Penny

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

I know you are just stripping posts of all nuance in order to get in a jab at your ideological enemies and beat up a few strawmen

@Kratesis

I also imagine that we don't agree on the what that limit is and I also imagine that we don't agree on the cases in which the costs outweigh the benefits. Could we? Yes. Should we? Perhaps not in all cases; a question worth examining.

@Kratesis

You know this actually does raise an unrelated question I have been considering for a while.

Why ARE people in this thread? What are your individual reasons for engaging?

I tell myself that people are only ever convinced by gradual and continual application of data but that can't really be true. The idea that I am going to convince someone like Andre or Harbinger of anything is almost ludicrous and kind of gives the lie to the first point. I think it isn't a stretch to say that I am the most liberal and progressive of the participants, at least on any regular basis. Do I just like to keep up an argument so conservative bs doesn't go unchallenged? I don't know if that is really true either.

I guess part of the shock of November 2016 was that I had to admit that people are fundamentally different from me in what I consider to be negative ways. Liberals at the time spent alot of effort in the predictable circular firing squad, calling out Bernie Voters, Stein Voters ect ect but in my mind that completely missed the point. Well over 40 percent of people who voted genuinely thought that a racist, sexist, pussy grabber in chief was the right thing to do.

I have a tendency to assume that all people are basically like me with variations in temperament and educational levels. It really hadn't hit me on a personal level that I might be surrounded by the type of people who would look at a literal nazi march, watch a woman be murdered, and claim the real problem was with people who disliked nazis. It was outside my comprehension at the time that such people even existed. I suppose I think at some level that this thread is a good way to keep it in my mind that people might differ from me so fundamentally on an ideological level as to be nearly recognizable from my vantage point. I don't want to fall into the comfortable trap again. I wish more liberals would pull their heads out of the sand about the magnitude of the problem.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Also all costs will be quoted in number of F-35s.

A CBC will now be priced at 0.00000012 F-35s

@Penny

I suppose I should add a modest draw charge, so lets say 0.0000003 F-35s

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Penny>

I know you are just stripping posts of all nuance in order to get in a jab at your ideological enemies and beat up a few strawmen but I actually think it could be done if we did it state by state. The UK has a lower GDP per capital than Tennessee and they have a national healthcare system, after all.

@Kratesis

Ok? So we agree that a universal (in the sense that all people would be covered) healthcare system is possible? Great, like I said I'm on board. Imagine the efficiency of scale you could get with 300 million people....

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Also all costs will be quoted in number of F-35s.

A CBC will now be priced at 0.00000012 F-35s

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@POOHEAD189

What you really need to do is call it the Biological Readiness Initiative and get it classified under the Department of Defense. That way we can stealthily make people healthy with the aid of the sacred defense budget.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Call it "Thoughts and Prayers"

@POOHEAD189

... mind blown ...

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

do exactly like Australia, Canada, France, Sweden, Denmark and Germany and have different plans for different areas with their own challenges, resources and values rather than trying to create one super-plan that addresses every region successfully.

@Kratesis

So cover everyone with mandated government healthcare with flexible systems of delivery? I'm on board.

We can even call it something other than universal healthcare if that will make people feel better.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Also if you have an esoteric or undiagnosed illness, come to America. Put in one call to Mass general and the whole country swings into action!

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Penny>

By that logic there is no difference between Somalia and Sweden because both countries face the challenges of murders and homelessness to a lesser or greater degrees.

@Kratesis

Is America Somalia in this analogy? Every country faces those challenges, as you say, to greater and lesser degrees. is America really so much less able to deal with them then Australia, or Canada, or France, or Sweden, or Denmark, or Germany, or ......

I'm not suggesting that America dosen't face challenges in implementing some version of universal healthcare, just that I don't think that they are as insuperable as people claim.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

The quality of care in America is second to none assuming you can get it without being literally bankrupted.

The problems are with the insurance system, the lack of a government backstop and the impact it has on pre-critical care. If you show up at my ER we will treat you regardless of insurance, but half the time the time you wouldn't be there if you had regular access to a GP. Similarly you aren't likely to engage in necessary follow up therapy if doing so will literally bankrupt you and so your condition worsens until you end up back in the ER. At that point we treat your critical issues and send you back out to repeat the cycle again. In the mean time all that care is basically done for free, which means to make ends meet we have to essentially overcharge people with private insurance, which leads to raised premiums which leads to less companies offering quality (or any) insurance, which leads to more uninsured people showing up at the ER, which starts the whole cycle again.