stonedinaustralia wrote on May 21
st, 2008 at 10:13pm:
Riffhard wrote on May 20
th, 2008 at 7:01pm:
[
Please cite one country where national healtcare works the way it was envisioned. You can't because it has been a disaster in every contry where it's been instituted.
well Riffy we have a version of it here and while the system is not perfect it is by no means a disaster - there's no doubt i would much rather a private to a public hospital but all australians are ab;e to see a doctor often completely free of charge and prescription meds are heavily funded by the gov. - it's a good idea it means that health care is not just for those who can afford it
and i dispute your notion that this is "socialism" - the mark of any civilzed society is how it treats the young, the old and the infirm - for me provision of some basic health care should be one of a governments big priorties - like roads and schools these are things that a community needs for the benefit of the whole community - i'd rather my tax money gets spent on stuff like that as oppossed to funding what I consider to be real looney left stuff - to paraphrase Goering "When i hear someone mention 'Government Funded Social Inclusion Groups ' I reach for my revolver" - or worse still taxing my income to amass huge surpluses - if they don't need to spend the money they should give it back!!
SIA, with all due respect, in the USA a state sponsored healthcare system would be an unmittigated disaster. The fact is that the USA already spends roughly two and a half times as much on our public education system as all of Europe does. What do we have to show for it? Schools that are far more concerned with the tenure and protection of their teachers than the quality of education of the students. This by no means is to suggest that there are not many many qualified teachers in the USA. There are. My sister-in-law, and neice among them. However, the teachers unions have stifled any attempt at holding poor teachers accountable for their less than stellar performance. The inner cities are rife with teachers that could never get a job as a janitor in my kids' school district, but they too are protected by a union that has quashed every attempt at standardized testing and the like. They offer nothing but excuses as to why standardized tests are unfair. Bullshit!
Should a National Healthcare system be inacted here in the States the results would be as pretictable as the rising of the sun. The taxes that would be incurred would be astronomical as well. There is not one country where this system as been tried that it worked as it was originally conceived. Australia is no exception to this as you have pointed out. Now try and imagine that same system dealing with a country the size of the USA. Not to mention the size of the bureacracy that it would breed. The government of the USA can't get the job done anywhere near as well as the private sector can, and certainly nowhere near as cost effective either. The old adage, "There's no such thing as a free lunch", comes to mind. I don't begrudge anyone healthcare, but it is by no means a
right. It is an expense that must be payed for. Should the government decide that everyone should have the right to healthcare on the government's tit then we would all suffer the consequences of the piss poor system that would result. Government that tries to replace the free market approach to healthcare is very definition of socialism to my mind. As it stands anyone can go to an ER and get treated for free. It is illegal to refuse service to anyone because of lack of insurance at ERs across the country. With the huge influx of illegals that are pouring across the borders this is becoming quite a problem as you can well imagine. In fact dozens of hospitals have been forced to close down in LA, and other border cities for this very reason.
Now that may sound like a good reason to institute National Healthcare, but that would only multiply the problem ten fold at least! "If you build it they will come." The US government has already effectively destroyed the Social Security system, Medicare, and Medicaid in just a few short decades. It has proven itself totally inept at every single one of these programs that the good citizens of the USA have put into it's trust. Now we are to believe that somehow they are going to come up with a program that would be far more reaching than any of those programs, and they're going to make it work it?!
No. No thank you very much. I am quite comfortable paying my own way thank you all the same. This is the same governement that will NOT allow it's own citizens the right to place their Social Security taxes into private trusts! I'd imagine the Social Security Administration would be a damn site better off finacially than it is now should we all be given this right. It's our money yet the government feels that they alone know what's best for us when it comes to spending our own money! Yeah, I'm sure they'd do a great job getting me the medical care that my family will need in the future. Not!
Riffy
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