Universal Healthcare is NOT Socialism.
I’m tired of neocons screaming socialism when it comes to Universal Healthcare. It is not. Socialism is when government takes over an industry. That is not what Universal Healthcare is. Under Universal Healthcare we’ll still have private doctors and private hospitals. It’ll just be a new payment system. More than half of our current system is federally funded anyway. Universal Healthcare would provide care for those Americans who need it most and would lower costs to the individuals and employers who currently contribute to health insurance companies. Some estimates show that only HALF of your monthly contributions actually go to Healthcare costs. The other half goes to the middlemen. A streamlined non-profit system would cut these costs tremendously.
If you want to scream socialism.. look at No Child Left Behind. The government having every kid in the country sitting in their classrooms reading the same books at the same time and taking the same tests. That sounds like socialism.
The question is: Can Universal Healthcare happen? My guess is no. Our government is run by money and lobbyists. I’m pretty certain health industry lobbyists will stop at nothing to keep this from ever happening.
This entry was posted on January 31, 2008 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Bush, economy, healthcare, life, politics with tags 2008 election issues, Democratic candidates, doctors, government subsidies, healthcare, healthcare lobbyists, hospitals, neocons, non-profit healthcare, Rush Limbaugh, socialism, Universal Healthcare, US politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 31, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I agree with what you’ve said about health care. But I would add one more thing, socialism is forced equality, usually though wealth. Under socialist states, the government looks after every aspect of your wellbeing, to make sure you are well looked after. A socialist government coddles its citizens and pampers them to the extreme. It also panders to small special interests groups, with the ideas that everyone is right and no one is wrong.
February 7, 2008 at 5:08 pm
AGREED!!!!!!
February 19, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Yes, it is. Socialism is what happens when you take from one sector to give to another. Another way to put it would be ‘redistribution of wealth’, or ‘from each according to his means, to each according to his need’.
Socialized medicine forces me to pay for others, by raising my taxes to pay for the health care of someone else. Everything the government does is paid for by taxing its people, and socialized medicine cannot happen – in either Hillary’s plan or Barack’s – without either raising my taxes or levying new ones.
It’s just that simple. You pay for your health care, and I’ll pay for mine.
February 19, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I think you fail to realize what Universal Healthcare is. You also fail to show how Universal Healthcare would be more expensive to ME than the current double digit inflation we experience every year with health insurance.
You state where some political “socialism” has failed – but you fail to show me where any “socialized” medicine has failed? Where has Universal Healthcare failed?
There are only a few countries in the world right now attempting true Universal Healthcare. 2 of which are Afghanistan and Iraq…guess who provides their healthcare?? WE DO.
So while you complain about having to pay taxes to benefit your OWN country..you’re paying taxes so you can destroy another country and then pay for THEIR socialized medicine.
April 23, 2008 at 4:16 am
Of course it is socialism, that is why the system is not ALREADY in place, because as Americans we have resisted governemnt control and regulation of our lives and industry. That what we are all about? Remember?
We have embraced our privately run healthcare system up until now, and suddenly it’s broken and needs to abandon? Hogwash.
Are people perishing in the streets because they can’t get healthcare in America? Hogwash.
I have health care, and I bet you do too. Don’t you? How did you get it? Isn’t that path open to everyone?
Since when did this even become an issue?
Hillary was screaming for universal healthcare back in the early 1990’s, but America rejected it. It has remained a non-issue until Hillary began running for president. This is Hilary’s pet project, nothing more.
Universal healthcare is a big mistake, don’t buy into this slippery slope toward socialism.
And by the way, I am not a neocon, I am a Democrat, who will be voting for Obama, almost solely on this matter.
March 20, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Oka – you already pay for other people health care and cost – its called social security and medicare and medicaid. How did you not realize this.
And its not socialism – gee I hate that, I forgot that Cuba, France, Great Britain and Canada were all extreme socialists nations.
Also with the economy in the state that it is in universal health care would be a huge leap, people wouldn’t be frightened of starting a business because their families would be safe, and then there’s people like me a waiter at a restaurant who works part time who doesn’t even get an opportunity to get “affordable” health care.
And everyone in congress that votes against this type of thing has Government Issue health care!!!
Lastly all you people who scream red scare, socialism, waiting lists for organs, turn a blind eye to the 1 in 5 people around you who doesn’t have health care or the seniors who pay $165 for a pill to ease arthritis are used to making bad decisions by following the herd, im sorry you cant vote for Bush anymore and there’s not many other countries we can invade and “help”…. with our own tax dollars
October 10, 2009 at 11:38 pm
There are multiple capitalist countries that have universal medical. One’s that run a freer market than our own. I also want to say that I would never say this country is all about sticking to the same plan even if it isn’t working after all one government system not working is what our founding fathers left behind. I hate to think we are so ethnocentric that we would rather be wrong than change our minds. Anyone who really wants to post an educated opinion than great, check out this video and then come tell me why insurance companies should make higher profits than casinos and how that is worth gambling with peoples lives. Take into account that not every person in this country is an able bodied anglo-saxon white male, there are children, handicapped people, the elderly, they may not all be able to just pay for theirs. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/