Sick Medical Care

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Those 8e6 people would probably not have enough gas money to get to DC, nor buy weapons nor ammunition. But even if they did, how the heck would they compete with, say, the Air Force?

Ahhh...I'm back

Again...bravo to philosoperboi for donating such exciting material for discussion. There's nothing better than getting a group of people together, who are all stuck in their own views, to spout facts and opinions knowing full well no one is going to change the other's mind. That's just wicked grand fun.

Now, I admit I will not be changing my mind anytime soon but to be fair; I looked into the income and sales tax rates in the UK to get an honest view of the situation and be able to wrap my head around how it. Self-employment taxes are already high in the US, so I feel it would be also be fair for philosoperboi to try to wrap his head around it also. If my information is incorrect, someone from the UK please let me know. From my understanding, the average rates of income tax in the UK range from 20-40% depending on income and the average sales tax rate is 17.5%. I can honestly say, If my current taxable income and spendable income were taxed at these rates I would not be able to pay my bills. My current standard of living is not really that much above what is considered poverty in the US and these tax rates would crush my family financially.

Also in fairness, the US does pay for an average of 41% of all the overall healthcare expenses in our country. Granted, this is not the whopping 80-90% you see is countries with publich health care, but when it comes to our children, our elderly, our poor...yeah...we pay.

I agree from earlier in the thread that public healthcare cannot be compared to public fire protection. However, I do think it could be a fair comparison to look at our public school system. For such a wealthy country, many US citizens would openly admit that our public education system is sub-par. Our teachers are paid crap, and our children are illiterate and uneducated by world standards. This is the reason many US parents opt to spend the money for private schools, but thank goodness this is a free country where they have the choice to do so.

Many US citizens would also openly admit that our government has a tendency for corruption. So I guess my question for philosopherboi would be...Do you really want to put the decisions of your own healthcare into the hands of the US government? Do you really think they would do a good job? Do you truly believe they would make the system better?

I personally would rather fend for myself.

Edit: I don't want to sound too un-American by bashing our school system too harshly. Admittedly there are some fine schools in our country. I happen to live in a state where schools rank very low even by our own national standards. Teachers are also not paid well. This also happens to be a state which not only has a lottery but also a large tourist industry. Like I said, there is a lot of room for corruption in our local, state, and national government. I do not agree that tax funds would be necessarily handled properly in a public healthcare system.

Last edited by claire-333 on 17 Aug 2008, 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In Ireland we have public and private healthcare. Private is better but public is there for everyone who needs it. Our income taxes (PAYE) and sales taxes (VAT) are both high. We are however one of the wealthiest countries in the world. However our healthcare system does not reflect that. France has the best healthcare system in the world. The US is not in the top ten. I would not like to live in the US (healthcare, personal safety, employment laws) and I am very glad I live in "socialist" Europe where the government serves the people.

claire, im not going to let my healthcare fall into the US government for I AM MOVING WITHIN 5 YEARS TO THE EUROPEAN UNION...

ATTENTION BUSH AND THE REST OF THE UNITED STATES!! !! I HOPE YOU ARE READING THIS.... YOU... ARE... THE... WORST... GOVERNMENT... EVAR!! !! !! !! !!

Best wishes to you Strapples.

I would like to note that I have not voted in the poll attached to this thread. The wording of the poll would suggest that the current state of medical care in the US is an every man, woman, and child for themself system. This is not true. The poll would also suggest that because I do not personally believe public healthcare would be benificial in the US, then I therefore think everyone does not *deserve* healthcare. This is also not true.

Its actually hard to belive that the US dont have healthcare
for all, its such a basic thing.. And, we are talking about
USA, the worlds big brother and land of the free, the amount
of $ beeing spent on things is staggering in some cases,
but the healthcare just doesn`t seem to be important. Now i`m
on the outside looking into a foreign country, so what do i know,
but i do belive every american deserve and are entitled to much
better when it comes to healthcare.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/opinion/12sun1.html

Interesting article from the New York Times about the US health care system.

Free healthcare for everyone works fine in Norway. My guess is that it will work fine in on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean as well.

Well our public school system is much better than lets say what it was like 250 years ago. I would say that only 10% of the population got educated because there was no such thing as public schools. Now granted compared to other countries our our school systems are pathetic but that is because 1.) there is no universal curriculum 2.) we have yet to dump the cold war crap 3.) teachers are not taught how to teach few of them know how to explain what the text books are talking about. Fix these problems our school systems will be among the best.

The only way for universal health care or schools to work is if the federal government takes control allowing the state governments to take control has been a disaster so far.

Not really. It is not hard to believe given the US's historical distrust of the government, and healthcare is not a basic thing, it is a normal good, the demand for it increases with income as opposed to other provisions that are typically provided by governments, which usually are done on a different basis.

You mean the military? Yes, but it is not surprising for the former Cold War power to spend that much on the military, for a number of decades we have been trying to outspend the Soviets on our military, it is hard to change something like that.

Healthcare does not fit as much within the American value schema for these things as other things do. Americans do deserve better when it comes to health care though, I think that those concerned about health care both on the side of market and on governmental provision both believe that the current system could be made better.

I'd say that the best reform to the public school system is to get rid of it. Privatize our schools, and let people pick the education that will work best for their kids. I don't think we need a universal curriculum at all, and oppose such a measure as a means of indoctrination, I think that a private system will dump the cold war crap, and I think that teachers will teach better if they are teaching for the purposes of pleasing what parents and authorities desire rather than for a government more insensitive to these demands.

I'd argue that the way for these things to work best is if we try to have all governments take less control. I mean, yes, state governments have mismanaged healthcare as well, as I think that one economist article argued that the annual losses from state mismanagement was in the hundred billions every year.

It was interesting, I did not like the uncritical acceptance of the 45 million uninsured figures, as I think that these figures are used too uncritically given that large portions of this population should be able to afford insurance but opts not to pay for it. This is noted in another New York times article by economist Greg Mankiw:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/busin ... ref=slogin

Also, the notion of inequality of healthcare, while it is used by the WHO, arguably should not be a major issue as noted by another thing written by Greg Mankiw:

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/02/ ... -care.html

Health care, being a normal good, will be consumed more the more a person has income. If we seek equality, then we will do so at the cost of efficiency, and effectively freedom as well.

Health care is not a commodity to be bought and sold. Everyone should be guaranteed health care. This is enshrined in the UN declaration of human rights which I believe the US has signed.




The US alone out of all the developed nations does not have a national healthcare service.

Are all the other countries with successful economies wrong?

Uhm, the US does not have a successful economy... it is failing right now.

Ok fine what about people below the poverty line??? How are they supposed to put their kids through school you know we privatized college and look how many people go into debt over that some can't even afford to go.

Also if we clean the government up, and get spending straightened out the government would have a surplus of money if about five years or so (thanks Congress for getting us into debt with Iraq). Congress spends billions and billions on crap we don't need like that road to no where I was talking about fix the government which is pretty easy to do and taxes can either stay the same or be lowered.