Have you actually read the bill? They have a lot more in it than the 200k tax...

i guess i have know too many people that aren't insured that would be glad to wait 6 months for surgery

it absolutely was the best health care available. there was just that slight problem that 47 million people didn't have that availability. i am lucky i'll be able to buy health insurance when i graduate in may, but i feel for those who can't, AND, it's the people who don't have insurance who drive up the costs by using healthcare least efficiently (like going to the ER for the flu or something), not to mention, when people are sick and don't get treatment, they are more likely to make other people sick, etc.

Of course I haven't read the bill, it's over 2,000 pages lol... I doubt any single person has read it in it's entirety. Someone specifically mentioned the tax on higher income people above. One of the main problems I have with the bill is that it seems to be loaded with new taxes and new regulations.

It doesn't hire any new doctors/nurses, it doesn't research any new drugs, and it doesn't create any new medical devices. It also does nothing to address tort reform, or allow you to buy insurance accross state lines.

What about the gazillions of dollars spent on war in iraq and afghanistan - pretty sure that has a big part for your current debt problems. The money spent on the war could've been much better spent on health care reforms

Sure, we have to wait in canada as well, BUT, we dont' have to sell our house to pay for a hip replacement or chemo for cancer.

do you also argue against mandatory car insurance too then as mentioned above?

Every year we have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan we still spent more on entitlement programs for each of those years. I mean I get the outrage at how much the wars have cost, it has been a lot, and not just financial. But how can you be outraged at the costs of the wars, but not entitlement programs when they consume much more of the budget and are projected to bankrupt us by around 2020?

I'm quickly becoming fascinated with America.

I decided to rent that Michael Moore film on capitalism today. Not because I'm a fan and not because I always buy into his bs/propaganda but mostly just to get some perspective on the more busto side to the United States.

I really have nothing to compare it to given that I'm from Canada and that my parents are fairly wealthy. I'm not really sure if a lot of America's struggle is taking place in big cities in in smaller (<1M or say 600K) areas so I could be way out to lunch here given that I've only really been to seattle, salt lake, LA and Vegas but in Canada I've spent a fair bit of time in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary/Edmonton (lived in calgary for 19 years) and then Obviously Vancouver where I am now and we just don't have the same problems that you guys have (please save the hate because I am sort of sheltered and could again be out to lunch). While we obviously have people who aren't doing too well, there is very little in the way of busted down communities, housing projects, if we have a lot of people who are working for minimum wage to feed a family and can't find any more work then they aren't nearly as visible and yet we really have petty much every single luxury and freedom that you guys have.

Thoughts as to why this may be?

every program we use isnt made to handle the volume of population we now have. that includes insurance.

im dont know **** about politics i only have an opinion.

you have 10-15% the amount of people we do, and a completely different socioeconomic environment

just a guess

Not sure exactly. Some contributing factors might be that Canada has 1/10th the population of the U.S. and is more spread out, so the poor are not all grouped together.

We also have a much higher immigration rate going way back to the founding where the poorest of the poor would come to the U.S. to start anew. We've been importing poverty for a long time. I believe Japan has the highest standard of living and lowest crime out of any country, however they have practically zero immigartion, and immigrants are outcasts there.

Although I guess Vancouver has a high immigration rate coming from Hong Kong? Seems like a lot of that immigration is from wealthy families though.

We had a huge slave population in the South up till the 1860s. It was almost 100 years before they had somewhat equal opportunties to the rest of the population.

Firearms are much easier to obtain which results in less home burglaries, but more violent crime.

At least read the section on how it is going to be funded, as it would be helpful to you in this argument.

People still drive with out insurance somtimes Ahem. But and if they dont have it, your still screwed if you dont have un insured motorist coverage and u get in an accident with them, the UIM is pretty cheap.

I think would be more efficient to make uninsured motorist insurance mandatory and save everyone some money for fixing the same problems, the risky individuals will pay for their high variance decisions and the prudes will be compeltely safe. But no that doesnt make enough money for Big Insurance imo.

1) Nurses/doctors: not the gov'ts job
2) Research new drugs: Gov't grants are something like 70% of drug research to begin with. You want Pfizer et al to freeroll their way to more gigantic profits?
3) Are you okay with limits on CEO pay? What about limits on your own pay? Because thats what "tort reform" is. Putting a cap on how much people damaged by medical malpractice can get.
4) Buying insurance across state lines will not "increase competition", it will make prices higher. If you want proof of this, take a look at what letting companies issue credit cards across state lines gets you. Hint: It involves buying off a poor state's legislature to let the credit card company write their usury laws. See Dakota, South.

people in New Hampshire are under no circumstances forced to buy auto insurance.

might be the last state left, not sure. i know its in the list of things that will cause them to secede (along with national ID cards) though. not sure if that bill passed, but it was mega intense bill in the NH house that basically said if the feds make us do x, x, or x we are leaving the USA.

NH is also the only state with a right to secede written in their state constitution so it's actually possible legally. There was a huge thread about it in the politics forum that was semi interesting. NH is also one of like 8 states that is self-sustainable iirc so it's even further possible.

As far as Canada goes,

I'm sure socio-economic problems in Canada are far under-reported globally both due to proximity to USA and general Canadian culture. USA sort of steals the spotlight in a lot of the negative and positive aspects of North American culture as far as global news reporting goes. The generally smaller communities of Canada also probably have a bit more pride due to their smaller size. When you have a city of 10 million or whatever in the US that's a lot more people willing to say "this place sucks" etc. People feel less compassioned and attached to their "community" overall. That's just speculation though.

I think realistically the USA was often over-rated in the past and problems that have been ever-present were swept under the rug more than they are nowadays. US's problems are probably tilted more towards over-reported now that the US has drug itself through the mud with that last presidents' reign of terror.

Detroit in the 70's was probably just as bad as say Vegas or LA is right now. For example.

There was an interesting article about the housing climate in Canada/USA now in the Economist (i think?).

Basically there is a much higher ratio of renter to owner in Canada than the USA and they were speculating that this has helped Canada feel less of a sting from the North American housing crisis. There's apparently a lot less renters in the USA which they are trying to pin the foreclosure problems on. Because it was so easy to buy a house in USA in the heyday we had a ton of irresponsible owners rather than irresponsible renters, which are harder to regulate and more devastating to the market blah blah blah.

Part of the issue I have with the legislation is that it only addresses things from the demand side, and not the supply side of things. What I mean is you are adding a ton of new people to the system for free; that's going to add strain to hospitals and doctors. Doctors are already withdrawing from Medicare at an alarming rate. So are doctors now employees of the state?

One day it's the drug companies, next day the bankers, next day the insurance companies, next day the oil companies. Anybody who makes a profit is a target now. Pfizer is a publically traded company, if you think they are making such massive profits, you are welcome to partake in that free money.

It's become increasing difficult to run a profitable private practice anymore, especially in fields like surgery where the cost to insure themselves from malpractice suits drawfs other costs. A surgeon can mess up a surgery and have it not be malpractice. Unfortunately there is a sue first ask questions later policy which drives up medical costs. Most practices just settle claims even if they are innocent to avoid a potential bankrupcy.


I'm unfamiliar with the credit cards thing. Let's say I can pick from 5 insurance companies in the state I'm in. If there was now 200 companies I can pick from, all competiting for my business, why would I be paying a higher rate?

hahah this forum makes me feel dumb sick posting itt imo

Adding what people? Do you have insurance? If not, when you did have insurance, did you go twice a month to the hospital or a General Practitioner? Or did you go only when you got really ****ed up? The people to be added already go at "I'm really ****ed up" stage only they go to the ER and don't pay. This addresses that.

This is incoherent and doesn't address what I said at all. The solution to "they game the hell out of the system already" isn't "let's game it even more and buy some stock".

So you're ok with government dictating compensation.

Because insurance companies will flock to the state willing to let them have the most favorable laws for risk and insurance and they'll just sell all insurance from that one state. It happened with Credit Cards in South Dakota. It'll happen with insurance in (Wyoming, Montana, Delaware, whatever). Credit cards all largely have the same terms, same fees, same APRs, even the same rewards. Why do you think that is?

Further, there's not 200 insurance companies to pick from, theres like 35 and several of those are VERY local. You'd likely be looking at about 15, none of which would have a ton of incentive to undercut one another since it'd be a lot easier to just have mergers and then you'll have 4 or 5 or 6, just like now except on the national level.

yawn


so my friend is a teacher and told me a funny story.

basically he is subbing in and is doing rollcall, when he comes across a weird name. "la-a".
So hes like, "umm, excuse me for the mispronunciation but, is LaaAH here? La-eyh?"

And this fat ghetto black girl stands up in the back of the class and is all like "nah uh... it's LADASHA" and he lol'd.

i wanna change my name to rowland bluntskins

lol I'm waiting for the time when black people can pick their own last names too... D'Brickashaw Rapper... DuQwon Quarterback...

HOT FIRE ALERT

Been on a huge David Guetta binge lately.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vppY1Re50L4
Idk why I cant find a youtube version that isn't 6 min long. The song is only 4 and it just goes quiet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQvwu0AK8RA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfD5i0bkAAc

USA SUCKS TAXES TOO HIGH

NEED NEW COUNTRY

Lol, I got an email forwarded from my buddy saying the same thing, only it was told from the mom's perspective. Apparently everyone was calling her daughter by the wrong name Leyah, so she wrote an email saying she was pissed no one could say her daughter's name correctly and that "The dash don't be silent". It was pretty hilarious and if its the same chick that is awesome.

^ took me a sec to get lol

http://www.wimp.com/frontdoor/
Still makes me LOL every time.