I am of the mind that people who are not healthy should also be able to get health insurance (i.e. the people who need it). That's what it's for.
It's only a shame that we did not go to a fully nationalized plan. Considering we spend far more on health insurance for worse results that many, our system is obviously not working.
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I am of the mind that absurd claims should not go unchallenged. We get worse results? Than whom? Yes, we have poor life expectancy, but that's because we kill each other in car accidents and with guns far more than most other countries, and we eat, drink, and smoke ourselves to death more avidly than most other countries.
But, our healthcare is AWESOME! You are more likely to be cured of breast cancer in the US than any other country on earth (this stat includes all our uninsured and underinsured. Among the insured, the number is even better). You are more likely to survive to 5 years with prostate cancer than on any country on earth. Colorectal cancer? The same. You are more likely to survive in the US than any country with socialized medicine. If you have made it to age 70, you are more likely to live to 100 in the US than any other nation on the planet. Preventative care is worth every bit of the debate it is receiving, but no nationalized system can deliver the results of the American system when it comes to treating disease burden.
In fact, if you can avoid dying in a car accident or at the end of a pistol (which are most certainly not the fault of any nation's healthcare system), YOUR LIFE EXPECTANCY AS AN AMERICAN IS GREATER THAN THAT OF ANY OTHER NATIONALITY (assuming the same "no trauma" stats)! This assumes you roll the dice as to whether you are insured or not. This assumes you still eat, smoke, drink, drug, and sit on a couch like an average American. All you have to do is not die due to trauma and you will, on average, outlive your cohorts of every other nationality. Our healthcare is awesome! If you look not at life expectancy (after all, we could always improve our life expectancy numbers by doing what Cuba does and forcibly abort the 60% of our fetuses we think are most likely to have defects) but at treatment of disease, we have the best outcomes in the world.
I am a doctor. I see this every day. We do the medical research for the entire world. We discover over 65% of all the drugs for the world. We treat the refugees of the world, mostly for free. We treat our own system abusers who have no financial skin in the game and call 911 weekly to get the free ham sandwich in the ER. I have treated patients who fled North Korea and Burundi for medical care, but I've also cared for a woman who "fled" the UK 26 years ago because the vaunted socialized medicine NHS algorithm said she was too old for the procedure she needed to save her life. Twenty-six years after being "too old to save," she's still working in her garden in her adoptive country, all because she made it out of her socialized healthcare and to the US in time.
We have "worse results" only if you're cherry-picking your stats.
To the OP: If you think the cost of Obamacare is going to sting a lot, just wait to see what happens to our outcomes over the next 20 years...
