Healthcare/other issues & bills

[Dark.Cloud]

I see there is a You-tube thread...but i strongly feel this deserves its own thread... Watch all 9 minutes, this is just...ridiculous lol...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

how the reporter keeps from shooting all of these people is phenomenal, and he deserves a Nobel prize.

EDIT : I changed post name to fit the argument.

[Dark.Cloud]

With all that said..We waste so much money.. Health care reform in the u.s is kind of very important lol. I mean under our current policy we waste 100's of thousands on expenisive surgeries when the person is in 'icu'. But we wont fork over the cash to have them on the meds that woudl prevent this surgery. A insurance company that can drop a person who has cancer and needs alot of money b/c they 'lied' on there healthcare form and didnt put that they had acne at one time in the past..

Thoughts?

[Wagon]

With all that said..We waste so much money.. Health care reform in the u.s is kind of very important lol. I mean under our current policy we waste 100's of thousands on expenisive surgeries when the person is in 'icu'. But we wont fork over the cash to have them on the meds that woudl prevent this surgery. A insurance company that can drop a person who has cancer and needs alot of money b/c they 'lied' on there healthcare form and didnt put that they had acne at one time in the past..

Thoughts?

ily......
I think when the congresswoman (slut) named Virginia somethinganother went up and said how congress shouldn't vote for the plan because, I quote, "THEYLL TEH KILLZ0R TEH OLD PEOPLES1!@#!$!%$%!%!%%", when both she and her party are fully aware that the plans contain no such "old people annihilation" devices. This long history of people garnering votes via blatant lies would prove unsuccessful if people weren't hugging STUPID. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case, nor will it ever be. Yet, as a panda once said, "Lift up your hearts, all will come right, out of the depths of sorrow and of sacrifice. To be born again, the glory of mankind." (lol he said glory, what a silly toboggan)

Fruit for thought: Castmember of The Hills(Talak.Winstar + Michael Jackson) = Any given person in that video

[Caia]

Eh, there's a lot of issues with President Obama's health care plan. IF we REALLY want to get into that, someone can post another thread.

That's being said, yeah, there's a lot of idiots out there. Though, its pretty east to exemplify a point by showing some of the people being interviewed in a cut and paste sort of way. Do you think they'd show any footage of people who knew what was going on? No, of course not. They wanted to make the point that "If you disagree with Obama, you're obviously an idiot."

Are some of the people who disagree with Obama dumber than a brick? You bet. Are some of them that disagreed with Bush dumber than a brick? You bet. But this video is hardly balanced and obviously had an agenda.

Spin == Bad

Edit: By the way, this doesn't hold true for ONLY Americans. Where ever you go, you can be assured you'll find some idiots.

[Dark.Cloud]

Eh, there's a lot of issues with President Obama's health care plan. IF we REALLY want to get into that, someone can post another thread.

That's being said, yeah, there's a lot of idiots out there. Though, its pretty east to exemplify a point by showing some of the people being interviewed in a cut and paste sort of way. Do you think they'd show any footage of people who knew what was going on? No, of course not. They wanted to make the point that "If you disagree with Obama, you're obviously an idiot."

Are some of the people who disagree with Obama dumber than a brick? You bet. Are some of them that disagreed with Bush dumber than a brick? You bet. But this video is hardly balanced and obviously had an agenda.

Spin == Bad

Edit: By the way, this doesn't hold true for ONLY Americans. Where ever you go, you can be assured you'll find some idiots.

There are alot of idiots in america, only explanation for being the only wealthy country without universal healthcare, we spend most money on health care than most people and we dont even cover everyone. We spend too much on administration and when people are in the icu they pay 100k's for expensive surgeries that could have been prevented.

Regardless it helps when you march on the capital if you know the issues...

[Havok]

find me WHERE in the US Constitution it gives anyone the right to health care and ill give you 5k tokens on any server you want.

P.S. I got a copy of the document at home have studied it thoroughly in my classes, so dont put any bs links to some idiots blog

[Wagon]

find me WHERE in the US Constitution it gives anyone the right to health care and ill give you 5k tokens on any server you want.

P.S. I got a copy of the document at home have studied it thoroughly in my classes, so dont put any bs links to some idiots blog

lol...tell me where in the Constitution it says anything about Wiretapping.
These concepts simply didn't exist when the Constitution was written...

[Dark.Cloud]

find me WHERE in the US Constitution it gives anyone the right to health care and ill give you 5k tokens on any server you want.

P.S. I got a copy of the document at home have studied it thoroughly in my classes, so dont put any bs links to some idiots blog

So because it's not in the constitution we aren't allowed to have it? We should just let people die, let people go bankrupt because we believe so highly in capitalism. You against socialism? I mean the roads seem to work fine, hell why not have those privately owned and pay per road we drive on. Healthcare is a necessity disregarding the fact of it being in the constitution. I mean if you're ok with the insurance companies pretty much doing what they want. Some of the companies have entire departments for dropping clients based on tiny loopholes. "Oh you failed to mention that you were mentally ill", the mental illness being your father died and you were on prozac fora few months.(actual case)
I mean that's cool. Our country spends more on health care than most other wealthy countries and we don't even cover everyone. A lot of which is in administrative costs.

[Havok]

find me WHERE in the US Constitution it gives anyone the right to health care and ill give you 5k tokens on any server you want.

P.S. I got a copy of the document at home have studied it thoroughly in my classes, so dont put any bs links to some idiots blog

lol...tell me where in the Constitution it says anything about Wiretapping.
These concepts simply didn't exist when the Constitution was written...

we're not talking about wiretapping, we're talking about health care and the current bill(s) in the Congress, so dont change the subject. If you'd like to talk about the constitutionality of wiretapping, please start another post.

[Havok]

find me WHERE in the US Constitution it gives anyone the right to health care and ill give you 5k tokens on any server you want.

P.S. I got a copy of the document at home have studied it thoroughly in my classes, so dont put any bs links to some idiots blog

So because it's not in the constitution we aren't allowed to have it? We should just let people die, let people go bankrupt because we believe so highly in capitalism. You against socialism? I mean the roads seem to work fine, hell why not have those privately owned and pay per road we drive on. Healthcare is a necessity disregarding the fact of it being in the constitution. I mean if you're ok with the insurance companies pretty much doing what they want. Some of the companies have entire departments for dropping clients based on tiny loopholes. "Oh you failed to mention that you were mentally ill", the mental illness being your father died and you were on prozac fora few months.(actual case)
I mean that's cool. Our country spends more on health care than most other wealthy countries and we don't even cover everyone. A lot of which is in administrative costs.

No, you are allowed to have healthcare, you just have to pay for it. Yes, american health care is expensive, but thats also because we have the best medical care in the world. Why do you think all the european, indian, and canadian doctors come here to work? Yes, I do believe in capitalism, and yes, i am against socialism. Im not saying capitalism doesnt have flaws, no systems perfect, but you only need to look a few years back to see all the failings of socialism, (the USSR), why would any sane american want to bring in a new system that has historically been proven to be a failure? Back to the expensive costs of healthcare, heres one of several ideas to lower the costs: institute a loser-pays system in the courts. This would discourage all the a$$holes and vermin that file frivolous lawsuits against the insurance companies, from filing them. All the costs the insurance companies have to pay fending off these lawsuits are passed along to those they insure, driving up their rates.

[Dark.Cloud]

find me WHERE in the US Constitution it gives anyone the right to health care and ill give you 5k tokens on any server you want.

P.S. I got a copy of the document at home have studied it thoroughly in my classes, so dont put any bs links to some idiots blog

So because it's not in the constitution we aren't allowed to have it? We should just let people die, let people go bankrupt because we believe so highly in capitalism. You against socialism? I mean the roads seem to work fine, hell why not have those privately owned and pay per road we drive on. Healthcare is a necessity disregarding the fact of it being in the constitution. I mean if you're ok with the insurance companies pretty much doing what they want. Some of the companies have entire departments for dropping clients based on tiny loopholes. "Oh you failed to mention that you were mentally ill", the mental illness being your father died and you were on prozac fora few months.(actual case)
I mean that's cool. Our country spends more on health care than most other wealthy countries and we don't even cover everyone. A lot of which is in administrative costs.

No, you are allowed to have healthcare, you just have to pay for it. Yes, american health care is expensive, but thats also because we have the best medical care in the world. Why do you think all the european, indian, and canadian doctors come here to work? Yes, I do believe in capitalism, and yes, i am against socialism. Im not saying capitalism doesnt have flaws, no systems perfect, but you only need to look a few years back to see all the failings of socialism, (the USSR), why would any sane american want to bring in a new system that has historically been proven to be a failure? Back to the expensive costs of healthcare, heres one of several ideas to lower the costs: institute a loser-pays system in the courts. This would discourage all the a$$holes and vermin that file frivolous lawsuits against the insurance companies, from filing them. All the costs the insurance companies have to pay fending off these lawsuits are passed along to those they insure, driving up their rates.

They come here to work because they can get paid 12X as much as in any country. I'm not saying convert completely to socialism but if you're so strongly against it.. You don't seem to have a problem with public roads, that is a form of socialism. Should they all be privately owned or what? Perhaps health care should be viewed the same way. And we could drive the costs wayy down with cost caps and lowering administrative costs. In Tawiian i believe it is.. Maybe Japan not 100% sure they set the maximum prices that doctors can charge for a certain procedure, for example the MRI machine they set the cost extremely low, and people get weekly or monthly MRI's there because it only costs 100$ or so to get done. So to keep hospitals from losing money Toshiba came out with an extremely low costing MRI machine that works extremely well. . .

[tekkamanblade]

health care in this country is deffinetly broken, but do you know why? its because of government interference! look up some real history, health care used to be too cheap because of so many doctors (competition) so special interests lobbied the government and then they created barriers to entry to drive up prices. with the history of horrendous mismanagement and corruption, how in the hell could anyone believe that giving the government total power over ANYTHING is going to make it more efficient?

i will tell you right now exactly how this new health care is going to work.

they will give amnesty to each illegal immigrant and allow 11 family members to come over with them and then put them on the health care too. then they will claim there are too many people needing care and that resources are finite (which is true since its all paid for by taxation). so after waiting your turn for treatment for triple the time you wait now your case will go by a death panel to decide who doesn't deserve medical care (like smokers dont get care since its their own fault, fat people dont get care because its their own fault, old people dont get care because they will die soon anyway, etc). extra "health" taxes will even be put on fatty foods and smokes and stuff, ostensibly to gain enough resources to cover the people that use them, but then you will STILL not get covered. if you want to bypass the lines and the death panels to get better treatment outside the system, you won't be able to afford it, because you will have already been FORCED to pay for the system whether you choose to use it or not.

i didn't even get into "conspiracy theories" and i wasn't going to for just this one time, but just take into account the fact that i was "rounding up" to the most pleasant outcome and not "rounding down" including every speculative thing i could slap together just to make the new healthcare plan appear as evil as possible.

and ps, the constitution clearly forbids wiretapping, as do dozens of other more recent laws, which is why we were having israel do it for us for so long.

[Dark.Cloud]

find me WHERE in the US Constitution it gives anyone the right to health care and ill give you 5k tokens on any server you want.

P.S. I got a copy of the document at home have studied it thoroughly in my classes, so dont put any bs links to some idiots blog

lol...tell me where in the Constitution it says anything about Wiretapping.
These concepts simply didn't exist when the Constitution was written...

And havok this wasn't about wiretapping, this was about the constitution, merely used wire tapping as an example

[Caia]

Let's see things that the gov't has done.

1.) World War 2 - Win, though costly both in lives and money.
2.) Vietnam - Fail
3.) Cold War - Win, but only because we could afford to outspend the USSR, so I'll give it half a point.
4.) Social Security - Epic Fail (pyramid schemes never work!)
5.) Iraq - Fail, though I'll award a quarter point for getting rid of Saddam
6.) Find Osama - Fail
7.) Getting a balanced budget - Double fail, neither Bush nor Obama seem to have a clue.
8.) Cash for Clunkers - Not sure, looked like some epic fail at first, but it might not be so bad.
9.) Stop our oil addiction (since at least Reagan was in office) - Epic fail

So, the US is pretty good at warring. At domestic stuff, not so good. Given that Obamacare is not a war, I'm greatly concerned. You should be too.

[Moleman]

Its by no means perfect but the NHS (National Health Service) is something for the UK to be proud of!

Free health care for all and a fraction of the price of a lot of other countries.

Turning the concept of making health care available for the most vulnerable members of our society into an argument against socialism seems a bit to me!

moleman

[Chicboy]

Its by no means perfect but the NHS (National Health Service) is something for the UK to be proud of!

Free health care for all and a fraction of the price of a lot of other countries.

Turning the concept of making health care available for the most vulnerable members of our society into an argument against socialism seems a bit to me!

moleman

Agree 100%

[-nox-]

No, you are allowed to have healthcare, you just have to pay for it. Yes, american health care is expensive, but thats also because we have the best medical care in the world.

what makes you say american health care is the best in the world? where do you base this on?

Personally if the health care where i life would be the 'best in the world' and yet millions would be excluded i'd go for something a little more shabby. You see, there is no point in having the most awesomenesseses pwnerizing pills when people aren't allowed to take them because they can't afford them, better get the 2nd best or whatever if that makes it affordable and that's even accepting the USA health care is the best in the world (i believe in researchs it ended 37th or something like that, but hey, what do researchers know).

Why do you think all the european, indian, and canadian doctors come here to work?

do all european, indian and canadian doctors come to the USA to work? we have hospitals too you know filled with more than just patients.

Yes, I do believe in capitalism, and yes, i am against socialism. Im not saying capitalism doesnt have flaws, no systems perfect, but you only need to look a few years back to see all the failings of socialism, (the USSR), why would any sane american want to bring in a new system that has historically been proven to be a failure?

USSR is communism/marxism, not socialism/neo-marxism. If you want to make an argument against socialism, try talking about socialism rather than some other system of government/ideology. Just to mention one difference between communism and socialism; socialism is democratic, communism is not (it follows a route from oligarchy or dictatorship until the final result which is anarchy, no democracy involved). I think that's a biggie.

If you want to have a stab at socialism (which is a bit too general in my opinion since medial care is only a part of this and can be followed in many different interpretations) try looking at countries with that are (relatively) run by socialistic partys like England, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands etc. . Though i would like to add that socialised medical care is not just supported by socialistic partys, even Margaret Tatcher (the communistic rat! I love you man! i hate her and her damned socialist ideas!!) agreed with -or at least did nothing against- social health care.

Back to the expensive costs of healthcare, heres one of several ideas to lower the costs: institute a loser-pays system in the courts. This would discourage all the a$$holes and vermin that file frivolous lawsuits against the insurance companies, from filing them. All the costs the insurance companies have to pay fending off these lawsuits are passed along to those they insure, driving up their rates.

this seems to me (but i could of course be wrong) a sort of attempt to put insurance companies aboth the law. People who have the (at least current) legal right to sue insurance companies succesfully because they were in some way mistreated by the insurance companies should just suck on it?

of course people that rightfully demand money from insurance companies are complete assholes. I completely agree with you. Those bastards should be burned to death.

[CaptainKangaroo]

This is all a scam to make the sheep of america more dependent of the goverment. If you lack the will to take care of yourself and someone else will.

[Dark.Cloud]

This is all a scam to make the sheep of america more dependent of the goverment. If you lack the will to take care of yourself and someone else will.

Right, you do realize that EVERYONE cannot be rich right? For one person to be rich someone else has to be poor, usually multiple people. And for those who don't qualify to get health care with out ridiculous amounts of money, they get cancer and die. Because they lack the will to prevent cancer?

[Dark.Cloud]

The main reason I'm opposed to health care is the fact that I would be paying BBQ loads of cash for someone elses health care, I could think of a dozen better ways to spend my money instead of wasting it all on taxes.

You wouldnt be spending that much as an individual, and if everyone's attitude was a little different, then everything would balance itself. But i guess your selfeshness is cool, lets let everyone die, when did people ever help us right?

[-nox-]

I don't know what your getting at when you say I'm killing people...

he says you are 'letting people die' , that's a passive rather than active form of killing. He simple means that under the current health care system people die (unnecessarily early) due to flaws/errors in the system. If the people of the USA in general would support this health care system life expectancy for the people of the USA could be prolonged, but you rather keep your dollars to yourself showing no empathy with other people. Least i think that's what he means

[MadAce]

find me WHERE in the US Constitution it gives anyone the right to health care and ill give you 5k tokens on any server you want.

P.S. I got a copy of the document at home have studied it thoroughly in my classes, so dont put any bs links to some idiots blog

So because it's not in the constitution we aren't allowed to have it? We should just let people die, let people go bankrupt because we believe so highly in capitalism. You against socialism? I mean the roads seem to work fine, hell why not have those privately owned and pay per road we drive on. Healthcare is a necessity disregarding the fact of it being in the constitution. I mean if you're ok with the insurance companies pretty much doing what they want. Some of the companies have entire departments for dropping clients based on tiny loopholes. "Oh you failed to mention that you were mentally ill", the mental illness being your father died and you were on prozac fora few months.(actual case)
I mean that's cool. Our country spends more on health care than most other wealthy countries and we don't even cover everyone. A lot of which is in administrative costs.

No, you are allowed to have healthcare, you just have to pay for it. Yes, american health care is expensive, but thats also because we have the best medical care in the world. Why do you think all the european, indian, and canadian doctors come here to work? Yes, I do believe in capitalism, and yes, i am against socialism. Im not saying capitalism doesnt have flaws, no systems perfect, but you only need to look a few years back to see all the failings of socialism, (the USSR), why would any sane american want to bring in a new system that has historically been proven to be a failure? Back to the expensive costs of healthcare, heres one of several ideas to lower the costs: institute a loser-pays system in the courts. This would discourage all the a$$holes and vermin that file frivolous lawsuits against the insurance companies, from filing them. All the costs the insurance companies have to pay fending off these lawsuits are passed along to those they insure, driving up their rates.

My apologies, my dear friend. But US Health Care is NOT the best health care in the world. (by a massive margin)

Secondly, universal health care has nothing to do with socialism, but everything with reality.

If you mean with socialism "paid for by the government" (which is exactly the same as paid for by the people) then the US is in effect a socialist country.
Or did you think the fire and police departments, roads and the military were privately run?

I don't think so.

So this whole "UHC is socialist/communist" really will be found hilarious in 25 years time.



Here's something to funny to keep your mind off the pathetic debate.

I don't know what your getting at when you say I'm killing people...

he says you are 'letting people die' , that's a passive rather than active form of killing. He simple means that under the current health care system people die (unnecessarily early) due to flaws/errors in the system. If the people of the USA in general would support this health care system life expectancy for the people of the USA could be prolonged, but you rather keep your dollars to yourself showing no empathy with other people. Least i think that's what he means

Nox, you have entirely the wrong idea about Americans. They DO care. Did you know they spend a whole lot more on health care trough taxes than European countries with socialized health care?

15% (US) compared to about 9-10%.

Now that's altruism for ya.

[-nox-]

read what i said again, i did not say the USA people don't care, i said he (dave34) did not care/showed no care. I know that USA spends the most of all countries with canada as second by a large margin.

[MadAce]

read what i said again, i did not say the USA people don't care, i said he (dave34) did not care/showed no care. I know that USA spends the most of all countries with canada as second by a large margin.

I didn't misread what you wrote. You just miswrote what I read.

(that's as close to an apology you'll get from me)

[Caia]

Secondly, universal health care has nothing to do with socialism, but everything with reality.

First, anything happening has something to do with reality. So, the last part of the above statement is fairly meaningless.

Second, let's look at the definition of socialism.

Dictionary.com

so⋅cial⋅ism
  /ˈsoʊʃəˌlɪzəm/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Show IPA
Use socialism in a Sentence
See web results for socialism
See images of socialism
–noun
1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

Nationalized health care would mean that everyone puts money (capitol) towards health care. The gov't would distribute it as it sees fit to the entire nation. That's pretty much the definition of socialism, MadAce.

Now, we can debate whether socialism is bad or not, but let's at least agree that it IS socialism.

If you mean with socialism "paid for by the government" (which is exactly the same as paid for by the people) then the US is in effect a socialist country.
Or did you think the fire and police departments, roads and the military were privately run?

Oh, no doubt portions of the US are socialist in nature. Police, roads, public schools etc etc. Anything gov't run like that would be socialist in nature. Thing is, every country has a bit of socialism in it. And every country has some capitolistic things in it as well. Its a gray scale, not black and white.

That being said, I'd rather leave things up to free markets. Whenever the gov't gets involved in this kind of thing, it tends to make things worse, not better.

[MadAce]

That being said, I'd rather leave things up to free markets. Whenever the gov't gets involved in this kind of thing, it tends to make things worse, not better.

Nice statement.

But there's scores of countries out there with "socialist" health care who have health care far superior to that of the US.

[kluge]

If you mean with socialism "paid for by the government" (which is exactly the same as paid for by the people) then the US is in effect a socialist country.
Or did you think the fire and police departments, roads and the military were privately run?

I don't think so.

Fire Depts
There are many privately run Fire Depts around the US. (Heh, one town I used to lived in had the local Fire Dept. sued by a bunch of idiot busy-bodies... Seems the Dept set up a huge decorated Xmas tree (and if I recall correctly, a life-sized manger scene thing too) on the front lawn area of their station...something they'd done every year going back forever... Buuuut, that year the aforementioned bunch of idiots demanded that the station either remove all the "offensive" Xmas stuff, or install Hanukkah displays of equal size... The Chief showed up at the initial court hearing alone, stood up and said, "Uh, we're a private fire company... we'll do whatever we damned well please on our property. Have a great holiday season everyone."

There are also more privately run ambulances and medivac helicopters out there than there are gov't run ones.

Police
I know there are some privately run Police Depts out there, but the vast majority of those are in dinky little towns that unless you are a local, you'd never knew existed (unless you got reaaaaally lost... Personally, I don't consider a handful of officers and cruiser or three enough of a force to actually call a 'Department'... but hey, nobody asked me.
Exceptions to this are found in places like very large private Universities/Colleges, of course...

Roads...
Well, there's a bazillion miles of roads in the US that are privately owned/run...mostly in housing developments or neighborhood communities... But I'm guessing that by "roads" you were really only talking about major roads, County/State Highways, Interstates, etc... right? Okay, even in this case, there are a bunch of examples. The closest one to me is the PA Turnpike, 670 or so miles of Interstate...last year, a Spanish company won the bidding war and secured a 75-year lease on the whole thing... Privatizing major road systems seems to be a growing trend these days. Since 2005, the Indiana Toll Road was leased out for 75 years, and the Chicago 'Skyway' was leased for 99 years... There's a bunch of other states that have done likewise...

Military
Heh, there are a pile of private companies providing all kinds of private military services/personnel/support now. Mostly all centered around Iraq and Afganistan though...but they've been used domestically here and there, most notably in N.O. after Hurricane Katrina (seems that just before and during the storm, about 250 sworn officers there said, "Hell with this!" and fell off the face of the planet... even more followed suit in the two weeks after.)

So this whole "UHC is socialist/communist" really will be found hilarious in 25 years time.

Hahaha... yeah, but that's because in 25 years all those polar ice caps and glaciers would have long since melted, putting zillions of coastal areas around the globe completely underwater... So yeah, UHC will be all-but-forgotten about, but I'm betting that ULR (Universal Life Rafts) will be a rather hot topic

[MadAce]

If you mean with socialism "paid for by the government" (which is exactly the same as paid for by the people) then the US is in effect a socialist country.
Or did you think the fire and police departments, roads and the military were privately run?

I don't think so.

Fire Depts
There are many privately run Fire Depts around the US. (Heh, one town I used to lived in had the local Fire Dept. sued by a bunch of idiot busy-bodies... Seems the Dept set up a huge decorated Xmas tree (and if I recall correctly, a life-sized manger scene thing too) on the front lawn area of their station...something they'd done every year going back forever... Buuuut, that year the aforementioned bunch of idiots demanded that the station either remove all the "offensive" Xmas stuff, or install Hanukkah displays of equal size... The Chief showed up at the initial court hearing alone, stood up and said, "Uh, we're a private fire company... we'll do whatever we damned well please on our property. Have a great holiday season everyone."

There are also more privately run ambulances and medivac helicopters out there than there are gov't run ones.

Police
I know there are some privately run Police Depts out there, but the vast majority of those are in dinky little towns that unless you are a local, you'd never knew existed (unless you got reaaaaally lost... Personally, I don't consider a handful of officers and cruiser or three enough of a force to actually call a 'Department'... but hey, nobody asked me.
Exceptions to this are found in places like very large private Universities/Colleges, of course...

Roads...
Well, there's a bazillion miles of roads in the US that are privately owned/run...mostly in housing developments or neighborhood communities... But I'm guessing that by "roads" you were really only talking about major roads, County/State Highways, Interstates, etc... right? Okay, even in this case, there are a bunch of examples. The closest one to me is the PA Turnpike, 670 or so miles of Interstate...last year, a Spanish company won the bidding war and secured a 75-year lease on the whole thing... Privatizing major road systems seems to be a growing trend these days. Since 2005, the Indiana Toll Road was leased out for 75 years, and the Chicago 'Skyway' was leased for 99 years... There's a bunch of other states that have done likewise...

Military
Heh, there are a pile of private companies providing all kinds of private military services/personnel/support now. Mostly all centered around Iraq and Afganistan though...but they've been used domestically here and there, most notably in N.O. after Hurricane Katrina (seems that just before and during the storm, about 250 sworn officers there said, "Hell with this!" and fell off the face of the planet... even more followed suit in the two weeks after.)

So this whole "UHC is socialist/communist" really will be found hilarious in 25 years time.

Hahaha... yeah, but that's because in 25 years all those polar ice caps and glaciers would have long since melted, putting zillions of coastal areas around the globe completely underwater... So yeah, UHC will be all-but-forgotten about, but I'm betting that ULR (Universal Life Rafts) will be a rather hot topic

Now, do you actually have a point? Or are you spewing random factoids and irrelevant gibberish?

[Wagon]

If you mean with socialism "paid for by the government" (which is exactly the same as paid for by the people) then the US is in effect a socialist country.
Or did you think the fire and police departments, roads and the military were privately run?

I don't think so.

Fire Depts
There are many privately run Fire Depts around the US. (Heh, one town I used to lived in had the local Fire Dept. sued by a bunch of idiot busy-bodies... Seems the Dept set up a huge decorated Xmas tree (and if I recall correctly, a life-sized manger scene thing too) on the front lawn area of their station...something they'd done every year going back forever... Buuuut, that year the aforementioned bunch of idiots demanded that the station either remove all the "offensive" Xmas stuff, or install Hanukkah displays of equal size... The Chief showed up at the initial court hearing alone, stood up and said, "Uh, we're a private fire company... we'll do whatever we damned well please on our property. Have a great holiday season everyone."

There are also more privately run ambulances and medivac helicopters out there than there are gov't run ones.

Police
I know there are some privately run Police Depts out there, but the vast majority of those are in dinky little towns that unless you are a local, you'd never knew existed (unless you got reaaaaally lost... Personally, I don't consider a handful of officers and cruiser or three enough of a force to actually call a 'Department'... but hey, nobody asked me.
Exceptions to this are found in places like very large private Universities/Colleges, of course...

Roads...
Well, there's a bazillion miles of roads in the US that are privately owned/run...mostly in housing developments or neighborhood communities... But I'm guessing that by "roads" you were really only talking about major roads, County/State Highways, Interstates, etc... right? Okay, even in this case, there are a bunch of examples. The closest one to me is the PA Turnpike, 670 or so miles of Interstate...last year, a Spanish company won the bidding war and secured a 75-year lease on the whole thing... Privatizing major road systems seems to be a growing trend these days. Since 2005, the Indiana Toll Road was leased out for 75 years, and the Chicago 'Skyway' was leased for 99 years... There's a bunch of other states that have done likewise...

Military
Heh, there are a pile of private companies providing all kinds of private military services/personnel/support now. Mostly all centered around Iraq and Afganistan though...but they've been used domestically here and there, most notably in N.O. after Hurricane Katrina (seems that just before and during the storm, about 250 sworn officers there said, "Hell with this!" and fell off the face of the planet... even more followed suit in the two weeks after.)

So this whole "UHC is socialist/communist" really will be found hilarious in 25 years time.

Hahaha... yeah, but that's because in 25 years all those polar ice caps and glaciers would have long since melted, putting zillions of coastal areas around the globe completely underwater... So yeah, UHC will be all-but-forgotten about, but I'm betting that ULR (Universal Life Rafts) will be a rather hot topic

Now, do you actually have a point? Or are you spewing random factoids and irrelevant gibberish?

Most likely the latter.

[Dark.Cloud]

I don't know what your getting at when you say I'm killing people...

he says you are 'letting people die' , that's a passive rather than active form of killing. He simple means that under the current health care system people die (unnecessarily early) due to flaws/errors in the system. If the people of the USA in general would support this health care system life expectancy for the people of the USA could be prolonged, but you rather keep your dollars to yourself showing no empathy with other people. Least i think that's what he means

Nox has me

But in the long run if we're not having 700k people going into medical bankruptcy every year, thats 700k more people who can produce money for the country rather than taking from. Less people dying, cheaper eventually. More people making money because theyre sick less. And if insurance companies were non-profit(meaning the company doesnt make money not the workers[for you people who don't understand non-profit]) then the premiums would be cheaper, because your only paying enough for care as opposed to there billions in profit. Not to mention being able to drive medical costs down and perhaps cutting dr, wages. Even reducing them some we would still have the highest paid doctors. Reducing the costs of procedures, reducing profit of hospitals, perhaps making people gain a little less off of the dying and sick. If the insurance companies want to make profit then set the bar for administrative costs at 10%(much lower than the current 25%), then if they can decrease the costs to 6% or so, they can keep the 4% in profits.