Agreed. Yet none of those countries are "home of the free" either. I admit that I'm a libertarian, and consequently when weighing the trade off between liberty and security I always lean toward more liberty. Socializing health care isn't evil, it just results in a lower standard of living, IMO.
If it makes you feel any better, I think that the tide is moving in your favor. More and more Americans seem willing to hand over bits and pieces of individual liberty so that they can at least perceive to be more secure.
Under a proper constitutional structure, the federal gov't would have absolute NO role in health care in any way, shape or form, and each of the states would decide how much or how little they wish to regulate insurance, health care, etc. that would be great because each state would likely do things differently and over time it would become more evident that certain things are working better than others. With a single federal solution, we'll never know whether other things could work better.
You're right; I'm wrong.
America sucks ass.
I'm taking my flag down.
Goddamn Socialists are gonna ruin it for all of us. Anytime we put People or Planet ahead of Profit, we all lose.
What is scary to me in single payer health care is that we're socializing the costs of health care. That means that a fellow taxpayer is having to pay taxes based on the health of his fellow taxpayers. Rationally, this taxpayer now has an interest in whether you're living a "healthy" lifestyle, right? That only makes sense. For example, I don't care if you go on an expensive vacation, but once I'm paying for part of it, I'm suddenly very interested in how much your lifestyle choices cost. So socializing the costs of health care fundamentally changes the relationship between the individual citizen and the state. If my taxes are going up because you're overweight, or not sleeping enough, or smoking, or taking steroids, or eating too much birthday cake, or sky diving, or whatever, now I have an interest in your life, and am more tempted to want to regulate your behavior.
Conceivably, every aspect of your life touches on your health. We're basically giving the government permission to regulate anything they want to in the name of "public health', because they're paying for it. I can't really blame the gov't for wanting to do that, but I don't want the gov't infringing upon my personal life choices. That's a big problem to me.
JR... Name one country with socialized health care where they tell you how much you can earn or what you can eat?!?!
You claim to be this successful worldly guy. Have you been to Europe? If so did you have a actual conversation with anyone?
and this statement -
"I wouldn't be able to look at my myself in the mirror and call myself a man (as a healthy 47 year old with no serious health problems) if I could not find a way to pay for my own health insurance, housing, utilities, groceries, transportation, and also take care of funding my own retirement."
Is just wow. Honestly.
Let me give you some numbers:
average annual cost of health insurance - $3,500
average annual housing cost - $10,000
average annual utility cost - $7,000
average annual grocery cost - $6,500
average annual transportation cost - $9,000
average annual necessities according to JR - $36,000
average annual income - $56,500
Left over monies - $20,500
This is with NO debt figured in which FYI the average american holds around 8-10,000 in credit card debt, 40-50,000 in student loan debt.
I mean honestly you cant be so blind to what it means to live in this time and place that you think everything is hunky dory. 15% of this country lives BELOW the poverty line.
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