What exactly do you mean by non-regressive? Anyways though who cares about the top-earners. Obviously they got enough money, I'm more concerned with the average citizen.
But a socialized health-care system wouldn't put us at 70% anyway, the highest in the world isn't that much. Look 10% is too much, the amount of tax money our government wastes is shameful. Are you talking about healthcare here? Every man for himself means its your on responsiblity to provide healthcare for yourself. Nobody ever has the upper hand over each other. Its not like my insurance has anything to do with yours. Absolutely nobody is holding anybody down right now. There is no bottom or top. I have to say this is a really skewed vision you got going on there. You really do sound paranoid. Even now nobody is being mistreated. Accidents happen and they always will. Thats all there is to it.I do not concur. Tackling healthcare is the only feasible option for addressing that problem. Our government is not capable of tackling healthcare yet, it would be a disaster.We may simply have to agree to disagree here. I believe many of the problems you state as being underlying, are actually either symptoms of the underlying problem of shitty health care, or at best, part of a cycle which can best be addressed by getting to the care first.



LOL

I don't think it is unemployment. I think it is a lack of intiative and laziness. I know plenty of employed people who are afflicted with both.


They are getting care. Hospitals can not refuse treatment. What you mean is free care I guess.






Through a vareity of methods. Such as making it easier in the form of tax writeoffs and the like for companies that helped to push their agenda. As well as allowing benefits to go to people when they was nothing wrong with them and no reason they couldn't be working. Other people saw that and said, hey my neighbor gets paid the same as me except he doesn't have to go to work. Sounds like a good deal so just like that you gotta another man on the welfare wagon. End result is you have an entire class of people who think the government should provide everything for them. So why hasn't the government given me a robot to go to work for me so I don't have to work anymore.


Well, I would be glad to discuss your list of problems that fall into that category.

As for the example we have on the table, drug laws, I think that if socialized care were available, people who were addicted would have a far easier time getting treatment for that, which would do something to cut into the overall number of users. And how does that help the unaddicted taxpayer?
I agree drug law needs to change, but I see no compelling reason these changes could not be done in tandem or in opposite order from what you're suggesting. Because it takes forever for government to change anything. Your talking 20 years minimum just for that, guaranteed. In fact, one could argue that if the number of crackheads truly do end up placing a strain on the system, THAT will be a better incentive to get drug laws changed then any of our current ones. I disagree, how about all the people's lives who are ruined for no reason. Thats a better incentive than any other.



Well I will agree that the "greed is good" mentality is a frequent crutch to our way of life, I do not feel laziness falls quite into the same category. Ok, but both are bad and an added strain that the working systems you mention don't have to bare.
In either case, creating greater social supports will help people to understand the value of such support, and ultimately reduce the value we place on greed.

Possibly, of course that promotes laziness. You don't understand. This aspect of the US is not gonna change unless you make them change to survive, otherwise they will be greedy, lazy or both.


Fair enough. I agree we shoudln't do it in the wrong way. When you've illustrated either how to do it the right way, I don't think it is the right way. or at least better clarify why a socialized system would collapse if attempt to impliment it before fixing other societal ills, then I will give that perspective greater credence. It would collapse because Americans have populations that can be found no where else on earth. A lack of common sense is a simple explanation. That combined with a huge amount of laziness and greed is enough to topple a system that is built on a shaky foundation as it is. Which is why I say fix the foundation first.



It was ruled unconstitutional in a large number of state cases, I'm surprised NC wasn't one of them. My liberal home of Washington State ruled against it.



Huh. So you think giving minorities jobs means they're unwilling to work? Affirmative Action effects more than just jobs such as enrollment in schools. It means that they are not self-sufficient. If they were they could get the job based on their own merits instead of screwing over a more qualified applicant just to be politically correct.



What relevance does that have to anything? I'm just pointing out that you don't care about the government wasting trillons of dollars, to me that matters, its not about percents. Let's say we cut out all welfare and gave that back to the taxpayer. Our taxes would go down 1%. That 1% would represent only 30 dollars to people in my tax bracket, or one dollar and twenty five cents every paycheck. That's what you're worried about? A measly two-fifty a month? Really? That's the breadbasket in which society's ills sit? Ok I'll show you. I would say we are overly taxed by about 70%. So you take the welfare and all the other bs we are charged for that we really don't need and it goes to $175 a month. Welfare is just one of many programs that need to be eliminated. Anyways though the figure ends up being over 2 grand a year. Thats how much extra the average taxpayer would have if not for government pork.
I feel that you have misplaced priorities, if this is how you really see the world. In order to support your view, you'd have to believe that practically no one was ever out of work for reasons beyond their control, even transitionally. No I believe that it is not the taxpayer's job to help them. Shit happens, thats why people have savings. So you wanted to go on that Disney World vacation and now you don't got any money because you lost your job. I say you get what you deserve and it is spitting in the taxpayer's fact to ask them to pay simply because some loser can't get his shit together.



But you've JUST said that we DO have a choice in the form welfare. If we really see welfare as a viable alternative to working, then that coudln't be true.

Which is it? You can only pick one. Why is that? The class of people we're discussing pick more than 1. They are happy to live a life of crime and pull a welfare check at the same time. You see, picking two is entirely possible and most people do get as much as they can. The greed thing again.


But right now we already pay too much for our healthcare. While welfare is only costing you 2.50 a month, healthcare costs average out to no less than 50 dollars a paycheck per person, and that's just if you're single with no kids.
Of course keep in mind that the quality of care would drop to levels the US hasn't seen in 75 years.
Let me give you a choice: which of these two options is better?

1. Everyone working pays 50 a month for insurance, and those who do not work get no healthcare.

2. Everyone working pays 10 dollars a month for insurance, and those who do not work still get healthcare even though they haven't worked for it. When thinking about your health quality matters You would be right if both of those options had the same quality of care but I'm a firm believer in you get what you pay for. $40 extra a month is a small price to pay when the alternative is being butchered by some quack.
Is it really worth working against your own financial self-interest just to make sure lazy fucks get their comeupance? Are you the classic example of the American who sticks a fork in himself a hundred times just so no one can make a canoe out of his skin? Like I said it's not about hating on other people it's about quality of care.



yes, but they aren't the ones in charge, now are they? Depends what your talking about? I can name many instances where Protestant values have been struck down or ignored all together.

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.



Your not looking then?
Perhaps pressing down is the wrong phrase, would you understand manipulating better?



Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You don't seem to understand that good people can be lazy, good people can be greedy, good people can abuse the system. Being good does not mean you have never done wrong. I'm not saying that abusers of the system are bad people. I'm saying we should take away their ability to abuse the system at all.


QUOTE] Yeah, your decent you know, most people would have flipped out by now.

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