- #151
Nebula815
- 18
- 2
I do not understand those who say to those of us who oppose this bill, "Why are you against helping people? Why are you against health reform?"
That, IMO, would be like saying to an Iraq War protestor, back when the invasion was occurring, "Why are you against helping those people? Why are you against keeping America safe?"
Obviously, their answer would be, "We are NOT against helping the people or against keeping America safe, but there are huge COSTS involved in invading a country like this, the administration we do not think has thought through properly what they are doing, and we think there are far more effective ways to keep America safe."
Well it is the same regarding this healthcare bill.
People opposed to it are not against healthcare reform. And we are not against helping people. But again, there's that bit about costs, and also much better alternatives to fix the system
Those of you who like to point out the foreign systems, well a couple of things:
It is of course debatable whether or not the foreign systems actually provide better-quality healthcare or not than you can get in America, but let's pretend they do.
Okay fine. But there's one big problem: Everytime we in America then try to copy these Euro-systems, we have an EPIC fail as the youth like to term it. Seriously.
Medicaid - bankrupt
Medicare - bankrupt
Social Security - headed to bankruptcy as this recession blew a hole into the projections (and when it had a surplus, the government robbed it)
Even non-healthcare government programs, like Postal Service - bankrupt
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - bankrupt (and almost brought down the global financial system in the process)
Massachussettes universal healthcare system - bankrupting the state and premiums there higher than in any other state.
http://www.boston.com/news/health/a...health_insurance_premiums_highest_in_country/
Tennessee also had to kick a good deal of people off its experiment with expanded government healthcare because the costs ballooned out of control and almost bankrupted the state:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125046457087135327.html
And of course, within California they wanted to enact a universal care program, except it was determined it would flat-out destroy the state financially, so it was voted down.
So what the above show is that for whatever reason, assuming (and there is a big assumption there as some of the Euro states are heading towards bankruptcy it seems) the Euro "universal" healthcare systems work out financially, we Americans seem to have an inability to design a functioning, cost-effective universal healthcare system. So even if we want such a system, we don't try creating one nationally until we are sure we can do it.
Now in this great United States, we have a major benefit over other, smaller nations, in that we have fifty policy laboratories in our states. Each state is a microcosm of the nation, with its own legislative, executive, judicial, economy, tax systems, laws, Constitution, etc...so we have the benefit of being able to try stuff on the state level and if it works out, great. We can then try it on the national level.
If it fails on the state level, then we know not to try it out on the national level. Massachusettes's program was meant to be a model for other states to copy, and possibly for a national program. It is obviously an "epic fail" financially.
The UTTER INSANITY of this current bill is it flies in the face of all the above evidence (Massachusettes, Tennessee, Medicare, Medicaid, California, etc...) with the idea that, "Oh, don't worry, those are states, we can pull this off on the national level, because we're the Federal Government and we know best."
The other big thing is that, while the Democrats want to copy the British single-payer heathcare system, they ignore that the British system has heavy regulations regarding junk lawsuits. That would mean some heavy tort reform in America, which the Democrats will NEVER do because it would mean going against one of their primary constituents, the trial lawyers.
So in other words, they want to implement the British system without the British cost controls.
And then of course is the aircraft analogy I used before. This is a 2,000+ page bill. History shows government programs, and in particular government healthcare programs, do not work out the way they are intended.
And this bill is like the policy equivalent of engineering a brand-new jetliner, and without building a prototype and testing it extensively, they just decide to go by the skill of the engineers and let's say an engineering CBO equivalent that says it will ("should") fly, and then put it into production.
Obviously such a way of building an aircraft would be insane. It has a million different parts. You can have the most brilliant engineers in the world and the best equipment, but you still won't know exactly how the plane will work until you actually build a version of the thing and put it into the air.
YET, we are doing the policy equivalent of exactly this. We are like a company with a history of engineering smaller planes that just cannot fly well, and eventually even crash, so now we have just gone and engineered a full-on jetliner, and without bothering to test it at all, just put it right into production.
The Democrats tout the CBO numbers, saying it will "reduce the deficit," yeah right, I'll believe that when I see it. History, both of healthcare programs from the government, and of government programs overall, says otherwise. Plus the CBO had to rely on a number of tricks and assumptions in its calculations.
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