Obama care

[nensondubois]

Let's discuss the good, the bad and the ugly about Obama's preposterous idea for health care reform.

Pros

- Free painkillers!

Cons

- Just pop a pill and you'll be fine! No surgery needed!
- Millions of people will die by 2012!
- Hundreds and thousands of doctors will be lost!
- Counselors will remind you that your expiration is near!
- America will go bankrupt and become a third world country!
- Democrats gain more power and the Free Masons will ultimately succeed in starting the world over.
- The Number of drug abusers will significantly increase at a dismal rate!

[PaperLuigi]

And you know this how?

[Lizard Dude]

What a reasonable and accurate assessment of the issues

[Turtlekid1]

Pros:
-Free health care!  :D

Cons:
-Who's going to pay for all of it? 
-Doctors may be forced to perform abortions, since they're funded (thus controlled) by the state.
-The government will control another area of life that they have no business controlling.
-Proper health care will be refused to those deemed by the government to be not worth treating (why waste time and money treating old people who will die in a few years anyway?).

[Weegee]

The health care system Obama is pushing to implement is nearly identical to what we Canadians have had for for over forty years. As exemplified above, many critics have been going out of their way to overblow the cons of Universal Health Care. In reality, the only significant downside is that waiting lists for non-critical medical cases to be treated will be lengthened.

The primary benefit of "Canadian-style" health care is that is doesn't put a price tag on your life. A homeless bum could receive cancer treatment alongside a millionaire, regardless of whether or not he's able to shell out enough cash to buy the doctor another SUV. Similarly, expecting couples wouldn't attempt risky at-home deliveries just because they can't afford the several-thousand-dollar hospital bill. Canadian doctors are also paid a closer-to-reasonable salary, thus sucking less money out of the economy for less-worthy causes.

Oh, and health care is never refused to anyone needing it here.

[Lizard Dude]

Pros
- Free painkillers!

Pros:
-Free health care!  :D

BTW, you people really don't know what's actually going on. While I disagree with most of his views, at least CE7 is smart and knowledgable and I always respect him for it.

[Weegee]

Please enlighten us, Lizard Dude.

[Glorb]

OBAMA IS GOAN DISTROAY THIS NASHUN

HE GOAN TAKE AWAY ARE RIGHTS AND WE ALL GOAN DY

[Turtlekid1]

You're absolutely right, it's not free.  Someone's got to pay for it.

-Who's going to pay for all of it?

[Weegee]

Someone's got to pay for it.

Expect tax increases, which will suck... unless you're the one paying $5000 for your baby to be born. It's an issue where you have to broaden your mind to think outside of your own wallet and into the interests of others.

[Turtlekid1]

The interests of others are all well and good, but the government has no business taking money from my wallet and putting it into someone else's.  I smell socialism.
Look, it's not that we shouldn't be concerned about people who can't afford health care, on the contrary.  But we should be concerned about who's providing for them, and where the provision is going to come from.

[PaperLuigi]

I think nenson was trolling when he made this topic (or at least being really sarcastic).

[The Chef]

No, nenson's just an imbecile. He always has been, he always will be.

[Black Mage]

I think all of you guys are underplaying the obvious SOVIET threat to our nation with the institution of SOCIALIST policies. Have you all already forgotten what COMMUNISM did to the world in the past?

On a completely unrelated topic, have any of you guys read Animal Farm? That's the one with the spider and pig. I love that book.

[CrossEyed7]

I want Obama to be honest and slow down. He has said before, quite clearly, that he ultimately wants a Eurocanadia-style single-payer system, but now he's swearing up and down that he's never wanted anything of the sort and this bill has nothing to do with that, and we get inane propaganda videos from the White House like this, telling us that we should just accept the prepackaged press conference statements regardless of anything else. And if we hear anyone disagree with it, now we're supposed to report them. And for some reason, we absolutely have to get this passed right now or everything will explode, along with all the other dozen or so giant spending bills that we absolutely have to pass without reading.

A single-payer system may well have its merits, but we can't discuss them until Obama is honest about it and gives us time to slow down and think about it a bit. Furthermore, for all the benefits it may have, we simply can't afford it right now. Projections say that the national debt is already going to be around $20 trillion in ten years. This healthcare bill is supposed to only be another trillion and a half, but the government doesn't exactly have a stellar track record for staying on budget. For example, look at the Cash For Clunkers thing. They thought a billion dollars would be enough for four months, and instead it ran out after four days. They underestimated the cost of that one by about 2000%. Something does need to be done about healthcare, but not something that will make our debt skyrocket even more. Bush doubled it from $5 trillion to about $11 trillion, Obama's planning on doubling it again in a similar time frame, and that's the best case scenario. What happens if the government turns out to have drastically underestimated the cost again, like they did for Medicare?