Why is universal heath care such an issue in the US?....

From someone on the outside (Canada) looking in it's a bit of a mystery. The US is the only westernised country left on earth that has not adopted some form of universal heath care. I've heard a lot of arguments from those who are against the concept about how universal care sucks in other countries, and just about everyone from those countries will tell you there is no such thing as a system without its flaws. Wait times are indeed an issue in many countries. However poll after poll shows that people are unanimous when it comes to keeping universal care. It may have it's flaws but it works! The arguments against just don't hold water and continue to baffle me.

In the end it seems to me to come down to this. When you loose your insurance and suddenly need a triple bypass or cancer surgery get back to me about that.

And they can out-advertise their opponents. Big time.

That is all.

Succinctly explained. Greedheads buying politicians for the purpose of screwing the masses.

(or in Canada)

followed by someone's bad experience under the health system there.

They don't mention the millions of people who are successfully treated each year under universal health systems.

illness, and injury.

The insurance corporations are passing on a share of the profit they make from the American Peoples' blood to the government in order to keep their casino open.

to make sure that the status quo is maintained. Some of the money goes to buy politicians, but a lot more
goes into deceptive advertising crafted to convince people that if the govt gets involved health care will be even worse than it is now. Insurance companies employ lots of people and those people have a stake in making sure they stay employed, so that works in their favor too.

Then they are just throwing their bloated advertising budgets down a rat hole.

Re Some of the money goes to buy politicians, but a lot more goes into deceptive advertising crafted to convince people that if the govt gets involved health care will be even worse than it is now.

It can happen, and is happening. "Harry and Louise" worked in the 1990s, but they are now the poster kids for self-interested insurance company PR hype. Nowadays people groan if you just MENTION Harry and Louise, because everyone knows what they really stood for.

If they are going to pull off a scam like that again, the insurance companies are going to have work a lot harder and be a lot more subtle about it. But I don't think they CAN pull it off again. We've had over 10 years to compare our so-called "health care system" with Canada's, and we're going to keep right on doing it regardless of what the bought and paid for Congress does.

Anything to counter the half truths and outright lies that are appearing the media already.

have good coverage. And that is understandable. But for any of us who have had major problems with private insurance in one way or the other, we are fed up and want single payer or something similar. Course it doesn't help that health insurance companies own some of our representatives.

For many, it's gonna be a big surprise.

:nopity:

That would mean the 5% of the population accountinf for 50% of all health care costs, or the 15% accounting for 85% of costs. The comparatively healthy 85% are mostly without a clue, and "like" their insurance because they'd rather not think about it.

Unfortunately, these same people with money are the ones who tend to have the most political influence and who theoretically have something to lose if the system changes to focus more on universality rather than catering to the patients who have money to spare.

...and need a triple bypass all at once, things would change.

As it is, the health industry will keep rolling out the "socialism" bogeyman to keep the majority of us lining their pockets.

I posted a week or so ago about a right-wing doc I know who was anti-universal care until...he had kidney failure. He has coverage and money (He's a surgeon, not crazy rich, but still rich.) but he still saw the way the system works and the costs HE has to pay even with his wonderful coverage and being a big wig at the hospital. He also experienced not being able to work and worrying about not just your health, but your finances at the same time. He's singing a new tune these days!

Also, a not-so-funny contrast for you. The doc I'm talking about is a modest man with, I'm sure, a great income. I know a family that owns a commercial insurance business. By contrast, they have big houses (The CEOs is worth probably around $5 million which is crazy here in Ohio), drive multiple expensive vehicles, constant vacations, vacations homes etc. Filthy rich and they provide NO actual healthcare to anyone. The surgeon who DOES provide healthcare makes a fraction of their wealth.

What is wrong with that picture?

Even here you see people arguing against single payer. Sad.

doesn't take much more than that here, unfortunately.

and also Banks now own insurance cos, so its even harder to get congress to
do the right thing for us.

and you won't see single payer until that big wheel is displaced.

the big wheel fucks the people and generously rewards our leadership.

now, what do you think our leadership is going to do?

:sarcasm:

and why too worried that they'll have to pay more than their share. Hey - we have entire groups of morons all over this country protesting with tea bags of all things that they are paying too much in taxes. And this is AFTER the new President just gave 95% of Americans a tax cut!

Okay..it's because we're stupid. :bounce:

already have "universal" government administered insurance, Medicare. So, it's not their problem. But propose cutting it, and you'll see some major political backlash.

of Health Insurance Lobbyists per Congress Critter. None at all. :eyes:

someone else already noted that. I think there are multiple forces at work. Many SC are not affected by the lack of healthcare for everyone else. Simply put, it is not their problem. Issues regarding medicaid for long term care are mostly addressed by how to safeguard estate assets (ie sheltering money so the taxpayer can foot the bill). I am not pointing the finger saying it's all senior citizens fault, just that they are a powerful voting block and do not consider this a priority. I think the question was "why do Americans put up with it?"

Brainwashed populace.

They cared more about corporations, money and power.

That is all going to change and soon.

George Carlin used to drive that point home - it's not the politicians who suck, it's the public that sucks.

But in all fairness, we have had rigged elections
and rigged media which have not helped the situation.

I suspect there's a point of no return in this somewhere, perhaps already crossed, where The People, or a significant % of the populace anyway, have realized the entire system is rigged, and know what the real score is, yet choose to remain indifferent. That's the unmistakable sound of the death knell right there. That, and the fact that the country, and the Establishment entire, sat by and enabled the Bush/Cheney machine at every turn w/o any SERIOUS opposition....

We have a leader now who works for the people.
There is a major zeitgeist change.

Just a change of an era.
From 20th to 21st century.
All good.

...as one of the countless archetypes. I am quite fearful though of self fulfilling prophecy re the extinction-ensuring weaponry we have, set to mass, instantaneous delivery systems.

"Such epochal changes as the Apocalypse don't take place out in the cosmos somewhere. They take place in the collective psyche of us as human beings. As the collective psyche is by definition unconscious, we're usually unaware of the inner psychological dynamics of this change, even though we see its outward manifestations in both culture and contemporary events."

~ William Van Dusen Wishard (re Jung's psychological meaning of the Apocalypse)

We will be a more evolved and enlightened people.
We are having many character building moments as of late.

There will be no mass extinction. We will not fall off the cliff.

I doubt change, as in, overall, positive change for the betterment of all humanity, will occur sans a catastrophic event that shakes the monolithic power structure ... and maybe that makes sense within the broader, cosmic scheme of things. Who knows?

The complete breakdown of the financial and political structure
across the globe. This is what will cause the tremendous
leap forward and the rebuilding of a more constructive system.

Re The People, or a significant % of the populace anyway, have realized the entire system is rigged, and know what the real score is, yet choose to remain indifferent.

They believe they are powerless to change the system--that it's simply too powerful to overcome. For me the big turning point, the big wake-up call, was when I realized the 2004 presidential election had been stolen. And that happened almost immediately--within 24 hours of the election. I didn't have any evidence, let alone proof, at that point. I just knew. That was when I joined DU, and that's basically WHY I joined. This was the only liberal discussion board I could find where election issues were seriously discussed and investigated. Even Daily Kos wasn't allowing discussion of election fraud at that time.

The Republicans all laughed us off as conspiracy kooks, but that's to be expected. That's what Republicans DO, after all. They try to stop debate over critical issues by shouting us down with ridicule--the Republican Noise Machine and all that.

But the really shocking thing was the attitude of the Democrats--I mean the national Democratic Party, not the grassroots activists. They seemed to want to just write it off, shovel all mounting evidence under the rug, and when they did conduct an "investigation" it was basically just a whitewash. And THEY were the ones with the most to lose--seemingly. A real opposition party would have been outraged at having the presidency and who knows how many congressional seats stolen from them, and would taken appropriate steps to reverse the situation. They would not have been intimidated by the "sore loser" label. So that's when I realized they weren't a real opposition party. My eyes were opened to the reality of the Money Party--the party with two right wings we've all been talking about so much lately.

That's the point where we tend to fall into despair, when we start believing there is Nothing We Can Do. That's where you get really low election turnouts, which always favor the Republicans. But despair and apathy are basically unsustainable, for an individual and for a nation. Despair turns into anger and then rage, and pretty soon you have mobs storming the barricades.

The PTB know that, so that's when they again manipulate us with the Carrot of Hope. That's basically how it works: They alternate the Carrot of Hope with the Stick of Despair. That's when they find a really personable, articulate "centrist" candidate like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, allow the Democrats to "win" the election, and fool us once again into thinking we can really change the system from within.

But something seems to be happening: The process is speeding up. THIS TIME they have been just a little bit too obvious about it. They alternated the Carrot of Hope with the Stick of Despair quickly enough that I can see through their game. And if I can see it, so can a lot of other people.

I do believe the game is up.

"Better dead than red" is a literal term to enough noisy people.

They don't realize that:

public schools
police departments
fire departments
public parks
public libraries
the highway system
Social Security
and Medicare (for seniors)

are all examples of socialism.

Instead, they equate socialism with communism, and don't realize (or want to realize) that there are many different degrees of socialism.

If a car is too expensive for me, I can simply choose to buy a different one, or not buy one at all. If I break my arm, I have to get it fixed. I can't say "That's too expensive, I'll just live with it!" And in many cases we don't have a choice which hospital we go to either. We can't say "Take me to General because it's cheaper!" They can charge what they want because we have no choice but to pay it. There is no choice and no competition to drive down prices. The normal economic principles of supply and demand do not apply to health care. In fact, insurance only facilitates rising prices because we don't care how much health care costs as long as the insurance pays for it. Again, no downward pressure on prices.

as long as not one thin dime of their money goes towards helping someone less fortunate than they are.

The reason it's all fucked up is that the people who make decisions on health care policy ie: the politicians have the best health coverage in America. It's hard to relate to someone who can't get health care when you can see a doctor or walk into the emergency at the drop of a hat without worrying about how you are going to pay the bill. Politicians need to spend a year without health care coverage and see what it's like.

It's an issue because health insurance is a billion dollar industry in the United States, and they do not want that industry to go away.
So, they continue to emphasize the problems with the universal health systems in other countries, while conveniently minimizing
the problems that occur in the US.

It is currently a widely held belief in the US that people in Canada wait months for any and all medical treatment, and that
most people die before treatment is given because the government decides when people can be treated

It is also widely believed in the US that many if not most Canadians travel to the US for some part of their medical care because
they can't get it in Canada.

It is also widely believed that Canadians pay over 50% of their income in taxes in Canada to pay for the existing system.

Having lived in Canada myself, you and I know how idiotic that sounds.

Now, does it mean that Canada's system is perfect? Of course not, it has problems, and those problems do need to be fixed.

Those same opponents of universal care don't mention the fact that there are over 40 million americans who have no health
insurance, and that there are millions who do have health insurance but they have some medical condition excluded from
being covered because it's pre-existing.

If you remember a few years ago, Canadians voted Tommy Douglas (Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather, by the way) as
"The Greatest Canadian" because he is viewed as the politician most responsible for universal health care in Canada.
That goes to show you how much Canadians value their health insurance system.

As to your last statement about losing your insurance and suddenly needing a triple bypass or cancer surgery, the
opponents of universal health care will usually point out that a hospital is not allowed to deny treatment to a person
even if they can't pay, but they don't mention that the bill will still be sent to that person, and if that bill bankrupts
that person, well too bad, so sad.

It's racial.

My republican family members rant endlessly on how they do not want one dime of their income to help an African American, Hispanic (especially an immigrant), Asian, or Native American in terms of healthcare.

I think this view is especially common among rural republicans and "middle America".

Until we address the racial element, we cannot resolve the issue.

education and a lot of affirmative action and even then it will take several generations. :-(

I just want that bigotry to go away--NOW! It is holding us back in terms of real reform.

The situation has gotten much worse over the past 30 years, starting with Reagan, alongside the irresponsible push to demonize government and deregulate everything. Robber barons at work.

don't want to give up the profits made from the excessive premiums and denial of health care. Unfortunately, those fascists have contributed many dollars to our Congressional members most notably Senator Baucus of Montana whose Finance committee is studying the problem through the same eyes of those insurance company and PhRMA representatives. The medical profession and the patients can go to Hell as far as he is concerned and are not allowed to sit at the table.

We have such a long way to go in implementing campaign finance reform and election reform before we can get this country back to what the founders intended it to be. Also, entering into the twenty first century instead of retreating into nineteenth century would be nice too.

Private insurance should be supplementary, not the primary insurer.

We've got it backwards, and the corporations like it that way. Maybe it's the hundreds of billions in profits they rake in every year? I don't know.

They make hundreds of billion$, they aren't afraid to throw it around Washington, they have the money to buy whatever (or whomever) they want, and they aren't going to give up without an incredible fight.

That's why we don't (and will never) have it.

Unless you have blood gushing out of your body or are foaming at the mouth you will wait hours if not even a 1/2 day or more. Ask any client of an HMO how long it takes for a doctor to get an approval for any major procedure.

And I regret that I lost the link to this --

A US corporation was sold to another corporation. This was a business that passed around papers between pharmaceutical insurance plans and the administrative branches of pharmacy companies.

In other words, this company did nothing to provide health care or drugs in any way, shape, or form. All it did was move paper around -- and probably not even that in this electronic age.

So, now you have thousands of pharmaceutical insurance plans, each of which has an administrative function. The hundreds of thousands of people employed in those companies, send stuff to the employees in this other company, which in turn sends it on the thousands of people in the pharmacy companies.

The company does not make drugs, prescribe drugs, distribute drugs, administer drugs, or anything. It just processes information for the multi-multi-multi payer system.

It sold for $4.3 billion. When there is that much money to be made by a company that has no direct relation to health care, you can bet that the current system isn't going anywhere as long as the corporations are involved. They are going to fight to the death to maintain the status quo.