Obamas first bad decision.

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Originally Posted by crazycliff200843

Do you think socializing the healthcare system is going to make anything better? The standard of care will drop through the floor. You get what you pay for initially and it goes down from there.

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Yes, well, Belgium has socialized health care.
And guess what. It actually works.

Simple doctors visit cost me personally 3 or 4 euros. If he prescribes meds, they are virtually free.
If I need an MRI, I don't even know what I have to pay, but for my wife it was 12 euros or something similar.

Dentist visits for checkup are nearly free. Filling a tooth costs something like 5 or 10 euros. Root canal treatments perhaps double that. And if I need to see a specialist or need to have scans taken or an MRI, I can do so within 2 weeks. Surgery can be scheduled within days.

And of course it is not free. I have to pay a good amount every month. And I pay more than people who earn less, and less than people who earn more. And we all get the same treatement.
And the interesting thing is that I still pay way less than someone in the US for a halfway decent plan.
And this is enough to cover not only myself, but my family as well, and collectively it is enough to provide for everyone. Including the ones who would be left out in the US (and did I mention we still pay way less than you?).

Our system is not perfect either, and as with any sufficiently complex system, there are corner cases and people falling between the cracks. But on the whole, it works very good.
You may not like it, but if you say it works even less than the US health care system, you show that you don't have a clue what you are talking about.
You may disagree with the basic premise (evil socialism) but in real life, it works very well because there are no thousands of greedy lawyers and private insurance providers who cream off most of the money.

Bruno, totally +1. It's based on the principles of economies of scale - you can do it cheaper for everyone if we all share the cost and risk, than if we try to finance it individually.

Mark

Burno,
Having lived in Europe myself in the past I have always admired the fact that many of the European countries had great health plans We lived in Oslo back in 67-70 and the health plans there were great or at least we thought so....

The problem in the US is a little different, with our Government's track record so for in managing any system of socialized money distribution, we the taxpayer don't trust them, at least I'll speak for myself there and anybody else that sees it the same way or differently can chime in...
In a nutshell it costs 80 cents out of every dollar to give 20 cents in "HELP" to somebody, and until that changes I am not for socialized anything....

+1 what Glen said. Our government, no matter whos president at the time is the biggest mismanager of money that there ever was. It does not matter 1 hoot wether you are conservative or liberal or middle of the road, I think this is something every American should be able to agree on. One party wants to blow money this way the other party wants to blow it the other, after the debate/bickering is done they will compromise and blow money both ways negating any achievement that could have been possible. The rare exception being when they decide to do nothing, and then they will still find a way to spend the money.:jedi:<<< Senators& reps :cry:citizens
And then every few years we fight each other tooth and nail trying to convince each other whos idiot is better.

Glen I can totally sympathise with that thought, and I would probably feel the same way if those conditions were true here. Fortunately our government is good at those things.

They suck at other things. For example defense is pretty much a laugable token effort. If any serious army ever invades, they will go through us like through wet cardboard. Luckily we are surrounded by 3 large countries with better forces, 2 of which have nuclear capability.

With a country the size of yours, how much can actully be spent on defense and where would you get the manpower, lets hope the nieghbors stay friendly, but I cannot forsee the problems of the past being problems once again, God bless you and your countrymen!

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Originally Posted by nun2sharp

+1 what Glen said. Our government, no matter whos president at the time is the biggest mismanager of money that there ever was. It does not matter 1 hoot wether you are conservative or liberal or middle of the road, I think this is something every American should be able to agree on. One party wants to blow money this way the other party wants to blow it the other, after the debate/bickering is done they will compromise and blow money both ways negating any achievement that could have been possible. The rare exception being when they decide to do nothing, and then they will still find a way to spend the money.:jedi:<<< Senators& reps :cry:citizens
And then every few years we fight each other tooth and nail trying to convince each other whos idiot is better.

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You might consider reading The Audacity of Hope. The president elect agrees with you.

j

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Originally Posted by Nord Jim

You might consider reading The Audacity of Hope. The president elect agrees with you.

j

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So did the others! Please forgive my pessimism.

I really feel I need to respond here. First, though, the obligatory disclaimer: I am a government employee. If, on the one hand, that makes me more likely to see good in government management, I would hope that on the other hand it might give me some credibility for what I say.

There are many things that the U.S. government does very, very well.

1. Our military is tops in the world
2. Financial institutions rely on figures from the Departments of Commerce and Labor. The estimates of the GDP and employment, which are developed by civil servants, are considered gospel.
3. I'd put our National Parks up against anybody's.
4. The FAA does a good job.
5. The FBI is generally a good outfit.
6. We were the first to land on the moon.

These are just some examples.

For the past 28 years, a dedicated cadre of right wing ideologues have been trying to "starve the beast," defunding essential and non-essential government agencies alike. They claim it's because government is overfunded, but it's had the effect of taking efficient agencies and making them less efficient. That's why the FAA is still working with obsolete equipment. It's why public facilities at the National Parks are decaying. It's why NASA is a mess that is losing its lead in space exploration to the Euros and even the Chinese.

While I would agree that Congress has created a lot of dead wood in the federal agency inventory, I think you do us all a disservice when you claim that government can't do anything well. We do many critical things exceedingly well every blessed day.

j

I hope you were not offended by anything Ive said. My comments were not directed toward any body who works for their daily bread, my comments were directed towards the "oysters and champagne along the Potomac" crowd. ie the pro politicians.