Why do people oppose the US healthcare reform?

[D_Bob_Crotchitch]

Starryeyed dreamers wake up. The United States of America is Broke! B R O K E! It is going to fall on the individual to have to start living a healthy lifestyle. Eventually, the government will have no choice but to set up a health care system with standards that ration care. Yes, it will come. Just because you need care to live doesn't mean you are going to get it. It's a sheer fact of economics.
There is an interesting piece on it in February's issue of Kiplinger's. It would make a good read for everybody.

 

[gymfresh]

phase 2. *FULLY* funded pilot, implementation, infrastructure, education and investment phase

2. take 2 million of the most needy people...organize a bidding by insurance companies, to offer a comprehensive plan to this first group of people, the cost of which, in value per person per annum, does not exceed $500. that is a maximum cost of 12 billion dollars....the contract would be exclusive. the company that offered the best plan, would be required to lock in a rate, that did not advance beyond the rate of the inflation.

I'm assuming you meant up to $500 per month (as an insurance premium).

 

[karldergrosse]

But beyond that, as a few posters have pointed out - the bill just sucks. It isn't an improvement. We'd be replacing a poor system with an even worse system - and a huge cost. ... The thing absolutely sucks ... But to answer the question in the OP - I don't know many people that oppose healthcare reform. But the majority of our citizens oppose this bill.

Precisely! I doubt that there are many Americans who oppose genuine healthcare REFORM, but this bill is a con game and a give-away to the "right" interests. How about Reid's running around bribing, with special perks (read: taxpayer money), members of his own party? He and other Democrats want desperately to pass a bill, ANY bill, fatally flawed or not, in order to bolster Obama, who mistakenly invested too much of his dwindling political capital in it. "It's the economy, stupid," that people (except politicians) are, and have been, primarily worried about. Women's groups and their supporters also object to the bill's complete disdain for women's health and welfare; for one thing, male chauvinist pigs are doing their damndest to negate Roe vs. Wade. And the cost?!? Cost is no object for these arrogant politicians--they have theirs (and how!!!), and they don't give a fart in a whirlwind about the crushing national debt and the working people of coming generations who will have to try to pay it off. (Heck, why should they, as long as China will keep lending to us [and thereby ultimately gaining ownership of our country]?)

Billijean: Yes, Republicans and anyone else "can read it" (the bill)--but just how many Senators and Representatives do you think have actually done so? It's a staggering, unwieldy 2,075-pages of hastily cobbled-together pork wish-lists.

Gymfresh: Racism? Racism?!? For everybody's sake, don't fall for that doddering Jimmy Carter's dotty maunderings. He wasn't quite all there even when he was there in the Oval Office.

SilverTrain: An arch attempt at sarcasm--"It's not perfect, so don't you dare let it pass!"--is completely out of place and completely off the mark. It is not only not perfect--it is disastrous. And we all know how virtually impossible it is to wipe such far-reaching, impoverishing imperfections off the law books.

I'm neither Republican nor Democrat...instead, an Independent who says, "A pox on both your houses." Thus it is with some relief that I greet the election of a Republican in Massachusetts--not because he is Republican, but because he breaks the Democrats' filibuster-proof sovereignty.

 

[Smooth88]

but at the end of the day many Americans really have trouble seeing themselves in their fellow citizens' shoes. As I've said before, "American society" is a myth... we're 300 million people occupying the same piece of land, fighting for our own self interests and who don't like each other very much. At times, we're like hoboes rummaging through the same rubbish bin; we tolerate each other only after we're satisfied we've got the biggest scrap of chicken for ourselves. Don't really care what the other fella finds, if anything.

But racism underlies the inability to see your own family in your neighbor's plight. US politicians are masters at playing people off each other by using fear of people who are not like you trying to get some of what you've got "without earning it". Yup, they really think healthcare has to be earned.

It's true there are entrenched business interests here like nowhere else in the world, but if the public and political will were there, fundamental healthcare reform could be enacted overnight.

QFT

 

[Smooth88]

Sorry, but basically that's crap. It's such a cop out to say something like that. Mostly, the American public is not FOR insurance/health reform because they don't understand it. The issues are complicated, and the media distills them to the two second spots that depending on the station has it's own slant further muddying the waters.

Honestly that right there is whats wrong with the politics of today. Nobody wants to read into or in some cases are just not smart enough to know what the fair solutions are that benefits all. In all honesty the government is big business. And whenever somebody tries to be fair and just he gets ran over like Mufasa in the Lion King. There's always a spin, there's always a hidden agenda, and there's always lying through their teeth.

 

[Flashy]

I'm assuming you meant up to $500 per month (as an insurance premium).

yes...a per month premium....was typing too quickly. sorry

 

[D_Tully Tunnelrat]

There's no shortage of fantastic healthcare role models out there, including Switzerland's which is almost entirely delivered by the private-sector. But again, their key to success is one national risk pool.

And they subsidize the poor's premiums, something many 'Mericans are opposed to.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

Starryeyed dreamers wake up. The United States of America is Broke! B R O K E! It is going to fall on the individual to have to start living a healthy lifestyle. Eventually, the government will have no choice but to set up a health care system with standards that ration care. Yes, it will come. Just because you need care to live doesn't mean you are going to get it. It's a sheer fact of economics.
There is an interesting piece on it in February's issue of Kiplinger's. It would make a good read for everybody.

I'm sorry this is bullshit, there are dozens upon dozens of states which are "broke", countries like Cambodia, Sudan, Mali, Zambia, oh and Haiti since it's on your doorstep, are broke. The USA is not broke. The USA still has the largest number of the wealthiest people in the world, and is the wealthiest and largest economy on earth, if you really think you can't afford the most basic and most elementary of healthcare provision then I recommend you visit Phnom Penh or Lusaka or Bamako, or perhaps Port au Prince and see what being really broke looks like.

 

[Harold81]

I think everyone should have health care. but i think everyone should pay for their own coverage. We already pay for the lazy peoples food stamps ,energy assistance,rent assistance,heat assistance,electric assistance,etc..
when is enough enough?

I am concerned that you ACTUALLY believe that. It's all about being lazy. Wow!

 

[Harold81]

I'm sorry but I find this incredibly depressing and an indictment of U.S. society and culture.

To write millions of your own people off, and to wish they would simply disappear because you don't have the compassion or concern to actually see if cooperation and real engagement with those who are disadvantaged might begin to solve some of the problems is shocking.

In the nineteenth century in Europe rapid growth and industrialisation created vast numbers of urban poor living in abject conditions and utter deprivation. The first reaction was to simply wish they would disappear, however it soon became clear that the Haves and Havenots simply could not exist without one another. The urban poor existed as a condition of capitalist industrial economics. There would be working poor, and there would be unemployed or invalid poor, the cost of economic growth and prosperity for some would be the disadvantage and exclusion of others.

In Europe we realised that if our economic future was capitalist then that would have to be tempered by social policy which compensated those who's disadvantage was the by-product of other's wealth.

Many western European states now operate under this compromise. It may be imperfect, and it may still be morally questionable but it is better than a society without conscience. If the USA can have the wealthiest people on earth among its citizens then it should be able to compensate it's poorest citizens for the misery that capitalist economics creates.

Good health is a basic necessity of life, along with food, water and decent housing. What one's race, ethnic or national origin, or socioeconomic class is should be irrelevant to the ability to be able to access these basics of life. I work hard, I pay taxes, I am happy for those taxes to be spent in helping others to have the most basic and most vital necessities of life regardless of who they are or how they come to be in need of my taxes, I have a conscience and I can empathise. Were I to find myself at the bottom of the ladder for whatever reason I would be glad if someone else had a conscience and some empathy.

As a PROUD PATRIOTIC American, I applaud this post.

 

[naughty]

Fear and selfishness. Afraid that someone is going to take their money and spend it on the great unwashed and undeserving poor.

 

[TomCat84]

I'm opposed to the bills most likely to be passed soonest. Like others have said, they are horribly cobbled together, and they aren't REAL reforms. They're basically giveaways to the huge insurance comapnies mixed in with a healthy dose of bribery for the conservative Democrats needed to help pass the bill. I say vote it down. No bill is better than a bad bill. Medicare for all, and be done with it.

 

[TomCat84]

I'm sorry but I find this incredibly depressing and an indictment of U.S. society and culture.

To write millions of your own people off, and to wish they would simply disappear because you don't have the compassion or concern to actually see if cooperation and real engagement with those who are disadvantaged might begin to solve some of the problems is shocking.

In the nineteenth century in Europe rapid growth and industrialisation created vast numbers of urban poor living in abject conditions and utter deprivation. The first reaction was to simply wish they would disappear, however it soon became clear that the Haves and Havenots simply could not exist without one another. The urban poor existed as a condition of capitalist industrial economics. There would be working poor, and there would be unemployed or invalid poor, the cost of economic growth and prosperity for some would be the disadvantage and exclusion of others.

In Europe we realised that if our economic future was capitalist then that would have to be tempered by social policy which compensated those who's disadvantage was the by-product of other's wealth.

Many western European states now operate under this compromise. It may be imperfect, and it may still be morally questionable but it is better than a society without conscience. If the USA can have the wealthiest people on earth among its citizens then it should be able to compensate it's poorest citizens for the misery that capitalist economics creates.

Good health is a basic necessity of life, along with food, water and decent housing. What one's race, ethnic or national origin, or socioeconomic class is should be irrelevant to the ability to be able to access these basics of life. I work hard, I pay taxes, I am happy for those taxes to be spent in helping others to have the most basic and most vital necessities of life regardless of who they are or how they come to be in need of my taxes, I have a conscience and I can empathise. Were I to find myself at the bottom of the ladder for whatever reason I would be glad if someone else had a conscience and some empathy.

Sorry, but since the US is supposedly the world's policeman, we have to spend outrageous amounts of money on our military. Once Europe increases the % of GDP they spend on their militaries and picks up some of the slack (of course, they'll have to make cuts to their social welfare system, since most of Europe's populations are dropping), only THEN can the US begin to reduce the amount spent on our military and increase social safety net spending.