Obama's health care reforms cause heated debate

Over the past week or so the debate in the US about Obama's plans to provide universal health care for all US citizens has been getting increasingly heated with the usual idiotic scaremongering dwarfing the informed debate. One wonderful slogan that made it to the UK papers was 'Obama lies, granny dies', but if she's one of the 40 million without any health care then isn't she going to die if she gets ill anyway? And another was on Radio 4 the other day saying that Obama was making the US like Russia, implying that Communism was at the US shores now. Amusing but ridiculous.

The British papers seem a bit perplexed by the whole thing and haven't really provided much insight into what the debate is really about, I guess most of the reporters are on holiday, so what's so controversial? Is it just the Republicans have spotted that Obama is exposed and weak on this and are giving it everything they've got, or is there something more interesting behind it?

It still seems amazing how anyone could seek to deny access to health care to anyone, so there must be something more. What is it?

I couldn't find any objective English news online so you will have to do with a German one:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4559352,00.html
Basicaly the Conservatives say Obama is enforcing euthanasia for the elderly and disabled with his plans to introduce a nationwide healthcare plan.

Obama is a black communist muslim... The [strike]KKK's[/strike] republican party's worst nightmare.

Right-wingers in America don't like government interference in any field, not even in saving your life. This debate really has exposed the worst of American politics, with entrenched yet completely uninformed opinions being stated as undeniable fact.

Thank god we have 2 threads about this, especially when the first one was at the top of the forum when this one was posted.

I don't think anyone could sum it up any better.

It's shameful that people have to resort to charity for medical treatment in a western country, particularly one as wealthy as the US. This recent CNN report is shocking: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video...ealth.care.cnn

Remote Area Medical: http://www.ramusa.org/

The two threads are different, by accident it's true, but the TT search didn't show up the other thread:
Anyway, first you septics should learn that health care are two words, second try to create titles that contain key words that help others not from your country to find it in their context. Yes, there are non Americans too. The TT search is pants, try to help it.

Still, the point here is not really the debate about universal health care's merits or problems, honestly I take it as given that it's a good thing that simply has to be paid for, but to try to understand why the debate has become so emotionally charged.

Septics debating health care. Classic.

A penant who can't spell!
(Oops, I mean a pedant...)

So is this thing in America likely to go ahead? I've had a look at the other thread and it made my eyes hurt. Would it be just like the British NHS or more like the Aussie Medicare system or something else. I would have thought they would have been pleased to get proper health care for the poor. Apparently not!

It's likely to go ahead in some guise, but it's looking like we won't get what we need, which is universal health care with a public component, and a means of reducing the costs in the system. The opponents are loud, and the Democrats are cowardly, defensive, and are not describing the solutions properly. Obama is on the road right now trying to explain it, but every time he does, somebody asks him a question that knocks him off track and makes the news instead of the health care debate (like whether Cambridge policemen "act stupidly.")

To clarify: they'd like government interference in saving their life, but not your life. Especially if they're on Medicare.

Since you're such an expert on the worst of American politics, tell me the top 5? Dude, have you ever even lived in the states? Gimme a break.


Indeed. But most loud mouth non-Americans that talk about "America's problems" need to look at their own countries sometimes. Go ahead and blast me for saying it, but don't talk about something you know nothing about.


Anyways, this is a battle that has taken place many times in American history and an end is long overdue. The arguments on both sides haven't really changed: Democrats want universal health care for everyone, rich or poor. The problem is who will pay for it. The Republicans, who believe that people are responsible for themselves, think that if you can't afford private health care and the premiums/out-of-pocket costs that come with it, you're just screwed. They don't want the gov't telling them they have to support someone who can't afford it. If someone wants to help the poor and sick, they should do it out of the kindness of their heart, not because big brother tells them to. I can kinda understand that. Cold hearted, but I understand where they're coming from.

The problem is, while Republicans are barking about not wanting to pay money for something that shouldn't be universal to everyone, we've been practicing socialism in the states for a lot longer than they think (public schools, state funded consturction/roads, hospitals, post office, police force, etc) and no one seemed to have a problem with that. After all, we need post offices and libraries, not universal health care for everyone. Democrats see things like America spending $1 billion a month on the Iraq war and ask "couldn't this money be spend somewhere else?" Reps say "yes it could, but not to support a crack addicted welfare mom." I really do think that a Rep who looses his/her house paying for medicine for there mother's cancer would see things from another perspective, just as the opinions a new father would change who is stuggling to take care of his new (and Democratic) family and pay a mortgage doesn't understand where all his tax money is going. Certainly not in his new baby's mouth, or on its back.

The issue is money, has been and always will be. How much will it cost, and where will we get it from.

This is one issue that I actually have a solution for hehe Why not let the states pay for it? Use America's people power. 300 million people, roughly 70% being tax payers. Seriously, if you live in a big state like Texas (which has no state taxes BTW) or California, you'll have lots of taxpayer money to pull from (considering you don't have the inept Governator in office then), and you'll need it cause there's lot's of (remember...tax paying) people who will use the system. Rhode Island on the other hand won't have/need a lot of state run hospitals as the demand won't be as great. You don't work (i.e. pay taxes) you don't benefit from the system. Elderly and disabled people are excluded from this rule, and the people that make the call of who is elderly and disabled are state run organizations that are oversee'd by the US Gov't (i.e. the people we elect). In fact, the whole system would be explained by each state's US Senator who will have to bring to the table every year in front of Congress the facts and figures, especially who is and isn't benefiting from the system and why. Med prices will be regulated by the Federal gov't completely. The Reps don't want a gazillion dollar debt from a federal funded health care system, and I don't blame them. Put the pressure on the state gov't's to act more. Private health care won't dissapear, and if you can afford it by all means do it. But every member of the state will have to pitch in for the universal system. Don't like your state's outrageous health care taxes? Move to a different one. If you're pissed about having to pay 20% state taxes for the 30 million people in California, move to Oregon. Seriously, people pack up and move for less (better paying job, relationships, better nightlife, etc).

Now bring on the love

Interesting points, but my experience of private care here tells me that doctors tend to milk it by doing unnecessary work just to push the bill up, because the insurance will pay anyway, and I assume the same happens in the US to those currently with private health insurance. The two systems are comparable, am I right?

By contrast the aim of the NHS in Britain, of which I also have experience, is to provide basic care to treat and prevent serious illness (the definition of that is wide open to interpretation too, and can even include sex change operations ). It consumes a lot of money but in the end is it expensive? It is beyond debate that many medical problems, if treated early, are cheap and easy to deal with and good examples of this are dental work and most cancers. The existence of a system by which anyone can go and have a check up for free or nearly free means problems can be caught early and dealt with before the patient becomes a chronic case dependent on the health service for life.

I assume that non-insured patients in the US ultimately end up in hospitals when their illnesses become life threatening so why not offer them scans and preventative medicine? I just don't see how this can be so controversial, but it's one of those American trigger topics and the debate doesn't trouble the facts much...

I'd like it to go ahead with this guy. I'll likely be moving back next year and I'm not likely to be employed by a company that provides health insurance, but even if I were, health care doesn't kick in until after 90 days. Personal health insurance is outrageously priced for freelancers and their ilk.

I agree completely. And this should be expanded to other policy-related fields. I served on a jury in Nevada where capital punishment was an option. I don't believe in capital punishment, and it opened my eyes to where I was living and the choice I had to live somewhere else that represented my views better. So I moved. Americans for the most part aren't as tied down to family as those in other cultures. As you point out, Flint, people move all the time for money. People in the US mostly move for money. It's time more people looked at the grand scheme and moved within the states to find the representation that suits them best.