Should the US have universal healthcare?

you oughtta be joking...not a bad idea as an idealist but aint close to practical

Well it is possible if you want 50% of your income to go to the government and don't expect it to be a very good universal healthcare system.

Turd Blossom wrote:

you oughtta be joking...not a bad idea as an idealist but aint close to practical

why?

Tove wrote:

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why?

Because nobody wants 50% of their income to go the government. Thats why.

Alex wrote:

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Because nobody wants 50% of their income to go the government. Thats why.

You wouldn't need to pay 50% of your income in order to have universal health care.

Also it seems like you spend an awful lot of money on admin. Doesn't that bother you?

What is admin? What are you talking about? American healthcare costs are ridiculous. If the government was to get any more involved it would just become more expensive. We don't need any more expansion of our government. It is already too big. We need to be eleminating government programs and getting our national debt back under control, not adding more unrealistic expenses and then driving ourselves into a recession.

Alex wrote:

What is admin? What are you talking about? American healthcare costs are ridiculous. If the government was to get any more involved it would just become more expensive. We don't need any more expansion of our government. It is already too big. We need to be eleminating government programs and getting our national debt back under control, not adding more unrealistic expenses and then driving ourselves into a recession.

Costs of health care administration. It seems like yours is higher than the countries with universal health care. So why would your health care get more expensive if you get universal health care?

1 2 3 cheers for the Always and Ever Failing Socializm!
Contrary to what 'they' would have us believe, there are truely other ways besides this.

Poor America,*sniff sniff* ; Especialy if billary or obammmmama win
Looks like even bush will get outa dodge asap; check out where he and others have been buying up property.

Doctors in the U.S. get paid WAY too much money. Medication also costs too much. The government solves problems by throwing money at it. This of course drives up the cost and lowers the efficiency of anything that is government ran. At the state level a universal healthcare program might work, but at the federal level there is no way. You must realize the countries with universal healthcare in Europe are much smaller than the U.S. and such a program can be better organized.

BTW. Sweden is your correct location right? How much money goes towards your healthcare system? We pay about 1.45% of our income towards medicare.

Sure, why not. We already have a universal dodo-head running the country

Alex wrote:

Well it is possible if you want 50% of your income to go to the government and don't expect it to be a very good universal healthcare system.

You already pay that much in all the various taxes being collected at various levels of government.

Alex wrote:

Doctors in the U.S. get paid WAY too much money.

How much? And what is too much? Personally, I don't have a problem with high wages for doctors.
Not ridiculously high of course, but it should be well above average considering their education level and their responsibilty.

Alex wrote:

Medication also costs too much. The government solves problems by throwing money at it. This of course drives up the cost and lowers the efficiency of anything that is government ran. At the state level a universal healthcare program might work, but at the federal level there is no way. You must realize the countries with universal healthcare in Europe are much smaller than the U.S. and such a program can be better organized.

Agreed.

Alex wrote:

BTW. Sweden is your correct location right? How much money goes towards your healthcare system? We pay about 1.45% of our income towards medicare.

But medicare is just a part of your health care system, right? You also pay for insurance.
So in the end it would be more than 1.45% of your income.

If you don't get health insurance from your job, about how much would you have to pay every month for it?

Also, I would find it a bit creepy if the ones who decides what tests I'm having done when visting a doctor would make more money if I didn't have any tests or at least not too many tests.

It's strange, we all want to live forever, but we want someone else to pay for the care that's needed to do so.

We have the laziest gov in the world. Everyone on the top level of anything in gov does notr work, they simply run their mouths and expect those below them to do all their work for them and then that tier has the next tier below them do all the bosses work and their work and down the line.

The pres and congress just let pharma write their own laws, but hey, I'm so sure pharma wrote their laws so they would lose money,--don't you?

Tove is correct, gov workers shuffling paper, along with so many favored healthcare co's are telling doctors what to do. Oh that's right, we need lawyers or actuaries to tell doctors to test or not.

The has botched every entitlement program they run. America was not built on the basis that I should have to pay the government to take care of those that won't do it for themselves. This has been the biggest downfall with American society because those with their hands out tend to keep them out and the numbers continue to grow. There is no guarantee that life will be easy, that you won't have to work hard, and that you will get everything you want. Making an attempt to work to earn it is the biggest start.

should say "government" after "The"

Brett Naum wrote:

The has botched every entitlement program they run. America was not built on the basis that I should have to pay the government to take care of those that won't do it for themselves. This has been the biggest downfall with American society because those with their hands out tend to keep them out and the numbers continue to grow. There is no guarantee that life will be easy, that you won't have to work hard, and that you will get everything you want. Making an attempt to work to earn it is the biggest start.

What about the children?

Tove wrote:

If you don't get health insurance from your job, about how much would you have to pay every month for it?

My husband pays nearly 400 dollars a month for healthcare. The only thing it covers is health, there is no dental, no vision insurance. The policy we have will not pay for birth control,(which luckily I don't need) nor will it pay for many other medications. It won't help pay for smoking cessation products, but it will pay for chemotherapy...which shocked me, as I am trying to quit and doing not so well with no help.

My doctor's visit is 70 dollars. My copay is 45. So basically I pay 400 dollars a month for them to pay 25 each time I go to the doctor. Hope that gives you an idea of what it can pay. Others I am sure may pay more or less depending on where they live and cost of living.

To answer your other question about how much it would cost to get it not through his job, it would cost us nearly double that for less coverage, or that was what it would have costed us nearly 5 years ago when he was laid off from his job and was having trouble finding one.