Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

Check out this interview. If you're a liberal, this probably isn't a shock. Conservative? This might be hard to swallow.

Geoff said about 23 hours later

good interview.
GJ said 1 day later

That's all Ron Paul Jr. has to say about it??
Geoff said 1 day later

I'd like to see some statistics of how effective Canada and UK's government health care is really like, and how well that would transfer to our country...seeing how we are much much larger, and probably less heatlhy (that's just a guess by the way). I found it quite surprising to hear that Medicare is MORE efficient than private insurance. Last time I dealt with them it was a joke. Applying for it was like a crash course in Nuclear physics, and then telling those folks we no longer needed their services was less enjoyable than pulling teeth from a walrus. There is no doubt that our current system is terrible. I'm not sure our current government as it exists today is willing and able to handle such a government program cost effectively.

I think having equal insurance coverage for everyone is a great thing, we simply can't afford it unless we put some numerical value on life. Good luck getting that passed through congress. I'm sure what we'll see is just an expanded Medicare program at this point. I don't see much progress at this stage, especially with the economy in the crapper. We probably wont see any significant legislature for a few more years.
GJ said 1 day later

Numerical value on life--interesting point. I've brought that up before. Doing that IS required to do the whole health care thing, and the conservatives will go bananas. The alternative, of course, is not going this route, and seeing far more human suffering than should really be happening, which drives liberals bananas.

As soon as you put a value on life, you have to deny certain expensive treatments that only prolong life a brief period, because, as the argument goes, the cost outweighs the benefit. As soon as you do that, however, why bother treating anyone who is retired and poor? They don't pay much if anything in taxes, and do not directly contribute to the bottom line, so we could be justified in cutting them off from health care, right? I'm not claiming that's what you're saying--I'm just outlining the conservative argument, which is quite valid.

If we don't do this--if we keep making this a profit-driven private industry, who is really the benefactor? It's not the patients, by the very definition of the business. It's the shareholders. And guess what? Those pesky private insurers have a dirty little secret--they put a value on life, too, and they like to deny all sorts of expensive treatments. Don't think so? Come down with a nasty form of cancer that kills you slowly but definitely if left untreated; the treatments grant you an extra 10-20 years of life, but it's expensive and is continuous. Bingo--watch your insurer refuse to cover that treatment as "experimental," or better yet, drop you all together. It's kind of just like the "socialist" solution, but it's even more evil--simply because these decision are made not to break even, but to produce a profit. This, then, is the liberal argument, and I think it is stronger of the two.
Geoff said 1 day later

What is the liberal solution? As you've indicated, putting a numerical value on life will inherently justify not paying for the poor and retired. There is no way we can afford universal health care for everyone unless we reduce the quality of care or tax the living hell out of the middle class.

So, my next question, should everyone be entitled to health care? The liberals say yes, but haven't really offered a solution that wouldn't bankrupt us.

I say no. Everyone is not entitled to health care. A: We can't afford it. B: Since we can't afford it, why should we reduce the quality of care for upstanding US citizens so we can care for illegal aliens, the government leeches (and there are plenty of them out there), and don't forget, the poor.

Cruel? Very. I don't see the financial or evolutionary benefit of perpetuating those members of this species who simply can't, or are unwilling to contribute to society. Handicap folks, they get treated so long as they contribute or had contributed, veterans for example. Perhaps we need some kind of measure of contribution to society. Taxes, well that is obvious. For those who can't pay taxes, what are they to do? Charity work perhaps, or government work. God knows how many roads and bridges need a fixing.

If you think everyone is entitled to quality health care without limitations, by all means please tell me how we are actually going to implement it. I'm trying to live in reality, and reality tells me some folks get the short end of the stick. We call this survival of the fittest.

Unless we as a society drastically change how we live, true, universal health care ain't gonna happen. And if it does, it won't last long. Just no way to sustain it at this point.

There, I succumbed to the Ron Paul agenda. Come get some (I'm really a nice guy, I swear ;)

GJ said 1 day later

You do need to look up the straw man fallacy, Geoff. Your response is full of them. I'll return with some ad hominems later. :)
Geoff said 1 day later

I just presented a better question and answered it from my perspective. We've already determined that universal health care requires a numerical value on life in order to work (and a lot of money)....but that doesn't mean we should incorporate it. That is why I asked the question, should everyone be entitled to health care?

See, if everyone is entitled to health care, that technically means you can't limit health care covereage. And we know, universal health care can't promise that. So basically, it was a trap for those liberals who say everyone is entitled to health care, but their plan doesn't promise it.
Marc said 1 day later

I'm not sure what the correct approach is, but I do get the feeling our country is jumping into this full steam ahead without letting the majority of the people know the huge ramifications this will have on society. This is similar to social security, only with the ending being a lot worse. When social security runs out of money and the people paying into it won't see any benefit (read: us), it's just going to simply die or be completely overhauled. But with health care, the only way to stay afloat is to reduce quality of care or everybody goes flat broke. Even with the stats from Canada and UK, I don't think it's a good indicator of what will go on in this country. Saying something like "well if Canada can do it, we sure could," or any comparison similar to that is flat our wrong. Like Geoff said, our country is much larger than the UK and Canada combined. On top of that, we have many other problems they typically don't. Immigration, unemployment, overwhelming desire to go into large and expensive wars every 5-10 years (and then be stuck in the countries for another 20), etc.

Perhaps a different approach needs to be taken, where general health care like primary care doctors and basic prescriptions is handled by a universal health care, but you need to pay the premium to get the more expensive services. I'm not overly against the measurement Geoff proposed as a method for getting premium services, except it would need to be modified. We can't go based solely on tax contributions because some people just flat out can't make what others do, but may be contributing more to society in some people's eyes. Look at teachers, they get paid crap and influence our children. An entry level engineer position usually pays out twice what a teacher makes and while their work is important, they certainly aren't entitled more health care. Perhaps general tax contribution gets you general health care, but the additional percentage of your salary you add on top, gives you a percentage higher quality of health care.

Unfortunately, I think there's far too many people who play the system and who will play this system. Knowing that makes it hard to convince me that my tax dollars are going to hard working people who need help and can't always afford it. If I could be guaranteed that, heck yea I'll sign up. Maybe we should go to a system where people have to present their case to a jury of their peers and not a government run administration. Then based on how well they present their case and why they need a specific expensive procedure, we vote Live or Die. Seems fitting for a country built on those very words.
Geoff said 2 days later

However we slice it, something needs to change. The rising costs of private health care will soon make it impossible for individuals and small business to provide coverage for employees. We've had to cut down on our plan because of the rate hikes (and even switched plans). And with employment so high, more and more folks are going to be on government plans. An expanded government role could persuade private insurance firms to provide coverage that is more affordable. Should we create some kind of "universal health care", it would be something we have the choice to participate in, including businesses. If the government can actually provide quality care at a reasonable rate, the insurance firms would have to change. I think this is the likely direction we are heading, and probably the most realistic solution.
GJ said 2 days later

There you go. This is something the government needs to take over. However, it won't be a "everyone gets everything they want/need" but rather "everyone is entitled to free basic care, and the heavy duty stuff is subject to maybe extra cost which the patient gets to pay." It's not fair, but it's more fair that what we have today. It costs more, maybe, especially since we'd put the medical insurance business just about out of business (that's XXX more people dumped back into the unemployment line).

Is it socialized medicine? Yep, you betcha. It won't turn us into the USSR, though. I think most of us can live with a more equitable health solution.
Geoff said 2 days later

It's like pot, it leads to "other" things. What comes after socialized medicine ;) hehehe
GJ said 3 days later

You're beginning to win the fallacy of the day award. Guess what that one's called? Yup, the slippery slope fallacy.

Something will come after socialized medicine. Why not look to Canada and Great Britain to see what happened there, rather than insinuate without evidence?

If we don't like where things went in those two countries, then we modify our implementation of such to try to shape the outcome a bit differently. It doesn't mean we turn into Cuba as a result.