1st February 2003, 2:42 PM
Quote:Originally posted by Weltall
Okay, let me give you a little lesson in healthcare. See, if you are poor enough, you get free healthcare. My dad has told me all sorts of stories, having worked in an innercity hospital for almost 20 years. Do you know who pays for healthcare for the poor?
Answer: Anyone who actually pays for healthcare.
I recently had a major surgery. The my first bill, which was only for the hospital stay (meaning it did not include the surgeon's bill) was over $40,000! They charged $7,000 for SUPPLIES. My painkillers, percocet pills and Tylenol, were $12 PER PILL. Fresh linens alone were three friggin grand. All this for a three day stint. Of course, I would not go for a forty-thousand dollar surgery that I had to pay for out of pocket unless my life was at stake, I pay medical insurance and they covered it completely. It's the insurance companies who pay for the entire operation, and these outrageous costs. And how do they recoup their money?
Answer: They charge me higher premiums.
Now, do you know why they charged three thousand for linen and twelve bucks for a single Tylenol? The answer is, they need to recoup the losses spent on non-insured patients. They bring a homeless man who drinks himself into a coma into the ER, and we pay for it. They bring in a lowlife who has blown his brain on heroin, and we pay for it. It's not just the rich who foot the bill, it's people who are far from rich, like me. We have to foot the bill for these degenerate leeches of society who can get free healthcare no matter what (and it's well known that the free healthcare is very often abused at cost to us).
No one should have free healthcare unless they're physically unable to work. Even a poor person is capable of getting a job at K-Mart and getting onto their health coverage (I work at Walmart). They are perfectly capable of paying their own premiums, but why bother? When you can get it for free, what incentive is there to EARN it? To WORK for it?
And I'm totally against state healthcare. I don't mind surgeons making tons of money, because they have skills that very few have. They work long and hard to get where they are, and they hold lives in their hands. My surgeon stands to make about fifteen thousand dollars for the four hours he spent in my stomach, but I don't mind my premium money being paid to him. He held my life in his capable hands for four hours, and his work has had a great effect on me personally. But when you get "free" healthcare, payed for by taxes, you face the problems Canada faces: Doctors do not get paid as much. Therefore, there is less incentive to go into medical school and strive hard to become a doctor. Thus, you have less doctors. Eventually, the need for doctors becomes greater than the number of doctors available. Since doctor's income comes from taxes, they can never expect to make much more money. Therefore, to get more doctors, you lower the standards necessary to become a doctor. And you know where that leads.
As outlined, our healthcare system has problems (mostly caused by liberals), but it beats the hell out of state-sponsored healthcare.
Doctors in Canada, the UK, Sweden and other countrys with public health care are still in one of the highest income levels. Canadian Doctors are payed by the government yes, but they are still private practictioners, and are payed on a per visit basis. If they are a bad doctor and nobody goes to them, then they don't get payed, if they are good and everyone goes, then they earn more(just like in the US). Drugs cost less because the government doesn't allow them to charge insane rates. Also the hospitals themselves are not for profit, so the costs can be lower because there isn't someone who owns a chain of hospitals who is trying to earn as much money as possible. Also in the US an insurance company doesn't have to provide medical coverage, if your sick and you don't already have insurance coverage then your screwed.
Quote:Originally posted by Weltall
I have a feeling once Castro dies, it will be lifted. It's really him we have the problem with. He's no threat anymore, but he was a huge threat at one time, 1962. While I really don't think we should be sanctioning his country anymore, he's done nothing to improve relations with us.
Why was he dangerouse in the 60's? Because he was allowing one of his allies to install weapons of mass destruction in his country? The United States did the same thing that the Soviets did and there was no international crisis over it, the US installed nukeualr weapons in Turkey, Germany and some of it's other allies capable of striking the USSR, and that was fine, but when the situation was reversed the US decided that it was wrong to do that, but even after the Soviet's removed their missles from Cuba the US kept the missles they had in countrys that were allied with them
Also for the babey breathing part, I used the wrong words, What I should have said was once it was born, I just said breathing because I meant to emphasize the fact that they were already born.