[ksk]

I'm nowhere close to rich or a Trump voter, but I'm glad my 401k) went up when the stocks went up. The Dem's economic policies in recent years are stinkers. I don't like the idea of raising taxes and creating new money-pit departments and thinking the government can fix stuff like education at the federal level. The idea of mandating people to purchase a healthcare product was also abhorrent. I'd much sooner get behind something like a single payer/universal coverage and kill off the useless insurance industry.

[evgen]

It takes a certain level of complete ignorance to not know that for the past 30+ years the economy and stock market has grown more under Democratic presidents than Republican ones.

[ksk]

For the past several decades, presidents who presided over booming economies have shared credit. You must have missed that.

[georgeplusplus]

> I'd much sooner get behind something like a single payer/universal coverage and kill off the useless insurance industry.

At least in Germany most people still have a private care insurance option because the free stuff doesn’t cover everything and it’s just as expensive as the USAs insurance so I don’t think the insurance industry will go away just because their is a single payer system.

[dfilppi]

Killing off industries is not what free societies do.

[ksk]

Nobody is asking the government to make sneakers.

Universal access to healthcare is a human right, and insurance as a product by its very nature - is non-universal - as it relies on denying access to make profit.

The pre-existing conditions loophole in the current system means that you can purchase insurance one day before you get sick or need a major medical procedure and a private company is mandated by the government to pay up. The whole Obamacare plan is a clusterF*.

[georgeplusplus]

>> Universal access to healthcare is a human right.

Healthcare comes from a provider. Would you say a provider has an unequivocal obligation to provide its service to the people?

[ksk]

Well, they can't deny emergency care to a human being who is about to die/in critical condition, can they? So lets start on that common ground - They do already have unequivocal obligations in the current system. Now from that end of the spectrum to the other end, say perhaps an elective purely cosmetic surgery that is non-essential (agreed, this is subjective) we can find some middle ground, can we not?

As a practical matter of policy, the government can incrementally build the path towards universal coverage. By identifying problems in the outcomes of the existing system, and using various common-sense priorities to draft legislation, this can be done in a slow and sustainable manner. There are various proposals out there drafted by people far smarter than I. Its not that I think any particular one is a silver-bullet, but the current system where people go bankrupt due to medical costs is very alarming. We need to start somewhere if we are to tackle this problem.

I totally get the fear of creating yet another entitlement program, and how hospitals will possibly milk the government, but the current system isn't working, people are quite literally dying and/or having their lives be destroyed due to medical costs, so it about time we did something. I've seen some of this damage first hand and its terrifying to think it could happen to people I care about or even myself.

[georgeplusplus]

>> Well, they can't deny emergency care to a human being who is about to die/in critical condition, can they? So lets start on that common ground

Let’s first find our common ground. If you are a doctor and a patient comes to you, and the doctor refuses on the grounds he will not be paid enough, you think you have the right to compel this doctor to perform the service anyway?

The emergency care example you give is an extreme and shouldnt be used as the basis for all other policy. I would say a doctor who chose the job as an emergency care provider acknowledges your stance when he took the job, to provide service to matter what, not because it is a right but a contractual obligation.