CS314 - Unhealthy Numbers

[Martin Hash]

So there is no problem? Just people wanting free stuff & stealing it from you?

[Okeefenokee]

Take heart and be of good cheer; that "end of life" spending jazz won't trouble your state's budget much longer.


"Quality of Life" is a public good in the modern world, you see. All will be provided in return for modest contributions from the 99%.

Not much quality of life in a lot of end-of-life care. Tubes feeding you, hooked up to a ventilator, unable to tell anyone if you're actually conscious and suffering. (shudder) In-home hospice should be a much larger part of our end-of-life care.

I think anyone would agree with that, but it would have to be subsidized.

Also, we can't make the assumption that everyone has surviving children, who are able to provide that care. It's not easy. At all.

No. Your life. Your choices. Your consequences.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Healthcare is not the end all be all of what a country is.

It's only the most important service, other than food production.

Not even close. People don't need healthcare the way this is framed. Old people need healthcare. People who live unhealthy lives need healthcare. The rest of us are fine and can go forty years without seeing a doctor no problem.

...you don't have any friends with disabilities, or disabled kids, do you?

[SuburbanFarmer]

Not much quality of life in a lot of end-of-life care. Tubes feeding you, hooked up to a ventilator, unable to tell anyone if you're actually conscious and suffering. (shudder) In-home hospice should be a much larger part of our end-of-life care.

I think anyone would agree with that, but it would have to be subsidized.

Also, we can't make the assumption that everyone has surviving children, who are able to provide that care. It's not easy. At all.

No. Your life. Your choices. Your consequences.

Have healthy children with free time, or starve in your apartment, like a good American. Got it.

[Speaker to Animals]

Honestly, the debate is getting ridiculous, especially in Congress. It really does look like the only viable political solution here (i.e. that has any chance of passing) is an outright repeal of Obamacare coupled with an expansion of Medicare to pick up the uninsured and uninsurable.

We cannot afford this mandated private health insurance racket. We don't want people dying on the streets. Most Americans probably don't want VA Care for All. The only things left are single payer and expanded Medicare.

But single payer probably won't pass with the neocons in control of Congress (and it sure as shit wasn't going to pass with all the corporate democrats in control last time around). So that leaves a repeal back to where we were combined with just moving people to Medicare who can't get insurance.

If you want to blame anybody, blame democrats. They had the best possible chance to create a single payer entity in this country and they refused.

[Martin Hash]

They had 60 votes for a few weeks & passed something without even 1 Republican vote that could have made the difference. More than can be said for Trump.

[Okeefenokee]

My son suddenly dies from not being insured unless I finagle my way into another job! It's fucking rough dude.

I intended it as a honest question, not as some counterpunch.

Anyway, I just think that paying so much more for a system that in the end is worse than others basically sucks. Irrelevant of the underlying ideologies.

You can see the problem right here in this thread: I think every single poster except one agrees that healthcare must be socialized but that one refuses to budge in the slightest, either out of ideology, selfishness or stubbornness. It's irrational & illogical, and makes no sense, yet here we are?!

If you aren't talking about me, then there are two that don't agree.

[Speaker to Animals]

They had 60 votes for a few weeks & passed something without even 1 Republican vote that could have made the difference. More than can be said for Trump.

And they refused to do it. They gave us this Obamacare crap instead, which is now imploding.

The republicans are not going to create a single payer system even if Trump demanded it. Nobody is going to pass socialized medicine either.

We can't afford these private insurance mandates and what they do to premiums and deductibles.

All that's left, that I can think of and which is politically viable, amounts to some scheme of moving the uninsured to Medicare.

[Martin Hash]

The country's irredeemably broken. The Collapse needs to come.

[Okeefenokee]

So there is no problem? Just people wanting free stuff & stealing it from you?

People living unhealthy lifestyles and wanting other people to pay the bills, yes, that's a big chunk of it. You can't go down this road to making your health my responsibility and not expect me to force some lifestyle changes on your part, so I'm not paying for the treatment for your drug habit, for example.

A healthcare system that doesn't seem to be able to control costs seems to be another large part of the dilemma.