Roger Hicks
Veteran
I used to live in California, and sure, taxes are lower than the UK or France, especially sales tax vs. VAT/TVA/GST usw, or of course gasoline tax, though income tax is roughly comparable and property taxes in California are very much higher than here if France. But the total tax bill is not that much lower, and you get an awful lot less for your taxes (no health care, for a start). Come to think of it, my automobile insurance in the USA was proportionately a lot higher than in the UK or France, and don't get me (or worse still, Frances) started on US insurance companies trying to weasel out of claims.
Cheers,
R.
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John Rountree
Nothing is what I want
I'm curious about a couple of your fellow Texans, Digitalintrigue. Have your fellow Texans, George W. Bush and his wife Laura, declined the government sponsored, taxpayer supported health care they are entitled to for the rest of their lives? Or will they simply continue to feed at the public trough?
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visiondr
cyclic iconoclast
I was eagerly waiting for someone to bring up that completely misleading bit of right wing propaganda.
Yes, the US Postal Service runs a very large deficit. The right likes to suggest that this wouldn't happen if FedEx or UPS ran the post office. The US Postal Service is required to serve ALL Americans at the SAME RATE regardless of where they live. A first class stamp is good whether you're sending a letter from Manhattan to Queens or that same letter from Manhattan to Noonan, North Dakota. Fed Ex or UPS or any other private entity would either refuse to send mail to small town North Dakota or would (as they do now) charge many times the rate as a simple cross town letter. Really, use your brain. The post office runs in the red because it must do something private companies can't or won't do - provide a service to all at the same cost.
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wgerrard
Veteran
You're either debating with yourself, then, or building scarecrows.
climbing_vine
Well-known
wgerrard
Veteran
That's largely jingoism, Bob. American exceptionalism and all that. Important stuff to the right.
dfoo
Well-known
The point is, of course, that free health care doesn't mean higher overall costs. After all, those who are privileged enough to get health care pay for it now (other than those who get it from medicare). Those premiums come from your, and in some cases your employers pocket.
What the US needs is health care reform. There are a number of places where this can occur:
- Getting rid of profit as a primary motivator in health care.
- Tort law reform.
- Doctor salaries.
dfoo
Well-known
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Ron,
The loony right is completely unable to understand the idea of a public good -- or of public costs for private goods, which is why they always fight anti-pollution laws, laws that try to mandate clean meat from decently-run abbatoirs, etc.
Cheers,
R.
John Rountree
Nothing is what I want
There are ONLY two ways an insurance company can make profit. One is to overcharge, the second is to deny services.
wgerrard
Veteran
Not so. People often support legislation that contains provisions they don't like.
So, you are arguing that rights that aren't specifically mentioned in the Constitution don't exist?
No one has said U.S. citizens currently have to buy insurance. They've said it's a damn risky thing not to have it.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Bill,
'Course they don't. Ain't no furriners got no rights. What are ya? Some kinda commie? Or worse still... some kinda LIBERAL!
Cheers,
R.
wgerrard
Veteran
Yes, we should all start planning in the first grade to be multi-millionaires by 21 so we can pay for six-figure health care out of pocket.
Palpable callous nonsense.
If I had to pay for the hospital care i've already had out of pocket -- and my income is solidly middle class -- I'd be dead.
SO, thanks for exposing the right for what is really is.
Brad Bireley
Well-known
There is one thing for sure is that we will find out what America really wants next November! Hopefully our country will not be bankrupt by then.
Well there is a third way, and that's for them to have competition, which forces them not to overcharge, unless they want to lose customers.
I pay $164 per month for my health insurance, it's quite good.
I'm no multi-millionaire, but if I were to have some sort of catastrophic illness, I don't need to be.
I'm no multi-millionaire, but if I were to have some sort of catastrophic illness, I don't need to be.
dfoo
Well-known
There should be no competition in health care.
climbing_vine
Well-known
And because you are in fact a satirical computer program, you have yet to explain where this magical competition will come from, when it is amply demonstrated that oligopoly and monopoly is the natural order of industries with high barriers to entry.