A question - can we fall back?
 

With all the HUGE spending looming in the near future with Nationalized Medicine, repaying the Stimulator, repaying the Auto Bailouts, Bank Bailouts, etc. etc. etc. .......is it possible that "IF" these ventures are "SEEN" eventually as bad decisions, will we as a country have a way out?

As an example: If everything goes the way of Nationalized Medicine (and not toward using the two tools in place already...Medicare, Medicaid) and things get spun up for full production; processes and procedures are written up by the volumes; hoards are hired to "manage"; funds are spent in the near-trillions ALL within the current presidency tenure (could be four or eight years depending).....IF, IF it all stacks up to be a MASSIVE mistake and we as a country recognize it, CAN we ever go back to the private venue?

I guess what I'm getting at, is that this president seems to be railing BIG BIG items into place with extremely damaging results if things don't "play out" as suggested.

Will we ever be able to go back to Private Medicine if the Government run Medicine doesn't pan out? Is this (what we are about to dive into) the point of no return?

Mike

Will be uncharted waters. Lots of what ifs that IMO they will only keep throwing good money after bad at...

Government never shrinks. Once they get something, or more over, "control" of something, that's it. Take this example if you will; Obama and the left congress say that the economy has turned a corner and is improving. By all accounts I see daily, they may well be right (or telling the truth). If this is indeed the case, and only 5% or so of the stimulus has been put into the economy, why not cancel the rest. After all, it was only to keep the entire world from spinning into a fiery depressed abyss right? If we're going to make it now, how about reigning back on at least some?

i hope not. but why would you want to? would it not be more prudent to make it pan out?

i've heard a lot of excuses from the pro-privatized health-care folk. it's all a bunch of manure if you ask me. of course they are against socialized medicine, they are making a fortune. allow me to dispell a few of the myths:

1) socialized medicine would take away my free choice of health care providers.

i don't see why it would. if you required medical care, and didn't want to go to a public clinic, i'm sure there would be some doctors more than willing to take your cash.

for many, the choice is get healthcare, or eat. and for many, there is no choice.

2) quality of care would diminish.

manure. the same people who are treating you now would be treating you then. pride in their job and compassion for those they treat would keep them right on providing the best care they possibly could.

3) our country can't afford it.

what can it afford? but seriously folks, we're paying through the nose for healthcare now. our country spends more on healthcare than any other. and the costs are reflected in other areas as well. remember that a healthy workforce is a productive workforce. look, the government is paying one way or the other.

4) with the government in charge, the system would be a cluster-f***.

okay, i can't argue with this one, however it would be better than nothing at all. yes, the government is inefficient and cumbersome, but it does work. naturally there would be problems with the system. but these could be worked through and corrected just as we now attempt and occasionally succeed fixing the many other government run programs.

in the end, face the facts. privatized medicine has failed. too many people aren't getting it, or at reduced levels. too many people are being ruined financially because of it. we are losing our manufacturing base partially due to it. it is being abused by the industry itself. as a whole, we are a nation of un-healthy people.

next time you hear someone talking about the ills of socialized medicine, stop to think about who they work for.

I will argue with one point you made soundhound, why would having the government in charge be any worse than having Aetna or US Healthcare in charge? Believe me I was covered by both of these organizations at one time or another during my working days, they make Medicare look like a benevolent grandmother. I never had this sort of grief in Canada with the single-payer plan, I chose my own doctors, saw some pre-eminent specialists for my eyes and osteopathic problems. I paid $53/month for the family plan and was taxed 0.8% on my salary. Correction 0.8% on my taxable income.

The question is not that we can't afford it, what we can't afford is the existing FUBAR system.

PS: When John Bonehead speaks out in Congress about the horrors of the government making medical decisions someone should ask him when the effing Republicans are going to stop making medical decisions for women. He is no doctor nor does he play one on TV.

The US government is a secured lender. At worse we will be repaid all monies lent from the sales of their asserts. At best we will make a fair profit.

Because NO ONE is more greedy then the US goverment. Specially with the Dems holding our wallets. They are spending what we dont have and if they aint careful we are all gonna be even broker. :eek:

Lets not even get in to the paperwork clusterfuck they will slap us all with. Anyone remember the last one with medicare.

I likes my health care just fine.:)

I'd bet your uninsured neighbor is not so happy. ;)

If you want to talk about stifling small businesses, look at the cost of health care to the entrepreneur. I know many who have closed shop for this reason. (Even got married to acquire benefits so they could work for themselves.)

You hear and believe what you want from your sources....I hear and believe what I want from my sources and we are both likely wrong to some degree :D

I would still like to know if what we are headed into is the "point of no return".

I hope you are right....actually, I hope the Auto industry can turn around....but if they can't, I do hope the liquidation monies go back to paying the original debt and not some new Gov. sponsored "need" that's rolled down the pike.

I never paid much attention.:rolleyes:

I do care to some degree that others are getting cared for but my neighbors health care is not my responsibility nor is the raising of their children nor anything else that does not pertain to my own family. Its not our goverments responsibility either IMO.

Sticking their noses in to things are what caused this world to turn upside down. If anything the goverment needs to downsize and learn to work for us. Not tell us what or how to do things.

Grumpy is on the right track.

Yeah...Show me in the Constitution where all these tramp-stamped, 250 lb, Baby-Mamas waddlin' around in Wally-World have a RIGHT to have their spoor tooken care of by ME 'n' YOU, & all the rest of us taxpayers... Sandy is responsible for Sandy, Lauriann, & Bethany...An' that's IT, as far as he's concerned...

Well maybe they should ask Canada to come down here and design the plan. Paperwork? I don't got no steenkin paperwork from Canada's single payer plan, but boy did I ever get a shitload from Aetna. On top of all the paper I had to deal with their staff, people who would have been out of their depth in a parking lot puddle.

Remeber folks when we talk about screw-ups we still have Wall Street to show how it is really done.:D

Moral of the story stay away from Wally World - I don't even know where the local one is, nor do I care.

Took 4 years to wean Nancy off that hell whole of a store but im proud to say FUCK wally world. I don't and wont willingly support them or their "fuck the employee" and "American manufacturers" ways.

All the corporate welfare programs that Bush and Obama have put together are to be repaid with interest and there is equity to back up any defaults.

Interesting, being a city kid I had never been in a walmart until I bought an old farm house 4 years ago. Now we have one 20 minutes away. (everything is 20 minutes away!) Seems like they have some great values.

Although I believe that we are one sociaty that should require those that profit most from that sociaty to give back the most to that sociaty I have no issue with you or anyone having a different philosophy as long as after we vote we both respect the majority.
All in all, I would say that the right has had more power since WWII and this has been the reason our country is not as progressive as most other developed nations.
You think this good, I think this bad, we vote then go have a beer.

Sure they have great values since they are responsible for a large part of the loss of American manufacturing jobs sent over seas. They make their money off the backs country's willing to work for pennies and sell it to fat Americans for large profits. All the while screwing their employee with no benefits and sticking our government with some of their employee heath care. They are a scum bag company that will rot in hell some day.

Lets just hope we all get to keep that right to vote. I'll buy the first round :)

I'll disagree a bit about the Right having too much power since WW II. They would have considered the GI Bill as socialism, yet it was that very bill that gave America the technological edge. We are squanering it now by filling our universities with foreign students and pricing a degree out of reach of most American families.

Hey, much as some may like or not like the government at least they don't go around shooting citizens like Dinnerjacket does (thanks for the nickname combwork)

Please review Post #1 and comment. Thanks.

Our doctor here has two full time clerks who only deal with the paperwork. The last time I was in his office one of them was one the phone and I heard her giving the doctor's fax number before she hung up. She then turned around and said "Can you believe this, eleven minutes on the phone to get them to fax me a damn form". This was the health insurance company, not the government.

We currently spend twice what other industrialized countries do and get lousy service. Some minor clerk in your health insurance company make "medical decisions" for you, not your doctor. All I ever see from medicare is the form some private outfit they 'outsourced' this to that tells me what medicare has paid on my behalf (I got two this year because I had two flu shots). I gather they do this to prevent fraud, sure they do, so if someone gets a motorized scooter because the outfit bamboozled medicare to get it for them they will report it?

I am sorry but in the 25 years I have been here my experience is that if you really want something screwed up beyond belief give it to private industry. Why are electric rates here twice that of Ontario and Quebec? Why does getting a motgage cost an arm and a leg?

Feh!

Well to your first point what was voted on yesterday is not nationalized medicine by a long shot. Those trillions spent were not all spent by Obama or have you forgotten Hank Paulson and George W? So far we seem to be getting much of it back with interest.

You seem to have forgotten what else was voted in yesterday, getting the private banks out of the public trough. This means increasing Pell grants so maybe more of OUR people will get through university and not some damn foreign student who will then go back home and use his training to screw us.

Again Mike it is not government run insurance, sadly this bill does not kill off Aetna, U.S. Healthcare or Kaiser Permanente, would that it did.

I only hope Churchill was right.:rolleyes:

Thanks, Man. Not I don't feel so all alone.

Dave

Why are you such a pessimist? What, you don't have any faith at all in this country or its people? Of course there is a storm ahead. Of course there will be problems to work out. Of course there will be massive debt to deal with.

No one has ever acheived great things without taking risks or paying a heavy price. That's just how it is.

Or, we should just "play it safe", and let the current system grow evermore expensive until it fails, then leave millions more without access? Sorry, but to my ears, this sounds like the logic of "quitters".

FDR once said; "Conservatives are men of narrow mind, who live in constant fear of the future."

Seems like the GOP is determined to prove him right, IMHO.

Dave

Wow, he hit the nail on the head. (if you consider todays GOP conservative)

Just one thing to say about governmment involvment in health care. Do a Google search for the numbers on the health status of the industrialized countries and see where we stand.:eek:

BTW it appears the we the taxpayers stand to make an $8 billion profit on the shares we got in the Citibank bailout.:p

As anticipated I might add.

Almost as if it were planned.

Wait, it was?

What was up with all that wailing and knashing of teeth? :)

Because it's socialism! :eek: Doesn't matter if it makes sense. Anything the government does besides build up the military is socialism.

Regards,

D-Ray

The fear mongers did a good job, I still see letters to the editors wailing about government takeover of healthcare. I wish.