5

Government controlled health care would mean higher taxes, in order to cover it. It could possibly mean no money out of pocket, hence your assumption that some others will think of that as meaning it is "free" health care.

I think my health care I get through my employment is fine, and I'd personally like the government involved less in my life, not more.

Answer 6

Why do conservatives think that under the present system (greedy insurance corporations running health care) that patients don't have long waits for procedures, can get exactly what they need in a timely fashion, and pay less for their care?

Ever have your doctor recommend something and have the insurance company say you can't have it? Go through the hassles of trying to get your insurance company to PAY UP for something that your policy said WAS covered?

Private industy is only good for beancounters who want to make sure people DON'T get what they need. They'd take away their own grandmother's heart medication if it would make their stock go up by a fraction of a point.

Answer 7

First, we don't think government health-care is free. The fact that ignorant right-wing propagandists claim we say that doesn't make it so--they are simply putting words in our mouths. Which is dishonest, BTW.

Second, most liberals are not proposing government control of health-care--at least in the sence of "socialized medicine." They are proposing reforms to fix a system that is clearly dysfuntional.

And--due entirely to the right-wing--its the liberal version of health -care reform that we are going to get. The right wing is handing the "victory" on tha tissue to the liberals on a silver platter.

Why? Because the system is broken--and when they need health care, people are not going to give a damn about the right's political rhetoric. And that is all we are hearing from the right.

Let me spell it out: the liberals are presenting ideas--real policy proposals. Some are good. Some, quite frankly, suck. But the right is not presenting any ideas or policy proposals--just political rhetoric. And when it comes time for reforming our health care system--ideas, not political slogans--will be written into law.

So wen you look around in a few years and see a greatly expanded presence of government in the health care system--it is going to be the fault of the right. Because they are not stepping up and participating in the hard work of trying to come up with policies to sole the problems.

Rhetoric is not going to cut it. Ideas will. Take your choice.

Answer 8

Yes, one use of the law is to modify behavior and improve the public good. Using law to promote the public good is a necessary part of any society. Public education, for example, is often justified in the name of the public good. Aside from education, public goods often include a clean environment, a safe environment, a fair justice system, and so on. Your slippery slope argument that passing regulations in the name of the public will lead to en "endless" expansion of prohibitions doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Regulations in the name of the public good have been a part of American politics for as long as there has been American politics. You need to give some reason to think why providing health care for the public good will have these disastrous consequences while providing, for example, education and police protection for the public good did not. I can imagine someone, many years ago, arguing against providing police protection for the public good on the ground that then the police would arrest everybody. Or somebody arguing against education for the public good on the ground "we could see" people being forced to attend college, being made to pick majors they didn't want, being required by law to attend graduate school, people with less education being taxed..."the list is endless the things they could [require] or tax because they could simply claim that you are a burden on the [education] system and therefore it gives them the right to control these behaviors". The fact that arguments similar to yours can be used against any form of regulation or concern for the public good indicate that they are weak arguments that rely on fear-mongering, not logic. Slippery slope arguments are usually fallacious for this reason. The fact that the doomsday scenarios you predict have never actually occurred in any system which has adopted universal healthcare means that the evidence is against you. As for your comment to Dave, that is not actually true. People with pre-existing conditions often cannot get covered by any insurance provider. Such people have no choice in obtaining insurance. There are many things that are free and practically unlimited (sunlight, for example). In any case, as the system currently is now, healthcare is rationed on whether you can afford it. Given the choice, a safer bet that the government will be able afford your healthcare than that you will (cf. the millions of people who are unable to afford their healthcare).

Answer 9

The US needs health care reform. First start with pharmaceutical companies, then insurance companies. There are many options to look into such a single payer system.
Whatever the outcome the US should have the best affordable health care for every American.

Answer 10

No one is proposing that the same plan that they have in the UK be implemented here. I don't know why so many cons seems to think that is the case. These are the same people who like to pretend there is no problem with the health care system in the US, nothing that needs to be improved.

Answer 11

No one says it's free you're delusional to think that, but if you think we are all not already paying for the uninsured you're just as delusional, the higher cost of health care for the insured is a result of off setting the costs of the impoverished, and I don't know where you live but here it's less than a week to see a doctor, also dental isn't part of any of these programs so you're comparing apples with oranges and that don't fly, the real question is are we willing to address health care head on or keep paying hidden costs through higher bills for the insured