Does ANYONE actually oppose socialized medicine?

I support univeral healthcare, because I know of three, working families who don't have it and need it.

- My friend and her brother have healthcare covered by the state of Florida, but there mother does not. She left her abusive husband and now cleans houses to put her kids through private school. She hasn't had any mamogram checks, and she's in her mid to late 40s, about the time one needs to start checking for brest cancer.

- Another friend without healthcare had something come up on her pap smear. They haven't been able to check it because they don't have healthcare. Her mom is a therapist, her dad is self-employed.

- My friend and her sister live with a mother who has spinal problems. She is an RN who is having trouble finding work. She does not have healthcare.

- 75% of my dad's job has been laid out due to outsorcing and the economy. My mom has had breast cancer. If my dad had lost his job (he was close several times) we would not have healthcare and my mom would not be able to get chemo or surgery.

If there are safegaurds to prevent people from abusing the system, great, let's use them. But 44 MILLION Americans do not have healthcare. They can't ALL be slobs or junkies or bums. I think being healthy and staying healthy should be a RIGHT, not a privilage.

 

So if someones a lazy bum or a homeless person, they deserve to die in the street like a dog and not have access to healthcare? Nice caring and compassionate society.

There are more people in the United States, but common sense means there's more tax dollars coming in.

Your forgetting another important thing, privatization. That means someone is making a profit when they provide health care vs. public health care where there not trying to make a profit

A classic example of privatization vs. public would be car insurance in Canada. In Winnipeg Manitoba where the auto insuance is public(ie run by the government...not for profit), an average male 18 year old primary driver with no tickets with a 4 door sedan will pay 95 bucks a month for car insurance. Compare this to Calgary, Alberta, where car insurance is private, where you will average over 400 bucks a month. Oh, by the way the manitoba public insurance-mpi...actually has made profits in the millions some years.

Privatization exists so the top 1% can make a killing. It's called capitalism. Car insurance companies are raping people and then complaining there not making any money.(probably has something to do with the 5-25 million dollar salaries w/bonus's paid to numerous top executives and embezzlement from those same people). The ceo of oracle made 790 million dollars in one year(yes 790), while people in Liberia are cannabalizing each other because their's no food and a total social catastrophe. Why does he deserve to make 790 million? Did he cure cancer? People say he earned it, give me a break. It's like a dictator taking over a country and seizing all the wealth of the country and saying he earned and that he pays more "Taxes" than the poor. Of course the rich pay most of the taxes... they control all the money!! The poor can't pay the taxes because they hardly have any money.

"If I am paying for someone else's healthcare due to their life choices, that's not freedom. "

LOL. That's the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard. What about someone else's schooling?(I don't goto school or have kids but I still pay taxes for it..plus there's private school). I could go on and on. Freedom means the right to vote for your leaders.

"Because I look at it this way, I am that type of person that never goes to the doctor unless I think I'm dying, I've been twice in the past 7 years, both for school reasons, I don't see why my taxes should have to pay for someone like my sister who goes to the doctor like 20 times a year when nothing that a few hours of sleep can't fix is wrong with her."

Wow, looks like you did some very deep thinking about this one....lol.
This type of statement doesn't even deserve a response other than Hammurabi was right.

People in the United States pay more in medicare taxes per capita than in many countries with free health care for all citizens. The rich have always gotten over on the poor and will continue to do so.

It's amazing how many hard line right wingers are on this so-called "hippy" board.

Why don't you educate yourself and read a book called
Profit Is Not the Cure: a Citizen's Guide to Saving Medicare by Maude Barlow

Book Description
On July 12, 1966, the Medical Care Insurance Act was passed by the federal House of Commons after a ferocious public debate that pitted the vast majority of Canadians against a powerful alliance of business, insurance companies, and doctors.

More than thirty years later, the same battle is being fought all over again. Only now, the forces opposed to medicare are more ideologically unified, more richly endowed, and tied to transnational corporations whose power exceeds that of entire countries.

In Profit Is Not the Cure, Maude Barlow traces the history of medicare in Canada. She compares it with both public and private systems in other parts of the world. And she contrasts it with the brutally divisive system that exists in the United States, where forty-four million people have no medical insurance, and millions more get minimal care through profit-driven health maintenance organizations.

From the point of view of most patients, the United States health-care model is a disaster. But the proponents of privatization in Canada, supported by the right-wing media and corporate lobbyists, are determined to impose American-style “reforms” on the Canadian public. Three provinces – British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario – are moving ahead rapidly to enlarge the role of commerce in the provision of health-care services. They are introducing user fees, delisting procedures that previously were covered, and encouraging private corporations to move into areas that used to be the exclusive domain of the public system.

While the prime minister and federal cabinet have paid lipservice to the principles of medicare, they have made it clear by their actions that they will do nothing to impede the destruction of those principles by the provinces. In fact, their enthusiastic support of NAFTA, and the impending Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) and General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), has made the defence of medicare increasingly difficult.

Canadians overwhelmingly support medicare. Many, however, have been persuaded that it is a luxury we can no longer afford. Maude Barlow argues that this proposition is wrong. An earlier generation fought a bitter battle to bring medicare into existence. Another battle must be fought now to save it. But we owe it to the founders of the system, as well as to future generations, to take up the cause again. This important book shows the way.

 

Assuming this was in response to my post, I DO believe the homless should get healthcare. It's just that many fiscal neo-cons arguments against healthcare and social security is that it's only funding "lazy bums who don't contribute to society".

 

Sigh. Obviously you have the fortune to yet to have to experience a real illness. Not all health conditions and illnesses are the sufferers fault!

I eat organic food, I take care of myself, I don't drink or smoke. I have a chronic health care condition, which is not my fault or anyone else's, which would not be treatable at the moment if I didn't have excellent private health care. What about all the people with my condition who DON'T have excellent private health care? THEY SUFFER. My condition causes more suicides (when undertreated or not treated) than AIDS or cancer, yet is expensive to treat. Health care is a RIGHT, not a privelege. People should NOT suffer or die because they don't have good "health care coverage" or are not rich!

As for the 17 yr old who "hardly ever" goes to the doctor. You are 17 fucking years old. WAIT!!!! Even if you do take care of yourself, there are myriad things that "a good night's sleep" cannot cure. I hope you are LUCKY enough to never run into any of them......but you probably will.