firstly mr, thanks for being honest and talking this out with me. i'm really glad to debate with someone who can properly articulate his ideas. for someone with your views (not that i know them all), this is a breath of fresh air
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Originally Posted by Mr Mister
I apologize. You're right, the proposed solution is not a single-payer health care system. However, Democrats have said repeatedly that a single-payer system is their ultimate goal. The public option is just a temporary compromise solution until they can get what they really want.
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you mean like rep anthony weiner of ny? yeah there are people saying that they feel a single-payer system is the ultimate solution to our health care. and it could actually work, given the success other countries have had. but that's neither here nor there, because it is only the ideal of a handful of our representatives and they do not hold full sway over the direction of our country. and sorry to be insulting, but that last line sounds a bit paranoid.
i see it like this: the sooner ANYTHING is done about our healthcare, the sooner the whole problem will start being delved into and things brought to light. we can't really tell what the solution is exactly at this point because the entire industry is and has for so long been entrenched within its own bureaucracy. the only way we'll know how it works best is seeing how it operates under different conditions in order to ascertain what structure would be ideal. the longer we do absolutely nothing the harder that process will become when we finally decide to get around to it. that's why i support pretty much ANY proposed solution. and so far, it's been the democrats doing the proposing
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Originally Posted by Mr Mister
As I said in my first post I don't know if choices will be limited or not. It depends on how the program is run. I think it's possible because they will have to control costs at some point and limiting choice is one way they can do that. Whether they will or won't remains to be seen.
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but what can be seen right now is how private insurance already limits choices for patients. why is a potential future limitation so ominous when we can already see the same problem at work as things are now? if there are limits placed on the care of people who take the public option (which is at this point only conjecture), why is that considered a net detriment to the whole concept when they would have had no access to insurance previously? i've had a really hard time wrapping my head around that one
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Originally Posted by Mr Mister
My problem with the currently proposed solution (whether it's single-payer, public option, or something else) is that it's a federal solution. The federal government regularly looses money that it can't account for. It carries with it a lot of unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy. They will probably go with a single set of regulations and policies that all states have to follow. I'd rather have individual states set their own policies that they can tailor to meet their needs. If a state doesn't want or doesn't need a government run health care system, they won't have one, and those that do will be more efficient and less costly since the operation will be smaller and better designed to meet the needs of that state.
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and if those policies the states must follow would prove limiting and neglectful of their needs, it will have to adapt to accommodate a successful strategy. maybe the states will have to be given more leeway in their commitment as you're describing; perhaps being based on population, gdp, or some other indicator. the point is that we WILL find something to work. that's the american spirit i grew up feeling shivers down my back for.
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Originally Posted by Mr Mister
As for my solution, to be honest, I don't have one. As I've been describing, state solutions are a good possibility. We could regulate the health insurance industry so they can't refuse needed care or restrict what doctors or hospitals a patient can use, etc. We have an opportunity to do something better than a federal program. Unfortunately, conservatives aren't taking the problem seriously (or blaming some vague "regulations" that they can't pin down) and liberals are too enamored with a federal solution to consider anything else.
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i don't think it's so much that nothing else will be considered, it's just that many see this proposal as the only opportunity to get (or begin getting) something done about it. the opposition has really pulled all the stops, throwing out accusations of communism, fascism and spreading deliberate misinfo such as "senior death panels" and coverage for illegals. so on that point, i agree that conservatives generally have not taken this issue very seriously. but it is a serious issue, and something seriously needs to be done about it. at this point the conservatives' hysteria has all but ensured this public option proposal is our only chance to do something about it right now.