One of the main purposes of the tax code is to act as a carrot and stick to promote behaviors desired by the government (purportedly at the behest of the American people).

So I don't see anything wrong with using taxes to promote health, and reduce costs on public health care.

Alex is right about one thing: there's no such thing as "Free" - and since he didn't bother to see the film (I haven't yet either), he's simply assuming that's what Moore is recommending. From the extensive interviews I've heard Moore give, he is simply recommending that the profit motive be removed from health care, and I heartily agree. Whether or not that would stifle innovation, it's blatently immoral to make health decisions for individual people based on profit motive.

Everyone's morals are different. But I'd like to see some rationale for this kind of thing being morally justified. And I'd like to see any such justifications include a hypothetical involving the justifier's self or loved one.


Just a request.

To be fair, Alex used the term "free" not of his own invention, but rather, as a response to Mousepod's definition of what Moore wants, or whatever.

When I have less of a screaming headache, I'll post some stuff. But in short, and no I haven't seen the film, I do feel there should be a profit motive, for truly innovative research requires big bucks. With such high risk, there must be great reward and I'm sorry, saving someone I love probably won't cut it for them. People I know and love need that sort of innovation so that they can stop preventing death and start finding a way to a cure.

Fear not, young friends, there will always be innovation. Indeed, it is in our genetic make-up to want to improve life. As the old stand up joke goes (and what follows is the non-funny version of same), so long as there is the opposite sex to attract, society will continue to grow and improve on the past, if only to help the person get laid.

Nevertheless, it is time we start looking at health care the same way we do our fire and police departments. Somehow, these two groups survive even without handing us a bill for saving our house from fire or burglary. Thankfully, we live in a society whereupon if my home was set ablaze or robbed, the police and fire departments would not first ask if I had the fire/robbery equivalent to Blue Cross, before doing their job.

When health care does pass, and I believe that it someday will, it will not be perfect (the fire department can not save every house) but it will be vastly superior to what we have to-day.

For the moment, the naysayers have the stage. They'll bluster and sputter and shake their fist in the air, but when its all done, and free health care arrives, we'll wonder how, as a society of caring people, we ever lived without it.

I haven't seen the movie yet, either, but God bless Michael Moore.

Amen!

Firemen respond in the case of an emergency. The biggest issue with health care is that it goes far beyond that emergency. I don't call and schedule an appointment with the local fire department to come check the status of my smoke alarm batteries, plan a fire escape plan for my family, inspect the pool fence, They aren't making sure that I have a fire extinguisher which we are all trained to use.

The police aren't liable for your own personal security. If they don't get there, they don't get there. There was a case I have cited before where a woman had a restraining order on her ex. He kept stalking her, the police would not sit outside her door to make sure it was abided by, and they guy eventually killed her. The family tried to sue the police, but the supreme court ruled that the police are not a private security force. They maintain the peace. They cannot, nor are they required, to stop all crime before it is committed. They can't.

I hope we never view health care as the fire department or the police department.

Because I do care, I realize that profit motive is just as much the mother of invention as is necessity. It would surely be nice if that were not the case, but it is. Until there is a general change in human nature, I'm not thinking taking the profit motive out is a good idea.

The logical course, should there be socialized medicine, is that the market no longer controls how many doctors and of what type there are. There will be shortages because of the exorbitant cost of medical school, meaning that there will be cries for free education for those who would be government doctors. Those doctors will be told what they have to practice. The huge amount of medicare fraud that there already is will expand with the expanding government system, requiring an even larger bureacracy to manage.

The government does not even do well that which it is specifically mandated to do (control the borders among them). I do not care to trust them with the management of my health care.

I just don't know how to respond to this. Simply because I cannot understand how people believe that socialized medicine is better. I would rather wait a couple of weeks, maybe a month or two on the outside, for a needed surgery than to wait a couple of years as it would be in Canada.

And as for Michael Moore, considering the proven hypocrisy and intentional misleadings of his past films, why should I want to see it? I haven't experienced death first-hand, but I know enough about it that I know to avoid it.

And I would rather people not be denied life-saving procedures because their insurance company determined it wasn't in their economic interests to approve it.

And I would rather people not die while on incredibly long waiting lists for lfe saving procedures.

Do you have anything that demonstrates long wait times for emergency/life-saving procedures? Everything I've seen regarding long wait periods in Canada has been about hip and knee replacements.

I'm not saying that that's acceptable either, but the arguments usually used against single-payer systems usually seem to me like nonfactual exaggerations.

Switzerland has the best healthcare system in the world. They require compulsory private healthcare insurance with options of adding on additional care needs - and their care is excellent and, apparently, is very cost effective.

I'm no expert here and, the only reason I know about this at all is because of Chris' Aunt who lives in Switzerland. She got to recuperate at a spa for 6 weeks after hip-replacement surgery.

Long article here if you are interested.

I think we spend waaaaayyyyy too much time on arguing against socailized medicine and not enough time looking for ways to fix our VERY broken healthcare system.