"Choose what's best for your family." I want to barf when Obama or anyone else says that.

[eridani]

This is one of the most morally and ethically vile things that anyone could ever say, because what it really means is that some people deserve good health care, and other people are disposable human garbage who do not. Families with more money are better than families with less money, who just ought to take the Repukes' advice and die quickly.

What is this horseshit about an "exchange" including four different levels, each of which costs more and covers more? That includes the so-called "public option" provisions. Every other goddam developed country in the world, whether they use the Bismarck model, the Beveridge model or the Douglas model requires a single standard of coverage for everyone, no exceptions. No age discrimination, or any other kind.

Still, all these countries have multi-tiered health care in practice simply because the affluent buy extra bells and whistles for themselves. That is actually fine by me, because that is the ONLY time when "choice" should come into play in the area of health care. It's like Bill Gates being able to have an expensive sprinkler and fire alarm system that I could never afford. I could care less as long as we both get the same fire engine in the event of fire. Our over-privileged representatives, including Obama, seem to think it's just fine that some should have access to modern hook and ladder trucks and the rest of us get the horse-drawn wagons of a century ago.

According to the calculator, I'd be forced to pay $450/monhth to get only 70% of my expenses taken care of with the Basic Plan. (That includes both the age discrimination and the offsetting subsidy I'd get.) Under HR 676, individuals would all pay $125/adult/month, and businesses would have a payroll tax of 8-10% above a certain (negotiable) threshold. Note that businesses that self-insure generally are paying more than that now. With the $325 extra a month, even someone on a modest retirement income like me could afford self-financed gold-plated health care extras if I wanted them.

How fucking sociopathic and stupid are our fellow citizens anyway? Would they really prefer a $450/month "premium" to a $125/month "tax"? I know that there are probably teabagger assholes out there who would cheerfully pay someone to saw off their dominant hand if the other half of the deal was that someone they hated got both hands sawn off, but how many of them could there actually be?

[willing dwarf]

1. Equal Healthcare for All

That would be a good pithy slogan for a just campaign for healthcare coverage. You do need to wonder why people don't examine the fundamtally fascist attitude that props up this country. It's basically the attitude that "arbeite mach frei"... It is appalling.

[stray cat]

7. Never going to happen - even in countries with public health you can buy better private care

[vadawg]

9. yup i, all for a public option as lond as you still allow people to purchase private if they want it

[eridani]

12. Only on their own dime, like private life insurance n/t

[eridani]

11. You missed the point. That better care is IN ADDITION TO

--a comprehensive single standard available to all. It is NOT built into the basic government supported/regulated system from the start.

It is like private life insurance here. Everyone who works pays FICA, and if you die before your kids reach maturity they get SS Survivors' benefits. Plenty of people don't think that'e enough, and so they buy private life insurance as well. But in doing so, they are not taking so much as ONE THIN DIME from widow(er)s and orphans who can't afford private life insurance.

[Mari333]

2. yep. some of us just hang on and hope we dont get sick

until Im 65 I pay for catastrophic care and thats all. no doctors visits, no meds, just out of pocket in case I get hit by a truck, and thats with a 10,000 deductible. I keep my fingers crossed. I paid 80 dollars out of pocket for a breast exam last week. pap smear? havent had one in ages. just keep my fingers crossed. I have a few more yrs til medicare. Stopped smoking, eat vegan, dont drink. Just biding my time .
I think the people in the beltway have no idea, at all, what its like in the rest of the country. maybe they think people live like they do in the commercials on TV.

[iamjoy]

6. Thanks A Lot!

So, you just hang on until you can get Medicare. That's just great. Meanwhile, you could have underlying health conditions that could be treated relatively inexpensively now but will be catastrophic by the time you get your Medicare. At that point, it will be very costly to treat and it will all be paid for by hardworking taxpayers like me who may not even have Medicare by the time we retire.

Understand, I am not mad at you. It makes me ill that we have a system that doesn't take adequate care of all its citizens. I'm sickened to think that enough people in this country don't realize we're all in this together. If you can't afford good routine care at this time, I'd rather pay a little extra now than a lot more later. To me, that's a win-win. I save money and I feel better knowing my fellow American is getting care.

yes, I'm middle class and I say raise my damn taxes now to make Medicare available to every one. Moral issues aside, I bet in the long run we'd save money.

[varelse]

15. Aww

You're all heart <3

[madrchsod]

19. two more years for me...

my mom and dad had supplemental insurance and never paid a dime. the biggest problem was the cost of some of their medicine.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Americans are not happy unless they are discriminating against

someone. That is the God they worship.

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. +1 nt

[eridani]

5. Some of us, for sure.

But can't their influence be countered by people who would rather have health care than feel superior to someone? Rember that kid whose mom didn't have $80 to treat an infected tooth? The rest of us spent $250,000 in a futile attempt to save his life after it went septic. Is that smug sense of superiority to a grubby little poor kid actually worth $249,920 to anyone?

[Bluenorthwest]

10. It could be countered by leadership that refused

to stand for discrimination, instead of the one we have that promotes it and uses divisions as a tool of self promotion.

[whathehell]

13. Give me a break...Other countries are as full of their own little prejudices as we are

Although I do agree that we must have equal healthcare for all.

[eridani]

21. Why don't those prejudices stop them from supporting a single standard for all?

The basics amount to a reasonably high standard most places, and the affluent are free to buy as many extras as they want.

[whathehell]

24. Perhaps because when most of those systems were put in place after World War II

Europe was relatively homogenous with few people within their own boundaries to be prejudiced against.

[eridani]

25. Hatred for Jews and Rom didn't stop universal health care, though n/t

[whathehell]

26. Yes, but the war and it's bleak aftermath, probably left them

too weary to want to cut off their nose to spite their faces

[eridani]

27. Is Britain the model for the whole region then?

What you say surely explains Britain, but Germany kept its old model despite being flattened even worse.

[whathehell]

28. No..but there's more to Western Europe than Germany and Britain.

[eridani]

34. I think that the devastation of WW II definitely accounts for Beveridge type health care programs

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/eridani/401

That's where the government just takes over the whole shebang. However, Japan, Germany, France, and many other countries kept their Bismarck type regulated private insurance under very similar conditions.

[ipaint]

30. I think it's cruelly punishing someone for their perceived failings.

Americans love to dish out punishments to those lower than them economically.

[dugaresa]

8. i agree

[mr blur]

14. Well, here (UK) we have a single standard of coverage for all -

of course those with money can choose to "go private" but on the whole they get the same doctors, same nurses and same equipment - they just get it more quickly if they want. I have no problem with people spending their money on whatever they wish, the point is that no-one needs to or suffers because they can't.

You'll understand that we can't understand why there's such opposition in the US. What the hell is wrong with everybody helping everybody else?

[madrchsod]

16. "What the hell is wrong with everybody helping everybody else?"

we do that here in america everyday and especially on the weekends..i call them "beg-a thons". that`s where people try to raise funds for someone who has been bleed dry by medical expenses. stripped of every penny they have left they have to rely on their friends and strangers to help them pay the bills. we have at least one or two a month in the surrounding area where i live. i find the whole idea disgusting..not for the generosity of their friends and others but the sick and injured are forced into poverty because of medical bills.

[whathehell]

18. If you don't understand, it's probably because you don't understand the US

..and I don't say that as a "putdown" or because I don't believe in Universal Healthcare for all, because I absolutely do.

My understanding is that Europe came by it's health system after World War II, when its countries' industries were largely destroyed. The government offered them Government Health Care as a way of giving them something, and that, of course, was a good thing.

In contrast, US industries were NOT destroyed, we had plenty of jobs and so this made employment based healthcare seem logical.

Also, the demographics of Europe and America were very different. If I'm not mistaken, the populations of Europe were relatively "homogenous" at the time -- Making it a bit easier, I would think, to feel a certain "unity" with each other.

Such is not the case, as I'm sure you know, in the USA...The US has NEVER been racially or ethnically homogenous and that, for all its good points, has often undermined national unity by means of prejudice, etc.

What's worse is that the Corporate Powers That Be, in a "divide and conquer" scheme, play off these resentments, via conservative media, in order to keep The Status Quo.

They are, however, not the ONLY "powers that be" and we are fighting them tooth and nail.

[eridani]

20. That doesn't explain Otto von Bismarck in 1890s Germany at all n/t

[whathehell]

22. No, but I believe it may explain most of western europe.

[madrchsod]

17. feed your family and pay the bills or pay the insurance companies?

if obama and friends would have to make those decisions maybe they could understand the problem that faces most americans. unfortunately they never will have to face these problems and they`ll never relieve us of ours.

[Solly Mack]

23. K&R

"How fucking sociopathic and stupid are our fellow citizens anyway?"

So stupid that many aid in their own oppression and then cheer it as a victory.

[eridani]

29. Reiterating the point--my problem with "choice" is where it is inserted into the picture

Take care of everyone reasonably well with ONE basic comprehensive plan, and then (and only then) do you allow more choices for extras on top of that.

[asdjrocky]

31. Hear hear.

Why doesn't anyone other than one politician talk about the 45,000 people dying every year? It's like we live in some bazaro world where it's okay that people die when they don't have to. Oh never mind, I forgot I live in the USA.

[newtothegame]

32. I've never actually heard the 'die quickly' thing. Did someone actually say this?

I've seen subject lines with that phrase in it here on DU, but when I click the article, it's clear the subject line was a paraphrase of the DU'ers thoughts on that article and not an actual quote. Where did this come from?

[eridani]

33. That was from Rep Alan Grayson of Florida n/t

[donheld]

35. Do you by any chance live under a rock?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=380008

[eridani]

36. Hey, be nice! The handle is newtothegame, OK? n/t