Healthcare going forward

[Benvolio]

And this is why Benvolio makes the most convincing case for single payer coverage through a universal class of citizens who contribute to their healthcare costs through everything from buying a stick of gum to state and federal income tax.

Every single person in the US is going to need health care. Some more. Some less. Many of these people have no control over their need for health care. Genetic based conditions, viruses, bacterial infections, accidents.....no one asks for them.

The reason that Benvolio is so unconvincing for me is that I am one of those who through the luck of the genetic draw, has a rare coagulopathy condition. In my early thirties, without universal care, I would have died. Pure and simple. I just would have died.

Instead, I had the best care in North America, including having the Chief of Medicine and the head of Haematology of the University Health Network as my physicians. I spent almost a month in Hospital and had some difficult and dangerous treatments...and participated in research and teaching activities while I was there. I had two more follow-up episodes over a few years and each time, there was one of the largest hospital organizations in the world right behind me.

It meant that I was able to continue on with my life and contribute back....all the money that was invested in my life came back into the system through my productivity and income. In some years, I paid an Ontario Tax health surcharge of close to $15K...but it didn't bother me a bit. Compared to an impossible burden of costs that I would have been left with under the US private insurance plans.

For all of its problems...the public health system treated me as a person instead of a bank account. Because an insurance company wasn't making decisions about what treatment I could or couldn't receive....my physicians were unfettered and I'd like to think that I helped in the screening and treatment of genetic blood disorders that would then help others over the next decades.

And as I get older, I understand very well the incidence of age related disease and the likelihood that I will need procedures and treatments along with an entire cohort of ageing baby boomers. But I know that from the sales tax on my booze, through the HST I pay on all the goods and services that I consume, that I am effectively paying into an insurance scheme that will cover these services when I need them...without paying multi-million dollar salaries...or employing hundreds of thousands of insurance agents and office staff who literally contribute no value added to the delivery of care.

I keep pointing out that Benvolio lacks the ability to even barely comprehend how a well managed universal health delivery system actually works. He is so blinded by his racist hatred that all he sees is some plot for brown people to take something that he feels should only be the right of whites to have. And yet he has no problem apparently with continuing to fund expensive, episodic and catastrophic care interventions through his federal taxes.

I think after reading and re-reading this thread...the truth is obvious.

The US is fucked when it comes to health care.

Until the country creates a state level based system of funding and managing care with some input from the Federal level, allows interstate pooling and management of health care services and establishes a public option for coverage...it is doomed to a future of higher and higher case costs with poorer and poorer outcomes and at some point, refusal within the system itself to pay the vastly overinflated prices that a private insurance system bakes into health service delivery.

By that time though, The US will effectively be the equivalent of a second world banana republic and the result will be something that resembles those countries where the rich and middle class hide inside their gated communities while the poorest of the poor live without hope.

It is a safe bet that many of those free treatments were developed in the US as a result of the vast sums we spend on research and development.
No one is even talking about state level systems nor sales tax funding. Yes. We are on our way to being a banana Republic democrat party dictatorship but offering free health care to all Latin Americans would only hasten the process.

 

[gsdx]

That's hogwash. Insurance companies pay out most of their premiums. Your dishonest exaggerations poison your thinking and any debate.

You do realise, don't you, that clients pay the premiums and the insurance companies pay the benefits?

[Text: Removed]

 

[rareboy]

@ Benvolio

You know that this kind of post only deserves a huge 'Go Fuck Yourself'. But I won't do that.

The Canadian medical research and health care delivery institutions aren't relying on the US for all of our treatments or drugs or anything else. Again, this just shows your staggering, arrogant ignorance about international health care. It must be so incredibly limiting to persist in this.

As a matter of fact, it was actually some European (French and German) haematologists who were consulted during my treatment and care and I would also note that Canadian medical research, particularly in cancer care and haematology is also used in the US. My own Haematologist delivered a paper in the US during the course of my treatment on his findings on isolating genetic factors....medicine is a global endeavour....not just a few American companies creating everything as you persist in thinking.

 

[rareboy]

Here's some insight into the dumb fuck ignorance of Republican voters when it comes to health care.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/americans-voting-for-cuts-1.4055389

 

[gsdx]

It is a safe bet that many of those free treatments were developed in the US as a result of the vast sums we spend on research and development.

We've already proved to you that R&D ranks in the millions. Advertising costs about double that. Profits rank in the BILLIONS.

Your argument holds about as much water as a sieve.

 

[Benvolio]

@ Benvolio

You know that this kind of post only deserves a huge 'Go Fuck Yourself'. But I won't do that.

The Canadian medical research and health care delivery institutions aren't relying on the US for all of our treatments or drugs or anything else. Again, this just shows your staggering, arrogant ignorance about international health care. It must be so incredibly limiting to persist in this.

As a matter of fact, it was actually some European (French and German) haematologists who were consulted during my treatment and care and I would also note that Canadian medical research, particularly in cancer care and haematology is also used in the US. My own Haematologist delivered a paper in the US during the course of my treatment on his findings on isolating genetic factors....medicine is a global endeavour....not just a few American companies creating everything as you persist in thinking.

I did not say "all".

 

[Benvolio]

[Quoted Post: Removed]

Pay attention. I was responding to claims that insurance companies collect premiums and pay out very little. In fact, most ot what they collect in premiums is paid out on claims.

 

[Benvolio]

Here's some insight into the dumb fuck ignorance of Republican voters when it comes to health care.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/americans-voting-for-cuts-1.4055389

Americans have never wanted socialism/communism. It was not built by beggars and thieves, but by people who believed in hard work and that it it was a disgrace to accept charity or to live off welfare.

 

[gsdx]

It was not built by beggars and thieves, but by people who believed in hard work

Except for the people who were wealthy enough to afford to buy slaves. You know what slaves are. They're the people who do all of the hard work and don't get paid for it. You know, sort of like how Donald Trump got a lot of his casinos and hotels built. Thousands of people did the work and Trump didn't pay them. In effect, Trump's empire was built on the backs of slaves.

 

[rareboy]

Americans have never wanted socialism/communism. It was not built by beggars and thieves, but by people who believed in hard work and that it it was a disgrace to accept charity or to live off welfare.

Neil of course raises one of the important points. From the outset, America was largely founded on the low paid labour of slaves or near slaves including the blacks, the Chinese and the Mexicans...it was only in the era from the 1930's to the Reagan era when workers really actually saw their hard labour translate into a healthy middle class society.

Now of course, we have the same thing happening when huge multi-national corporations or even the US based corporations are looking to use near slave labour to manufacture the goods and provide the services...structuring it so that they don't have to cover health care costs.

The system is just as stacked against the dumbfucks now as it ever has been.

Corporate America owes all workers their healthcare and everyone knows that the cheapest way to administer it is through a single payer.

But they are all lined up for Medicare, aren't they?

 

[Benvolio]

Neil of course raises one of the important points. From the outset, America was largely founded on the low paid labour of slaves or near slaves including the blacks, the Chinese and the Mexicans...it was only in the era from the 1930's to the Reagan era when workers really actually saw their hard labour translate into a healthy middle class society.

Now of course, we have the same thing happening when huge multi-national corporations or even the US based corporations are looking to use near slave labour to manufacture the goods and provide the services...structuring it so that they don't have to cover health care costs.

The system is just as stacked against the dumbfucks now as it ever has been.

Corporate America owes all workers their healthcare and everyone knows that the cheapest way to administer it is through a single payer.

But they are all lined up for Medicare, aren't they?

That is such a total distortion. Blacks were in the south, not the richer, larger, industrial north, and after the civil war were largely excluded. A few Chinese helped build the Southern Pacific, but not the Union Pacific. But that is about it. The were very few mexicans until after the war. America was built by whites with very little help from others. That is what the massive European immigration was about. Those you arrogantly call dumfucks are and always have been the victims of immigration.

 

[Sausy]

In the cities, you had people paid pithy wages living in harsh conditions, thus where the unions came in. I LOVE New York City, but life there for many(especially in crowded Manhattan) was brutal. Employers did not often pay livable wages, so if you weren't in the trades, professions or came from a wealthy family you could work your ass off at more than one job and still mightily struggle to stay afloat. If you were lucky to even get above water. The American Dream is a nice story but in the cities you not only need an industrious but damned good luck. The vast majority of our robber barons who even came up from grinding poverty once establishing their fortunes were very stingy towards their own workers. They got theirs, then some of them founded great foundations late in life to ease their consciences. But still, without the pressure of unions AND government, America would be a land of tremendous extremes of opportunity and squalor. The America that Benvolio invokes is largely a conservative myth.

 

[Benvolio]

In the cities, you had people paid pithy wages living in harsh conditions, thus where the unions came in. I LOVE New York City, but life there for many(especially in crowded Manhattan) was brutal. Employers did not often pay livable wages, so if you weren't in the trades, professions or came from a wealthy family you could work your ass off at more than one job and still mightily struggle to stay afloat. If you were lucky to even get above water. The American Dream is a nice story but in the cities you not only need an industrious but damned good luck. The vast majority of our robber barons who even came up from grinding poverty once establishing their fortunes were very stingy towards their own workers. They got theirs, then some of them founded great foundations late in life to ease their consciences. But still, without the pressure of unions AND government, America would be a land of tremendous extremes of opportunity and squalor. The America that Benvolio invokes is largely a conservative myth.

No. Millions of immigrants came through NY and many stayed there, so of course wages were low by supply and demand. Unionism worked for a while but eventually they squeeze to hard and their victims go out of business or outsource.

 

[Benvolio]

That is such a total distortion. Blacks were in the south, not the richer, larger, industrial north, and after the civil war were largely excluded. A few Chinese helped build the Southern Pacific, but not the Union Pacific. But that is about it. The were very few mexicans until after the war. America was built by whites with very little help from others. That is what the massive European immigration was about. Those you arrogantly call dumfucks are and always have been the victims of immigration.

In 1870 the US was essentially tied with Britain for the largest GDPs other than agrarian China and India. But the US had 29.9 million whites, 4.4million blacks, and a total of 34,933 Asians and 155,000 Hispanics. So the favorite liberal myth that Asians, Hispanic and Blacks did all the work is fake. After the Civil War it was even less true as slavery had ended and discrimination excluded blacks.

 

[rareboy]

But the whites in labour were also paid such low wages that many lived in poverty.

The fact is, American capitalism exploited the poorly paid workers no matter what their colour until organized labour made it possible for people to actually live on their wages and become part of the great consumer economy of the 20th century.

But you are wandering off the point as usual. The fact is that corporate America owes its workers and their families the security of heath care without impoverishment.

 

[Benvolio]

But the whites in labour were also paid such low wages that many lived in poverty.

The fact is, American capitalism exploited the poorly paid workers no matter what their colour until organized labour made it possible for people to actually live on their wages and become part of the great consumer economy of the 20th century.

But you are wandering off the point as usual. The fact is that corporate America owes its workers and their families the security of heath care without impoverishment.

You are entitled to your opinion but that is all it is. Employment is a contract and workers are only entitled to what they agree to recieved and whatever else the law requires.

 

[gsdx]

Employment is a contract and workers are only entitled to what they agree to recieved and whatever else the law requires.

Tell that to the thousands of workers and businesses that Trump stiffed. They didn't even get what they were entitled to and thousands of businesses went belly-up and thousands of families were destroyed because of one man who refused to fullfill his portion of the contracts.

Now he wants to stiff millions of Americans by taking away their healthcare so his friends can buy a new Mercedes or put in that private tennis court or helipad for their private choppers or new runways for their private jets.

Make America Great Again (by screwing Americans out of every penny he can).

 

[ballcaphair]

^
There is no way that mr trump is a job creator, unless you count his own family. We'll be paying their wages. His actions are unconscionable. This whole situation is so ethically wrong that I am stunned.

 

[Benvolio]

^
There is no way that mr trump is a job creator, unless you count his own family. We'll be paying their wages. His actions are unconscionable. This whole situation is so ethically wrong that I am stunned.

It is still not as blatant as Jack Kennedy appointing his relatives to high office.

 

[gsdx]

^ His budget cuts alone will eliminate thousands of jobs. And revitalising the coal industry won't create any jobs. It's all automated these days. The only jobs that will be created is management who will rake in the big bucks.

I'm still waiting for him to start making America great again, at least for someone other than himself.