So Virginia bans O-Care

[LBJefferies]

Raising taxes and increasing gov't involvement in our lives is not the way to prosperity.

But deregulation and increasing corporate involvement in our lives is the way to prosperity? :loco:

[z31maniac]

But deregulation and increasing corporate involvement in our lives is the way to prosperity? :loco:

You're right.

Free market capitalism hasn't produced the highest standard of living and most wealth vs any other country in the world has it?

[ck_taft325is]

so does this mean my premiums will go up because I will have to pay for the unemployed, illegal and just plain lazy fuks in this country????

this whole plan sux moose cock

While this happens now to some degree, the current proposal does not solve this issure. Nor does it make health care affordable through taxation.

Let me share a story with you...

I was living in CA with my Grandparents for the duration of 1 year when I was 17. My parents were at their wits end with me because, well, I was a dumb ass kid getting into A LOT of trouble. I got into High School down there at North Monterey County Highschool near Castroville-Salinas CA. I decided it was a fresh start and that I'd turn my life around. I was pulling good grades (B+ average), taking extra classes to catch up on credits, got a fan-fucking-tastic job as a server at this restaurant in Carmel making loads of money in tips (averaged $280 a night). It was a great time honestly. I gained muscle weight to the tune of 150lbs to 180lbs.

One day at school a buddy and I got an invite to a "birthday" party by this very cute latino girl. I had gotten my buddy a job under me as a table busser and we shared the same shifts. After work (around 10pm) we decided to drop by and say Happy birthday to her. The invite she gave us said it was going until 11pm. So, we stopped by. When we pulled up I got that little "nag" in my stomach about the area. It was fairly shady. I, being new'ish to the area, had no idea how bad this area was. It was bad enough that the Police don't go through there after 9pm. Well, long story short, we got jumped by a gang of about 15 guys. While my friend looked unmarked in the slightest as he was a skinny white boy with "familar shake syndrom" and they took it easy on him. I wasn't so lucky. Long (enough) story short, I took the majority of the beating as I had been in fights throughout my life growing up in bad neighborhoods and fought back while he curled into a ball, had a gun held to his head while they kicked him. I got levelled, eventually.

My face was a mess. My nose had over 100 fractures and breaks, they removed most of the bone and replaced it with one big fragment from the side of my nose (the part that connects the base of the nose to the cheek area). Both my cheeck bones were broken, rotated and hair line fractured all the way to my temples. Both temples where shattered. My sinus caviety was collapsed, shattered and moved to the left (head butting someone saved my life but now I can't smell so well). My jaw was broken in 3 places. Dead center, and two places on the left side. My left eye is legally blind now. It was literally (shit you not) torn open and ripped down the center from one side to the other. I lost almost 3 pints of blood in the first 5 hours. I broke both my hands and 3 knuckles hitting people back. Near the end when I finally just couldn't fight back anymore they took to kicking me in the face. Someone finally stepped in and said I'd had enough. They ended up letting us go and I'm proud to say I left under my own power and was pleased to find I had knocked out 2 of the kids. The first guy who grabbed me was actually in the same hospital that I went too on life support because I punched him in the throat. I'm not sure if he made it, but frankly, I don't really feel remorse.

My medical bills after all was "fixed" (for what it could be) amounted to nearly $348,589. This was after the second best trauma plastic surgeon who was visiting my ear, nose and throat Doctor saw my case on his buddies desk and volunteered his time to help put me back together. Very nice Doctor that I'm sorry to say, I never caught his name. As a result, I'm stuck with Post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and well, a next to useless eye. The eye specialist (very cute lady btw) said something along these lines, "Well, you've got two options. Keep the eye purely for aesthetic purposes or remove it, which in the long run will be less painful". I kept the eye, but understand now, what she means as I have regular migraines, "bleaching" of my vision on sunny days and a continual throbbing on the left side of my face.

I had no insurance. I was 17, emancipated and just starting to make money. I'm not even sure what happend to the bill for these doctors time, energy, drugs, supplies etc went. I know first hand what it's like, better than most, to need medical help and not have money. I can say honestly, that I am in awe of the medical professionals that took care of me. The current proposal scares the crap out of me because who is to say I would have been treated in the same fashion with Government involvement. I don't think in any sense of the word that it's correct for the Government to propose a bill that raises health care costs more, does not do a DAMN thing to help those that need it and taxes the fuck out of everyone for 4-6 years before any benefits are seen. I imagine I was one of the State/Federal "leeches" on the system. I still don't think anyone else should be required to pay for it. I don't think people should be turned away as if I had been turned away, I would have bled into my brain and died within the first night.

I've got a crying baby boy, I'll finish my thoughts on this up later.


Here's pictures of two weeks after (they had to wait to do surgery on my face due to swelling) the incident...

[HarryPotter]

That's some raw shit, you got your hood stripes.

[LBJefferies]

You're right.

Free market capitalism hasn't produced the highest standard of living and most wealth vs any other country in the world has it?

I don't know exactly what you're saying because we aren't, and never really have had a completely free market economy.

If you're trying to argue that we have the highest standard of living in the world I think you are just plain wrong. The fast food and reality tv culture of this country that has been sold by corporations only leads to apathy, laziness, ignorance, obesity, cancer, and the list goes on. I wouldn't call that a high standard of living.

[ck_taft325is]

I don't know exactly what you're saying because we aren't, and never really have had a completely free market economy.

If you're trying to argue that we have the highest standard of living in the world I think you are just plain wrong. The fast food and reality tv culture of this country that has been sold by corporations only leads to apathy, laziness, ignorance, obesity, cancer, and the list goes on. I wouldn't call that a high standard of living.

Those are all personal choices. None of which is the Governments, big business, free market or anyone elses beyond the individuals decisions.

So your point is... ?

[KenC]

The current proposal scares the crap out of me because who is to say I would have been treated in the same fashion with Government involvement.

More of the ill-informed talking points you hear on tv? What sort of "government involvement" do you forsee prohibiting them from helping you? Actually, don't answer that. You've proven yourself to be unknowledgable on the topic already, and I don't care for another "public opinion poll" answer.

There's nothing in the reform bill that limits a physicians ability to care for a patient in emergency situations.

[ck_taft325is]

This was not an Emergency room situation only. I got a band-aide and a boot in the ass after the ER. The ER Doc ran out while I was getting my aunt's car to tell me not to lay down when I got home because there was a high liklihood of blood pooling in the back of my brain and killing me.

Now fast forward to Nationalized Health care where there's a waiting list for the CAT scans, etc... where the Ear, Nose and Throat Dr. has a mile long list of patients. Where someone with a severe problem is presenting with small outward appearances and gets bumped below someone with an ear infection and then dies. C'mon, man. Use your brain a bit. You honestly believe that the Government can put regulations in place to bring costs down and care provided up through taxation and fines? You're entitled to think I'm ignorant of the system, and in a large majority I believe most of us are (with the exception of Health professionals and the like).

You're right. There's nothing on the reform bill that limits a physicians ability to care for patients in emergency situations. But there's loads in the bill that will put people on waiting lists as there are in other countries with a Nationalized Health care plan.

[BlueBMW]

You're right.

Free market capitalism hasn't produced the highest standard of living and most wealth vs any other country in the world has it?

While I agree that free market has produced a high standard of living and wealth... my concern is that the ones who actually have the higher standard of living and wealth are an increasingly smaller group of people. Eventually we will have a very small upper class and a very large lower class. That is my concern with unregulated "free" market.

[mar1t1me]

You're right.

Free market capitalism hasn't produced the highest standard of living and most wealth vs any other country in the world has it?

I can't find an age in American history, except, perhaps pre-civil war, where anything like free markets existed. Corporate powerhouses have long paid and otherwise influenced politicians to craft or avoid legislation in favor of particular businesses to the enrichment of both.

Do you know when the following was written?

The greatest single hold of "the interests" is the fact that they are the "campaign contributors"—the men who supply the money for "keeping the party together," and for "getting out the vote." Did you ever think where the millions for watchers, spellbinders, halls, processions, posters, pamphlets, that are spent in national, state and local campaigns come from? Who pays the big election expenses of your congressman, of the men you send to the legislature to elect senators? Do you imagine those who foot those huge bills are fools? Don't you know that they make sure of getting their money back, with interest, compound upon compound? Your candidates get most of the money for their campaigns from the party committees; and the central party committee is the national committee with which congressional and state and local committees are affiliated. The bulk of the money for the "political trust" comes from "the interests." "The interests" will give only to the "political trust." And that means Aldrich and his Democratic (!) lieutenant, Gorman of Maryland, leader of the minority in the Senate. Aldrich, then, is the head of the "political trust" and Gorman is his right-hand man. When you speak of the Republican party, of the Democratic party, of the "good of the party," of the "best interests of the party;" of "wise party policy," you mean what Aldrich and Gorman, acting for their clients, deem wise and proper and "Republican" or "Democratic." . . .

No railway legislation that was not either helpful to or harmless against "the interests"; no legislation on the subject of corporations that would interfere with "the interests," which use the corporate form to simplify and systematize their stealing; no legislation on the tariff question unless it secured to "the interests" full and free license to loot; no investigations of wholesale robbery or of any of the evils resulting from it—there you have in a few words the whole story of the Senate's treason under Aldrich's leadership, and of why property is concentrating in the hands of the few and the little children of the masses are being sent to toil in the darkness of mines, in the dreariness and unhealthfulness of factories instead of being sent to school; and why the great middle classÑthe old-fashioned Americans, the people with the incomes of from two thousand to fifteen thousand a year—is being swiftly crushed into dependence and the repulsive miseries of "genteel poverty."

The year was 1906.


Our soon-to-be-former high standard of living was a direct result of decently paid laborers who worked in manufacturing or some similar endeavor-usually with one company for life. My father is a case in point. He started with Delta Air Lines in 1956 and retired in 1987, with full benefits and pension. That's why his standard of living was high. However due to foreign competition and corporate heads discovering there were people on the other side of the world willing to make their widgets, while working under conditions an American worker would never tolerate, that way of life for a worker is gone. Now the average person in the workforce stays 18 months in a job and leaves with nothing.


But hey, it used to be Bush's fault, and now it's Obama's.....;)

[KenC]

This was not an Emergency room situation only. I got a band-aide and a boot in the ass after the ER. The ER Doc ran out while I was getting my aunt's car to tell me not to lay down when I got home because there was a high liklihood of blood pooling in the back of my brain and killing me.

Now fast forward to Nationalized Health care where there's a waiting list for the CAT scans, etc... where the Ear, Nose and Throat Dr. has a mile long list of patients. Where someone with a severe problem is presenting with small outward appearances and gets bumped below someone with an ear infection and then dies. C'mon, man. Use your brain a bit. You honestly believe that the Government can put regulations in place to bring costs down and care provided up through taxation and fines? You're entitled to think I'm ignorant of the system, and in a large majority I believe most of us are (with the exception of Health professionals and the like).

You're right. There's nothing on the reform bill that limits a physicians ability to care for patients in emergency situations. But there's loads in the bill that will put people on waiting lists as there are in other countries with a Nationalized Health care plan.

I'll assume that by "nationalized system," you're referring to a single-payer government run insurance system.
I'm not sure what bill you've been reading, but the one before congress now certianly doesn't establish that.

[Wiglaf]

Yeah I wouldn't want to change a system that let me skate on a $350k bill. The nerve of them!

[ck_taft325is]

I wouldn't say skated. It's a violent crime, not a careless injury or a elective procedure. I still paid much of my savings ($8,000) towards medical bills. After that, I recieved an invoice of total expenses and my owed debt was zero'd out.

[HarryPotter]

The fact of the matter is that for a family of four you will be paying 10k in taxes a year, this is just for the fine. If you actually have the health care, it is quite a bit more.

Oh and obama in his ohio speech stated that premiums for company owners will go down 3000% basically they will be getting payed to have healthcare for their employees. This guys a master at social deception. His ohio speech was such a joke, 200 hand selected people in the crowd, he had someone pulled out for talking bad about him, saying he fainted but the man was carried out by SIX police officers, not medics.

[joshh]

Capitalism works and it works well.

If we were to get rid of the deals that are made in Government and get rid of corporate lobbying we'd have a great system.