Thread: Where Do We Draw The Line?

The hysterical response to "socialized medicine" south of the border leaves me puzzled. I live in a country that has a form of socialized medicine, one of many variations out there, and do not want to see privatized medicine gain anymore of a foothold here than it already has. I trust large corporate entities even less than than I do governments. There are certain key things that I do not think privatization would improve. To me privatization in health care with the over riding motive of profit is a "death squad" waiting to happen. That is just the view from other side of the fence.

I recall having a conversation with a Minnesotan about taxes we both paid and it turned out that we were both tax free about the same time of year. The difference was that he had to pay a huge amount monthly for family private medical coverage which I did not. My medical coverage was included in the taxes I had paid. I think I will keep what I have and know.

No system is perfect but I would rather have a system where everyone is entitled to the same level of medical coverage rich or poor. There are many ways to get there but a two tiered system is not one of them for me.

Bob

Originally Posted by Crotalus

I don't agree that other countries have better health care. American healthcare and drugs is the best in the world.

Then why is it that so many people are getting bankrupt to get themselves medical treatment?

Originally Posted by Crotalus

Socialized medicine where a faceless bureaucrat decides what care and how much can be spent on you should scare the hell out of you. It's the ultimate in tyranny.

Now i'm not sure where things like this happen. We deal directly with doctors and/or nurses, not bureucrats. We have no faceless bureucrats from insurance companies either, trying to get their piece of the cake.

I do not really get the point what is so difficult or expensive with this. There is no such thing as free health care but ours (meant for everyone, including you if you happen to visit here) is surely much cheaper and it is paid by everyone.
I have private health insurance as well. Haven't needed it for years but is handy when you don't want to wait for few days to get the doctor if you have no anything serious. It costs me about 200 €/year.
No matter if i use either health care system provided by society or my private insurance, the doctor and the health station might be the same.

Originally Posted by Bruno

By the same token we should ban all handguns because someone once shot someone else?

That's only funny if it doesn't happen in your country. Try getting a shooting permit over here....not so easy.

Originally Posted by joebehar

Interesting...although you're mostly right, the question that comes up is how do we keep companies that are less than ethical from ripping people off?

Its precisely the lack of regulation that got your fine country into that mortgage debacle that started this downward spiral,

I'm all for free markets, but free does not mean you can cheat and steal. if a private company willfully cheats and lies, they need to be held accountable. If you or I misrepresented ourselves at a bank and managed to get a million dollar loan and then refused to pay it back I think the full weight of the law would be upon us. Not one single person or company has been charged, let alone convicted in the sub prime mortgage fiasco.

I believe government should protect its citizens...all of them, not just the ones that donate millions to re election campaigns.

Yes, things like Love Canal are blights on our Citizens and the people that did that deserve jail and fines.

I must disagree. The responsibility for the present financial situation sits squarely on the Democrats. Follow this thread, it goes all the way back to the Carter Administration. A law called the Community Reinvestment Act was passed. It addressed the perceived problem of mortgage loans not being made to poor people that couldn't afford houses. It put pressure on banks to make loans. The bank regulators were looking for something called "redlining". The denial of loans to poor people. Never mind that these people just couldn't afford the loans.

Now comes Clinton. He put teeth in the law and Banks were put under even more pressure. Banks mergers and a lot of other business was denied unless the banks could show that they were making high risk loans to poor people. To be able to comply the banks started doing outrageous things like the "liars loan" where false information was put on the applications, and Adjustable Rate Mortgages so the loans could be paid for a few years. The housing market was booming. The banks made money and sold the loans to Fanny Mae because they knew they were bad. Federal regulators looked the other way because this was government policy after all. Another company, I forget the name, insured the loans and packaged them up and sold bonds on the worthless loans calling them derivatives. Fanny Mae was making a killing. Then the market started to fall. Defaults rose because values declined and the houses could not be sold for what was on the books. The insurance company couldn't cover the losses and went under. Suddenly the derivatives were worthless. Iceland owned a boatload of them and their economy collapsed. The problem spread to Europe.

The Bush Administration spotted the problem in 2002 and tried to do something, but was blocked in Congress. The managers of Fanny Mae quit before the fall, pocketed their millions and now work for Obama.

These people should be in jail, but because the government caused the problem they don't want the spotlight on the real causes.

Banks did what they had to and didn't squawk because they were making money. The government that was supposed to be protecting us caused the problem. What is their solution, more regulation.

I think anyone who truly thinks Corporations are the good guys and Govt the bad guys ought to pick up a book and read what life was like in this country back at the turn of the 20th century when Govt was weak and corporations had a free hand to do anything they wanted. Read what the average workers life was like and how the environment was treated.

The story has never changed. Corporations are only interested in profit. The more the better and they will do anything to further their aims.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

Yes, things like Love Canal are blights on our Citizens and the people that did that deserve jail and fines.

I must disagree. The responsibility for the present financial situation sits squarely on the Democrats. Follow this thread, it goes all the way back to the Carter Administration. A law called the Community Reinvestment Act was passed. It addressed the perceived problem of mortgage loans not being made to poor people that couldn't afford houses. It put pressure on banks to make loans. The bank regulators were looking for something called "redlining". The denial of loans to poor people. Never mind that these people just couldn't afford the loans.

Now comes Clinton. He put teeth in the law and Banks were put under even more pressure. Banks mergers and a lot of other business was denied unless the banks could show that they were making high risk loans to poor people. To be able to comply the banks started doing outrageous things like the "liars loan" where false information was put on the applications, and Adjustable Rate Mortgages so the loans could be paid for a few years. The housing market was booming. The banks made money and sold the loans to Fanny Mae because they knew they were bad. Federal regulators looked the other way because this was government policy after all. Another company, I forget the name, insured the loans and packaged them up and sold bonds on the worthless loans calling them derivatives. Fanny Mae was making a killing. Then the market started to fall. Defaults rose because values declined and the houses could not be sold for what was on the books. The insurance company couldn't cover the losses and went under. Suddenly the derivatives were worthless. Iceland owned a boatload of them and their economy collapsed. The problem spread to Europe.

The Bush Administration spotted the problem in 2002 and tried to do something, but was blocked in Congress. The managers of Fanny Mae quit before the fall, pocketed their millions and now work for Obama.

These people should be in jail, but because the government caused the problem they don't want the spotlight on the real causes.

Banks did what they had to and didn't squawk because they were making money. The government that was supposed to be protecting us caused the problem. What is their solution, more regulation.

I'm truly agnostic when it comes to political loyalty...democrats, republicans, conservatives, liberals, NDP...they are all just different shades of the same colour. Blame the democrats if you must, but the fact is that the disaster happened.

Not to gloat, but if you had a similar banking system to the one we have here in Canada and a little more regulation, you would not be in this situation.

Canada is not exactly a socialist state. We have free markets, capitalism rules and we have fair and free elections...lol We also have a financial system that just simply does not allow for less than ethical companies to make a profit at ANY cost. Call it more regulation, call it socialist, but it protects the citizens.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I think anyone who truly thinks Corporations are the good guys and Govt the bad guys ought to pick up a book and read what life was like in this country back at the turn of the 20th century when Govt was weak and corporations had a free hand to do anything they wanted. Read what the average workers life was like and how the environment was treated.

The story has never changed. Corporations are only interested in profit. The more the better and they will do anything to further their aims.

Ain't that the truth and we are slowly regressing back to where we were at the beginning of the 20th Century. The people who seemingly support this are sawing off the very limb they are sitting on.

Bob

Originally Posted by joebehar

I'm truly agnostic when it comes to political loyalty...democrats, republicans, conservatives, liberals, NDP...they are all just different shades of the same colour. Blame the democrats if you must, but the fact is that the disaster happened.

Not to gloat, but if you had a similar banking system to the one we have here in Canada and a little more regulation, you would not be in this situation.

Canada is not exactly a socialist state. We have free markets, capitalism rules and we have fair and free elections...lol We also have a financial system that just simply does not allow for less than ethical companies to make a profit at ANY cost. Call it more regulation, call it socialist, but it protects the citizens.

Yea, I don't care what label you apply to a politician they are the same old hooker in a different dress from my POV. Although Canadian Banks may be better regulated in Canada they do operate in other countries and likely have done some shaky business there too. I appreciate the blend of Capitalism and Socialism, for lack of better words, we have here. Others are free to enjoy what ever type of system that works for them. There is no one universal perfect system that works all the time for everyone. Checks and balances have to be in place to keep the pendulum from swinging to either of the extremes but any system has to have enough flexibility to meet on going changes in the world too. If you get too many people crowded into either end of the extremes you either break the system, worst case, or make it too impotent to accomplish anything, best case. It takes real skill to come to a balanced compromise that the majority can live with. The best deal is one where both buyer and seller come away feeling good and neither feels ripped off.

Bob

Originally Posted by Crotalus

Storage is the issue. Wind and solar aren't available 24/7. Only water, fossil, and nuclear are.

I don't think you understand the issue at all, because what you are saying is irrelevant to the matter. Demand for energy varies throughout the day by factor of about 2. Plus not many people are using fossil or nuclear energy directly to meet all of their household needs.

The issue is that energy storage and delivery on the scale for transportation is cheaper through fossil fuel at current market rates than the alternatives. But the fossil fuel isn't a limitless resource - it's just a storage of a tiny fraction of the solar energy over millions of years.
You can grow crops and convert much much larger fraction of the solar energy into fuel (like ethanol), but it's still more expensive than converting something accumulated over millions of years.

We already have hybrid and electric cars though, so we're closing to the crossover point.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I think anyone who truly thinks Corporations are the good guys and Govt the bad guys ought to pick up a book and read what life was like in this country back at the turn of the 20th century when Govt was weak and corporations had a free hand to do anything they wanted. Read what the average workers life was like and how the environment was treated.

I don't think this is necessary, plus who is to say that the modern day corporations are the same as those in the old days? Better to just look at how it works right now. There are plenty of corporations with worldwide operations and their practices do vary under different local regulations.

From what I've seen if anything is profitable and legal it gets done regardless of whether it's ethical. Hence the need for big legal departments and big lobbying (in the ideal world everything profitable is legal). But individual people do have the power to vote for or against their representatives, so it's not like the game is completely rigged. It's that people sometimes plenty of them seem to be stupid enough to vote against their own interest.