Obama Calls Healthcare Critics Names Rather Than Debating Them
Reader Comments
Selling our future
Healthcare costs what it does because we are already paying for those who do not have insurance. Is anyone ever refused healthcare at any hospital? No. The healthcare system actually works just fine as it is. With the present economic conditions it is absolutely stupid to borrow a trillion dollars against our future generation to fix something that doesn’t need fixing. Furthermore, Government Health Care would be counter productive to economic recovery. It has always been a motivation to get a fulltime job that provides benefits. Social Health Care System takes that motivation away. We can not afford to sell our children’s future. A couple of relevant quotes, “Avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen whic”, George Washington quotes (American commander in chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolution (1775-83) and subsequently 1st US President (1789-97), 1732-1799). “Debt is the slavery of the free”,Publilius Syrus quotes (Roman author, 1st century B.C.). We are heading down a dangerous path if Obama’s agenda are voted in. God Bless America. Sincerely, Art
Re: What's so great about US health care
Muser of NM wrote: "We're the only industrialized country I know of where 60% of bankruptcies are tied to medical bills. The others don't have that problem with respect to health care, which everybody gets anyway."
One of the most important lessons I learned as a Boy Scout was its motto "Be Prepared". This lesson was re-taught during my military service. The acronym was "6P"--Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I agree that bankruptcies are tied to medical bills. But I would argue the percentage. I'd be interested to get your perspective on where you think an individual's responsibility to meet their health care needs ends and the government's responsibility to that person's health care needs begins?
Where was the prior planning on the part of individuals to take ownership of their lives? Do people honestly think they can live forever? That they'll be healthy forever? That nothing bad will never, ever happen to them? News flash. People get sick and die. Guess what they also go bankrupt. Why? Because people live beyond their means. They borrowed more than they're worth. They live paycheck to paycheck and do NOTHING to squirrel away some extra discretionary income.
Secondly, what country has become the world's policeman? The United States. That means our government spends it's GDP on something other than your "Free" health care. Consequently, Those countries have committable resources. As for the care, I'd hesitate to say it's even remotely better. Sure, you can get a heart transplant, but you'll long be dead by the time your name gets to the top of the donor recipient list. You have a cough, sure you can go to the ER but you'll sit there all day until a bleary eyed doctor tells you to go home and drink a spot of tea.
Thirdly, If it's ok for Mexican illegals to enter the United States to get what they want; better paying jobs. Then people who want "free" health care should immigrate to Great Britain that offers it.
Rationing
Do you truly beleive there is no rationing now? Our present healthcare system rations care every day - HMO that limit the doctors you can see, plans that require a generalists note to get to see a specialist, millions without any insurance at all or any access to consistant care. We are buried under rationing in the present system. That does not mean that any new system will be better but please do not lie to us about rationing. We already have it.
What's so great about U.S. health care?
We're the only industrialized country I know of where 60% of bankruptcies are tied to medical bills. The others don't have that problem with respect to health care, which everybody gets anyway. So, yes, that's something we don't have here--a single-payer, government-run system.
Our health care costs will double from $2.1 trillion to $4.3 trillion in 2017, a rate about 3 times inflation, and will account for 20% of U.S. GDP. I don't know about you but that to me spells an economic disaster in the making. I don't sympathize much with the insurance companies and health care providers who will get hurt but we're talking about the entire economy being put at risk here. They haven't been able to deliver anything comparable in quality to the health care systems of other industrialized countries but we spend twice as much as they do on the average. A real shame.
Notice the 7th and 8th paragraphs above
Roff, here, alleges the president is calling people names---when what Obama said (quoted above) is a nothing but a warning against questionable ARGUMENTS that the conservatives have used in the past. There is no name calling.
This is your problem with conservatives in a nutshell---some of them lie about stuff and others of them eat it up, hook, line and sinker.
If Roff is rich enough to "opt out", fine.
He can buy whatever he wants. The rest of us voted for a public plan and intend to get it done this time around.
Obama's Health Care Blitzkrieg
Essentially, the socialized health care "discussion" is really just political pandering, railroading, and, vote buying. What's with the blitzkrieg agenda in pushing this legislation?
Where are the "Cooler-Heads" in the beltway? Every person alive and dead acutely knows the primordial principles of suffering and death. Therefore, one's health is an intrinsic aspect of life. Therefore, the discussion, if there is such a thing, should be about suffering and death.
Viktor Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning) insight is powerful. I believe he was on to something when he stated that, "The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way 'an honorable way' in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment."
Frankl's word a haunting echo from one who experienced first hand holocaust Germany in WWII. As a survivor of death camps, the renown psychiatrist's experience was well acquainted with suffering and death. Man's, "only achievement," he says, "may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way." It is through suffering that we gain understanding about life. Suffering causes the superfluous to dissipate rendering only what is truely important. Radically take away man's suffering, and you take away his ability to find true meaning and understanding in life.
Consequently one would perceive that last sentence as a calloused, draconian view of people's suffering. Rather, I sumbit that implementation of a socialized health care system will radically take away man's suffering, and take society's compassion and meaning with it--"It's not my problem you're sick, you have free health care!" will be society's response.
I believe compassion not only necessary, but essential. I believe that, as a nation, the health care issue will resolve itself when we as a people feel a desire to help our neighbor. The problem will be exacerbate when Uncle Sam forces us to open our wallets. One causes compassion and gives meaning, the other causes resentment and creates selfishness.
Health care???
What does Obama take us for? Does everyone look like idoits? Obama has done nothing but lie to the american people since he started to run for president. First: he was only going to use money from democratic funds. Wrong. That was the start of all his BS. Then having a vote after the republicans went home. Real nice. Now all this medical and global warming BS, and HE KNOWS IT IS BS. I DON'T TRUST HIM ON ANY FRONT, AND I WOULD NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING HE SAID EVEN IF JESUS CHRIST WAS HOLDING HIS HAND WHEN HE SPOKE. His sole purpose is to ruin this country. The democrats are dumb enough to believe every thing he says. What a sorry bunch. Any member of the senate or congress that votes for his programs should be voted out of office in 2010. And I will do my best to see that happen. No, I am neither a republican or democrate. I am just an American that has had enough of this BS.
