Summations Only

The current system is working fine for me. Healthcare is expensive so you need to have insurance for it. I think the problem is that you pretty much have to get health insurance as a benefit from your job, unless you're job is paying you enough money to afford it on your own (like a contract worker). That, or be so poor or old that you get it as a benefit that way. The guy in the middle doesn't have a good option for health insurance: if his job doesn't provide health insurance as a benefit then he probably doesn't make enough to buy it himself.I don't what the solution is. Its a very complicated system.Part of the problem is that people aren't good at taking care of themselves and doctors do a lot of guess-and-check work. Too, as the technology advances we seem to keep pushing the latest and greatest (and most expensive) instead of sticking with the old reliables: eat right, exercise, and take good care of yourself. Everyone wants easy-to-take pills to control the symptoms instead of working their ass off to solve the problems.On the other side, the insurance companies, and pill-makers, are in it to make money. Healthcare is not all about caring for peoples' health. Its quite lucrative and companies are going to take advantage of that.

I'm just talking to people, don't worry about it.

For fuck's sake, do we really need the government involved in telling our children to brush their teeth

Perhaps soon enough, all we'll have to do is pop out a kid and leave it on the doorstep for the government to pick up and handle it from there.

Yeah, I guess you're right.

Because of the way you brought it up as an advantage of universal health care... as if we need the government involved in telling our kids to brush their teeth. Of course not. Not at all; its not the simple government involvement that I mind. Its the idea that its an advantage to have the government teach our kids basic things like dental hygeine instead of us doing it for them at home. Its this shift in mentality away from doing what needs to be done and taking care of ourselves and towards shruggin it off on the government instead that I find distasteful.Kinda like what Onifre's talking about: rather than getting people to eat right and exercise, we'll just all chip in for a healthcare system that allows them to trash their bodies further. Don't worry about teaching your kids personal hygiene, they'll take care of that shit in school. Its an advantage!

No. Although, if you said that one of the advantages of having wealthy philanthropists was that kids'll get dentintry tips at school, then I'd be mocking that as stupid as well. Your advocating the system teaching our kids basic stuff they should be learning at home as advantageous. Not at all (take over?). I'm more concerned about people liking the fact that they can shrug off these responsibilities onto the government.

Can you not read? I don't care about the funding or the government, its the attitude of shrugging off personal responsibility onto others as something to be desired that I think is stupid. Compared to other countries with different people in a different culture in a different environment... but sure, its the fact that their healthcare is publically funded that makes them healthier Depends on how you look at it.

I agree that there's plenty of room for improvement and I'm not opposed to universal healthcare. If you add up the populations of all those countries you just mentioned, its still less than half of the amount of people than in the U.S. Norway and Sweden have like 2% of our population. It just doesn't look like much of a meaningful comparison to me.