The Republican Party

cajunkiwi wrote:

We have that in New Zealand and it works just fine - I never understood why half of America seems to think it's a crime against humanity. I'm not sure how yours works across the ditch, but we have a fun wrinkle in our system - if you're in an accident, the government will pay your medical costs... and the trade-off of that is you're not allowed to sue.

the primary problem is that because the government has been co-opted by large corporations ... it is inefficient and managing and administering these services ... the rule of thumb is that someone has to make a pretty penny in any policy which essentially removes the reason why gov't should handle it ...

catefrances wrote:

polaris_x wrote:

cajunkiwi wrote:

We have that in New Zealand and it works just fine - I never understood why half of America seems to think it's a crime against humanity. I'm not sure how yours works across the ditch, but we have a fun wrinkle in our system - if you're in an accident, the government will pay your medical costs... and the trade-off of that is you're not allowed to sue.

the primary problem is that because the government has been co-opted by large corporations ... it is inefficient and managing and administering these services ... the rule of thumb is that someone has to make a pretty penny in any policy which essentially removes the reason why gov't should handle it ...

all i know is the times ive been admitted to hospital... childbirth, industrial accident, corrective surgery and medical emergency(which required ambulance transport) ive been able to access services without worrying whether it was gonna cause financial hardship. it also means that when i need to attend a doctors surgery, which admittedly is extremely rare... but you know i do have kids, i can do so. and i dont have to wait until i have the money to pay... thereby nipping whatever illness that has arisen, in the bud. and avoiding more intensive and probably more expensive medical services.

the system isnt perfect and of course ive had surgery bumped cause it was considered nonessential and elective.


it is my opinion that if governments funded public health, which i consider absolutely essential, better then the problems seen would not disappear altogether but be less acute. were talking about the health of nations here. how is that not priority #1?

Because there are people out there in America who think a country can function perfectly well without a government. They don't want to pay taxes, and they assume that if they didn't, then a private company would come along and build their roads for them. Private companies would also put up traffic lights; and run schools, hospitals, police stations, fire stations, and air traffic control towers at airports.

These same people think that capitalism is a perfect solution, and that if the country was 100% capitalist then everything would be hunky-dory. Everybody would be able to go to privately-owned and -run schools and hospitals that were trying to make as much money as possible.

These same people however also can't understand why a company hell-bent on making as much money as possible would ever move its production overseas if it meant it could save on production costs.

To them, you should be out to make as much money as possible... as long as you don't find a cheaper way to do it that they don't like. And if you're providing a service that every other country on earth offers its citizens as a basic right, but you've priced some of your own citizens out of it because your sole goal is to make money, then it's the fault of the citizens who can't afford it because they're clearly too lazy to keep up.

In short, pure capitalism doesn't work in the real world any more than pure socialism does. But there are still people out there who don't see it that way - and a lot of those people think the government has no business making sure its citizens receive basic medical care.

cajunkiwi wrote:

In the last week or so alone, Republicans have:

Forced the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery to remove a video from an art exhibit (because Christians found it icky) by threatening to withhold funding if they didn't...

Denied a director tax breaks he was expected to receive for filming his movie in a certain state, because they felt his movie portrayed that state in a negative light...

And compared Obama's support of a bill that would give unemployment benefits to unemployed people to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

I can't wait to see what's coming next. Maybe they'll try and ban chihuahuas because they find Mexican dogs offensive. They might try to ban Kwanzaa because some WMAs don't like it. They might compare Chanukah to the Holocaust, just for the hell of it.

They've invented a war on Christmas, it seems, to hide the fact that they're waging a war on common sense and perspective.

The war on Christmas is unfortunately real.

Katyz wrote:

We are in the middle of a very long road with my son's health. We have good insurance but still have laid out thousands in copays and non-covered costs. Without health care, we would be homeless and our son may not be in the relatively good position he is in today. If one of us becomes unemployed, we are screwed! We will not be able to pay for the copays etc. and afford the house and food. Worst of all...under the old law, my son would never be able to get health insurance when he is an adult...why? Because he had the nerve to get cancer as a child...is that how a nation looks after it's people?

i hope you child gets well soon

to answer your question

yes, that IS how this nation looks after its people

and it's disgusting

and we keep playing their game and voting to support this corrupt system

Byrnzie wrote:

"Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous 'trickle-down' theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes, before long their pots will overflow and somehow 'trickle down' to the poor, who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will. It goes back to preindustrial America, when only white male property owners could vote."

- Hunter S. Thompson

Thompson is awesome. He is true.