**Damn it I did it again can you move this mods? I'm so sorry meant to be in OT forum** http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=111256528714 Thank god someone is doing something about our tax dollars being spent protecting other people's houses. Why don't I have any choice here? Private industry is being strangled by this government monopoly on firefighting! As usual Obama is looking to preserve the status quo and keep these boys in red on the tax payers dime. What has this country come to?
For what making an honest mistake? I can't figure out how to delete my post the best I can do is ask a mod to move it. been trying for sometime now to find the delete button for a main post.
To me there's a pretty big difference. If your house starts burning, you can call 911 and have the FD come put it out. Doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not, if you speak English or not...if your house starts burning and you ask for help you get it, no questions asked. Same with health care. If you get hit by a car, or your wife slices something important off while you sleep, you call 911 and the ambulances come and take you to get fixed up. Or you walk into the Emergency Room because you think that since you have sniffles you have Swine Flu. They take a look at you, patch you up if needed, give you a prescription if required, and you go on your way...no questions asked. Doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not, doesn't matter if you speak English or not. However, the fire department does not cut you a 250k check to rebuild your house. The taxes that the majority of citizens pay for (but never have the need to use) for the FD pay for the emergency service, because it's an emergency service. No problems with that. The premiums that I pay for health insurance pay for people to walk into an ER and get taken care of. Not much of a problem with that. If someone doesn't want to pay the x dollars per year for fire insurance, they don't get a handout to rebuild their house, and no one feels bad if they go bankrupt paying a mortgage on a burned-down house. But if someone doesn't want to pay the y dollars per year for health insurance, we're supposed to feel bad if saving their life bankrupts them, due to their unpreparedness/unwillingness to spend?
Interesting comparison but I have to point out some faults with your logic. First, we don't have the option to say "I don't want to pay taxes that go toward fire and rescue." We have the option to buy fire insurance though. Second, there a literally millions of Americans that simply cannot afford health insurance and don't receive benefits from their employer. Taxes are set up so people only pay what they can afford. Third, insurance companies have the ability to drop people who are too expensive to insure. FDs do not say "we won't put out your house fire because you live in dry, flammable southern California." One could argue that its irresponsible to live in areas that are prone to hurricanes, brush fires or mud slides but the government still provides funds for peoples affected by those disasters.
So which insurance company gets the bill from the ER? That is the sad thing, you might actually believe that people walking into the ER impact your insurance premium. Granted the increase in price does actually raise the cost for everyone, but there has NEVER been a bill that was ever sent to your insurance company for someone that was uninsured. You know what actually wastes more money in the ER? The amount of tests they run, which are marked up around %500 from the actual cost. You ever wonder how a machine that has been bought and paid for a thousand times over can still run at a %500 margin? In Japan an MRI costs around $30 and is a routine procedure. In the United States is costs a min of $750 just for the test. In Japan they do an image with just about every office visit if you are feeling pain, yet it would take 25 office visits to equal one MRI in Japan. There are some big money pits in the current system, but the problem is that even if we fill in those holes the insurance companies and hospitals are not going to want to lower their pricing. Why? Because they cannot really lower their costs because they have become so large do to the incredible profits they have made. So having too much can be a problem because once you have expanded so much it is very tough to constrict. If you lower cost, you lower capital, and while the company can perhaps still make a healthy margin, they still need enough capital to meet their shareholders expectations. Hence the problem with making healthcare and insurance care a for PROFIT industry. If profits drive cost, than they really can never be lowered because that will be viewed as failure. Nixon opened Pandoras box and it has led us to the current wasteful system that puts profits ahead of healthcare. When someone getting cancer actually increases the GDP, you have a problem. [video=youtube;iGKkPEvD2OM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGKkPEvD2OM&feature=fvw[/video]
