Health Care for Everyone

[Duke]

So you think we should elevate the most intelligent, strongest individual in the world to be the most valued and deserving.

👍 👍 👍
Do we give Olympic medals for the worst athletes? Does the slowest race driver take home the checkered flag? Do you get As for failing your tests?

Take a step back and actually read what you just wrote. The implied sarcasm is literally horrifying to me.

Straight from the mouth of Heinlein. I love to read.

So do I. Actually I discovered Heinlein a couple years after I formulated my basic principles, but he's got a lot of it right. I'd move into Luna City tomorrow if I thought I'd have a decent job there.

And is there something wrong with having influences? That's another bit of implied sarcasm. I'd like to see you pretend that you don't have any influences.

[edit]

Ironic isn't it? But I expect that kind of behavior from liberals. Save the serial killer, but stop life from happening altogether.

Liberals? If you mean 'classical Liberals', you're right in your assessment of me but wrong in your understanding of what that means. And if you mean 'modern Liberals', vice versa. Either way, you're wrong.

Besides, show me where Dan and I disapproved of the death penalty or strict law enforcement... oh, that's right, you can't, though you keep acting like you can.

Your arguments are getting hysterical again. Watch it before I start calling you 'fascist' some more.

 

[Ev0]

👍 👍 👍
Do we give Olympic medals for the worst athletes? Does the slowest race driver take home the checkered flag? Do you get As for failing your tests?

You're not getting what we're trying to say. We are not trying to reward the poor. We are simply trying to lend them a helping hand by guaranteeing the basics of life so they don't have to worry about not starving to death, or dying simply because they couldn't afford a medical bill.

 

[MrktMkr1986]

👍 👍 👍
Do we give Olympic medals for the worst athletes? Does the slowest race driver take home the checkered flag? Do you get As for failing your tests?

Take a step back and actually read what you just wrote. The implied sarcasm is literally horrifying to me.

Ev0 said what I was going to say.

So do I. Actually I discovered Heinlein a couple years after I formulated my basic principles, but he's got a lot of it right. I'd move into Luna City tomorrow if I thought I'd have a decent job there.

Interesting...

And is there something wrong with having influences?

No, nothing wrong with influences. It's just that as I was reading the quote, that's the first person that came to mind.

That's another bit of implied sarcasm. I'd like to see you pretend that you don't have any influences.

No, I can't pretend not to have any influences. (double negative )

Besides, show me where Dan and I disapproved of the death penalty or strict law enforcement... oh, that's right, you can't, though you keep acting like you can.

That was a general comment -- not in reference to you or Dan.

Your arguments are getting hysterical again.

Unfortunately...

 

[Duke]

You're not getting what we're trying to say. We are not trying to reward the poor.

It may not be your intent, but it is your effect. You are rewarding need and inability while punishing production and ability.

No, nothing wrong with influences. It's just that as I was reading the quote, that's the first person that came to mind.

I'm proud to hear you say that, actually. I have very deep respect for the man. That's not to say I approve of every word he's ever written and every facet of his personal life.

No, I can't pretend not to have any influences. (double negative )

OK, it seemed that you were implying I was parroting Heinlein. Overreaction on my part, I suppose.

If you get a chance, I'd appreciate it if you can address this comment I made above:

Take a step back and actually read what you just wrote. The implied sarcasm is literally horrifying to me.

 

[MrktMkr1986]

It may not be your intent, but it is your effect. You are rewarding need and inability while punishing production and ability.

Aid is different than reward.

I'm proud to hear you say that, actually. I have very deep respect for the man. That's not to say I approve of every word he's ever written and every facet of his personal life.

That's cool.

OK, it seemed that you were implying I was parroting Heinlein. Overreaction on my part, I suppose.

No, that wasn't my intent. It's just that when you quoted that part, that was seriously the first person that came to mind.

Take a step back and actually read what you just wrote. The implied sarcasm is literally horrifying to me.

To me, that sounds as if the elite few should be worshipped while the "subhuman" masses are ignored; and while the successful enjoy an opulent lifestyle, the "failures" can be seen crowding out most jails or sleeping under cardboard boxes.

That's what I saw after reading this:

So you think we should elevate the most intelligent, strongest individual in the world to be the most valued and deserving.

That's not to say that intelligent strong people shouldn't be valued or deserving -- they should! However, to flat out ignore people less fortunate (the people who really need the attention/help) sounds cruel to me.

I'm still trying to find that "middle ground".

 

[Danoff]

That's not to say that intelligent strong people shouldn't be valued or deserving -- they should! However, to flat out ignore people less fortunate (the people who really need the attention/help) sounds cruel to me.

Who's ignorning them? I'm simply talking about not forcing everyone to recognize them. Plenty of people like yourself can recognize them.

Again, feel free to donate to charity. Those who feel for the "less fortunate" are not being prevented from helping them - but they should be prevented for forcing others to help them.

Again, what if I don't want my money to go to a satan worshipper, or a homosexual, or a white person, or a heterosexual, or a racist... tough luck I just have to because you don't want them to have to take responsibility for their lives??? If you don't want them to have to take responsibility - FEEL FREE TO HELP THEM OUT, BUT STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY WALLET! I'LL HELP WHOEVER I FEEL LIKE!

Get it?

I understand that you feel for these people, but that doesn't give you the right to take other people's possessions.

 

[Ev0]

I have no idea what you guys are thinking of when you refer to "other people's possesions", but you're treating a tax increase to fund a healthcare system as if someone is robbing you of a deeply valued possesion. Unless you are thinking of something else and this is all some sort of misunderstanding...

 

[Famine]

Okay, say you go to work and earn... £1500 gross per month. That's about $2700. You're looking at about $600 of that being taken from you every month, simply because you get off your arse in the morning and go to work.

Now, I don't know about you, but $600 is a pretty valuable possession to me. I could use it to pay my mortgage off 50% quicker, for a start.

And that money which is being taken from you is being used to subsidise other people - it's going to people who can't be bothered to work, or used to fund someone else's healthcare, or used to buy biscuits down at the local fire house, or myriad other things.

If every single one of those things is fine by you, then that's fine. You're happy. But what on Earth makes you think that every single thing you're happy for your income tax to pay is okay by everyone else too?

I don't know about you, but I'm not ill very often. I've taken out of the UK's public healthcare system about £1,000 in my life. I've contributed about ten times that to our Exchequer, and the Health Service is one of the primary recipients on income tax money. I'm subsidising other people's health expenses. And I have no choice in this.


The car analogy is apt. I don't have many accidents. On the same basis, if "car health" were paid through income tax, I'd be a net subsidiser. Imagine that. Horrifying, isn't it? But it isn't. "Car Health" is paid by taking out insurance - which isn't voluntary, but then owning a car IS voluntary. You opt to have a car, you opt which type and you pay insurance accordingly. Where health insurance is concerned, you are your own risk assessor - you can pick what level of cover you want for yourself/your family or even opt for none at all. But you have the option. With taxation you don't - and there's little to no accountability. Do you know exactly where every penny forcibly removed from your hard-earned salary went? Would you like it if you did?



What justification can there be for taking money - effectively by force - from people (and, like it or not, that's how everything is measured - monetarily) to give to other people?

 

[Ev0]

You know what you're losing in this deal? Money. And where does the extra money you spend on healthcare go? To helping people have their illnesses treated. It brings comfort to people, since they know they don't have to worry about the financial nightmare that various health complications bring around. It also brings comfort to the friends and family of the ill, since they know their loved one will be looked after.

Or you could always keep your money to yourself, and spend it on things that in reality, you likely don't need.

 

[Famine]

Or you could donate it voluntarily to causes you believe in, rather than have it extracted forcibly and given to causes you don't.

Personally I care enough about my family to have my own private health insurance on top of the tax taken off me to pay for everyone else's health. Am I to pay for people who don't care enough about their family to do the same, or lack any form of foresight?

As I said before, what justification can there be for taking money - effectively by force - from people (and, like it or not, that's how everything is measured - monetarily) to give to other people.


I've just calculated, for fun, that I work two and a half days a month just to give it to the NHS.

 

[Ev0]

So, 8% of your month is spent providing healthcare for other people? That's hardly the ordeal you make it out to be. Still don't like it? Then take action! Make your view clear, that you feel healthcare should be strictly privatized. Join a group that expresses this belief, and is trying to create reform in this direction. Otherwise just suck it up; life is full of little bumps in the road, so it's best just to put up with them instead of whine and complain about every little thing.

 

[MrktMkr1986]

People don't know how good they have it until they lose it.

 

[Swift]

Or you could donate it voluntarily to causes you believe in, rather than have it extracted forcibly and given to causes you don't.

Personally I care enough about my family to have my own private health insurance on top of the tax taken off me to pay for everyone else's health. Am I to pay for people who don't care enough about their family to do the same, or lack any form of foresight?

As I said before, what justification can there be for taking money - effectively by force - from people (and, like it or not, that's how everything is measured - monetarily) to give to other people.


I've just calculated, for fun, that I work two and a half days a month just to give it to the NHS.

Just because the system is being misused doesn't mean that you shouldn't help your fellow countrymen. I for one don't want people, especailly those that were simply laid off and things like that, starve and die.

 

[Famine]

So, 8% of your month is spent providing healthcare for other people? That's hardly the ordeal you make it out to be. Still don't like it? Then take action! Make your view clear, that you feel healthcare should be strictly privatized. Join a group that expresses this belief, and is trying to create reform in this direction. Otherwise just suck it up; life is full of little bumps in the road, so it's best just to put up with them instead of whine and complain about every little thing.

Yep. Hey everyone, if you don't like the fact that 8% of your LIFE (that's nearly 6 and a quarter years - or let's be kind and say 3.8 years of your working life) will be spent working for something you have absolutely no choice in, screw you!

Great message. Nice.

Did I mention that only £1 in every £4 actually goes towards patient care?

Just because the system is being misused doesn't mean that you shouldn't help your fellow countrymen. I for one don't want people, especailly those that were simply laid off and things like that, starve and die.

Absolutely. If I were a good person and had a choice, I'd choose to contribute to more cost-effective charities. But I don't have the choice. It is made for me and my money goes into a vastly inefficient government-sponsored healthcare system which is woefully inadequate.

If you don't want people to starve and die, buy them food and medicine. If you aren't particularly bothered either way, let them steal 8% of your life and waste it. But what gives anyone the right to make that decision for anyone else?

 

[Jmac279]

If it weren't for "free" health care in Canada, I'd either be dead or my family would be bankrupt ... I'm very grateful that I don't live in a country like the US where I or my family would be completely ****ed because I developed a life-long disease with no known cause and no known cure ...

 

[Famine]

If it weren't for "free" health care in Canada - and the UK - you'd have a more efficient health service capable of providing better care and better-funded research which may have found a cure by now, rather than a minimally-funded (because that's the limit that governments think they can screw out of taxpayers) health service where three times as much is spent on "management" positions as on patient treatment and care.

What disease (I'm a molecular geneticist)?

 

[Arwin]

Yep. Hey everyone, if you don't like the fact that 8% of your LIFE (that's nearly 6 and a quarter years - or let's be kind and say 3.8 years of your working life) will be spent working for something you have absolutely no choice in, screw you!

Great message. Nice.

Did I mention that only £1 in every £4 actually goes towards patient care?

Hmm. The only way in which I can see that your claim about absolutely no choice is right, is in the sense that the political system in the U.K. is about as worthless as that of the U.S., in the sense that it could never happen that a party which makes NHS reform it's primary goal could actually get a decent number of seats in one of the Houses. Over here, that is possible, and you can be sure that this helps *a lot*. There's no need to wait for a certain problem to escalate to national catastrophy proportions before one of the two parties realises it is something they might be able to win an election over.

Secondly, you complain about the failure of the NHS, but you completely fail to see that the system in the U.S. you are defending right now, is the most expensive by far, and healthcare costs are well over twice the costs per capita of the U.K. The U.K. actually spends less than the E.U. average on healthcare per capita. (Some cites in this article, which compares Scotland and England's NHS, and has looked at data from several other countries in comparison: http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cs35.pdf)

Particularly interesting is the table which shows the costs, and the concerns; check the table on page 7.

If you don't want people to starve and die, buy them food and medicine. If you aren't particularly bothered either way, let them steal 8% of your life and waste it. But what gives anyone the right to make that decision for anyone else?[/color][/b]

What a silly question. The same holds for national defense, or law enforcement.
With a political system like in the U.K., I can understand it feels like you don't have a choice. But if you put your scientist's hat back on, and actually study the data, you'll see that the principle of national healthcare is not a bad one, compared to the alternatives. Not bad does not mean impossible to improve, but right now, the best performing systems are the national ones.

Evolution has taught us that working together and functioning as a society gives us benefits. It's ok to question these values, sure, because situations change and some paths evolution takes lead to a dead end, where a better alternative is available. But when you consider such issues, please leave your brain switched on and be a little bit scientific about it. Especially you, Famine, should know better.

@Duke: someone who in fact is unfortunate enough to be involved in more car-crashes can't be blamed. That's what you generally take out insurance for - to compensate for the wheel of fortune. When someone actually causes these car-crashes him or herself, that's a different matter. These people generally get higher montly insurance costs.

And yes, Duke, you were right about my opinion on danoff's 'intelligent response'.

 

[Arwin]

If it weren't for "free" health care in Canada - and the UK - you'd have a more efficient health service capable of providing better care and better-funded research

Oh? I thought that a lot of big companies actually live off government (i.e. tax) and charity funded research and turn that into medical applications that they can make money of. Guess I'm frightfully naive that way. And anyway, if you would spend as much on healthcare as the U.S. (1763 USD vs 4358 USD), you'd be able to do a lot more research.

 

[Famine]

@Duke: someone who in fact is unfortunate enough to be involved in more car-crashes can't be blamed. That's what you generally take out insurance for - to compensate for the wheel of fortune. When someone actually causes these car-crashes him or herself, that's a different matter. These people generally get higher montly insurance costs.

Someone who in fact is unfortunate enough to be involved in more illnesses can't be blamed. That's what you generally take out insurance for - to compensate for the wheel of fortune. When someone actually causes these illnesses him or herself, that's a different matter. These people generally get higher monthly insurance costs.

Secondly, you complain about the failure of the NHS, but you completely fail to see that the system in the U.S. you are defending right now, is the most expensive by far, and healthcare costs are well over twice the costs per capita of the U.K. The U.K. actually spends less than the E.U. average on healthcare per capita.

I'm sorry? Was that not actually my point?

Tax-funded healthcare is underfunded (governments don't want to push it by taxing us too much) and highly wasteful. So I'm being stolen from to provide dreadful healthcare to people. And giving volutarily instead is morally wrong because?

 

[Arwin]

Someone who in fact is unfortunate enough to be involved in more illnesses can't be blamed. That's what you generally take out insurance for - to compensate for the wheel of fortune. When someone actually causes these illnesses him or herself, that's a different matter. These people generally get higher monthly insurance costs.

Yes, and there's nothing wrong with that. But that has nothing to do with the choice between national or private, Famine.

I'm sorry? Was that not actually my point?

Tax-funded healthcare is underfunded (governments don't want to push it by taxing us too much) and highly wasteful. So I'm being stolen from to provide dreadful healthcare to people. And giving volutarily instead is morally wrong because?

It's not wrong. With a national service in place, you can still buy additional private insurance. But the costs you save (when you do it properly) on covering the basics nationally, as well as preventing the atrocities where you're not insured when you happen to lose your job (you know from experience this happens sometimes) or your job doesn't pay enough to cover insurance, or your company is too small to get a good deal with an insurance company, those benefits are by and far large enough to make the benefit of a national system outweigh some of the downsides. Of course, you still have to work hard to manage the costs, and to think about what you want to cover nationally, and what you want to leave up to individual choice. But there is a middle-ground that actually works, as several countries show.

 

[Famine]

My own private health insurance costs as much per year as my tax contributions to the NHS does in two months and guarantees me same-week consultations, same-month operations and cover up to £200,000 of treatment (or ten courses of chemotherapy, which is impossible to endure in one year) per year.

My tax contributions to the NHS guarantee me a consultation within SIX months and then I'm shunted to an operation waiting list which, depending on the complexity of the operation may mean I'm waiting 3-18 months - IF the operation isn't cancelled at the last minute. That's NINE months minimum from having a heart attack to having the required curative surgery. And let's not even begin to mention the food. Wow.


I earn below the UK's national wage average. I have ample cover. Without the costly NHS "contributions" stolen from my salary every month I'd have cover for nearly every eventuality - if not EVERY eventuality - and have a better standard of living (meaning I'd be marginally less likely to need medical intervention to stay alive).


I do have to wonder why it is that NHS hospitals - which, remember, receive 6 times as much money a year from me compared to the private ones - are so much poorer staffed, so much poorer in the catering area and so much more likely to give a patient a disease they didn't have when they went in than the private hospitals which get so much less contributions from so much less of the populace.

 

[Arwin]

My own private health insurance costs as much per year as my tax contributions to the NHS does in two months and guarantees me same-week consultations, same-month operations and cover up to £200,000 of treatment (or ten courses of chemotherapy, which is impossible to endure in one year) per year.

That's only possible because a national system is already in place, covering the economically uninteresting and risky.

My tax contributions to the NHS guarantee me a consultation within SIX months and then I'm shunted to an operation waiting list which, depending on the complexity of the operation may mean I'm waiting 3-18 months - IF the operation isn't cancelled at the last minute. That's NINE months minimum from having a heart attack to having the required curative surgery. And let's not even begin to mention the food. Wow.

Apparently, food is universal problem for hospitals, regardless of how they are funded. But other than that, you can blame the failings of the NHS without blaming the principle of UHC altogether. Also:

http://www.cmwf.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=245178

I earn below the UK's national wage average. I have ample cover. Without the costly NHS "contributions" stolen from my salary every month I'd have cover for nearly every eventuality - if not EVERY eventuality - and have a better standard of living (meaning I'd be marginally less likely to need medical intervention to stay alive).

No, because costs would go up if all people would have insurance that way, rather than the clever, relatively well-off who take out private ensurances in your country now. Additionally, administrative costs alone, for instance filling out all the forms when you change employer and such, would inflate the costs with as much as 20%. Again, the U.S. shows ample evidence of how this doesn't add up to what you claim it does.

I do have to wonder why it is that NHS hospitals - which, remember, receive 6 times as much money a year from me compared to the private ones - are so much poorer staffed, so much poorer in the catering area and so much more likely to give a patient a disease they didn't have when they went in than the private hospitals which get so much less contributions from so much less of the populace.

Again, because they have to take care of a lot more than just the clever healthy people who take the private insurance. They cannot deny someone on previous conditions (something only outlawed in the U.S., where, after all, you don't have a choice, in 1997).

But obviously that's not all; the NHS has some clear flaws. It's just that privatisation isn't likely to do you nearly as much good as you claim. You see the NHS, see faults, and so the system must be bad and another system must be found. I however suggest that socialised insurance is more the way to go than privatised insurance.

 

[Ev0]

Yep. Hey everyone, if you don't like the fact that 8% of your LIFE (that's nearly 6 and a quarter years - or let's be kind and say 3.8 years of your working life) will be spent working for something you have absolutely no choice in, screw you!

Great message. Nice.

You do have a say. Last time I checked the UK chose it's leaders (and it's policies as a result) based on a democratic election process. As I stated before, if you feel this strongly about it, speak out or shut up.

Absolutely. If I were a good person and had a choice, I'd choose to contribute to more cost-effective charities. But I don't have the choice. It is made for me and my money goes into a vastly inefficient government-sponsored healthcare system which is woefully inadequate.

But you have to realize making people part with money is a very difficult task (something which this thread shows very well if you read it one way). If eliminating a health tax and instead hoping individuals contributed to charities voluntarily worked, then the US should have a very cost effective healthcare system. But as the statistics show, it clearly doesn't.

I do have to wonder why it is that NHS hospitals - which, remember, receive 6 times as much money a year from me compared to the private ones - are so much poorer staffed, so much poorer in the catering area and so much more likely to give a patient a disease they didn't have when they went in than the private hospitals which get so much less contributions from so much less of the populace.

We have the same issue in Canada, except there are no private hospitals here. But this is mostly the fault of the Canadian people. Ask any Canadian citizen if they value their healthcare system, and you're almost certain to get an affirmative answer. Yet, our voting trends indicate that we vote for parties that encourage tax cuts and that also encourage the privatization of healthcare. Now, after years of neglect (at least here in Ontario; it's supposed to get worse in other provinces) our healthcare system is in dire need of repair, because of a lack of funding, perpetuated by tax cuts.

 

[Famine]

You do have a say. Last time I checked the UK chose it's leaders (and it's policies as a result) based on a democratic election process. As I stated before, if you feel this strongly about it, speak out or shut up.

Yes, we do. On a totally democratic process whereby if each of the major parties got a 33% share by population, Labour would win a third term with a 65 MP majority.

I've never voted Labour. I always vote.

Additionally, administrative costs alone, for instance filling out all the forms when you change employer and such, would inflate the costs with as much as 20%.

20% is not 600%, to bring it to the levels we are forced to pay for poorer care.

Besides, my private health insurance is my private health insurance. What does it have to do with changing my employer?

 

[Arwin]

Yes, we do. On a totally democratic process whereby if each of the major parties got a 33% share by population, Labour would win a third term with a 65 MP majority.

I've never voted Labour. I always vote.

You should've read my post more carefully, Ev0. Like the U.S., the U.K. doesn't yet know what a parliamentary democracy with coalition government is.

20% is not 600%, to bring it to the levels we are forced to pay for poorer care.

Listen, you pay on average 1700 USD for what the US citizen pays 4300 USD. I'm willing to bet that your additional insurance doesn't bridge that 2600 USD right now, where the 4300 a US citizen pays hardly gives better overal coverage than even the NHS, which isn't the brightest of UHC systems out there. It still sounds to me like you're dissatisfied with the NHS, without understanding the alternatives fully, or even being fully aware of all of them.

Besides, my private health insurance is my private health insurance. What does it have to do with changing my employer?

I'm quite confident that a U.S. resident on this board can answer that question quite clearly.

 

[Famine]

And why would they need to?

I have PRIVATE health insurance, which I pay for, voluntarily, out of my after-tax wages. I am not covered by a CORPORATE health insurance scheme which I would pay for out of my wages before tax. If I change my employer it does not affect my PRIVATE health insurance.

So changing my employer has what to do with my health insurance now?

you pay on average 1700 USD for what the US citizen pays 4300 USD. I'm willing to bet that your additional insurance doesn't bridge that 2600 USD right now, where the 4300 a US citizen pays hardly gives better overal coverage than even the NHS

So... what's your point?

I need to pay $2,600 more to be like the US, but I don't need to because the US is rubbish?

Would it not, in fact, make more sense to stop wasting so much of the apparent $1,700 the average British person pays (and frankly that's a load of testes - I pay about £4,500 in taxes a year on an under-average wage and roughly one third of that is funnelled into the NHS - about £1,500 or $2,790. On an under-average wage) and have it spent more wisely? At all?

But then again if I don't think it's being spent wisely - and I don't - I have absolutely no choice in the matter because the money is stolen from me at source with absolutely no accountability whatsoever. Compare this to my choice of medical coverage, which I can move or withdraw at my leisure if, at any point, I believe the end-product is unsatisfactory. Which, of course, is the point.

 

[Arwin]

And why would they need to?
So... what's your point?

That

a) You still don't have a clue about private insurance when it would have been the only thing available. For instance, you'll only be able to get half-decent coverage through your work, the smaller the company you work for the lousier your coverage - unless you work for Wallmart that is - and private insurance will suddenly be unaffordable, never mind hospital costs for those who aren't insured at all, like those who don't have a job.

b) you need to look into socialised insurance as a valid alternative to both the NHS and private insurance, and

c) you need to do something about that stupid electorate system of yours, but you knew that.

 

[Danoff]

Look. I don’t see what difference it makes how much one person pays for their private health insurance and how people would guess where that price would go if there were no government run health insurance.

The bottom line is this. I earn my money. You have no right to my money. I don’t care if everyone but me votes to make a law that says Daniel’s money has to go to everyone else – that doesn’t mean you’re not violating my rights. I don’t care if you have a parliamentary system, or a democracy or a dictatorship – my property is owned by ME . I produced the money I make, and I own it.

Vote all you want, but you have no right to my property – and I will choose who I want to support with my money and who I do not.

Anything else is theft. Arwin, what do you say to this? How can you confront this reasoning?

The only things taxes should be used for are things that the market can’t provide -things like military (and military research), police and emergency services. Health care is much more efficiently provided by the free market (government never reduces total cost). Without police and a military and prisons and courts, we would have no civilization - but without health care we would have a civilization (albeit the average life span would be like 35 years or so).

Again, what gives anyone the right to my money? It’s not charity if they have a right to it.

 

[Famine]

a) You still don't have a clue about private insurance when it would have been the only thing available. For instance, you'll only be able to get half-decent coverage through your work, the smaller the company you work for the lousier your coverage - unless you work for Wallmart that is - and private insurance will suddenly be unaffordable, never mind hospital costs for those who aren't insured at all, like those who don't have a job.

I'm not talking about "would have been". I'm talking about WILL be.

I am fully aware of the systems in place elsewhere. However here and now we have both systems, and the one funded by legalised theft is the poorer relative, despite receiving more money.

 

[Arwin]

I'm not talking about "would have been". I'm talking about WILL be.

I am fully aware of the systems in place elsewhere. However here and now we have both systems, and the one funded by legalised theft is the poorer relative, despite receiving more money.

Yeah, but that can only be because you have both systems, so that's a very moot point.