Obama Care

[Mher]

Re: Obama Care

If you've never been without health care, having a 104 degree temperature for 4 days, and had to wait around hoping to get better, I suggest you try it and then express your opinion on socialism and "obamacare". I think I'll take some website glitches if it means america can lose the title of "highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world". It is unbelievably ridiculous that a country that wastes hundreds of billions a year on military cannot provide the most basic forms of housing, food, or health care for so many of its people. I guess that's what you get when such a large proportion of your voting age population lacks educated, and I guess that's why the republicans are so against education.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/infant-death-rate-in-us_n_3237776.html

[Haykakan]

Re: Obama Care

Yes Mher you bring up excellent points. Life expectancy is another issue that Americans are behind in compared to other industrialized nations. We manage to produce this dismal health care record while spending twice as much money per person on health care as countries like Canada and France yet they get way better results. healthcare is a good example of a public good which needs to be managed by the government ie. single payer system because it is far more efficient then the insurance based system of the USA. Obamacare/Affordable Care Act still leaves health care to the insurance companies therefore it does not fix the main problem. There are public goods, common resources, and private goods. Private goods are well managed when left to the free market but public goods and many common resources need to be either provided or managed by the government. Affordable Healthcare is a great example of a public good which the private sector cannot provide in a efficient manner and the role of government is self-evident here.

[Mher]

Re: Obama Care

Yes Mher you bring up excellent points. Life expectancy is another issue that Americans are behind in compared to other industrialized nations. We manage to produce this dismal health care record while spending twice as much money per person on health care as countries like Canada and France yet they get way better results. healthcare is a good example of a public good which needs to be managed by the government ie. single payer system because it is far more efficient then the insurance based system of the USA. Obamacare/Affordable Care Act still leaves health care to the insurance companies therefore it does not fix the main problem. There are public goods, common resources, and private goods. Private goods are well managed when left to the free market but public goods and many common resources need to be either provided or managed by the government. Affordable Healthcare is a great example of a public good which the private sector cannot provide in a efficient manner and the role of government is self-evident here.

Exactly
If America's system meant we were at least saving money, I could at least understand the argument behind not changing it (though it would still be a losing argument because nothing should triumph universal access to basic health care). But the fact that we are losing billions a year through the system is a further testament to the flaws in the system.
Obama should have had the guts to force through universal single payer health care, but like everything he has been a coward full of appeasement. I don't understand what the purpose of the Obama presidency was supposed to be? Yes there have been immense challenges by the ignorant uneducated band of fools known as the Tea Party. But even things that wouldn't require congressional approval, like reducing drone strikes, deportations, not bending down and taking it up the a** form Netanyahu, even those things he has had no guts to do. I don't understand the purpose of becoming a president if you turn your back on everything you supposedly believe.

[Haykakan]

Re: Obama Care

"Supposedly believe" lol yeh that's a good one. The only thing politicians believe is self promotion and money. Obamacare was derived in a closed doors meeting with insurance companies(while people outside protested demanding single payer system) and that alone should tell you all you need to know. I think the tea party has some good ideas but overall i do agree with you that most of them are indeed "ignorant uneducated band of fools". With leaders like Palin what good could you possibly expect from them? I do like Jessey"the body"Ventura. The problem with the tea party is that their collective lack of good education prevents them from understanding the differences in the nature of private-public goods and common resources. They really think that everything is a private good thus everything can be left to the free market but a intro level course in micro economics will explain the differences quite well but unfortunately that class does not appear to be in the home school curriculum. As for the government well that is another story. The government has smart people who very well realize that single payer is the best option but the USA government is run by special interest groups and the insurance lobby will never allow for a good health care system in the USA.