Why does socialized medicine suck again?

[Hiricine]

Heres why socialized medicine sucks--- because someone has to pay taxes for these things to happen. However, for the US, the champions of non-socialized healthcare, there are much more rediculous things we spend money on. I have a friend in Canada who makes just as much money as I do, pay just as much in taxes, but while my taxes go to bomb other countries and pay for food stamps, his taxes get him socialized healthcare.

[namelessone]

Class envy is delicious

There's no class envy in saying that some people don't deserve what they are making, and some other people deserve a lot more.

[mvaliz]

Because if you're too poor to aford healthcare, it's your fault for not working hard enough! It's YOUR fault you didn't go to college and get a degree in underwater basket weaving to land you that 100K a year job! It's YOUR fault you took a bad job. Stop leeching off MY hard earned money! I worked for years to get to this desk job where I can set on my ass all day holding meetings while making in a day what you make in a month. STOP BEING LAZY, THAT'S WHY.

/end rant
/sarcasm mode off

Do you know what's really frightening? If you didn't put in that "/sarcasm mode off" element I could've believed that was 100% serious from somebody. =/

[namelessone]

Heres why socialized medicine sucks--- because someone has to pay taxes for these things to happen. However, for the US, the champions of non-socialized healthcare, there are much more rediculous things we spend money on. I have a friend in Canada who makes just as much money as I do, pay just as much in taxes, but while my taxes go to bomb other countries and pay for food stamps, his taxes get him socialized healthcare.

We have food stamps in Canada too. And we have armed forces.

[cherb]

Heres why socialized medicine sucks--- because someone has to pay taxes for these things to happen. However, for the US, the champions of non-socialized healthcare, there are much more rediculous things we spend money on. I have a friend in Canada who makes just as much money as I do, pay just as much in taxes, but while my taxes go to bomb other countries and pay for food stamps, his taxes get him socialized healthcare.

People have to pay taxes on just about everything. You say you don't like it? Join the fucking club, but it's just how it goes. We pay for highways, cops, public schools, firemen. All of those things are necessary. These things are important, but so is not having sick people, especially those who can't do anything about it.

---------- Post added 2013-01-21 at 09:36 PM ----------

We have food stamps in Canada too. And we have armed forces.

Canada, nor any other country in the world, comes remotely close to what the U.S. spends on the military. It is above and beyond any country in the world. You cannot even compare the cost.

[mvaliz]

There's no class envy in saying that some people don't deserve what they are making, and some other people deserve a lot more.

This reminds me of one of my favorite Discworld passages I'll paraphrase from memory:

The cult leader then says to the crowd: "Maybe in our new society, we would only allow showy coaches for the deserving!"
The crowd then mentally divided all the people into the deserving, and the undeserving... and placed themselves on the appropriate side.

[Deleted]

My god cut the nationalistic rubbish and do a google search, its nausiating to read this kind of stuff.

Almost all medical research is done by Americans (measured in research spending).

[mvaliz]

People have to pay taxes on just about everything. You say you don't like it? Join the fucking club, but it's just how it goes. We pay for highways, cops, public schools, firemen. All of those things are necessary. These things are important, but so is not having sick people, especially those who can't do anything about it.

Oh, they can do something about it... they can grab a gun and rob a drug store or somebody's house to pay for their medical needs. Or they can just say "F*#^ it!" and just grab a gun and go on a final spree before their death.

[Theinquisition]

There's no class envy in saying that some people don't deserve what they are making, and some other people deserve a lot more.

Who gets to make that determination?

[mvaliz]

Who gets to make that determination?

Obviously those who believe they're part of the deserving, of course! :P

[Annapolis]

What really bothers me when it comes to the American debate about Socialized Medicine, is the apparent missinformation of part of the public.

A socialized healthcare system and a private insure system ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. Socialized healthcare is paid out of a fund that is fueled by something called Social Security. The governament legistlates how much of that goes into unemployement benefits, public housing etc and healthcare. Social security is not a % of your income, but a fixed summ. True the summ goes up and down depending on which tax bracket you are going into, but the variation is rarely more then 100%. Meaning the highest earner will pay double that the minimum income taxpayer, but not really much more. Let's face if someone on minimum wage is paying 400 euros (for exemple, I'm using European numbers here as I am more familiar with taxes and such here), someone who is earning the top tax brackets can pay 800 without considering it being a major blow to his income.

The funny thing is tho that unemployement benefits awarded to you are proportional to your previous income. Like 70% of your last paycheck was. So while you do pay more, you do recieve more when you need it.

Going back to healthcare. When you have a socialized healthcare system, the governament is normally not allowed to fund healthcare from income tax, as there is already an existing tax for funding healthcare. Altought while they often do funnel money around it is almost never healthcare but rather additional services, such as free ambulance transport for the elderly for regular health check ups, free preemptive care, subsidies for things like alternative theraphy etc. things that someone would not strictly consider healthcare, just care in general.

It may be true in your country that the top tax payers only pay double of what the bottom tax payers pay, but that's not the case in the United States.

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pa...ome-taxes.html
http://taxfoundation.org/article/sum...ome-tax-data-0

The top 10% of earners pay 70.5% of the total income tax for the United States and the top 50% pay 97.7% of total income. Even if somebody making 500k a year paid only 25% income tax that would be 125k. Somebody making even 125k a year will not be paying half of their income in taxes. So the wealthy definitely put forth much more than twice the amount of others.

I agree that socialized systems and private systems aren't mutually exclusive, but this debate to me is about how much money you put into socialized medicine.

[Wells]

Almost all medical research is done by Americans (measured in research spending).

Not by insurance companies.

[Reeve]

Because Taxes. Personally, as an American, I'd be fine with paying a little extra in taxes if it meant I didn't have to worry about going into debt over a major surgery.



Wouldn't we all pay for it and who wouldn't use it? Since it would be payed for through Taxes anyone that's working would fund it and anyone that visits a Doctor or takes Prescription Medication would make use of it. Rich, Poor, or Unemployed we would all make use of it.

As an American, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more in taxes if it meant my company could pay me what they were paying the insurance carriers instead. Because fuck those guys.

[mvaliz]

As an American, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more in taxes if it meant my company could pay me what they were paying the insurance carriers instead. Because fuck those guys.

That's how I feel mostly. I mean... why are you complaining about taxes going up? It would just be a lateral move on your paycheck is all.. from the insurance to the government. Theoretically you shouldn't see a change at all in your check... or possibly getting some money BACK since it would be theoretically cheaper. /shrug

[Masark]

It may be true in your country that the top tax payers only pay double of what the bottom tax payers pay, but that's not the case in the United States.

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pa...ome-taxes.html
http://taxfoundation.org/article/sum...ome-tax-data-0

The top 10% of earners pay 70.5% of the total income tax for the United States

Oh look, that gem again. In the proud NTU tradition of cherrypicking, they conveniently only look at income taxes and skip the other half of federal revenues from FICA taxes.

Also, pray tell, what percentage of the income do that top 10% make? Is it greater than, less than, or equal to the 70.5% of income taxes they pay?

[Hiricine]

We have food stamps in Canada too. And we have armed forces.

Yeah we're talking huge differences in proportion. Our military is in the ballpark of 50-70 times what the canadian one is, particularly in terms of what we spend on it. Also, far fewer Canadians are on food stamps, and are generally embarrased to go on them. The US sees them as a right.

[Deleted]

Not by insurance companies.

To clarify: biomedical research. Not research about healthcare marketing or things like that.

[Orlong]

America is not the only first world country, and it certainly isn't the country where most scientists come from (they do employ the most scientists tough, but more then half of them are recruited outside US).

They are recruited to the US because they arent able to do the research in their own countries due to lack of funding due to the governments overseas dictating where the socialist money will be spent so they cant afford to develop drugs overseas.

[Annapolis]

Oh look, that gem again. In the proud NTU tradition of cherrypicking, they conveniently only look at income taxes and skip the other half of federal revenues from FICA taxes.

Also, pray tell, what percentage of the income do that top 10% make? Is it greater than, less than, or equal to the 70.5% of income taxes they pay?

I dunno why that made you so angry. The answer to your question is less than. This is because they pay a higher effective tax rate than the lower brackets. For instance if the tax rate were flat then whatever money the top 10% of earners made would be taxed at the same percentage. So let's say the top 10% made 70.5% of the United States' total income. This would mean that the top 10% would also pay 70.5% of the income tax because the income tax is a flat rate.

However we don't use a flat rate we use a graduated system. So as you earn more, you pay more as well. So they pay more in income taxes than the percentage of America's income that they represent.

Edit: I guess this wasn't the answer you were expecting but if you doubt it then check http://taxfoundation.org/slideshow/p...as-tax-returns about 4 pages in. The citation is the IRS.

[Orlong]

Not by insurance companies.

No, its done by drug manufacturers who are then forced to recuperate that money by charging $90 per pill in the US because other countries like Canada say we are only paying you $10 per pill regardless of what it actually costs, so instead of EVERYONE paying $50 per pill, the US pays $90 per pill and everyone else gets it for $10