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First of all, it sounds like you think the problem is Crack. Secondly, under a good socialized system where we treated drug use as a medical issue and NOT as a criminal issue, I agree, of course you would have to tackle that problem before your type of healthcare was even a feasible option. Thats exactly what I'm saying, not that your plan outright sucks but that it would be a mistake to try to do that in today's atmosphere. First fix the things that need to be fixed to have the plan run smoothly. Then institute the plan. Just don't pretend fixing things are easy because your talking decades of work from millons of people.
might have a hope of keeping those Crackheads from existing to begin with. I doubt that but you had the right idea.


Really? Because you said this:



You see that line about how the Americans would "lay around and have the tax payer foot the bill" that implies you think that more people would become unemployed as a result of socialized care. Ok well perhaps would should stop with the implications. The reason I wrote the prick comment was because I thought you implied I was dumb. But nevertheless I was not trying to imply that more people would become unemployed, I was talking about the people that are already unemployed or underemployed.
If that is not what you are implying, then it means you think the 5-10% of the population now that is unemployed would be there either way, which is not much of an arugment against socialized care. You're basically saying it doesn't actually matter. Yeah they will be around either way but I'm far from saying it doesn't matter. Right now they at least don't have the right to complain about the care they are receiving, under a plan that guaranteed them health care you would have to establish 50 call centers just to handle the incessant whining.

I have not stooped to name-calling once in this whole debate. You just did.
I already answered this. No harm meant either way so no foul.


Obviously not, nor do I think everyone homeless is neccessarily the unforgivable human refuse that conservatives seem to think they are. The idea that there are incenstives or dis-incentives to be homeless is a tired idea, and the same goes for its application to socialized care. This are to seperate issues, I'm not talking about homeless people, I agree thats a crock of shit, but being homeless is a little different than being without health care.

However I will agree that my example was based on a local grudge I have with conservatives in my city, and should not have been thrown into this discussion.

Consider it cheerfully withdrawn.



Okay, I can agree to that. I will support whatever you suggest to fix the individuals who you think make this impossible. I put most of the blame on politicians but alas, I have no suggestions on how to make morally bankrupt politicians moral.


Here I disagree. Lack of healthcare IS a crack in the foundation. If we fix that, we'll end up addressing many side problems. I will list them if you request it, but you seem perfectly intelligent, and I think you can figure 'em out for yourself. Case in point? The drug laws we were discussing above. That won't be fixed by instituting a new health care system. I can name a bunch of other problems that also fall into this category and that would damn such a system if they were not addressed first.


Can you not see how hopelessly circular that is? Healthcare for everyone isn't part of our culture because we don't have it, and we don't have it because healthcare for everyone isn't part of our culture. I disagree, other cultures find laziness and greed to be despisable traits while American culture doesn't seem to have a problem with them if not outright supporting them. This is why this type of system could not work in America as it is today.


They aren't. Americans pay virtually the lowest taxes in the world of any industrialized nation. Not if a plan like that is instituted in the wrong way. That stat will be long gone.


Affirmative action isn't even a reality anymore, we've done away with it. And after much debate with myself, I've decided I'm glad for that... it was well intended, but it had the unfortunate effect of making it so that no minority could ever get a job without their qualifications being questioned by everyone around them, even if they were perfectly qualified. I don't know where you got that idea because AA is alive and well in NC where I'm from.
t this is a vastly different issue then what we're discussing here, since it has literally no weight upon taxes or healthcare. It does serve a purpose, it shows that Americans are no longer self-sufficient and looking for a handout from the taxpayer to take care of their problems. And thats exactly the attitude that they would carry over to government health care.
As for welfare, our meager doll makes up a scant 1% of our federal budget and 2% or less in most states. It's laughable to lay societal ills at the feet of numbers like that. I bet that number accounts for a few trillon dollars, more than we will both make in this lifetime. A huge amount of money. If it could be cut out you would be saving trillons every year. TRILLONS.



While I hate to hand-feed you arguments that will be useful for your side in other discussions, we have some of the lowest unemployment here of any country. One of the trade-offs Americans have gotten for having such corporate favoratism is high availability of jobs, even if many of those jobs are total shit. If we're so lazy, why do so many of us work for so little? Because we don't have a choice, its that or a life of crime and punishment.



This I find hilarious. So what you're saying, is that the reason we should not switch to a system in which some people don't pay into it because they're lazy, is because we need to defend our existing system in which some people work too hard because others are too lazy? Once again, it sounds like you're arguing that the only difference between a sozialized system and this system is that everyone would get access to healthcare. There'd be the same number of lazy fucks either way. Exactly, you seem to the # of lazy fucks matter? The difference is whose paying for them. Right now it's on their own credit. In your system you put it on the backs of taxpayers. You act like thats nothing but thats once again trillons of extra dollars to saddle the taxpayer with.


No, but the protestant work ethic did shape the system in which all of us work. "American" values tend to line up pretty neatly with the protestants that originally formed our laws. Simply false, you mean white American values, many other minoritie's values are about as far as you can get from Protestant values.


Of course I do. You seemed to be suggesting American laziness was a key sticking point for the debate. I feel that if I can dispell from you the arbitrary idea that we're lazy, I can move the healthcare discussion forward.

I doubt you can do that, I see the laziness everyday.
Okay, what ways? We're less taxed and less regulated then most countries, and we even have a good number of freedoms that many others do not. How is our government pressing down on us in the big picture? Perhaps pressing down is the wrong phrase, would you understand manipulating better?


The first part of this is a very good point, and the best I can say to defend myself against it is that I seek the best medium possible. I do not want to live in any system that blindly rewards everyone at every crossroad, nor do I want to live in a system in which the unlucky are penalized. A good system has to be a marriage of the two, thus I say, set the minimum bar at health and well-being, then let the smart and lucky and hard-working get rich as they do now.

Your second part again relies on the idea that people in need deserve to be where they are, that I categorically reject. Some of us make worse choices than others, but that is not the only reason for the downfall of individuals, and conservative policies make it so much harder to pull one-self back into grace. Your right here but I think most people in need are in need because of their own poor choices.



Immutable means unchangeable.



I agree with you here, but I think that has far more to do with two things:

1. We can't agree what we want government to do. The reason I come to boards like this or talk to people about these issues is that I'm trying to create greater consensus for the idea that government can and should do more for us. Not everything, not communism, just more than it's doing now. It can't without a massive overhaul.
2. Government programs that are designed to help people are starved for cash. An old republican tactic has been to cut somethings budget, decry what it low longer does what it used to do well as a result of those budget cuts, and then cut that budget even farther ad infinitum.[/quote] I gotta go but I'm gonna post on this again.[/quote] We have too many government programs designed to help people. America was built by people that were willing to help themselves

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