On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Jerry Barnes <critic...@gmail.com> wrote: > Regardless of the argument changes, I may want to stop. My premise is the > same and this is the same old circle of arguments that come up all of the > time. I should just find a link to any of the old threads and say go read > this. > > > When health care deform is leading to a single payer system with rationed > care, I say it is the path to socialized medicine. One more step in the > overall socialization of the country. It bothers me and it seems to bring > joy to your heart. There really isn't much more to say besides we disagree.
Thus far the only consistency is that you seem to be "against socialism". I can understand how National Health Care ala the UK would be considered socialist (like a government run Kaiser Permanente). You seem to think that Single Payer is socialist as well. I'm on the fence about whether I think single payer is a good idea or not. I can see pros and cons. I certainly don't think it could possibly be worse than what we have now, but that's neither here nor there at the moment. As for the so-called Public Option, do you consider that socialist? The formulation for the idea is that plans would be offered and funded entirely through premiums (just like with private insurance) and the efficiencies would come from having a large pool, bargaining power (due to that large pool) and low administrative overhead. That's the same principle as in the private market. The plans would compete on the open market with private insurance plans. If private plans can negotiate better deals and be more efficient, they'll have lower costs and presumably lower prices. That's how the market works, right? So what's the problem there? How is it socialist? Isn't more competition good? Once again, all I really see from you is a repeated refrain of "government is bad". Government and private companies coexist in many industries. Are you against municipal utilities? Should government get entirely out of the business of energy, water, roads, etc? I'm a really big fan of freedom. I want to see government keep private industry in check and vice-versa. Create the best conditions possible for competition and choice...and that includes giving governments (local, state and national) opportunities to compete as there are some things they do really well. Right now we have a tendency to shove all the nasty bits onto the government, take anything potentially successful and hand it off to private industry and then bemoan that government doesn't do anything. Government is ours, we own it. I can't say that about Welpoint or Halliburton or Enron. Instead of demonizing what you own and handing off all power to an entity over which you have no control and who has no compulsion to do anything to your benefit, why don't you try improving what you do have and try and make it something in which you have pride? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology-Michael-Dinowitz/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:326787 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
