Why do Americans vote against their own interests?
- Thread starter ArghMonkey
- Start date
Ahhh... that's such a neutral article blogger... Except he missed missed a fairly critical point; as someone who deeply opposes the UHC system that the democrats want to implement I found it more stunning that they couldn't help but take advantage of their super majority to ram the bill for reform through as quickly as possible rather than take their time to process a bill that even if still heavily partisan might have given them a bit more legitimacy. My opinion is if people are going shove healthcare reform through my nostrils I want them to stick to their principals and doing so probably would have preserved some of their political capital. The democrats in congress clearly didn't care about that, it was more like a candy feeding frenzy and a sugar-rushed race to the finish...
If you ask me using a rushed, sloppy reform package is about the same as staying with the status quo
If you ask me using a rushed, sloppy reform package is about the same as staying with the status quo
I don't think the article really grasped the situation. I don't see this as voting against anyone's interests. The Democrats are in disarray and the Republicans cashed in on an opportunity, as well as hopefully have managed to end the health care reform bill that Obama proposed. Maybe the BBC article got it wrong, as my take on it is that Americans do want to have health care reform, they were just not that in to Obama's reform bill. For very serious reasons. The fact that Obama's bill did not make it does not mean that discussions are at an end, they just have to go back to the drawing board and come up with something more practical and better. That to me is progress.
So they stopped playing with kid gloves and actually governed. It's only okay when a Repub gov't does it, right?
Firstly, it's perfectly practical. As for better, that depends on our perspective. For the rich, nothing much has changed. For the bourgeois owners of insurance corporations, things are immeasurably better. As for ordinary people, it's not that great.
How can legislation that is more than 1200 pages long be practical? Furthermore, the objective of the legislation was to bring prices down in healthcare, yet there is nothing in the legislation that has anything to do with the prices in the healthcare business, except an enormous machinery that is very costly to implement and that focusses only on healthcare insurance. Perhaps the legislation needs to focus on lower cost of healthcare in the first place for those who cannot afford it, and then hand in hand with this coverage of health insurance. Perhaps a two-tier system is needed where medical practioners can choose to be contracted in a Government system, or choose to be contracted out. Medical practitioners who choose to be contracted out can charge the prices they are happy to charge, those who are contracted in have to abide by prices set by Government. People in the street can have the choice of either Government recommended health care insurance or their own private insurance. The private insurance would cater for more expensive care, whereas the more basic Government recommended insurance would cover basic care.
Well, it's practical in that it is easily possible to implement. Whether it's any good is another matter. As you observe, it doesn't meet the stated target. Interestingly, a nationalised healthcare system would have ultimately been far less expensive and would likely have resulted in better outcomes. That means that Obama went out of his way to appease insurance companies.
Interesting idea. Good point you make about poor people being the focus of the legislation.
Practitioners in the private sector charge the rates the bosses decide. Unless you are suggesting the doctors themselves run the hospital, as opposed to administrative pencil-pushers? Because i quite like that idea.
But what if a poor person had an illness that required expensive medicine/surgery to aid?
Simply put ... Americans have been dumb-down since Ronald Reagan. Americans continue to believe the outright lies told to them that if they give something up such as their unions their employers will treat them better. Or if the rich get tax cuts they will reinvest it in America ... when was the last time you saw a big company close a production plant from overseas and return high paying manufacturing jobs to Americans. Send a child to college .. the cost keeps going up and the education goes down unless you can afford a high dollar Ivy League school. The kids that go there have parents that are creating the problems for the middle-class, that must use the State run schools.
I wonder how easy it would be to implement, as if it would have been easy, then it probably would only have needed one page of legislation. It is as clear as mud to me what the implementation would look like. I wonder even if they know what it is going to be, maybe it is buried somewhere in fine print at the bottom of page 999?
Some practitioners may be happy to line their waiting rooms up with very steady large volumes of Government health insurance customers, charging less, but getting more business. Others who offer more expensive services may elect to contract out, and have customers of more expensive health insurance plans and charge them for the more luxurious and specialist services.
The poor person applies to Government and a way is worked out for him to get that surgery. Obviously not everyone will be helped. UK is a good example. If someone is beyond a certain terminal stage, they may refuse the surgery. Perhaps the poor person may find some benefactors somewhere, but to keep the health insurance for basic medical care realistic and prices low, there would have to be some ceiling to keep the expenses down. Alternatively the Government insurance could allow people to top up their basic insurance to cover services that are not part of the basic care. The person would then still have to get a quote for the surgery first and submit it for pre-approval before going through with it. Private health insurance plans may have special agreements/contracts with some of the private practitioners.
I've never heard of that?
I know the Government takes cancer extremely seriously, anyway.
Well, it's the only terminal illness i'm informed upon with regards to the NHS.
As a side note, i did find an anti-NHS American quite amusing when he said something like "If Stephen Hawking were British (which he is), then he wouldn't have been treated by the NHS (which he was), and wouldn't be around today (which evidently he is)." I don't know who it was and it has little to do with the conversation, but i did laugh.
I came across that one too. I think it was a serious media bloomer somewhere. Wow! :help:
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