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  1. #61
    You're right about this. Jail time isn't going to happen because people don't pay. But aren't we already talking about trying to solve the problem of non-payers? How can we garnish the wages of non-working individuals? While I have no statistics to support it, I'm fairly sure that the non-insurance holders are largely the same as the non-working individuals.
    People is said situation are either exempt or receiving aid to purchase care. Not a big issue.

    Same with people who are employed but can't afford it.

    Realistically the only people who are going to get hit with fines are those who choose to not purchase even though they can.

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by Chonogo View Post
    Yes, way. It's why it's a failure as a total economy. Stop associating it as inherently evil and you'll understand why many reasonable people, including myself, advocate some forms of socialism. It doesn't make me a socialist, it makes things practical because I'm not surrendering to an ideology.

    In theory, socialism is most definitely about getting out what you put in. In reality, more people will put less in, causing the economic system to collapse. "Socialism" works very well with capitalism. And capitalism works very well with socialism. So long as neither get too extreme.
    If it was about getting out what you put in, then putting in less would result in getting out less (ex: lower wages), rather than economic collapse. But it's not.

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    It should prices in two ways.

    Obamacare opens up insurance for national competition which will improve competition, and more healthy people in the pool will reduce costs by reducing insurer risk.
    And if all of them are very high priced and takes them years to fight with each other to lower prices who gets hurt?
    We do. Paying out of our butts and going bankrupt in the process.

    Since I got hurt I've been out of work but I used to make $19,000 a year crappy but paid my bills now throw in insurance I'd hate to think what I'd bring home.
    Or should I say my car since I wouldn't be able to afford a apartment.

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    I doubt you'll find many people with OWS who wouldn't support a European style UHC system. Obamacare is an imperfect solution, a bandaid.
    Well it's the Pandora's Box to use government force on citizens to buy all kinds of shit from corporations.

    But hey, let's trust the government isn't gonna use it's newly found power wrong. They would never do that

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chonogo View Post
    If you're talking about Obamacare, OMG can we please stop with guaranteeing a service! It requires you to pay for health INSURANCE. How is that in any way, shape, or form, a guarantee or even free? Is there something in the water that is preventing people from seeing the difference from guaranteeing the right to pay for a service, and guaranteeing the right to pay for insurance to help pay for said service? You still have to pay for insurance! You still have to pay for your health care! Ugh.
    Oh good someone else gets it.

  6. #66
    Well it's the Pandora's Box to use government force on citizens to buy all kinds of shit from corporations.
    Slippery Slope Arguments don't hold much water. Nor do appeals to paranoia.

  7. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrianth View Post
    I don't know about other country with universal health care, but in Canada alcohol and cigarettes have a ridiculously high "sin tax" which funds the health care system more so than income taxes (have no source on that last bit, read it awhile ago).
    We have plenty of sin taxes here in the US as well, going far before the Health Care law was signed. But I'd rather not have the government care what I do with my body- let me choose what to smoke, what to eat, what ot drink- and let me pay for the consequences rather than try to pick winners and losers in the marketplace.

    The concept of sin taxes forces the government to constantly update their list of sins- from the obvious list of cigarettes and alcohol, now you have to add trans fats, candy, fast food outlets- and the list will continue to grow as we find more things that are bad for you. Instead of letting people learn and choose for themselves, the sin taxes (if needed to pay for health care) will need to be expanded until some day, they will be giving taxes (or credits for healthy food) on everything. I can't imagine the amount of overhead that would cost- just to regulate our eating habits.

    You may call it a slippery slope argument, but we have seen enough laws in enough areas to suggest that this is the direction in which these laws lead.

  8. #68
    Keep in mind the law as it was proposed had a public option. If you're mad the law makes you purchase only from corporations then look at the GOP, they're the ones who killed the public option.

  9. #69
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Slippery Slope Arguments don't hold much water. Nor do appeals to paranoia.
    Actually it does. Give politicians the power to do something, and they will.

    This has been demonstrated over and over and over in history. So the slippery slope in terms of how government incrementally expands is most certainly true.

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Chonogo View Post
    If you're talking about Obamacare, OMG can we please stop with guaranteeing a service! It requires you to pay for health INSURANCE. How is that in any way, shape, or form, a guarantee or even free? Is there something in the water that is preventing people from seeing the difference from guaranteeing the right to pay for a service, and guaranteeing the right to pay for insurance to help pay for said service? You still have to pay for insurance! You still have to pay for your health care! Ugh.
    Okay, calm down. I'm talking about Universal Health Care. Not Obamacare.

    Obamacare was created by and is largely supported by people who want Universal Health Care, so when we debate Obamacare, I'd prefer to talk about what those people wanted instead of what they got. While the topics do cross, they are separate issues. Just like talking about the constitutionality of the law is silly, debating the difference between forcing people to buy health insurance (through fines and fees) and giving away free care and paying for it with taxes is silly.

  11. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Most of the R&D is backed or funded by the government. There is little risk to the corporation
    There is a lot in this thread I agree and disagree with in principle, but this is the first outstandingly incorrect statement I've seen. On average it costs $1.1 billion for a pharmaceutical company to sponsor and push a drug from discovery to the market. This process takes, on average, 11 years. Most of the drugs arriving on the market today have been in R&D for over a decade. This is one of the few industries where a vast majority of profits made are recycled into R&D of the next drug because it is so expensive. At any point in those 11 years of clinical trials, a investigative site can commit a mistake or do something so unethical that the research is thrown out. At any point in those 11 years of clinical trials, the number of serious adverse events can alarm the FDA enough to end the process. The motto of the industry is to fail fast. You want your drug to crash and burn in the early years, because it is an enormous loss for a company to spend millions, or billions, and have it vanish on a drug that never makes the market.

    None of this is paid for by the government, with the rare exception of drugs which have a very very small market, but treat a life-threatening illness. These are drugs that pharmaceutical companies would never sponsor or pay for because, from a business standpoint, it would be an enormous waste.

    Anyway, baseless facts aside, forcing people to buy health insurance (which has no affect on those who already do have insurance, except potentially make premiums go down) may sound harsh, but the alternative is to allow the price of prescriptions and medical procedures to skyrocket. The more uninsured there are, the less hospitals and clinics are receiving for the care that they provide, so the more hospitals and clinics have to put on those who ARE insured (i.e. ask more from insurance companies, leading to higher premiums.)

    Though socialism is this scary, evil word, in this example - spreading the risk to everyone makes it cheaper, in the end, for everyone.

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by Pert View Post
    I assume that this will proceed all the way up. A group in Ohio is attempting to get an amendment in place to their state constitution, should be interesting to see how that goes.
    They can do whatever they want. Federal law trumps state constitutions.

  13. #73
    Roughly 25% of trials are funded via government and about 42-48% of R&D. Combine that with the patent protections Pharma gets and while most might not be correct the amount is substantial.

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by krumz View Post
    They can do whatever they want. Federal law trumps state constitutions.
    Yes, exactly. Just like many states still have laws on the books banning abortion- but Roe V. Wade takes precedence. It doesn't matter what a state rules if the federal government rules otherwise.

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by Dashield28 View Post
    Yet Americans keep listening to those clowns on Fox News spew their bile lies instead of trying to get an unbiased view and educate themselves.
    You can find that unbiased view somewhere between Atlantis and that unicorn farm down the street, just off Interstate √(-1).
    Now, THIS thing? THIS thing is horrible. It's just awful. It was awful at 60 and it was awful at 58. It's awful at 45. If this dropped off a mob in Wailing Caverns when you were level 17 and being run through by a higher level character, you would equip it ONLY because you don't have trinkets at that level, and it would STILL SUCK.
    -Wowhead user on the Lion Horn of Stormwind, an epic from the era of so-called "EPIC" epics.

  16. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Roughly 25% of trials are funded via government and about 42-48% of R&D. Combine that with the patent protections Pharma gets and while most might not be correct the amount is substantial.
    Most drugs have 10 years remaining on their patent by the time they are deemed marketable, and that's with these companies committing to continue Phase-IV clinical trials (post-marketing surveillance on their drug, which could lead to damning evidence and make the FDA reverse the drug's marketability). Claiming that 25% of all clinical trials are funded by the government is an outrageous exaggeration; only the claim that 42-48% of R&D is paid for by the government is more outrageous. The government, if anything, is the reason why pharmaceutical companies have to spend as much as they do over such a long period of time, although it is for the protection of future patients on the drug.

    Patent protections are the only reason why any company would spend this time and effort on a drug. If they did not exist, it would not be a profitable business, period.

  17. #77
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Chonogo View Post
    That's the problem. You choose what to smoke, eat, or drink, and need medical care. If you decide not to buy insurance, who suffers? The rest of us, in increased costs. You don't live in a bubble. This obviously isn't the case for every argument, so it most definitely is a slippery slope argument.
    If you don't have any insurance and drink yourself to death, you suffer - the costs aren't socialized on the rest of society. This is where personal responsibility comes in.

  18. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by icedwarrior View Post
    You mean like Car Insurance? Sorry, I fail to see how this is any different than that. I'm not sold on this health care idea, but I think that it's a good idea in principle. Just the forcing of it is what I have issue with.
    see thats the slippery slope argument, I always get yelled at when I bring it up because people say that concept isn't real.
    So whats next them "in the name of protecting the population" should we have college fund insurance? Should we have rape insurance? Should we be forcing everyone to insure everything now?

    Its like the cigarette bans, the fast food bans, then its the soda bans, the sugar and sweet bans, the meat ban, the donut ban.

    be careful of what you think its ok for TODAY because you may not like what happens tomorrow.

  19. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by Gmollster11 View Post
    I would rather live in America than Germany. Anytime someone compares us to another country, and suggests the other country is better should get a free one-way ticket to live there. And no coming back.


    oh, as much fun as i had there, im not saying i'd want to live there. im just using it as an example that most other "modern" civilized nations/countries have figured out healthcare for the most part, and aren't out to screw people out of money like our system clearly does.


    i'll give another example: about 7-8 months ago i woke up with terrible stomach pains, and was having blood come out both ends.....pretty horrendous stuff, lol anywho, i go to the hospital (thankfully i had insurance at the time), they run a bunch of tests, stick me full of IV's, prescribe me some pills, and couldnt even tell me what was wrong with me in the end (im not even shitting you on this one, the doctor literally told my brother that went with me that i "drank too much and ate too many redvines", when i had A beer with dinner and couple redvines later as munchies), and that was their answer. although they couldnt tell me what was actually wrong with me, they could send my insurance company a bill for nearly 20,000 dollars (i was there a total of 3 hours, from entrance to emergency room to exit), how is this remotely legit? rofl


    im not 100% on universal healthcare being THE answer, i am 100% on the way our current health care system is being run is total shit and needs to be reformed from the inside out. forcing everyone to pay in our current setup of corruption and greed is not the answer, making sure everyone is covered with good and clear intentions, is the answer. like most have said, its a slippery sloap, not in terms of difficulty, but because our system is ran the way it is.
    Last edited by rigoremortis; 2011-11-08 at 10:04 PM.

  20. #80
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    If you're talking UHC, that's a different story. Though it has its disadvantages, I find it better than what we have now. And most Canadians will tell you that it's most certainly not free. You pay taxes and you pay for a "plan". (Would be nice for our Canuck friends to chime in on this)
    We don't really pay for a plan.

    In Ontario we have OHIP which is "free" (ie, paid for through taxes) and is available to any Ontario citizen. On top of that we also have private insurance companies to cover the shit that OHIP doesn't (prescriptions, non-necessary surgeries, etc.) which is typically provided through your employer.

    Not many people that I know of bother getting private health insurance if their employer does not provide though. (disclaimer: anecdotal, so I don't get yelled at later)

    Our fees come through taxation, some of which is from income tax and some of it is from the health tax imposed on alcohol and cigarettes.
    Last edited by Tyrianth; 2011-11-08 at 10:01 PM.
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