What are we doing!? (Little Upsilon)

I heard yesterday that the USA will impose a tariff on all tyres coming from China (45% I think it was). What free market?
It's all Bananas.

Go look up the term "Free Market Economy" nix. That'll put it into context for you.

I have always thought that NAFTA was the perfect example of what is wrong with Free Trade/Market. Why would it take over 20k pages to say - you don't monkey with prices of goods and services over and above how we already stick our own citizens, and we won't either?

LOL Nanna! That's a compliment

Oh, and by the way, that's Jesse 'THE BODY' to you!

I thought about it a little and I can't come up with a single style of government that is in itself bad, or evil.

Even despotism, if run by beings that don't have greed and corruption, would work beautifully. Communism, the same thing, fascism is only bad because of what it was used for. I don't think fascism teaches racial hatred but rather strict control I may be wrong, I don't study it. Fascism can be used to advance racial hate, so can a republic as we have witnessed in recent history.

It's the men who are evil, not the systems they use to enslave their people with. Just some systems are easier to do it with. We would like to keep the one that makes it more difficult and that's not socialism. Socialism seems to lead to fascism and we all already know we can't trust the ruling class with fascism.

interesting comments from you all
wake up zombies

Tyr, why do you say that US healthcare seems very unchristian? Everyone seems to agree that it's the best in the world if you can afford it. No one seems to disagree that the great majority of Americans can afford it, one way or another. Poor people and the elderly have basic care paid for them by the rest of the citizens. The basic research that is done here benefits people around the world. Sure it costs more...but then again, compared to other nations we are relatively well off.

What do you find unchristian about it? Are you accusing the politicians and insurance companies that shield insurance companies from competition? Are you referring to the politicians and their constituents who demand that a basic insurance policy cover extravagant and unneeded services, making it impossible in many states to buy a cheap catastrophic health insurance policy? Are you talking about the fact that American consumers subsidize the cost of prescription drugs to consumers in many other countries?

Some of these practices may be stupid, wasteful, and shortsighted, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them or the people behind them "unchristian." Do you know so much more than the rest of us, that you can look into these peoples' hearts and judge them from afar?

I'm not judging anyone!
Simple observation that there is much money in the health business and many people without care. Basic care is not enough. America can afford to provide better than basic care to all its people.
The use of money around the world, not just in America is very wasteful. People are basically selfish to varing degrees.
People will buy a $1000 bottle of wine and walk past a homeless person in the street without taking any notice.
An extreme example maybe but it illustrates the wasteful use of money.

And how exactly does one define Christianness?

Love your neighbor?

Who's health is failing.

SiI agree with Tyr, his observation is completely accurate.

"People are basically selfish to varing degrees.
People will buy a $1000 bottle of wine and walk past a homeless person in the street without taking any notice.
An extreme example maybe but it illustrates the wasteful use of money."

So what if they are? It might not be "right" but it's their choice. And what does America policy and legislation have to do with Christianity?

You know, there a many many many rich people saying we ought to do this or ought to do that. Why the hell don't they do it? Why can't they set up a non-profit type of insurance as an insurer of last resort and use minimal premiums and charitable donations to keep it running? Hell, I wouldn't mind donating. What I don't like is the government getting larger and more intrusive. We're becoming a nation that's reliant on the government. American pride has always before been our independence and liberty. Every year we lose more and more of it thanks to Republicans and Democrats alike.

I don't know that one nation's healthcare is better than anothers, but I agree with JoJo that most people DO get the healthcare they need. We only hear the stories about the ones that don't, because, as Klarina will recognize, it is a rhetorical tool used as an appeal to emotion. We get the same horror stories in the US about Britain's and Canada's systems. Which is why we have American's saying British system SUXORZZ and Brits saying that American's PHAILZ, when it's likely that neither are the case.

BC

"So what if they are? It might not be "right" but it's their choice."

This is a fascinating observation by you BC. I personally find it disturbing that it is way to easy to point that out, with stunning accuracy I might add.

Let's not forget that Liberty was a gift to man from the Devil himself. Did we learn anything of the examples in the garden of eden? Poor Eve had a choice, too bad it supposedly cost us all our immortality. Sad to see if she hadn't made those choices, we wouldn't need healthcare, nor this conversation.


"And what does America policy and legislation have to do with Christianity?"

That is easy. Easy enuff to proly not have even asked. Lets see. . .

Does any of this ring bells?

"In God We Trust"
"One Nation, under God, Indivisable"

Clearly, these are core statements from which our Nation has been founded. Yet it strikingly highlights how far we have deviated from the "Founding Fathers' vision.

Also, there are many charites available.

For example. On a National Level, "Catholic Charites" does more than just healthcare. They extend into housing assistance, rental assistance, food banks, and more. In Florida, there is "Charity Care". Our Private sector for charitable organizations remains the largest on a global scale. This is a fact.

The Govt has been large, there isn't anything new. They have also been intrusive. Do you recall the "Patriot Act"? The Bill that has the US spying on all its citizens in the name of terrorism. The same bill that has hundreds of Americans getting rectal searches for being on terror watchlists hap hazardly at our nations airports. Is that not intrusive? How aboiut yes, in the worse way.

Gimme a break. Those points are rediculous excuses to mask retarded opposition to clearly needed change on so many levels that have been neglected by past elected officials. What is becoming clearly evident is now that Obama has actually put his political ass on the line to do some of these things, the Republicans have demonized him for things they even Initiated bills for in the past. Except they failed. Now Armed with knowledge of what the MAJORITY of american people want, they aim to thwart his effort in preparation to the 2012 election so they can use his not passing healthcare intiatives as ammo. Hoping to deliver the goods themselves. Almost a blanket statement of "How dare he do what we have not. If we(Publicans) didn't get it done, we sure as hell aren't going to let him do it."

The story remains the same with the Publicans. . . more of the same. To undertake Healthcare reform is political suicide. I liken it to throwing yourself in the mess that is going on in the middle east. To Attempt solutions at peace, is like chasing the wind. Give the man the respect he deserves, and 2 points for doing what seems impossible. As this natiopn grows larger and larger this issue will only become more and more difficult to adress. I think there is a verse in Ecclesiastes of the Old Testament, "Do what needs to be done, while it is still easy" Or something along those lines.


BC, you wouldn't be repeating rediculous propaganda you hear on news programs would you? I don't think you are that naive.

Then again, could be wrong. Thinking comes from not knowing.

And since we are on foolish talking point about opposition to HealthCare Reform along lines of cost, Lets take a quick looksee at this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax


A great alternative to our current system of taxation with more potential for economic growth and personal advancement for the citizen. Along with a projected multi triilion dollar budget surplus if implemented. Why isn't anyone emailing their congressman about this?

"Why isn't anyone emailing their congressman about this?"

Ohhhh I got it!! We wouldn't want everyone getting by in America. We wouldn't want you to retain 30+/- % of your income. Think of what you would do with all that. Maybe quit living paycheck to paycheck. Or maybe start a business. Or get out of debt. Maybe quit owing the govt. at the end of the year. (Lord Forbid that!!)

Ohh I got another One!!!! We wouldn't want consumer prices to fall. Well that would unravel everything. We wouldn't Americans trying to live the "Dream thingy" competing with big business. No way. That would just be stinky.

What is going on here?

I'm not against a Fair Tax, per se, but it could be argues that the people hit hardest will be the poor, who, at the moment, pay nothing in taxes.

Further, there are sufficient grounds to point out that an Income Tax is unconstitutional.

I definitely believe there should be a change in our tax codes.

Not entirely true BC.

What is uncommon in fair tax discussions or debates is that the current corp tax is priced into goods as they cost today. If corp tax is 30% or so. US being the highest tax for corps in the world. They price goods accordingly to offset tax expenditures. Moving to a fair tax system will obviously lower the overall price of goods, And I would even go as far as to say that new competition in a pro growth environment would allow goods to drop below prices that we already pay today. The trick here being that the money spent is being taxed, not the income anyone earns. So when subsidy comes in the form of welfare for example, even it is taxed and a protion will be recouped by the govt that issues it. At present, I believe unemployment and welfare payments are non taxable. Thats lost revenue and a downward investment on the govt's part. It is likely that the poor individuals buying power will be the same if not expanded as fair tax takes a full effect on competition and pricing adjusts to reflect corp taxes not being priced into the cost of any given product. Also, I assume that levels issued to the unemployed or indigent are based on cost of living and food costs. So regardless, they will be adequately supplied with the Governments revenues, not your tax dollars.

This Fair Tax thing has to be a dream.

We are in a recession, correct? We "DO" want to come out of it, correct? We "ARE" trying to reduce the Deficit, Encourage economic growth, get consumer spending and retail sales up again, correct?

Why isn't this being voted on right now? Anyone?

It wold be nice if we could try it out on some state that doesn't matter..... like Montana or something ( ) to see if it ACTUALLY works out the way we speculate.

One thing is for sure, Economics is a bitch.

People are resistent to the kind of change we REALLY need.

For instance, I've mentioned a while ago that consolidating states would save a boatload of money. Why do we need so many small states with their invidual governments, programs, costs, etc?

That's probably an "unpatriotic" thing to say. I'm definitely for a more centralized government.

Just read your response abuot healthcare. Overlooked it earlier.

So,

This discussion is about legislation, so it seems to me that you would argue that you would have your own "wrongs" and "rights" pushed onto others through this legislation. If that's the case, there are a lot of Christians who would also like to ban abortions, same sex marriages, drinking, smoking, etc. You for all of that too? Those would be based on Christian principles, or at least the way the advocates define them.
I wonder how many of you "ought tos" out there give to every bum you see, mow old ladies lawns, consistently give to charities, or would be willing to pay (or contribute) to your unemployed neighbors healthcare costs? Don't answer. The simple truth is that very few of the proponents of this particular healthcare people want to be responsible for it themselves. We all know how much the government wastes. Why do people think that public control is something innovative or fresh? How abuot we ACTUALLY think of something new, innovative and fresh adn NOT rely on people who are, for the most part, career liars and hypocrites?

"The Govt has been large, there isn't anything new. They have also been intrusive. Do you recall the "Patriot Act"? The Bill that has the US spying on all its citizens in the name of terrorism. The same bill that has hundreds of Americans getting rectal searches for being on terror watchlists hap hazardly at our nations airports. Is that not intrusive? How aboiut yes, in the worse way."

I pointed out that Republicans and Democrats are to blame.

And Wendy, don't act as if you are unpartisan in this. You are riding that Obamaboat as hard as anyone. Where do you see that the majority of people back Obama's healthcare plan?

Most recent poll I see regarding the issue is here http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform and shows a 55% majority against such a plan. That's a Rasmussen poll, not FoxNews, Shawn Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, etc...

Only poll I found (admitedly didn't look at more than 5 or 6 of the top hits on Google) that favored the Obama plan was back in June.

Maybe you should be running for office.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

I don't know that one nation's healthcare is better than anothers, but I agree with JoJo that most people DO get the healthcare they need. We only hear the stories about the ones that don't, because, as Klarina will recognize, it is a rhetorical tool used as an appeal to emotion. We get the same horror stories in the US about Britain's and Canada's systems. Which is why we have American's saying British system SUXORZZ and Brits saying that American's PHAILZ, when it's likely that neither are the case.<!-/Quote-!>

Somebody gets it at least.

When we come right down to the base of this whole issue you will find that it isn't actually healthcare that is the problem here. Its percieved government intervention in the day to day lives of the citizen.

In order to understand the reason for the American distaste for socialised healthcare and the European advocation thereof, one must first place both arguments into an appropriate social context.

In order to do this one should not only look at current economic and sociopolitical factors, but also the history behind them. And in order to do this, we need two examples of the "opposing" systems.

The United Kingdom and the United States are both excellent examples.

So, lets start by analysing a little history.

Firstly, lets look at the UK. The National Health Service (NHS) is, in my opinion, an excellent example of a nationalised healthcare system. Comparatively speaking, it is a world renownd service. As a statement of fact, it is the third largest employer in the world. It provides excellent "front-line" services to every citizen of the United Kingdom at a comparatively small cost to the individual, and manages to meet an excellent minimum standard of care for any first world nation. Whilst it may not boast technologies equally advanced as the privatised US system it does offer excellent specialist care for anything ranging from a broken toe to major neurosurgery.

Being funded almost exclusively by the British taxpayer, however, the budget constraints placed upon the NHS have been known to cause a few problems in the past. Coupled with the known beaurocratic inefficiencies of most government-run organisations, this can seem almost crippling at times, and can have some detrimental effects on the service provided - limited funding when it comes to comparatively rare disorders, for example.

The US, on the other hand, boasts one of the most well equipped healthcare systems in the world, with medical practitioners trained to a level surpassed by only a mere few. These hospitals tend to be very well funded in the form of private contributions and payments, and attract some of the most skilled doctors in the world as a result.

Unfortunately, for all of its advancement and advantages, the system does not provide full coverage of the US population beyond what would be considered basic healthcare. 40 million is the statistic offered in terms of people who have more advanced forms of healthcare cut off from access simply because it is beyond their financial means. Only 87% of the population has access to more than basic healthcare. Or, put another way, one in ten Americans is potentially held back from advanced medical treatment.

As we can see, both of these systems has both advantages and disadvantages. Quality versus coverage/accessibility seems to be the primary comparison. We have one system of high quality with restricted access, and one system with open access, but a lower high-end quality.

All Britons recieve higher quality healthcare. Most Americans recieve the best healthcare in the world.

Both systems are a compromise.

But for the reasons behind the existance for each system we have to place these two methods of administering healthcare into their wider social and historical contexts.

So let's start with the UK.

At the end of the Second World War the UK was essentially bankrupt. The average Briton was living on rations in a country with an infrastructure in tatters and an economy on the verge of collapse and very few real prospects. And this was a situation that, by the time the NHS was created in 1948, they had endured for just short of a decade.

Wider social reasoning for a national healthcare service can be seen by looking back further still. Expanding our view back to the Victorian era we can see issues pertaining to the restrictive access of basic public services - such as healthcare - and the poverty line of the UK's population.

By the end of the war, with the country in tatters, nationalisation of several national services was a necessity in order to maintain them - healthcare, railways, energy.

In essence, nationalisation was the only way forwards to ensure essential services were fully provided to all.

Socialism, for the UK, was a step in the right direction - though we've actually seen moves away from socialism in recent years, with the reprivatisation of both public transport and the utility providers.

But the NHS remains. Possibilities as to why will be examined in full later on.

As for the US - here we have the world's foremost industrial nation. A well-paid, well fed nation with decent public services provided for by the private sector. At the same time that the UK - and much of rebuilding Europe - was seeking out socialism as a means to get back on its feet, the USA was prospering. A proseperous nation and a prosperous people have no need for nationalised services, as long as the private ones continue to provide excellent value for money.

The US has never had need of a national health service in the eyes of its people - until now.

But, as far as I can tell, the US's "fear" of socialism stems from a few key factors.

Firstly, there is the frequently used euphamism of "personal freedom." I am not here to debate the nature of this percieved freedom, or its place within society. What I will say, however, is that this comment alone tells you a great deal about the Americans' self-image.

It is worth noting that democracy is a very mess, very expensive business. Especially when you apply it to a federal form of government in which eash subnational entity is, to a certain degree, an independant nation with certain soverign rights and a functional government acting, in turn, under the supervision of a federal government.

The eventual result of this government within a government is, unquestionably, beaurocracy and inefficiency. In the mind of any voter, thes to concepts manifest themselves in the form of percieved corruption.

In short, people do not trust the government to do their job effectively and with minimal cost to the taxpayer.

These failures in the system, in combination with government intervention in an ever increasingly personal way, would make most Americans apprehensive in regards to further government intervention at the cost to the individual. Especially when it comes to something as personal as how they spend their hard-earned money and matters of healthcare.

The national psyche of the USA, it must also be remembered, has spent the better half of a century developing in opposition to a threatening opponent in which the government exercised total control - a form of dictatorial socialism.

All in all, opposition is to be expected. Having seen their enemy fall due to "sociaist" intervention on a massive scale, they have no wish to see the same happen in their own country.

Nationalised healtcare runs contrary to the American concept of self in development from 1945 onwards.

And, much as the benefits of nationalised healthcare blind the people of the UK (and many other states of the world) to the advantages of privatised healthcare, we find the same occuring when Americans accustomed to a private system view the apparent failures of the socialist mechanisms.

From the American point of view, this does of course beg the question, "Why would they keep such an apparently inefficient, flawed system in place?"

Most Britons ask the same questions of the American system.

Arguments for and against both systems are typically either logically flawed, biased by opinion or based upon unfounded presumptions.

Simply put, the system in place is the result of the needs versus the desires of the populace - not only in the present-day, but tracing back along historical lines within the relative social context.

Britons have the National Health Service because they feel they want it. They feel it is a fair system, open to all and paid for by all. Government control doesn't even factor into it. We want our high quality healthcare service, and we want it for practically peanuts.

Americans do not have a nationalised health service because, in their virw, it is not needed. It would be an additional form of taxation and it would apparently reduce the quality of their service. At present there is considerable political will - with so many Americans unable to afford a decent standard of healthcare provisions - to implement some form of national system.

Those going without see what they could have, and they quite naturally want it. Its the way the market works. And as the current system fails to provide for them, they seek ways to alter the system to work in their favour. I can think of no concept more American than the desire to change their world in order to make it better.

They can either do this by lifting more Americans out of povery by providint more opportunity to progress, making the current system more affordable. Or they can implement a system in which healthcare is paid for by all, and available to all.

For as long as they cannot see the former happening, they will opt for the latter.

I hope that made a little sense, and I apologise for any typos or logical errors within.

BC LoL, why would I act when I am clearly, openly, and admittedly partisan.

I've said it b4 and i'll say it again. If i have to choose between bad and evil, I'll choose bad.

I am so against republicans, what they represent and stand for, publicly and privately; that I wonder why you made such a comment.

No secret here, Publicans Blo chunks.

Because I thought we were going for "Intellectual Discussion", not meaningless propaganda and slurs.

My mistake.

We are going for that kind of discussion, but by no means would that imply that I am claiming bi-partisan opinion in the process.

It is unfortunate that at the heart of this issue is the clear party line vote that threatens to derail the entire healthcare bill. It is undeniable that every comment you or I make can be viewed as partisan. But your comments seem to be sound bites replayed by "Fox Noise" compared to my heartfelt opinion.

Wouldn't you agree?

Where in the discussion should "Big Government" dominate objections to insuring otherwise uninsured citizens of America? It shouldn't even be viewed as a valid point honestly. No one is going to do it privately, govt. regulates everything, so it is obvious who has to undertake this task.

Fox News? It's American History, dear. This debate (big government, etc.) goes back to Hamilton vs. Jefferson and even beyond. A little before Fox News' time.

And didn't you just unabashedly claim your own partisan behavior? Wouldn't that mean your own points are worthless?