America the "exceptional" should provide free healthcare....

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Chaz

Trad climber

greater Boss Angeles area

Nov 18, 2013 - 12:14am PT

Primary care is cheap. I needed stitches in my hand earlier this year. I went to a walk-in clinic ( NOT the E.R. at the hospital. I wasn't dying ).

For four stitches, and the undivided attention of a doctor and his assistant, I was charged $110. But for the local painkiller and the stitches, the visit would have been a flat $75.

The Veteranarian charges more than that.

Chaz

Trad climber

greater Boss Angeles area

Nov 18, 2013 - 12:26am PT

How do you keep the hospital E.R.s from filling up with people whose only problem is their kids have colds? A mandatory insurance policy carrying a $12,500 deductable won't help that.

Curt

climber

Gold Canyon, AZ

Nov 18, 2013 - 12:50am PT

Re-read your Constitution, stupid! And this is why I reiterate this.

We have become victims of the Fed! They declare their authority. Nobody challenges them.

And they continue to expand their powers. Energy Dept, EPA, Education, et. al.

I may be stupid, but at least I understand that merely reading the words contained in the Constitution is insufficient. What is and isn't constitutional has been determined by thousands of court rulings and interpretations as to its proper meaning. That is precisely how our judicial system works. Only a buffoon (Scalia?) believes they can determine constitutionality from reading the original document only.

Curt

Chaz

Trad climber

greater Boss Angeles area

Nov 18, 2013 - 12:56am PT

I'd like to play cards sometime with you, Curt.

And we can have the rules of the game be as fluid as your idea of the Constitution.

That way, my pair of deuces would beat your full house - just to be fair. Only a buffoon would object to that!

Curt

climber

Gold Canyon, AZ

Nov 18, 2013 - 01:05am PT

I'd like to play cards sometime with you, Curt.

That doesn't surprise me. You seem to enjoy losing.

And we can have the rules of the game be as fluid as your idea of the Constitution.

Just to be clear, are you really saying that all of the Supreme Court rulings on constitutionality since the founding of our country are meaningless?

That way, my pair of deuces would beat your full house - just to be fair. Only a buffoon would object to that!

You better hope so, but as far as cogent argument goes, you're not even holding a pair.

Curt

pyro

Big Wall climber

Calabasas

Nov 18, 2013 - 01:15am PT

Dr f wrote

health care should not be profit driven

P.s. what bout AMGEN

pyro

Big Wall climber

Calabasas

Nov 18, 2013 - 01:43am PT

pyro

Big Wall climber

Calabasas

Nov 18, 2013 - 01:43am PT

pyro

Big Wall climber

Calabasas

Nov 18, 2013 - 01:44am PT

pyro

Big Wall climber

Calabasas

Nov 18, 2013 - 01:45am PT

Free health care lol

pyro

Big Wall climber

Calabasas

Nov 18, 2013 - 01:46am PT

pyro

Big Wall climber

Calabasas

Nov 18, 2013 - 01:48am PT

I've lost it supertopo drum circle has sucked me in cya

Degaine

climber

Nov 18, 2013 - 05:41am PT

bluering wrote (with regard to the US Constitution):

It's a perfect document. It's just unworthy of the filth today in Congress, and the streets. (and on the rocks)

Is that why it's been amended 27 times? The last amendment being ratified in 1992, and the first 10 amendments (Bill of rights) proposed just a few months after the Constitution was ratified.

Degaine

climber

Nov 18, 2013 - 05:50am PT

bluering wrote:

We have always cared for the suffering that we find.

Never call me incompassionate. And I give w/o regard or compensation.

I care, but expect people to help themselves too!

People help themselves in every first-world universal healthcare system (single payer or mixed) mentioned in this thread and the other threads on the same subject. They work and pay into the system, and then benefit from the system into which they pay.

What makes you think that the working poor aren't trying to help themselves? As I wrote in another thread, putting compassion or "doing the right thing" aside, some form universal healthcare system (single payer or mixed) makes economic and financial sense for the country. Other countries pay half to one-third the cost per capita for healthcare (France, Germany, Japan, and the list goes on) with far better overall outcomes than the US.

Do you care at all that the insurance companies and healthcare providers are bilking the American public? They have been for years to the tune of hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars.

The irony of your ranting is that you don't seem to mine sending other people of to foreign lands to fight for and defend this country for you as part of the cost of society, yet when others on this board think that healthcare should be also be a part of that cost you jump into self-righteous "I have the moral high-ground" insult mode. So, neverservednik, when are you going to sign up for military service?

Degaine

climber

Nov 18, 2013 - 05:58am PT

Chaz wrote:

For four stitches, and the undivided attention of a doctor and his assistant, I was charged $110. But for the local painkiller and the stitches, the visit would have been a flat $75.

A GP visit in France costs 25 euros. $75 may not seem much to you, but it's three times the cost of the equivalent visit elsewhere. A basic ultrasound is 6 times more expensive in the US than in France.

For whatever reason, you, bluering, and everyone else falsely claiming that a single payer system is the end of all days, fail to pay attention to the fact that insurance companies and providers in the US are bilking you. This fraud is even more appalling when you look at overall outcomes when compared to other countries.

Dropline

Mountain climber

Somewhere Up There

Nov 18, 2013 - 10:41am PT

Bluering, I think you said 85% of the people in this country are happy with their health insurance. We are not.

I'm one of those employers who has to make decisions every year about what health insurance we will offer employees and what percentage of the premium we will pay. Every year for the last 20 years or so our health insurance premiums have gone up well in excess of inflation. Some years it's been 20 plus percent. This year the increase is 9.31%.

I'm not saying the government would do a perfect job of providing health care, just that at least they wouldn't be trying to intentionally bleed us dry. Bleeding us dry is what I think the various "stakeholders" in health care are doing now. It's a parasitic relationship in which they will extract as much blood money from us as they possibly can without derailing the economy entirely and without stimulating so much political opposition that they are put out of business for good. But every year now they still suck a little more blood out of us.

I, and many others, will loudly cheer the day our current dysfunctional system of health care goes the way of the Dodo.

climbski2

Mountain climber

Anchorage AK, Reno NV

Nov 18, 2013 - 10:54am PT

I've always been the most motivated about things that do not pay money.

Yep, Probably why I'm not rich I guess.

climbski2

Mountain climber

Anchorage AK, Reno NV

Nov 18, 2013 - 11:30am PT

In my business experience self-made people are into making like I am into wasting it on climbing.

When no one is looking and there is time to spare... ? I go climbing.

The self-made go make some money THEN maybe go climbing.

You gotta love it. You gotta. Or you'll hate it.

DMT

That makes sense and for those who really love that game I say more power to them. If it it what gets them up in the morning and engaged in life.

Everyone has their thing. I do think it's ridiculous to be negative about those who love to make money. Same as I think it's as dumb for them to disparage those who dirtbag climb. Both choices are valid if done properly.

What is frustrating to me is this attitude that all government is bad and private enterprise is always a better answer to the ills of society.

These are ridiculous attitudes when taken to current extremes. While there is a solid grain of truth to it. That attitude has now become so entrenched as to be used as a scamming tool by those who do not have any public minded interest.

I really consider my self moderate to conservative in my approach to government. But I can certainly see that there are many places where government is the proper answer to various things a society requires.

I am at this point convinced that at the very least a taxpayer supported single payer system is a much better solution than our current system of providing healthcare.