Need a hard question to ask liberals on Health Care

[m00]

Maybe I just need to find exact wording, let me try this to start. Do you think that Obama care was designed to become a fully socialist system at a later date after people have been pushed into completely government provided plans by the regulations in Obamacare.

Honestly? No. Because I think we'll end up with something far worse than a fully socialist system. I think the goal is to make something "new" which is worse than socialism. Obamaism. I think if you imagined the most nanny-state socialist implementation of healthcare, Obamcare will end up far more destructive and wrong.

Let me explain this.

I don't like Socialized medicine and it has a lot of problems, but for the most part in the countries I've lived... it functions. I mean, it functions as well as any government agency functions. The DMV sucks, but it functions. You go to the DMV, wait in line, pay too much money... but at the end of the day you have your license. With socialized medicine it's the same deal... you get sick, you go to the doctor, they take care of you. You pay too much (if you look at the stupidly high tax rates of these countries), and don't have any choice, but for normal ailments you get treated. I haven't had cancer, so maybe it's different for that.

With Obamacare... I think we'll pay about 10 times the cost as socialized medicine... and people will be suffering, because the IRS will make sure you're buying this service from a private provider, and that private provider will find ways to deny you service when you really need it... because they have a monopoly/captive audience and the free market can't punish this behavior. It's another instance of privatizing profits, but making the cost public. But in this case... the cost is your life.

So its a million times worse, because you're going to pay more than socialism for something that's less functional than socialism. And they don't just silently take it out of taxes (like socialism does)... they compel you to act. So then you have all the people with their assets frozen by the IRS or who go to jail because they haven't gone out and purchased health care from a government approved private provider.

Calling Obamacare "socialism" lets it off too easy.

See what I'm saying?

[Odysseus]

Here's what I don't get...

If you have a job, you either get health insurance through your employer or you don't. If you don't... then presumably you command a higher salary. I've always had insurance through my employer. But I know people who are contractors, don't get any benefits, but get paid like 20% more.

If you don't have a job, you presumably are "low income" and qualify for medicaid.

Maybe some Democrat can answer -- so who is Obamacare for?

Because, okay I can completely agree with principles like insurance companies can't screw you. There are a lot of stories about someone getting cancer and the insurance company saying "Oh, you didn't report the fact you had a prescription for acne for 2 weeks when you were 16. Since you didn't report a pre-existing condition, we're not paying for your cancer treatment despite the fact you paid us for 20 years. You want to sue? Good luck with that, you'll be dead before this ever sees trial."

But if we were trying to solve that issue, why not just have an "Insurance Companies Can't Screw You Act of 2008" and make it illegal for insurance companies to rip people off. Which, it should be.

If Democrats felt that not enough low-income individuals were covered, why not work to improve medicaid?

If Democrats wanted European or Canadian style health care systems, why not just do that? Because the irony is that actual government health care / socialized medicine would cost about 1/10th of what Obamacare costs.

Can any Democrat or liberal answer this? Why are we paying more for something that isn't what even liberals want, does things that are already working in other programs, and the two or three good things it claims to do (aka insurance companies can't screw you) can be accomplished in a 1 page bill?

Obamacare is for Democrats. Not the ones that it will ostensibly cover, but the ones who will use it to keep people in line and voting for them. It's their next big entitlement and its sole purpose is to perpetuate their power by transferring another area of free will into just another place where we can beg for government's largess. The people who get the benefits will sing its praises, especially when they forget how much better the old system was, and the people that it screws over will not have the numbers to overturn it. It's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and every other entitlement rolled up into one big, shiny ball of fascism.