Micheal Moore's Sicko [WOW]

So you're seriously going to quote the White House on that? THAT'S who you're going to use to back up your views?

Find me something by some kind of international body and I MIGHT take your claim seriously.

That being said, if the US does lead the world in R&D, how much do you want to bet the bulk of that R&D is being done on... oh wait for it... military technologies?

Of course you can afford it. Any country can pretty much afford it--the government just needs to change its priorities. If you took ten percent of what the US government spends on the military, how quickly would that deficit start disappearing? How much could education be improved? How many people could be provided with decent healthcare?

How about raising corporate taxes? A national sales tax? Heck, even raise income tax.

It's not a matter of the US not having enough money. That's like saying world hunger is a function of supply, when it's really a problem of distribution. It's not that there's not enough food in the world to feed everyone; it's that there are political obstacles to providing everyone with enough food. The US doesn't lack the financial ability to provide universal healthcare to its citizens; its politicians and powers that be lack the political will and desire to make it happen.

 

First of all Joey, all that information in that article is factual. Yes, I'll say it, I trust what my government says in that specific case. I may not necessarily believe the number of Iraqis they say we've killed this month, but I'll believe the amount of money they say was spent towards research and development. Factual numbers like that are hard to debate, and those reports are read by many government fact checkers: something like the amount of money spent towards medical research and development is hard to falsify. And the amount spend on R&D was in reference to the medical field. Why would you say anything about military research, because if you had read the article (which you obviously did not) you would the article was only mentioning the medical field.

And we can afford to give everyone in our country healthcare, really? Our deficit is way into the trillions. We owe trillions of dollars to countries like China and Japan, that's actual debt that we actually have to pay back. If we did what you suggest and give everyone health care, we'd have to create a ton of money which would trigger massive inflation. Our economy couldn't take that kind of hit.

Raise taxes on individual income, when the reason why everyone in this country doesn't have healthcare is because a lot of people can't afford it? Um, no. Have a federal sales tax, so we can add to the 5-7% tax that is already is imposed by the state governments? Um no, because then poor people would have even less purchasing power. And tax corperations? There earnings are already taxed twice, once for corporate income and again for personal income. Shall we tax them a third time? Eventually, and socialists have to realize this, the taxing has to stop. Government has to have a limit, and our government has reached theirs.

 

You started this thread to discuss the topic of the American health care system, and you keep going off topic. Please stop doing that.

 

Go back and read what I wrote, I said that we were the most innovative country for healthcare in the world, and that's true and it's proven by the amount that we actually spend on research and development. But if you really want to insist on the old My mom is better than your mom philosophy, my country does spend way more than yours on medical research.

 

Really, the size of a country makes no difference to whether or it can afford social stuff? Mmmm, interesting. Go look at our problem with social security. Some reports say by the year 2035, that program alone will require all the revenue raised by our government. So in addition to that, we're still gonna have to pay medicare and welfare, so I guess we should be like Australia and tack on health insurance for everyone. That way we can dig ourselves into an even bigger hole.

And what are you talking about a percentage for the insurance company. Their profits come from what their costomers pay them, and the deductable for treatment. I don't know where you found a 10% increase to pay for treatment, but my deductable cannot go higher than 500 dollars, for anything. And for something that would cost $1000, it'd be more like $20.00.

Get your facts straight if you're going to be talking about something like that.

 

My deductible is $8000 . . . and it only covers 80% of the cost. It's totally useless unless someone in my family has a serious accident.

 

Wow, sure must be nice to only have a $500 deductible and have good coverage. Question-how much do you PAY for your coverage? Hmmm? And I'm not talking about your parents. I'm talking about YOU. How much do you pay for such good coverage?

For the sake of conversation, my coverage usually only pays 80 percent, and I have a $1,000 deductible. So, do the math and figure out how much 80 percent of $57,000 is. It's still a big number. If I were in sdc91's situation, again, I would be totally screwed.

And before you go spouting off about how the United States can't afford health care, let's take a look at recent history. In 2000 when Bill Clinton was concluding his term as President of the United States, there was a budget SURPLUS. Surplus, as in EXTRA MONEY! Thanks to an unjustifiable and immoral war started by our dumb fucktard excuse for a president to seize power and line his and his pals' pockets with oil and war revenues, instead of a budget surplus, we now have the largest deficit in history. Listen closely. You can probably hear the sound of money being pissed away right now. That's if you can hear it over the laments of any one of the 47 MILLION Americans that can't afford to get sick because they can't afford health insurance. Forty-Seven million. That's approximately 16 percent of the United States' population.

Like I said before, until you've dealt with the realities of procuring your own health insurance in the United States and/or getting severely injured or sick under our "system," your commentary from a position of privilege and no opposing experience praising our fucked up excuse for a healthcare system bears little substance and even less worth in my eyes.

Like someone above said, get your facts straight if you're going to be talking about something like that.

 

No, really it doesn't. It is just a question of percentages on a per capita basis. If a population is too small it doesn't work as well, but with a big population it works very well.

Let's use simple figures. Let's say everybody in a country of 100 million people pay in $1,000 a year in tax to cover the cost of health care. So the government gets 100 trillion dollars. Let's say 20% of the population get's sick and it costs on average $40,000 each to make them better. So it has cost the government 80 trillion dollars, and they have 20 trillion dollars left for administrative costs, new equipment, expansion of the services, research, etc. That is 80% cost of treatment, 20% administration, new equipment, etc.

It doesn't matter whether there are 20 million people or 300 million people, the percentage costs and income are the same proportion.

Now take the same costs which are paid by lots of different insurance companies. Each has a duplication of administrative costs and each has to make a profit for its shareholders. So of course the cost of the care provided is going to be higher.

I'm not talking about the current American system, I don't know enough about it to do that. I am talking in principle and theory. And BTW, the Australian economy even though it is smaller than yours is doing much better. Unemployment is at 3%, growth is at a higher rate, they don't have homeless people, and everyone has free healthcare, and free old age pensions. If you are a widow, you get a free government pension also, the same if you are an unmarried mother. So don't talk about Australia being in a hole. It has a much higher standard of living than the USA. (The UN Human Development Index ranks Australia 3rd in the world, and the USA 12th.)

 

Mmm, about your examples. They are good in theory, but they're not applicable to real life. Unfortunately, not everyone in a country can pay a thousand dollars a year in healthcare: just not possible, so that theory is already void in real life.

When I was talking about getting into an even bigger whole, I was talking about the USA, not Australia. So that little rant at the end wasn't necessary, you need to read my posts better.

And I saw that Index you posted. All the countries before America, with the exception of Japan, have a tenth, or less than, of the population of America. They are largely service sector economies, even though they all have industry, and a much smaller population. Therefore, their per capata GDP isn't spread out as far as the United States. Which lead me to another problem you have. The size of a country has everything to do with the services, and the quality of the services, a government can provide a people. The bigger the population, the bigger the gap in the average income per citizen and the ability of those citizens to pay taxes. Small countries with a strong service sector economy are much better equiped to support large social welfare programs than a country like America, with a mixed economy. Why do you keep saying size of population has nothing to do with it, when it clearly does.

Just f.y.i., every country has a homeless people. They may be put in shelters, but EVERY country has people without a home.

 

My mother is a single parent. She provides everything we have, EVERYTHING. Why? Because she works damn hard at her job and went to college and did what she needed to do. I don't have to procure my own health insurance because I'm a dependent. But just because my health coverage is obviously better than yours doesn't mean it can just be discarded. Just because you have a certain coverage doesn't mean everyone in this country has the same or worse than you: there are a lot of people in this country who have health care like I do, and a lot with worse coverage. And I do have my facts straight, and I stated them correctly, I can't help what my situation is. Should I feel ashamed that I have better coverage than you?

And you make it sound like that surplus Bill Clinton created was going to be what saves this country from financial ruin. Yea, we had a surplus under him and that was a good thing, but we still had a deficit, and a rather large one left over from Reagan and Bush #1. I'm not gonna argue that Bush has greatly contributed to our deficit, so I don't really know why you even mentioned him. However, it's not entirely Bush's fault for all of the spending, even though Iraq is a big money pit. Look at all of those Irmarks (sp?) that Congress is making, on both sides of the isle.

 

As a forewarning, I haven't read every post in this thread nor have I seen sicko. However, one thing in the OP really... reminded me, of some of my friends. Namely, one of them. Every single time the government does anything domestically, he accuses it of drifting toward "Big Brother," so to speak. It really irritates me when people do this mindlessly, as he does. He has no knowledge of the issues and doesn't follow politics, but whenever anyone mentions Clinton or anything related to the Democratic Party, he shouts that Oceania looms on the horizon. I'll admit, some things do seem to be heading that way. The PATRIOT Act, HR 1955 (Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act), the suspension of habeas corpus in some cases, etc. really seem like huge threats to longterm liberty. But global health care? Heh.

I'm not a big fan of Michael Moore, really, although I haven't seen Sicko. But I do agree with what he said about that. That really bothers me. There are certain times to claim the country is going Big Brother, and this isn't one of them.

 

Oh, and William, that index you found uses statistics and numbers from 2005 and even earlier...

The report for 2007 was launched in Brasilia, Brazil, on November 27, 2007. Its focus was on "Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world." [1] Most of the data used for the report are derived largely from 2005 or earlier, thus indicating an HDI for 2005. Not all UN member states choose to or are able to provide the necessary statistics.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

 

C'mon, your years older than me, havent you seen statistical examples before? That was just an example - the figure could have been $100, it doesn't matter, it is just to show the theory involved.

Oh, OK!

None of that makes any sense at all. Just coz you say so doesn't make any of it fact. What evidence can you give that, for example:

And those HDI figures are the most current available. Two years is not going to change everything, in fact the US economy has gone downhill in that time.

That may be so, but I live in Australia for now, and I have never seen anyone living on the streets or begging. I have seen loads of TV coverage of people in the US living on the streets.

Australia has a programme of free and very low rent housing for homeless people. Each state has a State Housing Commission which provides this service. The SHC also makes these houses available to buy at virtually no interest to people that used to live there.

 

Yes, I am years older than you and am currently taking an economics class. Those statistcs you gave are unrealistic, anyone whose taken an economics class will find flaw with them.

What do you mean what I said didn't make any sense? It isn't hard to understand. The bigger the population, the bigger the economy. Do you honestly think the bigger a population is there isn't going to be more poor people? A bigger economy is going to inherently create more wealthy people, and even more unwealthy people to do all the increased labor: that creates a bigger gap between rich and poor. Australia has like 20-30 million people, America has over 300 million. We're going to have more lower income people than you are by the simple fact that we're bigger in population than you are.

Oh, and you've seen T.V. reports of homeless people on the streets in America. Ever see it in person? And America does have programs for people with no home. I know in Georgia, that for every ten housing units built, one unit of low income housing must be built. That unit is then provided as public housing, and the people who occupy it pay rent/mortgage (varies by county) based on their income.

And lastly, prove that the American economy has gone down in the last two years. It's funny because I remember two years ago, and the Dow Index wasn't anywhere near the current 13,000 it is now, in fact it was a few thousand points lower than the current number.

 

Wait, hold on here! We're going to attack someone based on age? I generally try to refrain from doing that, but since it's apparently fair game, here's what I saw just happen. You disagreed with William's commentary, so you attempted to negate his input by questioning his credibility. On the same token, I'm EIGHT years older than you. I have a college degree, whereas at your age, you won't have even completed high school yet. I work at one of the largest corporations in the world (within the top 10 of the Fortune 500), and for almost three years, I was SELF-EMPLOYED because of the legal scams that the company pulled. Conversely, you haven't had to provide for yourself yet because you're a minor. I'll let you figure out the implications of these comments.

It's not a matter of population. It's a matter of corporate control of the United States government. Who do you think the biggest contributors to presidential campaigns are? Invariably, they are corporations, so when a particular candidate takes office, they are essentially beholden to the corporate interests that in essence financed that candidate's presidency. Why do you think the stock market has historically gone up every time a republican has been elected president and why it took such a huge dive in 2006 when the democrats took control of congress? It sure wasn't because the republicans have been hindering corporate interests with regulations or closing tax loopholes or spending money helping ordinary citizens.

I live in Metro Detroit, and I've been to a number of cities in this nation, including Atlanta, Georgia. You know what? I have seen homeless people in every single major city in the United States that I've been to, INCLUDING ATLANTA, GEORGIA! You don't believe there are homeless or there's a homeless problem here in the U.S.? I'll take you to downtown Detroit and let you get accosted by homeless people. Try telling me then that there's no problem or that it's normal.

The Dow Jones Industrial Index is only one indicator of the health of the U.S. economy. Take a look at the housing sector, and especially new home construction, which are regarded as the true bellwethers of the U.S. economy. The housing market's gone to shit, new housing starts have almost ceased to exist, and the mortgage industry is entering a state of meltdown. Try telling me the economy is still growing and I will regard you as an idiot and laugh in your face.

So you have no understanding of how the health care "system" in the United States works because you're a minor that's never been exposed to anything outside of a life of white suburban privilege. Got it. That's obviously demonstrative of a huge capacity to understand, or at least appreciate, the struggles of others and relate to viewpoints that differ from that to which you are normally exposed. You know what? I've worked hard for everything I have, too. My dad's business had to close down because the economy, which you somehow think is growing, is so bad that he couldn't afford to stay in business, and now my parents are on the verge of bankruptcy and losing everything. I somehow managed to put together enough money to make it through college, and I now work for a living. Bravo for your mother that works to make a life for her kids. Maybe someday when YOU have to work for it, you'll have a clue.

So really, you're just a jerk and if someone is in a tough spot with no hope of assistance, tough shit? Wow, you are truly endearing yourself to me as a quality human being here. Sixteen years old and you don't have to worry about health care because it's provided for you by your mother. Like I said, must be nice.

What part of SURPLUS don't you understand? Surplus, as in extra money. Money with which the United States not only could have stopped the ever-present growth of the national debt, but could have begun to use to pay off said national debt. With a slight increase in corporate taxes that could easily be accomplished by closing some of the numerous corporate tax loopholes that exist, we could have paid for U.S. healthcare and more. But, thanks to our broken electoral system and systematic disenfranchisement of certain left-leaning voters by the governor of Florida, who coincidentally is the brother of our current president, we got our jackass war-mongering power-hungry dumb fucktard jackass excuse for a president, and he decided to piss that surplus away in the form of tax breaks for the rich, and then made things worse by putting us into this era's version of Vietnam.


Like I said before, nothing of substance will ever get done in this country unless we can somehow exorcise corporate influence from our government. Drug companies somehow manage to make a profit on the same drugs both in the United States and Canada, yet Canada's prescription drugs cost a fraction of what ours do and the Canadian government price-caps the costs of prescription drugs. There's no way anyone can tell me that corporate greed is not responsible for the shabby state of affairs regarding health care in the United States.

 

First off, before you get all enraged again, go and look at what William said. He said "you're several years older than me" or something like that. I was only responding to what he said first, so no I wasn't attacking him for his age. And I don't provide for myself? Funny, because I seem to provide a lot. Namely, my car insurance, my clothes, all school expenses, gas, phone bill.... I pay a lot by myself for someone my age. Don't try to make it out like I'm some lazy white kid from white suburbia, because I'm anything but privledged or lazy. I know that I'm going to have to work hard to have a job like my mother, don't assume I just think it'll be given to me.

There are homeless people in America, and all I did was asked if he ever saw it first hand. Read the context of what he wrote, he made the homeless problem to be a lot worse that it actually is. Yes, and I'm aware of the homeless people in Atlanta. And the ones in Chicago, New York, Miami, Houston, Dallas, L.A., Seattle, Detroit...Again, you assume that I'm just either ignorant to, or dont' care about the situation, and I'm not. How many community service hours have you spent in Georgian homeless shelters helping the homeless? Or any homeless shelter anywhere? Because I have spent many, many hours doing so. But instead of thinking that I could possibly have a heart and do those kinds of things, you thought I'm a heartless bastard white kid who doesn't care about white people.

You talk about corperate control and make all those accusations. That's all extremely left-winged, biased opinion. Do you think the Democrats have any more morals than the Republicans? That would be ridiculous. This country has the problems it does for many reasons, and they all combine to contribute to the fact that we absolutely cannot afford to give everyone universal health coverage at this present time.

The Dow Jones is only one factor that is an indicator of the economy, so is the real estate market. And I know perfectly well what a surplus is, and I know that Bill Clinton created one, but I can bet you'll say it again and tell me that I don't understand it. Yes, we had a surplus and it was helping diminish the deficit, and Bush contributed to screwing it up. But wheter you want to believe it or not, he wasn't the only factor that contributed to our present money problem.

 

"doesn't care about white people" Ya, I meant that to say homeless people and I just realized it. Sorry y'all!

 

That's true, I did say 'you're older than me' and I don't think you were attacking me coz of my age. But it did look that way.

And like I'm sure you know more about economics than me, but you still cannot grasp that when speaking in terms of percentages, the size of a country, or an economy, doesn't matter. Sure, there will be more poor people, and more rich people, in a population of 300 million, than there will be in a population of 20 million. But like all other things being equal, the percentages do not change.

And I didn't deliberately make the homeless situation seem worse. This seems pretty bad to me.

http://www.washprofile.org/en/node/2295

And I don't live in the US, so how can I see it first hand? Like I never saw the invasion of Iraq first hand, but I am pretty sure it happened.

 

And you cannot grasp the fact that each economy is different. You can't apply a broad statistics theory to every economy in the world and expect it to work. That's where the problem with your theory lays, and when you study economics you will learn that.

Yes, America has a homeless problem, and Australia's isn't as bad. Ok, well I found a source that says on any give night, about .5% of the Australian population is homless. Again it's not as bad a percentage, but it's not something to be proud of. ( I did the math by dividing 100,000 by 20,000,000 and moving the decimal over two places). And unlike your information, mine isn't Russian...it's Australian.

http://www.mission.com.au/cm//p.aspx?n=HTWUR-CZVNF-CPZPC-UBJJV-QFOIM