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Originally Posted by froopy seal
Just some quick notes before I fall asleep: How do they get it "for free"? Don't those who "can afford health care" automatically support the system with their financial contributions? Over here in the old world, you're charged a fixed ratio of your income, i. e., if you earn more you pay more. (Sorry, I have no idea how the proposed US system of health care will be paid for.)
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currently we have a progressive income tax, so, yes, that is how it will work. but taxes are high enough over here. even if you make less than $10,000 a year, you still have to pay a 6% payroll tax to cover medicare and medicaid. imagine what that would turn into with a national healthcare system. about 50% of the budget is already allotted to entitlement spending, which isn't even called for in the constitution— the government is terribly in debt. i don't think we can even support that kind of system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by froopy seal
What about the people that have up to now been neglected, i. e., those poor bastards who can't afford medical assistance? There are sectors of the economy which even a capitalist SOCIAL market has to have available for everyone. Access to water, electricity, waste disposal are generally considered such services; shortly, broadband Internet access will be, too.
Your "argument" that "it's communism" sounds old-fashioned and dogmatic. Even if it were a communist system - which it isn't -, why would that automatically render the idea bad?
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it doesn't work exactly like that in the US. we have medicaid for lower income people, you can apply for it and it's free. the problem is in the middle class— there's a gap in the middle class where people don't make enough to afford healthcare but they also don't make little enough to apply for medicaid. there have been some steps to solve this problem such as s-chip, which fills the gap in health care for kids under the age of 18.
these aren't poor people, mind you— they just can't find a place in their budget to pay for health care, whose price has skyrocketed (i'm one of those people, i'd like to disclose). having government pay for everyone's health care isn't *solving* the problem, it's just throwing money at it. the price of health care has gone up extremely high, not because of the insurance companies, but because of the medical industry itself. we have life-saving medicines that are patented and the patents last 20 years (they used to last 16). during this time period, drug companies do all they can to make sure everyone is using their new drug, with marketing to physicians, patients and hospitals, and they drive the price up to outrageous amounts of $30-100 for just one pill. in addition, hospitals are an extremely lucrative business and charge hundreds of dollars for something as basic as an MRI, when MRIs in japan cost something like $90. the US government is being lobbyed by the medical companies to keep tariffs in place and restrict free trade between countries for medical equipment and medicine, to support the US industries. unfortunately, this drives medical prices through the roof— in a similar example, MRI machines in japan are extremely cheap in comparison to the GE ones here— but hospitals don't buy from japan because of what i mentioned above.
having the government pay for your health care and support all this nonsense is not solving the problem, it's perpetuating it.