The Failure Of Ryancare Is A Win For Trump

The fake news media and the Democrats are gleefully gloating about the failure of the Republicans to live up to one of their key campaign promises: repealing and replacing Obamacare. As a matter of fact, this is the best thing that ever could have happened to Donald Trump and the Republican Party, and he knew it from the start.

The healthcare battle was at its root a question of branding. One of the major reasons why the Democratic party has been crushed so badly since Obamacare’s passage was because the Republicans, in a rare moment of persuasive prowess, branded it as such. As a consequence, even the fake news media refers to the Affordable Care Act as “Obamacare.” That means that every time your premium or deductible went up, you saw Obama’s snickering face. Identity, as Scott Adams often writes, is the strongest form of persuasion, and Obamacare was his and the Democrats’ identity. They rode it to final defeat in 2016.

Clearly, this was something that would need to be handled delicately. Aside from the vulnerability that would go with branding a face on a new healthcare bill (as the Democrats surely would), healthcare is a very personal subject. While taxes, foreign policy, and even immigration are more abstract issues, healthcare is something you live with every day and pay for every month. Moreover, it’s something you feel physically.

Combine its proximity to you with a face on how it’s done and healthcare is perhaps the most volatile of all issues. Any tweaking on this issue would have to be handled with the most extreme delicacy, and it’s the very reason why I warned that starting with healthcare was a potentially catastrophic, presidency-killing idea.

Enter Paul Ryan.

Whether through ignorance of people and persuasion (Paul Ryan lives in the world of numbers, not people) or some kind of nefarious intent, Paul Ryan was always best positioned to destroy Donald Trump. By trying to do healthcare first, my nerves were rattled that Trump would get dragged into a quagmire not entirely of his own making. In the end, perhaps I feared too much. Paul Ryan was too incompetent to damage Donald Trump.

Blunder 1: Planning to Fail

The old adage is that failure to plan is planning to fail, and the Republican leadership in Congress showed this in spades. For seven years, they campaigned on “repealing and replacing Obamacare.” In the end, we learned that this was more of a meme than a promise, a useful rhetorical point for engagement, not a plan of action.

There was no plan, so they had to stitch one together hastily to keep up with Paul Ryan’s vaunted “200 day schedule.” It shouldn’t surprise anyone that what came was a slapstick pile of garbage.

Blunder 2: Talk to No One

Paul Ryan drafted this abomination in total secrecy, without any input from the various factions in his conference. Anyone familiar with basic selling psychology will tell you that trust and rapport is essential for your persuasion to be successful. By keeping the bill under lock and key, but making a show that something was coming, he did exactly the opposite. It seemed shady, and people had bad feelings as a first impression. Rand Paul exploited this fully and threw more tar on during his marketing campaign when it was being drafted.

Instead of building rapport, Paul Ryan broke it, then tried to ram the bill down everyone’s throat.

Blunder 3: Be a Corporate Whore

The thing we were promised was that Obamacare would be replaced with a competitive health care system. That meant drug imports, negotiating on drug prices, the end to mandated insurance plans (such as forcing men to buy maternity coverage or women to buy prostate care), and the ability to purchase insurance across state lines. All of these things would have lowered the cost of care.

What we got was…I’m still not even sure. None of those things were in the bill. The only thing that definitively was was a tax break for the very rich. Meanwhile, the voters that put Trump over the top in the Rust Belt would have been hurt the most. The optics of this, to say the least, were terrible. Ann Coulter put it better than I could have:

We were promised one thing, but we were being sold a bill of goods. Trump’s base hated the bill as much as the Democrats did. The only one that seemed to like it was Paul Ryan.

Blunder 4: 3 Phases to Hell

Most of us know by now that whenever the government makes a promise, assume the opposite. “This bill will not radically alter the ethnic mix of the country,” the backers of the 1965 Hart Celler act said. “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” we were told in more recent times. The Paul Ryan plan, we were told, would have multiple phases.

Phase 1 was supposed to be this piece of shit, then we’d get to the good stuff in phase 3. Phase 2 would be deregulation by HHS Secretary Tom Price.

We were told that because phase 3 would require 60 votes in the Senate, we could only do phase 1 now. But if all the good stuff, the real reforms, were in phase 3, it begged the question: what was the point of going through phase 1?

All you would do is swap ownership of the health care problem that was a key reason why the Democrats were blasted to pieces over Obama’s term, when they should have been in a position to dominate government for decades. And it would’ve stayed that way, because phase 3 would never have happened. Ted Cruz and others knew it.

Blunder 5: Persuasive Misfire

Here’s arguably the biggest blunder of all. If you were going to need 60 votes in the Senate to get the real reforms, why wouldn’t you just try for that anyway? If you needed the 60 votes to get the real reforms, then there was no point in trying anything different.

Want to talk about The Art of the Deal? By putting the real reforms in the bill, the Republicans would have had real leverage to beat Democrats over the head with. How could they reasonably say they’re against importing drugs, or for the government to be negotiating prices for entitlement programs, or to bust up the insurance monopolies and create a competitive national marketplace? They’d have been in a bind. They would look like corporate shills and whores. Imagine those soundbites and headlines? Even the fake news media wouldn’t be able to twist and contort that truth.

Instead, Paul Ryan thought small. He insisted on going through “budget reconciliation” to keep it a narrow, Republican bill that only swapped ownership of the problem. He simply lacked the imagination or the framing of a persuader to do something worthwhile. If he wanted to have a big healthcare fight, he had the weapons to wage it.

Instead, he chose to fight with puny weapons and got crushed.

Conclusion

The failure of this bill is a boon for Trump. Whatever importance it seems to have now is only because we put more weight on things that happen recently. At the end of the year it will just be a footnote for Trump, while confidence in Ryan has taken a big hit (though there’s no real movement to oust him as Speaker yet).

Trump avoids a prolonged healthcare battle while getting to claim that he tried to do something when Obamacare explodes. The Democrats reinforced their ownership of Obamacare by fighting for it so hard. The weaselly Ryan is damaged, and Trump doesn’t have his face on a terrible healthcare bill. The fact that he nuked this bill by declaring that he was done negotiating just before it was put up for a vote is telling that he understood this.

He can thus move on to an easier part of his agenda (tax reform and building the wall) as part of serving the ends he was promising – ending open borders and bringing back jobs. All’s well that ends well.

Read Next: How The Washington D.C. Swamp Is Still A Threat To Donald Trump’s Administration

347 thoughts on “The Failure Of Ryancare Is A Win For Trump”

  1. I really mean this when I say, Ryan was set up for failure and blame … THANK GOD!
    Folks, I have been saying for over a year, Ryan should go; here is the video proof ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34oZt-oD_Mg&t=47s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE6D4cq5y4s )
    Ryan needs to go. Why can’t things be reset to 2007? Why does the federal government have to be in the health care business!?
    The Ryan bill was a half-assed ‘Obamacare-light’ bill! Any true conservative would have rejected it totally! Why was Ryan pushing this shit?
    Day 65 doesn’t determine the term and Trump has many victories under his belt already, but some of these ‘swamp’ Republicrats need to loose their jobs!
    Let Obama care run out of money, or people who pay realize they can’t afford the deductibles and die … let them [LEARN] by burning their hands on a hot stove; the hard way, but the right way.
    People need to learn that living in a socialist society looks good on paper but it reality its a prison of the heart and mind … let the American citizen suffer; let them learn!

    1. Great comment!!!! Up-vote! I couldn’t have said it any better than that! I wish that the repeal of the ACA were swift, surgical (pun intended) and final. The purchase or payment of premiums for health insurance should be VOLUNTARY…that’s VOLUNTARY!!! Most healthy adults can get along just fine with catastrophic coverages with some allowances for check-ups and the like, and no subsidizing for others who make piss-poor life decisions. When health insurance becomes mandatory (under penalties) and the IRS hold a gun to everyone’s head to buy it, the insurers get to charge whatever the fuck they want.
      Regarding drugs, there should be NOOOO incentives for providers (i.e. doctors) to push pharma for every little pissant malady. That’s not medicine! That’s a big chunk of health care costs, IMO, for shit that can be cured with simple lifestyle changes. To wit: I spent 40 hours in an ER/observation last year for a chest problem that could have been diagnosed in less than an hour, if the doctors and nurses weren’t so convinced I was having a heart attack. It wasn’t-just a simple intercostal (rib cage) inflammation.

  2. I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again: NEVER underestimate Trump! Even when he “fails” he is still winning! The man is a master of 4-D chess and is always 3 or 4 steps ahead of everyone else.

    1. You mean 3-D unless the chess set is moving around time and space! 🙂 Dr. Who would qualify as a 4-D player!

      1. Technically speaking, all matter is moving around time and space, so…

      2. All chess is technically 4-D because it does involve time. You have to take turns. Ergo, you couldn’t play chess without time.

  3. I disagree with the thrust of the analysis here. The problem is not one of communication and branding– it is one of efficacy.
    The healthcare system is clogged with corporate and government middlemen that make service unaffordable for patients and unprofitable for many providers. The middlemen must be stripped out by law, and competitive practices returned to the industry. Ryan’s bill was all about protecting the middlemen, and I am disheartened that Trump looked at it twice, let alone supported it.

    1. I believe both can be true. The communication and branding were Ryan’s failures, the bills shortcomings notwithstanding. This suggests that had he managed the process and the people better, this piece of crap could have passed. I’d sooner believe the lack of Republican support was more because their egos weren’t fed properly before true misgivings about the content of the bill. What they said in public about it was just back-rationalization.

      1. Uhg, you are probably right about that. Makes the situation even more… shitty.

    2. That’s the real problem right there. This bill benefits the insurance companies the most. Trump had an opportunity to stand against that but it seem as though the second someone is elected they get pulled behind the curtain and told.

  4. These are the facts:
    – The entire healthcare and health insurance problem was created by the government, perpetuated by the government and worsened by the government.
    – The cost of healthcare and health insurance skyrocketed when the government initially got involved, and it keeps skyrocketing more every time the government tries to “fix” it.
    – The quality of healthcare and health insurance decreased when the government got involved, and continues to decrease even more every time the government messes with it.
    – The only way to truly solve the healthcare and health insurance problem is to get the government out of it.
    – This solution will never happen because controlling healthcare means the government controls a huge, massive chunk of the entire economy of the country. It’s too much power and money for the government to give up.
    – The true solution to the healthcare and health insurance problem would likely devastate the entire health insurance industry, because “health insurance” is no longer “insurance” at all, but really just a way to take money from consumers for paying their healthcare bills for them without adding *any* value whatsoever. If you actually paid your doctor directly the amount of money that he actually receives for providing you services, you would likely pay less money and he would likely earn more money. The difference between what you pay and what he earns is what supports the massive health insurance industry, and if zero out all the actual costs, you get almost nothing out of that whatsoever.
    – The health insurance industry is worth billions if not trillions of dollars, and the hundreds of millions they pump into lobbying and marketing ensures that no successful solution that would actually reduce (or even stop increasing) healthcare costs will be passed through Congress.

    1. Fantastic points.
      Every time I argue with a Leftist and they go on and on about how it’s a “right” and how expensive it is and blah blah blah I point out what you just did. To add a real gut punch I also note that a Vet charges pennies on the dollar to take care of a dog or cat who is anatomically about the same as a human being and does it while making a tidy sum. How is it that an operation for a dog will cost about $500.00 where the same exact operation, using the same exact techniques in the same exact way, on a human, is $100,000? Why? Because, thanks to the initial intrusion of government via Medicare and Medicaid, and the hiding of the cost from the consumer via insurance, you get a lot of wiggle room to really rip people the fuck off, that’s why.
      Suggesting to them, hey, why not go fully private again and get government out completely though, and you can literally watch the veins in their head swell and their eyes bulge out. They are so married to “government is the only way” that it short circuits their brain that they are the cause of everything wrong today.

      1. Yes, absolutely. Even the people who have seen firsthand how the government’s “fix” of Obamacare still want the government to “fix” it again. No matter what they do, I can almost guarantee the government “fix” will cost us more at the end of the day.

        1. Oh, it will cost us all right. The end of personal liberty is the goal, and the best way to do that is to control the medical system (and/or food system if you can manage it in a full blown Communist revolution).

        2. Because they ration the care by various means, from scheduling to bed and medicine shortages.

        3. It does but they pay for it through being taxed at incredibly high rates and having us provide our military to protect them for free.

        4. Yeah, he makes it a point to not include all of the variables. When Uncle Sugar relieves you of the responsibility of self defense you can spread around a lot of cash on other useless shit.
          End of the day, I’m not giving up on my liberty to save the mythical buck or two he claims. He can keep it and the change.

        5. Except that isn’t the case, again, as I showed you, the us spends MORE on healthcare than ANY OTHER COUNTRY…

        6. You just pulled that out of your ass. Germany and France both have more hospital beds per capita (cite 1) and more doctors per capita (cite 2). Even if this were the case, how do you explain that they have longer life expediencies and lower infant mortality rates? Neither country limits access to drugs, drugs are provided by the free market in both countries, its just that the nonprofit institute that handles insurance in France uses reference pricing, you can get whatever drug you need.
          cite 1: http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=HEALTH_STAT#
          cite 2: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sh.med.phys.zs?view=map

        7. You can’t just say that the US pays more per capita on healthcare than X countries with socialized medicine, and that nobody in those countries is prematurely dying, so *presto* that means socialized medicine is better than the US system.
          The US healthcare and health insurance industry is getting gang-raped by a vast array of different issues and forces (including the US government) that a magic “socialized medicine” bullet won’t fix, and this has been going on for decades.
          This is reality, and clicking your heels three times and saying “socialized medicine” over and over again won’t magically fix it.
          Even if a pure “socialized medicine” system from another country would be cheaper and better if we instituted it whole-cloth here, that will never ever actually happen here, and not because of the “evil dumb conservatives” or whoever the socialists want to blame. Its because of all the fucking money.
          There are billions if not trillions of dollars being generated by the US healthcare and health insurance industry and its relationship with the US government. Even if Bernie Sanders was president and the entire Congress was made up of Elizabeth Warren clones, the U.S. Socialized Medicine Act of 2024 would still make sure that system would keep going and all those people would keep making all the money they have been making, and the only thing that would change is that the costs to the taxpayers would go up, the quality would go down and individual liberty would keep being strangled.
          They would pass all kinds of bills and regulations, and shake their fists at those evil healthcare and insurance CEOs. They would send out all kinds of press releases and launch massive marketing campaigns. They would rename all kinds of buildings and departments, institute all kinds of new policies and procedures, set up tons of new systems and shit. It would all look like socialized medicine from the outside, except those parts of it that weren’t, but they’d explain those away and make sure we all knew that those things were “socialized medicine” even if they didn’t look or act like “socialized medicine” at all.
          But in the end: the people at the very top in healthcare, insurance and government who were getting tens of millions of dollars before will be getting hundreds of millions of dollars, and everyone who works in those industries will keep grinding it out in cubicles making maybe a little more money but paying more in taxes, and the people going to the doctor would be getting worse service and would still be scrambling to get the help they needed with whatever resources they could find.

        8. The ration care due to the higher costs of “free health insurance.” I live in Germany and the costs are also higher than the bunk you are peddling as proof.

        9. Yes I can say that, who will stop me? I have free speech. Anyways, I never said that, I support the Bismarck model of healthcare (the one used in Germany, France, Japan) which is regulation, Socialized medicine is the Beveridge model (used in England, Spain, Sweden, etc.) where there is actual state ownership, and I do not support that model of healthcare.
          “The US healthcare and health insurance industry is getting gang-raped by a vast array of different issues and forces (including the US government) that a magic “socialized medicine” bullet won’t fix”
          Again, I don’t want Socialism. But for starters, fuck the insurance industry, its unnecessary. Replace the whole thing with a single (or several, but that is besides the point), non-profit, non-government independent institution like France, Germany, and Japan have.
          “This is reality, and clicking your heels three times and saying “socialized medicine” over and over again won’t magically fix it.”
          I know. And again, I don’t want socialized medicine. Do you want me to give you specific policies I would implement to reduce the cost of healthcare? I can give those to you (unlike most bernietards) if you want them.
          “There are billions if not trillions of dollars being generated by the US healthcare and health insurance industry and its relationship with the US government.”
          Again, that is why I say fuck the Insurance industry, just completely liquidate the whole thing. It seems like you are genuinely open to the idea universal healthcare on principal, but you are too cynical/pessimistic, and thus thing it wont work, and you dislike all the plans proposed by people across the isle. I can agree with you, I don’t like any of the healthcare proposals right now, including Bernie Sanders “single payer system”.
          Here is what I am trying to push:
          – Get rid of the Insurance Industry all together. Congressional Charter non profit sickness fund(s) that will be tasked providing the public with insurance – I don’t trust either the government nor corporate executives to determine what kind of healthcare should be covered, so have an also independent committee determine what these sickness funds have to cover.
          – Have an individual mandate
          – Use reference pricing. This video explains it very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwF2BdhaPHg
          – Invest in more medical professionals, this costs more in the shorter term, but doctors in the US are vastly over paid compared to their foreign counterparts.

        10. You do realize the USA does not price fix prescriptions.
          You do realize all of those other countries do.
          That means as US citizens we pay for the artificially low prices the rest of the world pays.
          That is just one, really really expensive, manner in which we support all other countries.

        11. If you lived in Germany you would know the insurance isn’t free, people still have to pay for SHI and PHI.
          You disagree with my numbers that Germany spends 11% of its GDP, or 3353 euros per person? Why do you disagree with those numbers, what do you believe the actual numbers are?

        12. I’m fairly sure the pharmaceutical company distributing and manufacturing the antibiotics I buy for $1 a course at my local supermarket is making a profit. Same for the Viagra they sell at $1 a tablet, and the paracetamol tablets they sell for $1 a hundred.
          Don’t see what the USA has to do with their pricing. Americans have some weird ideas …… you really think the USA subsidizes the rest of the world?

        13. Dude, im gonna need you to ship me a couple hundred bucks worth of paracetamol.

        14. How fucking ironic, you are accusing me of being a neoliberal, when neoliberalism is about deregulation, privatization, free trade, fiscal austarity, etc. all things YOU seem to be supporting!

        15. You clearly do. You support “universal” (i.e. socialized) healthcare. That is socialism.
          Are you saying you believe in socialism when it comes to health care but you don’t believe in socialism when it comes to other aspects of the economy? If so, why the inconsistency?

        16. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just asking why you cited that particular organization at least three times in this thread.
          Might want to brush up on your reading comprehension.

        17. I cite them so much because they are the people who do those statistics. As far as I know, the only other organization that collects data on healthcare spending (as a percentage of GDP) is the OECD, which only does so for its member states.

        18. Why?
          You can’t just say “X is fundamentally different from Y” without giving a reason.

        19. First, people die without healthcare, second, healthcare has less choice. Building too expensive? Get a different layout or different location. Healthcare too expensive? Try a different doctor, but there really isn’t much choice within changing treatment.

        20. So because healthcare is something that everybody needs, that means basic economic principles don’t apply to healthcare?
          Socialism doesn’t work in any sector of the economy. The fact that healthcare is so important makes it that much more necessary to have a free market.
          What about food? Do you believe that the food economy is “fundamentally different” from other sectors because “people die without food”? Do you think government should socialize the food economy in order to ensure that no one starves? How did that work out for the Soviet Union? I bet the Ukrainians in the 1930s were so grateful to the Soviet government for making sure they were well-nourished and didn’t starve to death.

        21. I find your “education” lacking, but my experience living with the reality of what you advocate trumps your worldview.

        22. “What about food?”
          You don’t have a higher risk of dying from buying lower quality food, you can farm your own food, you can buy your ingredients and then make your own food, if some food is too expensive, you just buy different food. You can’t do that with healthcare, there isn’t an alternative to a appendectomy except dying.

        23. You’re missing the point.
          For some people, it isn’t easy to just buy food whenever they need it. For a lot of people in the world (especially in poor countries), starving to death is a real concern.
          Does this mean that the food market should be socialized in those countries? Absolutely not. That’s already been tried in countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and formerly Eastern Europe, and it didn’t work. In fact, way more people starved to death under that system than under a free market.
          Just because something is a “need” (i.e. people will die if they don’t have it) doesn’t mean basic economic principles don’t apply to it.
          You’re a moron. Move to Venezuela.

        24. Statifical facts can be skewed or cherry picked to support an assumption or worldview while ignoring the consequences. It is a trait leftists display without fail.
          I will stick with what I know from experience and actually living in the rationed health care country. You can link away. It’s rubbish anyway.

        25. “For some people, it isn’t easy to just buy food whenever they need it.”
          And that is why we give them food subsidies, the same way we should provide sickness funds to some people who can’t afford sickness funds. That is not “socializing food”, is it?

        26. You think life expectancy statistics or GDP statistics are “cherry picked”? How the fuck do you cherry pick those? Bitch, please…

        27. I think stats are manipulated or fake data produced to construct a desired result. Look at your soruces. Who is the OECD?
          “The OECD provides a forum in which governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to common problems. We work with governments to understand what drives economic, social and environmental change. ”
          Non-paristan no doubt. LOL. Health care dimenishes when socialized medicine is implemented as the state dictates to the insurance providers what will be reimbursed and what not. The care is capped. G-d help you if you need actual medical treatment. I know a doctor or two in both Europe and the US. I would suggest you speak to them about care and reimbursements.
          Regaring stats once more, climate change is another bogus issue where the stats are maniupalated or old data “changed” to suit the narrative to expand control over the populous. That is the real issue wtih both “health insurnace” or “climate change.”
          https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/former-noaa-scientist-confirms-colleagues-manipulated-climate-records
          Since you failed to prove your premise, the predictable profanity is unleashed to embolden your position. Leftist fail.

        28. “Non-paristan no doubt. LOL.”
          So you think that the OECD is faking GDP statistics? So who do you suggest we use for our sources on GDP statistics then?

        29. You asked if giving food subsidies to poor people was “socializing food.” I was responding to that. If you’re giving food subsidies, that is “socializing food.” It’s socialism, plain and simple.
          So again, if you like socialism so much and think it works so well, why don’t you move to Cuba or Venezuela?

        30. Okay then, so yeah, Socialism hasn’t worked in Cuba or Venezuela, but it works in Europe, in Japan, in Canada, in the US, in Australia and New Zealand. Cuba would be fine if it hasn’t had 50 years of US embargo’s.

        31. Okay, so in that case, the US already does have socialized food, so yeah, I guess I also support socializing food. Venezuela is not relevant to me because I don’t support there model of socialism.

        32. Says the socialist bragging about Germany’s 25th ranked health care, according to WHO. By that metric, we can get better health care in 22nd ranked Colombia. A 3rd World country that provides better health care than your socialist utopia.

        33. It takes 5 seconds of your precious time to look up Germany’s 25th ranked health care on WHO’s website.

        34. Socialism does not work in America. Our left leaning cities resemble third world hell holes.

        35. The cities that are hell holes are predominantly you know who. Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, etc. are all perfectly great cities despite leaning very far left.

        36. Again, better 25 than 27. As I said, my optimal system is the French System, which comes in at number one.

        37. Healthcare spending. America spends the most in the world, by a long shot. Overall the US doesn’t have the worst among OECD (e.g. developed) countries, but it’s pretty far below average, especially for how much the US spends. All out of 34 countries:
          27th in life expectancy
          1st in Obesity
          1st in healthcare spending (costs)
          28th in number of doctors
          25th in number of hospital beds
          So tell me, the US healthcare is *less* socialist than France or Germany, or Japan, yet these countries are beating the US in healthcare. Why is that? Shouldn’t the LESS (albeit still mostly) Socialist country do better?
          Source: https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Briefing-Note-UNITED-STATES-2014.pdf

        38. “I don’t support there model of socialism.”
          So you’re admitting you support socialism, just not the Venezuelan model of socialism.
          What’s a better example, North Korea? The Soviet Union? Cuba? Obama’s America? Are those models of socialism any better than Venezuela?
          “Communism/socialism will work THIS time.”
          Yeah, right.

        39. “What’s a better example”
          Do you really lack that much fucking reading comprehension? How many times do I have to say the European model? Are you really that fucking retarded? How many standard deviations of IQ are you below average?

        40. “Why is that?”
          Simple. Government intervention decreases competition and drives up prices. American qualified physicians travel abroad and perform open heart surgeries to medical tourists in countries with no regulation for roughly $1,500 per. In over regulated America, the same operation would cost 100K-due to regulation.
          Free market solution is superior even to France’s system. Nothing, including health care is free, which is why the French pay 21% of their income to health care.

        41. Oh, okay. A minute ago you were bragging about the German system. Socialists enjoy moving the goal posts.

        42. LOL! How long have you lived in those cities for? You must enjoy getting mobbed by homeless drug addicts.

        43. Actually I don’t live in any of those cities, but all of them enjoy below average unemployment rates and average to below average violent crime rates compared to the US average.

        44. Then why do so many Europeans and Canadians come to America (and pay tens of thousands) for private medical treatment when they’re seriously ill? If the European socialist model were so great, this would not be happening.

        45. They don’t. Look at the statistics, its very few people, and that when they do it’s mostly for experimental care like special cancer treatments. Why does the US have them? Well the US is just very large and does a LOT of medical research, but because of Trump you can say goodbye to that.

        46. If you lived in socialist Europe and you needed emergency surgery (or any other procedure that you needed done quickly) and you were put on a government waiting list for weeks, would you not travel to America to have it done quicker and better?
          Give me a break.

        47. Absolutely. After you factor in the republican voting suburbs. The democrat leaning downtowns consist of tent cities and sanctuary communities.

        48. Actually, you didn’t. A famous example of pure capitalistic medicine is Mother Teresa’s former surgeon, Dr Devi Shety. He became a billionaire performing open heart surgeries for medical tourists at only $1200 per operation. His annual insurance costs $2 annually. Google it. Free market puts France, and every other socialist countries’ medical program to shame.

        49. Do you fucking understand how crime statistics work?! They only count inside city boundaries, there aren’t suburbs inside those city boundaries.

        50. You’re retarded. Incorporated suburban communities are included in city crime stats.

        51. That is India, people get payed much less in India and live with a much lower standard of living. Try it in the United States, and it will cost at least ten times that. Still cheaper than the current model in the US but not universal or any cheaper than Europe.

        52. Yeah, “incorporated”
          Please, enlighten me, what is an example of an incorporated suburb in San Francisco?

        53. “Try it in the United States, and it will cost at least ten times”
          No shit. Due to government regulation. Which is why medical tourism is a multi billion dollar industry.
          “but not universal or any cheaper than Europe.”
          Funny how socialists think health care is free. Your ridiculously high taxes go into subsidizing medicine. Show me a country in Europe that performs a heart transplant for $1,500 no wait in line.
          “That is India, people get payed much less in India and live with a much lower standard of living. ”
          His clients are westerners.

        54. “His clients are westerners.”
          And his doctors and nurses are Indians. Nothing wrong with that, but just saying that you will NEVER achieve that low of a cost in the US.

        55. I’ll end the convo with this. “Economies of scale” paradoxically create the highest wages and the lowest costs. As production increases, the prices of operation drop proportionally. The caveat being that government must allow businesses to compete to drive down prices.
          This method allowed Henry Ford and Rockefeller to charge the lowest prices while paying their workers the highest wages. This allows modern day US cosmetic surgeons [not regulated by government] to charge the lowest prices, yet make near 7 digit salaries. Far more than any other kind of doctor.
          I’ll leave it at that. Feel free to have the final word.

      2. “If you actually paid your doctor directly the amount of money that he actually receives for providing you services, you would likely pay less money and he would likely earn more money.”
        Did you actually find anything like that or did you just pull those numbers out of your arse? Anyways, the reason is one thing: QUALITY, everyone demands quality care for humans, whereas people are okay with cheaper care for their pets.

        1. Oh look, a snarky leftist.
          The quality for medical operations on animals is perfectly fine. It’s not somehow lower, and it sure as hell isn’t that much lower that a human being can cost orders of magnitude more for the same care.

        2. Humans are also bigger than most animals, they also go stay in hospitals, and human healthcare has more demand.

        3. You can run run experiment yourself. Offer your doctor cash next visit. See the visit cost drop as much as half.

        4. Agree, i have worked in an animal clinic and it isn’t just hack and slash jobs…there is an operating room and all of the sterilization techniques are applied. I’ve seen some good work done; I would’ve let the leg expert operate on me with no qualms. I’m not talking brain surgery, but any minor, moderate, or somewhat severe surgery could be sufficiently performed there on humans at a fraction of the cost of a hospital.

        5. Exactly. I’m not sure what veterinary surgeon these people are talking about, every one I’ve dealt with since the 1990’s has been competent and clean and has given excellent care.

        6. Dufus,
          Here is a perfect example of a surgery center that is based off of free market principles.
          They accept no insurance; whatsoever. Everything is paid out of pocket. It is also now one of the fastest growing manner in which surgery centers are growing.
          No government interference. No insurance interference. Plain simple old free-market capitalism.
          https://surgerycenterok.com

        7. Okay? If that was superior at providing all healthcare, then using your own free market principals, that should expand to have taken over the market a long time ago. Tehe! You don’t even understand basic economics.

        8. Free market principles work. The USA has the cheapest costs in the world for procedures not regulated by government [such as cosmetics]. Private practitioners are allowed to compete, driving down prices. And it’s these same relatively cheap procedures that produce the richest doctors; see plastic surgeons.

        9. lol don’t understand economics. Name one government social program that not only costs less than projected but also delivers on its promise.
          I’ll save you the time…you won’t find one.
          You believe the lies of socialism because you don’ want to be responsible for your own welfare. Cuck

        10. And if they can’t fix you they can put you down, for a fair price.

        11. None, because that pretty much never happens with anything, its basically Hofstadter’s law but with money.
          If you think I am a cuck, you really don’t know what a cuck is. A cuck is being leached, but you also called me a leach, and if I am the one taking your tax payer dollars, then in fact, YOU are being cucked by me.

        12. …and I’ll wager it’s cheaper than going the Group Death/HMO/Kaiser route, lol.
          Money talks, bullshit walks, amirite???

        13. That’s always what it comes down to with these types. In what passes for their souls, they are monsters.

        14. You’re not taking anyone’s tax dollars. The government is taking people’s tax dollars and giving them to you (after they take a cut).
          You’re the government’s bitch.

      3. “I have a right . . .” You’d be hard pressed to find any other words that create more abject stupidity in American political discourse than these.
        Take healthcare. Suppose I agree that you have this “right.” You also have rights to speech, assembly, religion, defense, etc… But no one seriously advocates that media companies have an “obligation” to provide you a platform for your speech, or that venue owners have an “obligation” to provide you affordable meeting space, or that airlines have an “obligation” to provide you free transport for religious pilgrimages, or that weapons companies have an “obligation” to provide you free weapons for self defense. And the reason for that is simple – forcing someone to use his own labor to provide you something free of charge is “slavery.”
        So if you think that free health care is your right, please tell me which doctors should be enslaved and forced to work for no compensation so that you don’t have to worry about your bad life choices.
        You may have a right to healthcare. But I don’t have any obligation to pay for it.

        1. We’re at the point now where there are way too many people who don’t even know anything else other than begging government for favors. They simply do not understand notions of freedom and slavery, to them, it’s all one big pile of meat in the middle of an arena and they’ll claw over dead bodies to get as much as they can before you do.

        2. Ironically your stubborness ends up making you pay MORE for healthcare than you would with universal healthcare. What do universal healthcare systems around the world all have in common? They are much much cheaper, and yes, that is accounting for government subsidization.

        3. The UK NHS has long wait times compared to the US, but people aren’t dying prematurely, the life expectancy is actually higher than the US by a good 2 years. This has only become a problem with the NHS recently that is why you are seeing it in the news so much, and they do also have private care in England, so if people wanted to get that, they could they just choose not too. England and US wait times aren’t even comparable, England doesn’t even spend a third what the US does and yet, they don’t have people dying prematurely. If they were spending as much as the US spends on Medicare and Medicaid, they wouldn’t be having these problems, but they democratically elected a government (the conservative party) that decided to make cuts because they rather be even more cheap.

        4. We are host to parasites from dozens of countries that send their sick to us. That artificially inflates our death rates as well as deflates the age of our life spans.
          Plus, USofA has a large black and Hispanic population by percentages. Those blacks and browns like killing each other. A lot. Which also decreases the life span number.
          Please think a little.

        5. Behold! A slave-master.
          How much free labor do doctors owe you?
          I’ll tell you what else all universal healthcare systems around the world have in common – they suck when it comes to quality. Anything can be cheaper on a per captia basis if the care it pays for is complete shit, which it is. Anything can also be cheaper if you treat your providers like slaves, which also helps ensure that you get shitty care. How many people do you know who have ever gone to another country to get their routine healthcare needs met? There’s a reason that people flee their universal health systems and come here for cutting edge care – the quality of their systems suck compared to ours.

        6. Yeah, citation please? And no, editorial articles aren’t citations, there fucking opinion pieces.

        7. Quite a lot of medical problems I encounter don’t need a doctor.
          I can buy my own meds and self medicate.
          You don’t have that choice as your government deny you the ability to buy what you want from the pharmacy. You are forced to employ a doctor you don’t need.

        8. Quite a lot of people go to Thailand and India to get their routine healthcare needs met. Usually from places like America.
          US healthcare ain’t that special.

        9. I can walk into any hospital in Thailand and expect to be seen within 30 minutes (non-emergency). The treatment will be administered usually instantly.

        10. Yeah, and if you are a Westerner living in Thailand, that is fucking great, your purchasing power is probably fucking huge their, and so the out of pocket model works great for you. But for all the peasantry in Thailand? Well it fucking sucks, the life expectancy is a good 9 years behind Japan…

        11. My MiL is a Thai rice farmer. She has liver flukes (cured), diabetes, high blood pressure, all treated free of charge. Hospital visits every two months, excellent service given. My son was born in government hospital, all his health care free of charge. I can t fault their health care system. Way better than the UK.
          Life expectancy are lower due to the high levels of murder, road accidents, and drug use.

        12. Never mind, I was mistaken, Thailand actually does use universal healthcare. I have no idea why I thought they use out of pocket model. From what I’ve just read their healthcare system actually seems excellent.

        13. “The UK NHS has long wait times compared to the US, but people aren’t
          dying prematurely, the life expectancy is actually higher than the US by
          a good 2 years”.
          A whole two years???!!!. Sweet Chocolate Jesus, it’s fuckin’ party time!!!

        14. “Plus, USofA has a large black and Hispanic population by percentages.
          Those blacks and browns like killing each other. A lot. Which also
          decreases the life span number.”
          There’s that to consider…

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        16. Great article you linked to.
          I’ve known for a while that the notion that life expectancy in the 1800s or earlier was only 40-45 years was bullshit.
          When they calculate the “average” lifespan, they factor in infant and child mortality. Prior to the advent of modern medicine, it was common for children to die from common diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, etc.
          If a couple had 15 kids (which was common back then), at least 3 or 4 (and usually more) would not survive to adulthood.
          To factor in these child deaths when calculating “average lifespan” is misleading.

        17. Right, but how is socialized healthcare the solution to that? Who is preventing me from buying my own meds and self-medicating? The government. The solution is not to give the government more say in my healthcare.

        18. You prove too much. The reason people go to India and Thailand for routine procedures is that they are cheaper than in the US. But that only raises the question as to why?
          As I said in another comment, the cost of healthcare in the US is wildly skewed by end-of-life spending. Routine US care is not expensive because it has to be, it is expensive because we insist that it should be used to subsidize extravagant treatment for people who are going to die anyway. Something tells me that in those countries, you aren’t going to spend a year in intensive care hooked to every machine imaginable to prolong a life that is ending.

        19. You’ll have to forgive me if I take the word of an organization that advocates for universal healthcare with a grain of salt.
          And I don’t make a habit of trusting reports when I cannot review the data for the conclusions. To wit – the methodology here appears to rely heavily surveys of sick patients. As I have stated, Americans have unrealistic expectations that medicine can perform miracles, and that no expense should be spared in doing so. That these people may feel that we aren’t doing enough relative to people who have more realistic expectations doesn’t tell you anything about which system achieves better results. And amusingly, to refute my point that our quality of health care is superior, you pointed me to a study that – even by its skewed methodology – demonstrates that our quality of care is in the top of a group of nations that already provide top healthcare.

        20. The AMA was originally formed (by the Rockefellers et al) and drug prohibition was implemented to control health-care for the great unwashed masses. If you are able to self medicate as an adult, as P.J. points out, you don’t need the sick-care system a good portion of the time. Once the gun-vermin figured out the amount of power and treasure they could gain from the “war on drugs” it escalated to the debacle we have now on both fronts. We need to get the government completely out of the way and let the free market run things. Then we could actually have health-care rather than sick-care, the drug cartels would dry up and the gun-vermin would have one less excuse to monitor our every move.

        21. “And I don’t make a habit of trusting reports when I cannot review the data for the conclusions.”
          My guess is that the actual paper is locked behind a paywall as I can’t seem to find it. But that really isn’t a problem, we have peer review, there are people (with degrees) who also look at this and would point stuff out if it were wrong. The organization is made up of doctors, people with years of experience inside the health field.
          If you have any data to the contrary from a NGO, White paper, or even just a study, feel free to counter my citations.
          “As I have stated, Americans have unrealistic expectations that medicine can perform miracles”
          And Europeans don’t? How did you come to believing this?
          “And amusingly, to refute my point that our quality of health care is superior, you pointed me to a study that – even by its skewed methodology – demonstrates that our quality of care is in the top of a group of nations that already provide top healthcare.”
          No it doesn’t, the report ONLY accounts for those countries, had lets say we added 11 more countries, we would have no idea where the US would rank. All that says is that of those countries, the US is worst, it makes no statement about those countries compared to others. Even if what you are saying is correct, we are still the shittiest of the top while spending 60% more as a percentage of our GDP compared to the next guy.

        22. What does that have to do with what me and OP are talking about? We aren’t even talking about the article.

        23. Two years doesn’t mean you specifically would live two years longer if you lived in the UK, it means that enough pre-mature deaths are being prevented that the life expectancy has gone up by a statistically significant amount. Those two years are thousands of people NOT dying early.

        24. 3rd and 4th out of 11 is not “shittiest of the top.”
          What peer review has this report been subject to?
          “If you have any data to the contrary from a NGO, White paper, or even just a study, feel free to counter my citations.”
          Let’s first start by finding a system of modernized free market health care – with no government intervention – and compare that to universal healthcare and look at the outcomes. That is the proper comparison to determine which system is better.
          Hint – as little as 100 years ago, we had such a system. No one was dying in the streets, and medical care was so affordable that doctors lobbied the government to regulate the healthcare industry to boost their own wages.
          You continue to steer this discussion away form my central point – if you have a “right” to healthcare, where does it end? Why do I have an “obligation” to pay for your healthcare, when I have no corresponding obligation to facilitate any of your other rights?

        25. Lots of people in America. I know someone right now who has a terminal disease. As I type this, this person is literally on their deathbed and expected to live only a day or two more, at most. This diagnosis has been known for a year or so. A few months ago, this person was given heart surgery to prevent a cardiac arrest from killing her earlier. Make sure you understand – a terminally ill person with only a couple of months to live, was recommended and opted to have heart surgery to extend her life by a couple of months, which have been completely miserable. Such expenditures are the reason that US healthcare costs are so enormous.

        26. “3rd and 4th out of 11”
          Yeah, on effective care and patient centered care, but that doesn’t matter, because while it got those, it also got four 11’s and a 9, putting it in an overall ranking of… 11 of out 11!
          Anyways, we scored 11 on efficiency, meaning you have to be spending a shitload of money, and 11 on equity, meaning that unless you are fairly well of and live near a superb hospital, well then those 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s mean absolutely nothing to you.
          “No one was dying in the streets, and medical care was so affordable”
          Except they were, from all the various illnesses we didn’t have treatment for. There was no treatment for cancer, there weren’t nearly as many vaccinations, there were no antibiotics, no antivirals, no heart pumps, no organ transplants, no mental health drugs – in fact they didn’t even have lobotomy’s 100 years ago, there were not even anti-inflammatory drugs, what are you talking about they had a “modern healthcare system”? It’s pretty easy to have cheap, equitable treatment when there is no treatment.
          “You continue to steer this discussion away form my central point – if you have a “right” to healthcare, where does it end? Why do I have an “obligation” to pay for your healthcare, when I have no corresponding obligation to facilitate any of your other rights?”
          Well you actually do, education for one, and if the state is obligated to provide education as a basic need, why not healthcare? But I think healthcare, education, food, and legal defense are basic rights the state should provide for if that is what you are wondering.

        27. I would also argue that I should not be compelled to support public education either. But this example is particularly illustrative of my exact point because our public education system is also abysmal. Even assuming for argument’s sake that education is a right – the state’s ability to compel me to pay taxes that support public education has its limits. No one seriously argues that you have to be given free pens, pencils, books, uniforms, etc…, free tuition to the best private schools, free tuition to college, free private tutors, etc… Public education is the bare minimum. Universal healthcare, as currently understood, seeks to provide the absolute best quality to everyone, which is simply impossible in a resource constrained environment, which is what the real world is.
          “But I think healthcare, education, food, and legal defense are basic rights the state should provide for if that is what you are wondering.”
          This is the real crux of the discussion.
          As I noted earlier, just because you have a “right” does not impose an obligation on me or anyone else to help you vindicate that right. Saying that there is a corresponding obligation is simply a soft way of endorsing slavery.
          You say you have a right to food. So if you are starving, that means a shopkeeper has an obligation to give you free handouts? I’ll concede that there are moral judgements to be made by the shopkeeper, but when you would have the state force him at the point of a gun to give up his food free of charge, you are endorsing slavery, pure and simple. That doesn’t make you compassionate, it makes you a statist.
          The person that gives is the person that has the power to take away. Maybe you like being dependent on the state. Good luck with that. For me, no thanks.

        28. “But this example is particularly illustrative of my exact point because our public education system is also abysmal.”
          If you adjust by removing certain, errr, “demographics” from the education pool, you find the US actually has a pretty good education system.
          “As I noted earlier, just because you have a ‘right’ does not impose an obligation on me or anyone else to help you vindicate that right.”
          I don’t mean right the same way you mean it. When I say right, I mean an entitlement.
          “So if you are starving, that means a shopkeeper has an obligation to give you free handouts?”
          No, because that would be inequitable to only make the shop keeper pay to feed the starving, society as a whole should work together to feed the starving.
          “you are endorsing slavery, pure and simple.”
          Well if everyone in a state is a slave, but the state is democratically elected, who is the slave master? Sure its technically slavery, but calling it slavery is absolutely absurd.

        29. “If you adjust by removing certain, errr, “demographics” from the education pool, you find the US actually has a pretty good education system.”
          Haha – on this, we have pure agreement.
          I accept that you and I are talking about rights in different ways, and that’s the real problem. In my view, a “right” is something that you absolutely cannot be denied or prevented from having. So, by definition, anything that requires someone else’s input of resources or labor cannot be a right because the only way you could guarantee such a right would be a commitment to force others to contribute resources and labor no matter what. Slavery is the extreme end of that, I admit, but that is the reality.
          “But the state is democratically elected.” This is wrong. The vast majority of the state is not democratically elected. Just at the federal level – there are roughly 2.1 million employees, not counting contractors and the military. Only 536, or .0002%, are elected – 435 representatives, 100 senators and the president. Of those 536, you get to vote for exactly 4 – the president, your representative and two senators. Everyone else, from the judges, to the staffers to the bureaucrats is unelected, unaccountable, and absolutely immune to the will of the people. And this is just the federal level – you have 50 states, plus a bunch of territories that have the same thing going on.
          Understand, I take no issue with the idea that moral goals and ideals can, and even should in some cases, be the focus of government effort. But in our system, even when there is popular support for something, there is still a tremendous amount of people who are vehemently opposed.
          Some would say, “who cares, we have the necessary votes, fuck them, it’s for their own good.” I say that’s completely shortsighted and dangerous. In Iraq, the insurgency never numbered more than about 30,000 people at one time in a country with a population of roughly 30 million. We saw how difficult the violence was to contain, and it was only possible because our enemies made the mistake of brutalizing their own people which turned them to our side. Now project this onto a country with 315 million people, where roughly half of them own weapons. Government power only extends so far. People do not kill their neighbors because the government says they can’t. They play along because they largely perceive that their neighbors are not fucking them over and that the system, backed by the government, is fair. But that is a delicate balancing act. If the government creates the impression that it is not playing fair, people will stop playing by the government’s rules. The pages of history tell this same story over and over. Fucking around with people’s health care is not something that should be done flippantly, particularly when we are advancing in the wrong direction in terms of costs.
          For the record – my mom is on an Obamacare plan. I have seen firsthand how fucked up this system is. When I was a kid, we were lower middle class. Not poor, but about twice per week we ate food we grew in our garden because that’s all the food we had. Even in those conditions, my parents could always afford to take me to the doctor and pay in cash. Today, my wife and I would find this difficult to do for our children, and we are making a very comfortable living. What has changed? The imposition of a giant inefficient bureaucratic middle man.
          This is a resource constrained world. That’s just the reality we live in. Resources will ALWAYS be rationed. The only question is whether the market – free people making their own decisions based on their own priorities – will do the rationing, or whether a system of unaccountable bureaucrats will do it. I prefer the former. You can prefer the latter, but don’t pretend that it is cheaper to put more people between the service providers and their patients to shuffle papers and provide “oversight.” That completely ignores every basic law of economics and is not true.

      4. I laugh at those who on the left that underestimate Trump by calling him stupid. One of the key rules of warfare is to never underestimate your enemy.
        Howard-Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences suggests that Trump is high in existential, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and logical/mathematical intelligence. He may not be very articulate (linguistic intelligence) but he obviously makes up for it in other departments. His knowledge in all of these realms and his ability to combine various skills ultimately makes him a man who just knows how to get shit done.
        http://skyview.vansd.org/lschmidt/Projects/The%20Nine%20Types%20of%20Intelligence.htm – a quick read if you’re interested in the nine intelligences model.

        1. Trump’s linguistics, much like the 2 Bush’s, are a sales-strategy, not a defect as the Left would have you believe.

        2. I’ve never heard of that before, will check it out, thanks.
          I don’t give two squats about what the Left thinks. Every GOP President since forever they always sneer at as being “teh stoopidz”. It’s their only spiel, because it makes them feel superior in their defeat. These are some sorely disconnected, smug, petty little sad sacks, I have no time for them any longer.

      5. that is true and i agree…however….i think we can agree that when treating humans,at least PART of the extra expense is there is more technology and equipment used. laparoscopic surgeries,the use of the hospital instead of just the doctors office,etc…a vet does operations on your dog in the office,with old school surgical techniques “slice and dice,then stitch it back up”,and without as much technology. therefore creating a higher mortality rate…
        i dont mind paying more for medical care considering more goes into it…however,the extra costs are outrageous and clearly just greed based. if we payed 2x-5x the cost of animal care for care on humans,id be content with that and it would be understandable… but were looking at a 100x or higher cost.
        for example,a guy i knew lost his hand in a fireworks accident…the surgeries,time in the hospital,etc…cost over 3MILLION dollars. and he drove himself to the hospital because the ambulance dispatcher thought it was a prank when he called 911 and wouldnt send an ambulance,AND he never even got a prosthetic hand because his insurance wouldnt cover it….put simply-americans are receiving piss poor quality medical care and yet still paying out the ass for it.

        1. Granted. My point however is that even with a gap in outcome quality (which honestly I think is more a function of what the owners are willing to pay than on the vet’s skill), the difference in pricing isn’t justified by the quality of care *that much*.

        2. Private hospital in Thailand, around $40/night inc. meds, if you want a private room. $15/night in a ward. X-rays and ultrasounds, $3 a go.

        3. Thats in contrast to india i know a cousin who got dilated cardio myopathy when at 6 months age was treated of this fatal condition in a private hospital for a few months and today is healthy and his family a middle-upper class one easily paid off the bills without going bankrupt

        4. agreed… like i said, doulbe,or triple the cost of vet expenses is fine. maybe even 5x the cost. but this 100-200x the cost? no way. even wealthy people cant afford that kind of cost.

      6. If vet care is too expensive, people will forgo animal care and euthanize the animal.
        If human care is too expensive, people aren’t going to just die, they will take on debt if they need to.
        You can charge very high prices if someone NEEDS something rather than just wants it.

      7. Its both funny and sad that there are so many people who actually believe the govt is the solution to any of lifes problems.
        ….
        Notice i said believe, not think.
        If a person truly thought, they would see the govt just makes things worse(the vast majority of the time).

      8. Why can’t healthcare be akin to getting a haircut or any other exchange of service for straight-up cash?
        …oh, I forgot…lawyers!

    2. “The cost of healthcare and health insurance skyrocketed when the government initially got involved, and it keeps skyrocketing more every time the government tries to “fix” it.”
      Yet when the French, German, and British governments “got involved” with healthcare, they haven’t had this problem. Its not that government healthcare doesn’t work, its that the US government is full of incompetent buffoons.
      “The quality of healthcare and health insurance decreased when the government got involved, and continues to decrease even more every time the government messes with it.”
      Not true at all, live expectancy has only gone up and infant mortality – the two best indicators of healthcare quality – have only gone up for the former and down for the later. Healthcare quality hasn’t gone down, its just become ungodly expensive compared to other countries.
      “- The only way to truly solve the healthcare and health insurance problem is to get the government out of it.”
      Well again, tell me why France can have cheap, effective healthcare with government regulation but the US can’t?

      1. Oh sure, because those nations aren’t bankrupt too.

        1. Actually they aren’t. England spends less per person on healthcare than the US spends on medicare and medicaid alone. In 2016, the NHS England budget was 2692.5 dollars per person (cite 1), in 2015, the US National health expenditure 9,990 dollars per person, MORE THAN 3 TIMES THE SIZE! Of that 9,990 dollars, 3709 were Medicare and Medicaid (cite 3). Can you imagine that? They pay LESS in taxes, don’t pay anything in insurance or co-pays, and yet get pretty much the same health outcomes? Again, why are you against that?
          cite 1: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget
          cite 2: https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical.html
          cite 3: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

        2. I don’t care what they spend on health care. A person driving a Volkswagen pays less for car maintenance than a person driving a Ferrari.
          The English are taxed to the gills.
          The Constitution has no provisions in it whatsoever that allow the Federal government any powers to provide or pay for healthcare for us. Those powers not explicitly conferred to the FedGov are reserved to the States or the People respectively.
          You want your socialist utopia, move to England, mate. I can pull my own weight without your “gentle concerns” and your feminine politics.

        3. “I don’t care what they spend on health care.”
          Your entire argument was that they spend to much, I just SEVERAL citations that prove otherwise, and now you don’t care? So you are so fucking stubborn that you would rather SPEND MORE on healthcare than save money and potentially let one or two or those dollars go to a sick person who isn’t you? Are you a fucking 7 year old?
          “The English are taxed to the gills.”
          That may be true, but its an irrelevant point because we aren’t talking about all taxes, we are only talking about healthcare, and specifically on healthcare, they have much LOWER taxes, 27% lower than the US.
          “The Constitution”
          So by bringing up this point you are admitting my system is better, its just that you have a document that says I can’t do it. Well it doesn’t matter anyways, because 1) I wasn’t specifically limiting my discussion to the US, and 2) even if we were, I never said the Federal government should be the level of state to implement this. Why can’t states implement Universal healthcare best suited to them? Would you be apposed to that? There is no constitution barrier after all. Why couldn’t the Constitution be amended for the Federal government to do this?

        4. Um, no, that wasn’t my entire argument. In fact, it wasn’t my argument at all. Straw man fail.
          You’re the one that brought up taxes, not me. Straw man fail part deux.
          I admitted no such thing. The private health care system is superior in many ways to your bumbling socialist construct. Your construct is destroying health care by the wagon load.
          As to what states do, they too are bound by their state constitutions. If their constitution empowers the state to do so, then fine, do it and let people vote with their feet.
          The Constitution will not be amended for any such thing. You clearly have no inkling about the notion of individual rights that the Framers (incorrectly) believed most men would understand.

        5. Here was your first reply to me “Oh sure, because those nations aren’t bankrupt too.” You brought up cost, implying that they spend to much, that they are going bankrupt, and I gave clear statistics that they are not, that they spend LESS than the US, and yet you then come back with “I don’t care what they spend on health care.” Well if you don’t, then why did you bring up the fact they are “going bankrupt”?
          “You’re the one that brought up taxes, not me.”
          England EXCLUSIVELY pays for healthcare with taxes, there is no way I could talk about the cost of English healthcare without talking about taxes.
          “Your construct is destroying health care by the wagon load.”
          Except you have yet to explain why England, France, and Germany all have better life expectancy than the US and lower infant mortality.
          “The Constitution will not be amended for any such thing.”
          Why not? They amended it for income tax, why can’t they amend it for regulating and providing healthcare to the public? In fact they wouldn’t even necessarily need to do that, just create a bill that threatens to withhold state funding if they don’t create a system of universal health coverage, the same way the drinking age was created.

        6. So steal people’s money and then threaten to not give some of it back if they don’t bend to your un-Constitutional schemes.
          Yeah, no. Take your effeminate collectivism somewhere else, we’re done.

        7. “So steal people’s money and then threaten to not give some of it back if they don’t bend to your un-Constitutional schemes.”
          It is fully constitution, that is exactly how MANY MANY programs were handled by the Federal government for a long time, even today. There have been supreme court rulings that find it constitutional. I really don’t give a fuck about the constitution though, so don’t bother trying to argue with me on that.

        8. So you would rather have a more expensive, broken healthcare system that doesn’t put people first than a cheaper alternative that benefits everyone?

        9. You are probably wasting your time, you can cite a mountain of evidence to prove your point but people like him will never listen or change their opinions on such issues. They see it as an attack on their personal rights and freedoms, even when it’s a better system. Creeping socialism if you will.

        10. I am giving a fucking mountain of sources and you are simply crying “but muh constitution and freedum!”, a failure to use logic is effeminate.

        11. And we could give you a mountain of sources that blow up your entire argument.
          Those countries in Europe are going to be in for a hard awakening.
          you simply cannot provide enough care for everyone. Those nations are on the brink.

        12. ‘I really don’t give a fuck about the constitution”
          And you just lost the argument.
          I know you don’t care, but judges have been twisting the constitution for a long time. You’re a sheep who would rather take an activist judges’ opinion than think for yourself.

        13. Okay yeah, feel free to, because I’ve given you official statistics by the world bank and OECD that show that those nations ARE NOT on the brink, in fact, the only nation on the brink with healthcare spending is none other than…
          THE UNITED STATES
          http://www.usdebtclock.org/
          https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical.html
          http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?view=map
          http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SHA

        14. Ahh, an actual constitutionalist, I have been wanting to talk to one of you. So, Federalism, what do you guys like about it? What in your opinion makes a “state” *cough cough* province *cough cough* an better than the national government at making policy. Please do enlighten me, I am genuinely curious.

        15. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1196050/Cancer-“patients-paid-private-Labour-climbdown.html
          http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/neil-hamilton/416377/Failing-NHS-is-itself-diseased
          https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-03/frances-health-care-system-is-going-broke
          http://civitasreview.com/healthcare/father-of-canadian-health-care-admits-its-a-failure/http://civitasreview.com/healthcare/father-of-canadian-health-care-admits-its-a-failure/
          “Back in the 1960s, (Claude) Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
          The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: “the father of Quebec medicare.” Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.”
          Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in “crisis.”
          “We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”

        16. Ghost,
          Andrew can’t see the forest for the trees.
          https://surgerycenterok.com
          Free markets always work better.
          Plastic surgery is a perfect example as well. No insurance covers it, nor laser eye surgery but the costs go down and efficiency continue to go up.
          Don’t tell Andrew though. It will always be lost on him/her/zee/zir. Whatever the [email protected]#K it wants to be called it won’t understand a free market is the healthiest market.

        17. You have a fatal misunderstanding of how different healthcare systems work. The English system is an actually socialist model, the governments pays for – and provides the healthcare. In the first article you sent, they are moving away from that and towards the next system, the Canadian system in this the government just acts as an insurance institution – it pays for healthcare, but it does not actually provide it – private companies do. I don’t support either of these systems so don’t argue with me about them. As for your article from Bloomberg, its garbage, it doesn’t have any statistics in it, just a bunch of libertarian free market masturbation and hyperbole. I provided actual OECD, WHO, World Bank, data and white papers, an editorial is nowhere near comparable in weighing evidence.

        18. Your guy isn’t even the father of Canadian heathcare, Tommy Douglas is. Don’t talk about thinks you don’t know the history of.

        19. the man was a co-author of the 1967 Castonguay-Nepveu Report, which set Quebec on the path to socialized medicine
          facts yo
          But I suppose if the world bank is all for socialized medicine, it must be good….because we all know those guys are on the up and up.

        20. bottom line is you want taxes used to pay for healthcare. . You can pull the usual leftist tactic by calling socialism something else to fool everyone, but it is still the same thing. You advocate taxes be used to pay for a social welfare program, and a more powerful government to implement the plan.
          Let me guess, you probably think there is a difference between socialism and democratic socialism.
          I realize you think you’re doing the Lords work by education us plebs, but I can assure you, you’re not as wise as you think.

        21. IF you knew anything about what the founders intended, you wouldn’t be asking that question.
          Federalism was preferred by the founders for the simple reason that it would keep power from being centralized in DC. It kept the power localized and allowed for the states to not be subservient to a regime.
          Policy on most levels is better set by the people who are close to the population they govern. You may think a guy sitting at a desk 1500 miles away knows better than a local elected official, but the reality is, they don’t.
          Our federal government was never intended to be as large as it is, nor as powerful. But you leftist pretended the commerce clause and “general welfare” meant that DC could usurp any power it wants. example is these “super smart” judges telling us that the constitution allows the feds to tell us we have to buy a product, or face punishment like they did with Obamacare.
          To someone who understands what the constitution is, they will tell you it’s a document of negative powers when it comes to the feds.

        22. “It kept the power localized”
          That would be valid if that were the case, but it simply isn’t true. Sacramento San Diego 8 hours, Albany to Buffalo is 5 hours. And keep in mind this is by car, imagine what is was like before they had cars.
          “and allowed for the states to not be subservient to a regime.”
          Except apparently it didn’t.
          “Policy on most levels is better set by the people who are close to the population they govern.”
          But the US Federal System isn’t like this. They aren’t close, at all. What do Houston and Austin have in common at all besides both being in Texas?
          “You may think a guy sitting at a desk 1500 miles away knows better than a local elected official”
          Again, they aren’t really local. And US states are not demographic based, they are “hey, lets draw a big square on the map” based. Look at the border between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, do you not see anything wrong with that? (www.google.com/maps/place/Rhode+Island/@41.6862847,-71.6557108,10.25z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89e43514620ed70f:0x1e4e18bce7c106e7!8m2!3d41.5800945!4d-71.4774291)
          “Our federal government was never intended to be as large as it is, nor as powerful.”
          If you want an effective federal system, why not go for something like Switzerland than?

        23. “bottom line is you want taxes used to pay for healthcare.”
          Which isn’t socialism because Socialism is the means of production being controlled by the state or “a community”.
          “Let me guess, you probably think there is a difference between socialism and democratic socialism.”
          Well Socialists want state ownership of production, Democratic Socialists are a basically just Socialists who like to say they are different but really aren’t because all socialists (even Bolsheviks) claim to be “democratic”. Most of them aren’t real socialists though, just really hard core what you might call, Social Democrats, because they don’t actually want the state to control the means of production, just regulate various industries.

        24. “the man was a co-author of the 1967 Castonguay-Nepveu Report, which set Quebec on the path to socialized medicine”
          Yeah, he was a major figure for Quebec, but at that point Saskatchewan and Alberta had already started moving towards Universal Healthcare for 20 years, and Saskatchewan had implemented a universal healthcare system by 1961. The Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act was passed in 1957, and the Medical Care Act was passed in 1966, his commission was just for Quebec, and every other province would also have a commission of the same sort, he is of no significance outside Quebec.
          “But I suppose if the world bank is all for socialized medicine”
          Nothing in that world bank website was for or against universal healthcare, it was simply raw data on healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP, so what you really should be saying is that facts are all for universal healthcare.

        25. Better system…Hah!!…when the fuck did the payment of health services suddenly require a labyrinthine system of paperwork and government intervention? Treat it like any other transaction (like coffee at Charbucks). Is this thing on????

        26. I want a free market health care system that people used to be able to afford using pocket cash. So actually I do want the cheaper alternative that benefits everyone. Win win.

        27. Socialism also redistributes wealth in the name of the common good, which is what you advocate.
          I noticed that you lumped in a lot of programs such as the military, fire and police protection under the umbrella of socialism.
          Last I heard, neither of those things produce anything. You’re using the definition of socialism based on your convenience.

        28. 1-State gov is much more local than the federal government.
          2- States don’t control every aspect of policy for their citizens. They leave a lot up to counties and cities. Why do they do this? Because they know it’s better to have some policy made by those closets to the affected area.

        29. But where do you arbitrarily assign local? How is Texas local at all? If you are going to make them local, why not make the boundaries actually you know, conform to demographic patterns? Why is that Kansas city Missouri and Kansas city Kansas are in separate states, despite being essentially the same city? Well again, states are arbitrary outdated rubbish. Further more, a Federal System would be justified if there were cultural differences in different regions of the US, but their aren’t. Could you look at picture of a Seattle street, a Los Angeles street, and a New York street, could you actually tell the difference just by looking at them? Probably not. As for cities, well they are also completely arbitrary. Beverly Hills is an enclave completely surrounded by Los Angeles, what arbitrarily makes it any different to the point of needing to be a separate city than any other neighborhood of Los Angeles that surrounds it?

        30. They produce security I mean jeez, why can’t people just privately hire a fire department at that point?

        31. How, 23 thousand dollars? Well lets see how that compares to the “socialism” in France and England. Oh what’s that? It only costs 10-11k in those countries? It can’t be!
          Sorry to tell you, but statistics don’t care about your feelings.
          By the way, it’s him, transgenderism is a bunch of post-western bullshit!

      2. We apparently want the worst of both worlds – a for-profit system with all the benefits of government ineptitude!

      3. It’s not cheap when you realize the average Frenchman pays something like 70% of his income to taxes.

        1. The USA boasts the lowest prices in the WORLD for procedures not regulated by government. This is because private practitioners are allowed to compete, driving down price for the consumer. Ironically, the lowest priced operations produce the richest doctors; see plastic surgeons. Capitalism works, get rid of the insurance and politicians.

        2. “The USA boasts the lowest prices in the WORLD for procedures not regulated by government.”
          Umm I’m sorry, what medical are procedures aren’t regulated by the government?

        3. Shows how little you know about the American healthcare. Contrary to your theory, unregulated practices produce the lowest prices, shortest wait times, and the richest doctors because they are allowed to compete. Homeopathy and cosmetics are two good examples.

        4. It doesn’t prevent anything. Homeopathy is literally diluting real working medications until they are beyond Avogadro’s number, there literally isn’t anything besides water in it anymore. I’ve watched videos of people taking entire bottles of pills of homeopathic (sleeping) medications and then proceeding doing lectures in front of an audience about how homeopathy doesn’t work.

        5. “Capitalism works, get rid of the insurance and politicians”.
          Fuckin’ A! Been saying that for 20+ years.

        6. Homeopathy is the dominant form of medicine outside of white majority countries. The scam known as Allopathy [the prescription of drugs to cure illness], came to be the dominant practice through the AMA, financed by none other than big pharmaceuticals. Perhaps you should research the tainted history of the AMA.

        7. “came to be the dominant practice through the AMA”
          Really? Because the AMA has fuck all significance outside of the United States, so I really doubt that.
          So sir, if you think scientific medicine is so bad, why do western countries have so much higher life expediencies?
          Tell me, if homeopathy is so effective, then why can James Randi go up on stage, take a whole fucking bottle of homeopathic sleeping medicine, and give a lecture?

        8. “Really? Because the AMA has fuck all significance outside of the United States, so I really doubt that” Homeopathy is the dominant form of medicine in Europe as well. AMA is the American counterpart.
          “So sir, if you think scientific medicine is so bad, why do western countries have so much higher life expediencies?” Scientific advancements achieved by the free market, not government.
          “Tell me, if homeopathy is so effective, then why can James Randi go up on stage, take a whole fucking bottle of homeopathic sleeping medicine, and give a lecture?” The point of homeopathy is less reliance on pharmaceuticals. Allopathic prescriptions are meant to keep you addicted. Not a hard concept.

      4. That’s so cute. My hospital is stacked with Canadians and Norwegians seeking health care. It must be those pesky 6 months+ wait lines and low costs [diguised through high taxes] socialists like to avoid when discussing health care.

        1. Sir, please fuck off. I never said anything about the Canadian or Norwegian System…

        2. Sure thing, fag. We won’t bring up the 6 months+ long waits, the hidden taxes, social loafing, and the exodus of doctors from socialist countries to practice in free market countries.

        3. How am I losing any argument? There is no argument, you are making points that are not relevant to me.

        4. That isn’t socialism, but in that case, EVERY SINGLE THING the government does is socialism. The military? SOCIALISM! Roads? SOCIALISM! NASA? SOCIALISM! School? SOCIALISM! Arbitration court? SOCIALISM!

        5. Government allocation of resources is the textbook definition of socialism. NASA, roads, public schools, etc are inferior and more expensive than their private enterprise counterparts. Government should only be involved in resolving disputes in court and raising a militia in times of war.

        6. “NASA”
          “inferior and more expensive than their private enterprise counterparts”
          LOL!
          Yeah, what is the private counterpart to NASA? LOL! There aren’t even any private organizations that have the capability to do anything NASA has done in errr…. 40 years.
          “roads”
          How do private roads work?

        7. SpaceEx>Nasa. Fedex>Post Office. America also had roads, world class universities, airports, train stations, electric power stations, etc etc long before income tax was implemented. Using the roads arguments is a long debunked liberal favorite.

        8. “SpaceEx>Nasa”
          SpaceX has yet to put a man in Orbit, NASA has put a man in orbit, a man on another celestial body, and a robot to multiple other bodies.
          “Fedex>Post Office”
          By what metric?
          “America also had roads, world class universities, airports, train stations, electric power stations, etc etc long before income tax was implemented.”
          *facepalm* That was before FEDERAL taxes were implemented, states had taxes before, all this shows is a move towards federalization, not any “growing government”. Airplanes were only invented after income tax, and airports have jack shit to do with income tax because most airports are municipal.

        9. Commie,
          Airplanes were invented a decade before income tax.
          Infrastructure prior to 1913(including roads, airports, etc) was a private venture, not tax funded.
          NASA peaked 50 years ago when they had former Nazis designing their rockets. Now they contract through Space Ex.
          You’ve neglected to explain why the medical procedures in America not regulated by government are the cheapest in the world.

        10. “Airplanes were invented a decade before income tax. ”
          Not commercial aircraft.
          “Infrastructure prior to 1913(including roads, airports, etc) was a private venture, not tax funded.”
          No, it was funded on the State and municipal level. Cars were not a household product in the US until well after income tax was implemented, but that doesn’t matter, because the only Federal highway funding is Interstate Funding, which comes primarily from fuel taxes, not income tax. How did these private roads function economically before cars? How would non-controlled access roads be maintained and funded?
          “NASA peaked 50 years ago when they had former Nazis designing their rockets.”
          You know what else peaked 50 years ago for them? Funding. It’s pretty obvious that they peaked because funding has only gone down since then.
          “Now they contract through Space Ex.”
          Only for one thing: Cargo transport to the International Space station
          On the other hand, manned missions are done by the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities (e.g., Russian Space agency), and all satellite, rover, probe, and all other activities are handled by NASA itself still.
          “You’ve neglected to explain why the medical procedures in America not regulated by government are the cheapest in the world.”
          Earlier you said homeopathy, well the reason is simple, homeopathy is literally just fucking water. Anything else in homeopathic solutions is so diluted it doesn’t do anything anymore. That is why it is so cheap dude, because it isn’t medicine, its charlatanry.

        11. “That is why it is so cheap dude, because it isn’t medicine, its charlatanry.”
          Ritalin is a derivative of cocaine. Adderall is a derivative of methamphetamine. Allopathic prescriptions, which you appear to be in love with, is the scam, not homeopathy.
          “No, it was funded on the State and municipal level.”
          Wrong. Infrastructure before 1913 such as railroads[funded by the Vanderbilts], hydroelectrical grid[funded by JP Morgan], universities[funded by the Rockefellers] were all built by private funds. Ironically, for much cheaper adjusted for inflation, and in much less time than modern buildings require due to intensive government regulation.
          “Earlier you said homeopathy”
          I also said cosmetic surgery to which you had zero response. Cosmetic residencies boast the lowest prices and by far the highest salaries for practicing doctors. Thanks to the free market.
          “Only for one thing: Cargo transport to the International Space station”
          Of which Space Ex spent 320 times less on the Dragon capsule than what NASA would’ve spent, and unlike government agencies, was on schedule.

      5. ” its that the US government is full of Jews”
        Fixed it for ya!
        “Not true at all, life expectancy has only gone up and infant mortality – the two best indicators of healthcare quality – have only gone up”
        Actually, real mortality rates have not changed in 2000 years.
        They play a game with the figures, including child mortality in the past, and excluding abortion mortality in the present. If you include both, or exclude both ……. almost no change.
        http://www.livescience.com/10569-human-lifespans-constant-2-000-years.html

        1. Well off course I know that, that it’s mostly child mortality, but children are still people, and still use healthcare, what you are saying doesn’t change anything I said. But still, the numbers in that article are wrong, as you made the mistake to use an editorial instead of a real study. The average lifespan for five year old male (e.g., if we don’t count infant mortality) was 75, that change of 2 years or so may not seem like a lot, but from a statistical point of view that is a HUGE number of premature deaths being prevented. Abortions are comparable to miscarriages, not infant mortality, and the rate of miscarriages have also significantly gone down due to prenatal care. Speaking of which Abortion rates have ALSO gone down.
          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/

        2. Why start at age 5?, why not start at age -6 months?
          What is the difference between a mother aborting at 1st trimester, and the child dying at 6 months old?
          I really can’t see the difference.

        3. Abortion is murder, Miscarriage is a tragedy.
          If you can’t see that fuck you and all the other baby murderers!
          The people who work in abortion clinics are as evil as the people who worked the Nazi death camps. They deserve to be killed in the most horrific ways.

        4. Jesus calm down, yeah I’m against abortion. Neither of those things have ever been counted in life expectancy rates, its not relevant to what we are talking about, and as I said, both miscarriage rates and abortions have gone down, not up.

        5. Because they wanted to figure out how long people OUTSIDE of infancy were expected to live. As for first trimester, no study has ever counted fetus’s in the life expectancy statistics, and don’t flip shit on me for saying that, I’m not the guy running these studies, it’s just never been done.

    3. Pay cash. Usually this gets you half off, plus freed meds from whatever samples he has in his supply closet. We will re-discover as a nation fee for service. No need to mess with mr. inbetween.

      1. The answer really is that simple. I remember my grandmother going to an annual physical, or if she was sick with something non-terminal, to the general practitioner and writing a check for the services, with no insurance. This was just prior to when Medicare/Medicaid started really knocking prices upward. Now you can’t go without insurance unless you want to break the bank to go get an annual physical.

      2. Meds are very cheap outside the west.
        When you remove the doctor standing between you and the pharmacy, the costs become a fraction of the price.
        Doctor scam or Pharmaceutical Company scam? probably both.

    4. What we should really do is just make health insurance illegal. Just pay for whatever care you can afford and the hospitals will legally be required to take you if you really need it.

      1. Ah yes. The Darwinian theory of human existence. If you’re rich you’re good to go else fck off

        1. Haha ya I’m only being half serious, but seriously nobody used to have health insurance because it used to be anyone could go to the doctor and afford it out of pocket. Once the Lawyers & the insurance companies started making laws it all went downhill. So why not just extricate ourselves from the root causes of the problems and make legal & insurer interference in health illegal?

    5. Amen. The ONLY solution to health care is unhindered competition through economies of scale. The aspects of US health care not regulated by government [such as cosmetics] are also the cheapest in the world, because doctors are allowed to compete and set their own prices. Insurance is a scam because it removes this competition.

      1. It’s not insurance per se that is the problem. In an unregulated free market, there would still be insurance. It is the regulation and government interference that makes everything so expensive. It’s the same with colleges and student loans. Government keeps giving out more loans and grants, so the colleges simply raise the tuition every year because they know government will keep paying. But if you want to pay cash and not mess with the government or a bank loan, you’re out of luck.

    6. Private visit to a doctor where I live $2-$5.
      If I claim on insurance the bill is x10.

    7. medical care is working as congress and the industry players designed it to work. That’s what so many don’t get it, it’s not broken. It was designed starting in 1910 to create high prices. Each reform is about finding ways to pay high prices and push them higher yet. To drain the wealth of the american people into the medical industry.
      The only solution is to force it back to a free market where there weren’t government limitations on providers of any aspect of medical industry like consumer electronics. In a few short years prices would be dirt cheap for just about everything.
      The free market had solved the problem of medical care over a 100 years ago. It was cheap. People joined lodges and such and got cheap group rates with doctors. Government was brought in to solve the problem of low prices and it did.

    8. “no successful solution that would actually reduce (or even stop increasing) _________ costs will be passed through Congress.”
      Just fill in the blank with whatever is the hot politic issue at the moment. The same, scheming grasping fucks that sank us into this pit are going to get us out of it? How goddamn stupid must someone be to believe this?
      On a side note, both appalled and amused to see all the “it’s a right” lefties moaning about their tax bills ’round this time of the year. So many NMSS (Not My Shit Socialists) tears.

  5. Much easier to give someone something (Obamacare) than to take it away (what the freedom caucus wanted). The Freedom Caucus members were essentially guaranteed reelection, one way or the other. They threw the rest of the party under the bus, and guaranteed the Dims a majority in the upcoming elections, and made a very good opening for Trump to lose 2020.
    The only thing worse than passing the shit that was Ryancare was *not* passing it. Standing like stubborn asses on their principals ensured they’ll be lame-ducks after the next few elections.

    1. Oh come now, all that Ryan care would have done would be to shackle all of the bad problems of Obamacare to the GOP for now and forever more. As it stands today, they all still belong to the Democrats.
      The optimal path, and one that I think is going to follow, will be a bill crafted to actually address at least some of these problems. If that passes, and relieves people of the nightmare that the Dems foisted on them, the Dems will be toast.

      1. We’ll have to see. Honestly, the Dems did a masterful job of setting up Obamacare as a time-bomb. Fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t.

        1. It was openly known at the time that they intended it to destroy what was left of our health care system such that they could then come in and “save” us with single payer.

        2. That’s because they and the corporate scumbag lobbyists (US Chamber of Commerce, etc.) want single-payer. Which means a 50% federal tax rate for Middle America and astronomical waste, fraud, and abuse.

        3. You mean the countries with 50% tax rates? Way to prove my point for me.
          And you can bet your last dollar that any U.S. single-payer system will be full of pork and perks for the corporate scumbags in the health-care industry, to further rip us off. After all, they need to get a return on their $billions in investments on lobbyists.

        4. Again, those taxes are going towards OTHER THINGS, when talking about healthcare you need only look at healthcare spending, and as it breaks down in 2014:
          US spends 17% of its GDP on healthcare
          Sweden 11%
          Spain 9%
          Norway 9%
          Denmark 10%
          Engalnd 9%
          Canada 10%
          Finland 9%
          Every one of those countries are vastly cheaper than the US.

        5. “Again, those taxes are going towards OTHER THINGS”
          Given that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid consume most of the federal budget already, that idea is ridiculous. Especially considering that we have a large amount of military spending that they don’t.
          Something tells me these statistics are lying, by only counting private-sector spending on health care. If government spending ON HEALTHCARE is included, these countries spend more than we do.

        6. “Given that Social Security”
          Pensions are not Healthcare. In fact, Pensions are actually the reason why those countries have such over sized budgets, and yes, I can agree Pension spending is a massive problem with these countries, but its another issue.
          “Something tells me these statistics are lying, by only counting private-sector spending on health care. If government spending ON HEALTHCARE is included, these countries spend more than we do.”
          Nope, those are total healthcare expenditures (here is the source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?view=map). Those countries save money by having various cost saving policies. For example, every country on my list except Canada uses what is called the Beveridge model: the government collects taxes, and then directly budgets that to all the hospitals to in there country. That is it, that is how every healthcare cost is payed for in those countries, incredibly simple right?
          Compare that to how healthcare is funded in the US: A person will pay his taxes to the Federal Government and state government who each put that money into their respective medicare and medicaid programs, that money is then (oftentimes) outsourced to a third party insurance company who does the work for the state, then they pay for healthcare for SOME people, and those patients still have to make a 20% copay. But wait, there is more, for most people, including those who have medicare or medicaid, they also will generally have to get private insurance too which is funded with premiums and deductibles, and they again, still have to make a copay. There are also subsidies and tax credits for people to use help pay for there private health insurance.
          Honestly, the later is a cluster fuck, just the accounting costs alone will make the later cost more than the former.
          These countries also use what is called reference pricing. Drugs are put in classes, lets just say we have a class that is opiate pain medications. The government or insurance company will the cost of the cheapest drug in the class, and if a patient wants to use a more expensive one, the patient will pay for the difference. This forces drug companies to keep drug prices low.
          There are various other things done but if you want to research them watch Aaron Carroll, he does a vastly better job at explain it than I can https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwF2BdhaPHg

        7. wrong. Those countries ration care. If you’re ok with women having to give birth in an ambulance because the hospital is too full, then single payer is for you.
          If you want to wait six months to get treated for an illness that is going to kill you in 5, then single payer is also for you.
          You want to know why healthcare is so screwed up? It’s because gov has taken the free market principles out of it via mandates, medicaid/medicare, and other various handouts.
          You want to fix it, then get government as far away form it as possible. There is one, and only one way we will ever see the cost of care go down, and that is by injecting competition into the healthcare industry. Make the hospitals, pharma’s and dr’s compete for business and you will see prices fall big time.
          Giving the gov the ability to control your care will ensure you are nothing more than a slave.

        8. They lower cost by denying you health care. You will die waiting. Had it happen to a friend.

        9. If the government taking your money and then using it to provide a need is a good, cost saving idea, then why don’t we apply that to everything?
          They could provide us with housing. Surely that would bring the price of homes down.
          How about cars, food, and child care?
          These are all basic human needs just like healthcare.

        10. That might be the idea, and why it has the support it does… but I guaran-damn-tee ya that if a single-payer system is implemented in the United States, it will be VASTLY more expensive than what you think it will be. Just like every other socialist program on the planet that has been proposed. Not to mention the bureaucracy and cronyism involved, set up to give the returns on investment for Big Health Care’s $billions in lobbying.
          It’d be just like Obamacare, but worse… an extraordinary expensive, cumbersome, bureaucracy-riddled, shitty program, but it will be unrepealable because too many people will get hooked on it like junkies. At least until the United States collapses and goes bankrupt like the Soviet Union did in 1990.
          But yay, socialism!

        11. I don’t want a single payer system, single payer is garbage. Either go for a full socialist Beveridge model, or use a free market Bismarck model.
          “set up to give the returns on investment for Big Health Care’s $billions in lobbying.”
          If you really fear that will happen, then you should support a Beveridge model, just give the whole healthcare industry the middle finger and national the whole thing in its entirety. You can’t have industry lobbying if an industry doesn’t exist anymore.
          But as far as government corruption and lobbying goes, that is a whole different story. I have specific policies that I know the Industry will not like, and if those policies aren’t in a healthcare proposal, I don’t support it, its why I don’t support the universal healthcare proposals by Warren and Sanders. I am not a bernietard who is just trying to virtue signal, I am not a blanket supporter of all healthcare reform, especial since so much of it is garbage.
          “It’d be just like Obamacare”
          Obamacare didn’t particularly do anything bad, it just didn’t do much good at all. The prices were already rising even before Obamacare, and Obamacare didn’t didn’t change that trajectory at all, it just shared some of the cost between different socio-economic groups.
          “but it will be unrepealable because too many people will get hooked on it like junkies.”
          If you really fear that, then in that case DON’T use a socialist system, use a Bismarck model (which is my preferred system anyways).

        12. :If the government taking your money”
          That is the English and Canadian system, I don’t like the English or Canadian system, I like the French system and Germany system. You clearly haven’t heard how their system works, so here are a couple of videos that will explain it for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yF69KVbUaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdarqEbDeV0
          “then why don’t we apply that to everything?”
          Because different markets operate under different principals. Nobody wants to die, for someone with a ruptured appendix, if they don’t get a surgery, they will die. They will take on debt if they need to do so in order to get that surgery. With lets say, food, for example, if an apple is expensive, you can buy another brand of apple, or a pear, or a mango, or a salad, or anything you want.
          “They could provide us with housing. Surely that would bring the price of homes down.”
          As with healthcare, only those who truly can’t even afford to buy it should have the government buy it for them.
          “How about cars, food, and child care?”
          Cars are a luxury item and you don’t need a car, same with child care, food should be payed for but only in the case of those who are unable to work.

        13. Its really simple actually, you keep your funding separated from the General fund. There should be designated taxes that JUST go to healthcare and nothing else. England is having this problem because of voluntary cuts.

        14. “If you’re ok with women having to give birth in an ambulance because the hospital is too full, then single payer is for you.”
          Actually you are wrong. The US has some of the least hospital beds per capita in the developed world.
          Again, I don’t want a single payer, stop trying to strawman me with that.

        15. Easy to provide everyone with food and housing for free.
          The army does it all the time, barracks, and mess hall food, free for anyone desperate enough to take it.
          Just stop handing out free money.

        16. “Honestly, the Dems did a masterful job of setting up Obamacare as a time-bomb. Fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t.”
          God.
          It hurts to do this, but I agree with your statement. I think you’re right.

        17. Well simple, its fucking miserable to be in the army,the army is a totalitarian system, and totalitarian systems suck, which is again, why I have reservations for the Beveridge (English) model of healthcare.

        18. That’s the whole point, provide free for their needs, but make it so unpleasant it’s a choice of last resort. That way it keeps most of the freeloaders away. Welfare should never be the easy option.

        19. France isn’t having a freeloader problem in its healthcare system though, again, they spend less of their GDP on healthcare than the US, if any country is having problems, its the US.

        20. “you keep your funding separated from the General fund. There should be
          designated taxes that JUST go to healthcare and nothing else”
          where have I heard that before….oh that’s right….that’s how the gov promised SS would work. Yet it’s so broke I’m not counting on having it around by the time I retire.
          Don’t be naive.

        21. Actually Social security ran a surplus for many many years, that money was then put into bonds in the general fund at a 3% interest rate, this has in fact, kept Social Security in the black for many years now. What the fuck are you talking about it’s “broke”? The only reason it isn’t still running a surplus just from tax revenue is that people don’t have enough children. Healthcare on the other hand is not reliant upon keeping the birth rate at a certain amount.

      1. I’ll take “”Cutting off the nose to spite the face” for a 1000, Alex.

        1. A million pesos goes further than platitudes, huh?
          Please send a Mexican lottery ticket

    2. Why pass something that is going to make the worst healthcare system in the developed world the worst healthcare system in the world? The government should be working for people, not the party.

    3. Eh, there’s no reason they can’t repeal it before the next election. They passed full repeals numerous times before. Mark my words – if they think they will lose their grip on power, they will pass a repeal quickly. It will be two lines – the first will be a total repeal of everything Obamacare, and the second will be a sunset provision far in the future to buy themselves time to come up with a replacement before anyone will lose any coverage that may affect the election.

  6. Trump should have never backed this but I’m glad he’s just gonna keep moving forward.

  7. Anybody else been following Scott Adams’ (Dilbert cartoon creator) coverage of the election and administration. He has been spot on and was one of the first I heard/read predicting Trump would win.
    http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158812654486/trump-and-healthcare
    “Do you know what problem just got solved? It’s invisible for now, but later everyone will be able to see it.
    Don’t see it?
    Okay, I’ll just tell you.
    With the failure of the Ryan healthcare bill, the illusion of Trump-is-Hitler has been fully replaced with Trump-is-incompetent meme. Look for the new meme to dominate the news, probably through the summer. By year end, you will see a second turn, from incompetent to “Competent, but we don’t like it.”
    I have been predicting this story arc for some time now. So far, we’re ahead of schedule.”

      1. Ha! Tax reform is Paul Ryan’s next big fuck up. He wants some kind of mini-VAT on businesses which will never fly with conservatives.
        I predict he’ll roll out some kind of awful “reform” bill that will die exactly the same way his shitty healthcare bill died.
        He isn’t conservative. He souldn’t even be a Republican.

    1. Yes! It has been an absolute joy to read his blog over all these months. He really knows what he is talking about.
      Very interesting.

  8. Obama care was implemented for the constituents of Obama.
    Ghetto dwelling welfare parasites.
    I just started a new contract. And I had to do something today that I have never had to do in my entire life. I had the leave the job midday due to a very sudden and unexpected medical problem. They were very decent about it, but the fact is that if I take too much time off, they will have to let me go and bring in someone else.
    But here is the thing. I have been saving my whole life. If I eliminate the escorts & booze, I can easily go 30 years without working. I may not WANT to live that way, but if I choose to, I can and I will.
    I also know some people, some minority types, that will go out every weekend and spend hundreds of dollars on a bottle of liquor at a club that would cost $35 at a liquor store. And these are the people who LOVE Obama care. All because they REFUSE to save money.
    To hell with them. If I can take care of myself, so should they!!!

    1. If that were true, why did so much of rural poor white America (Trump’s strongest supporters) become horrified of losing the Obamacare subsidies?

      1. Because “so much of rural poor white America” is just as lazy, shiftless, and useless as “urban black America”. Parasites are parasites.

    2. “If I eliminate the escorts & booze, I can easily go 30 years without working.”
      Only in the west, plenty of cheap booze and hookers in the 3rd world.
      Anyway at 50, you only need to plan finance for the next 20 years.

      1. Yeah…we have already discussed this.
        And You are 100% correct.
        As stated in previous comments, I will most likely take your advice in the near future…

      2. Also, the remark regarding the minorities and the clubs and booze…12 years ago I went with a Dominican girl who looked like Jessica Alba…her and her friends are the ones who spent like drunken sailors at the NYC clubs…and they are the same ones who love GOVT healthcare…left a really bad taste in my mouth, so to speak…

        1. Never pay for their friends, unless you get to fuck them too.
          The first rule I learnt out here.

  9. Ryan wanted to tax military retirement pay for 20+ years service members. He got rid of that and removed that program and ensured people who serve get fucked royally. Made his pay higher and then fucking got rid of taxes for congress members. Now he wanted a healthcare bill to take out old people’s social security and bills. Guys a total fucking kike like he literally the biggest jew in Congress.

    1. Well…he’s Catholic, but I understand your point.
      He’s afraid, for some unknown reason, of offending the “medicaid” crowd. Maybe he still has a thing for his college “sweetie”???

  10. It’s no secret Trump does not like Ryan. I wonder if he didn’t fight for this plan because he wants to weaken him and possible get him removed. This wasn’t the bill that Trump campaigned on, and he knew it.
    They tried the RINO bill, now it’s time for the real conservatives to put something forward.

    1. It was a perfect Machiavellian scheme. Weasel Ryan was given enough rope to bang himself and in doing so has been humiliated and rendered in an untenable position. This suits President Trump as an entrenched existential threat can be neutralised and the existing plan will blow up spectacularly thereby giving Trump carte blanche to push through his measures appealing for unity. That’s why Trump is the master.

      1. If this is true, why did Trump choose his cabinet? I mean come one, I like Trump but you guys are starting to sounds ridiculous. But if I am really missing something please show me, because I really want to keep believing 100%.

        1. The Speaker was already there and not a Presdiential appointment. So your attempt at trolling is a colossal failure. Buzz off Libtard.

        2. This is not an attempt at trolling, it’s a legitimate question. It seems like this article is wishful thinking. If you think I am trolling, you could not be more wrong. All you would have to do is look at the countless posts that I have on this website.

  11. The reason why europe can get away with their healthcare is because they dont spend anything on defence.These countries hide behind america’s coattails when it comes to peacekeeping.Anyways,immigration will kill these systems in europe in coming years.
    if the USA scale back militarily,the likes of north korea,iran and russia will be emboldened and the world will be in flames.
    The country is 20trillion in debt;the time for single payer has long passed

    1. What about Thailand, and the Philippines …. they also have free healthcare.
      PS. Nobody wants the ‘USA peacekeeping’, it’s just an excuse to invade and steal.

  12. Ryan has always been a liberal. Look at his district in Wisconsin and how it has traditionally voted. Those logic-averse retards would never vote for an actual conservative.
    This is just another illustration of how the label “republican” is no different from the label “democrat.” They’re all a bunch of uniparty globalists who need to be put down.

  13. Good points made in this article; however, people seem to be forgetting that Trump threw his weight behind its passage and spent more than a little of his political capital on its passage.
    I do think both he and the GOP missed getting tarred with the fallout that abortion of a bill would have had for them if it had passed.
    Sometimes it’s better to be lucky rather than good.

    1. He put in only what he had to. No one is going to put much weight on this by the end of the year.
      Unless there’s no tax reform or anything else. Then it’s added weight as a pattern.

  14. What a complete load of revisionist garbage. Trump clearly supported the plan. Also Trump repeatedly said he personally had a healthcare plan, then left everything to the flunky Ryan, while he (trump) played golf in Florida. Trump lied about healthcare. He never had any real substantive plan. I will agree that Ryan is the real goat in this situation. He was so eager he completely underestimated the complexity of his task.

  15. Health care need to be free for everyone.
    Time to limit or reduce your doctors and nurses wages, take control of your drug companies profiteering, and compete/control your insurance companies.
    Even most 3rd world countries manage to offer their citizens decent and free health care.

    1. P.J, because most countries are either all 1st world or all 3rd world.
      Here in the US, that is not the case.
      We have a 1st world class paying all the bills for a shiftless 3rd world underclass.
      So yes, in the UK (90% white) it works
      And in Thailand of the PI (I suppose 99% SE Asian), it works.
      But here in the USA…it will never work!

      1. Only 10-20%% of Thai citizens pay income tax. Taxes are collected on purchase tax, import tax and corporation tax. The people are mostly income tax free.
        I wonder what America would be like if the corporations paid all the taxes?

    2. If you lessen how much dr’s can make, then you reduce incentive for people to go into the trade.
      Place artificial prices on meds to drive down cost, and drug companies won’t be as driven to innovate.
      Do I like the high prices? no. But you can’t force people to paid less, and you can’t force companies to make less without the law of unintended consequences kicking in.

      1. The number of doctors working is decided by the medical schools (and their charges), not the number of people wishing to be doctors. It’s a very restricted and controlled system, not in your best interests.
        And as I previously stated, if you could buy your own meds, there wouldn’t be a need for so many doctors having pointless visits.
        I only use doctors for first time advice (around $2 for a consultation) on any new problem, then check on the internet and purchase and administer my own treatment.
        As for nurses, I don’t need anyone to hand me my pills, change my bandages or empty my bed pan. I can do it myself, or if really ill, a member of my family will do it for me. (you think a nurse does more, please specify). I remember the days when nursing was a minimum wage after school job for high school girls, or a full time job for women too stupid (or lazy or gold diggers doctor husband hunting) to seek employment anywhere else.
        I’d like to be a doctor at 1/4 the current wages.
        So would my wife, my children and most of my relatives.
        But we can’t get into Med school because none of our close relatives are doctors. And that’s most of what you need to get into Med school, a close relative that’s a doctor, or someone who can swing it for you.
        But guess what? my daughter did get to become a pharmacist, was it because of her good exam results and dedication? No, it was because I went to university with the head of the pharmacy department at my old university. On the university tour, we had a nice chat about the good old days, while all the other moms and dads trailed around behind us being totally ignored. He said, “Don’t worry mate, she’s in”. Then I went round to admissions, asked to speak to the boss, he said, “No problems, we’ve already had a call about her, we’ll get her place offer in the post in the next week or two”. I had a nice chat and a coffee with the head of admissions, he asked, “Why did you come to visit me?”, I replied, “Seems to me like you’re the important guy in this place, as you’re the one sending out place offers.” He seemed surprised, as none of the other parents ever came to visit him and ask for advice on entry and told me she would have got in just because he was so happy someone recognized his importance in the place.

        1. So why aren’t medical schools/universities being busted up as monopolies? Same with drug companies? Harvard has billions of dollars just sitting around, but they don’t want to build a new medical school and dilute the brand name by making a degree too common. I say lock up the president of Harvard for racketeering. Same with all the other elites.

    3. Reducing wages, well that will really solve the doctor and nurse shortage. Socialists/leftist/SJWs, they are incapable of understanding basic economics. People like this should not be allowed to vote, instead they need to be sent to education camps.

      1. You’re too generous Steve. It’s better to send them to North Korea. There they can see their dreams in motion.

    4. Oh shove your socialist schtick up your ass, Limey.

      1. The most fundamental law of economics is Monopolies provide less effective service at higher costs than free market competition. So why do people think this law majikally disappears when it comes to health care. How does “shitty monopoly” majikally become a good thing just because a politician writes a mandate and proclaims Utopia? Why do so many people make the logical misstep of believing (notice I didnt say thinking) that the laws of Monopolized Service suddenly disappear if you call it Single Payer? That leap over logic just drives me crazy.

    5. Kind of like “single payer” education which, in the states, is inferior to most other nations. The excuse is often made that the ‘poor’ are stuck in ‘poor’ school districts but the opposite is true: the funding per pupil for a gang banger in SE DC is three times higher than Indiana where the homeschoolers are getting college scholarships.
      So why would single payer healthcare in the states turn out any different? Answer is: it won’t. Because in the USA, the left HATES working class and white people and now in Europe, they’re starting to feel the same way.

      1. “education which, in the states, is inferior to most other nations.”
        You just presented a huge problem with your theory. Why is it that other countries can provide perfectly good state education, but the US can’t?

        1. The “theory” is that single payer healthcare wouldn’t necessarily be better for the USA since single payer education, so to speak, even with allotments for the poor hasn’t worked out. It’s not MY problem at all.
          On the other hand, one need only look to Europe and see how their welfare states are starting to show signs of collapse and why for the answer to your question…

        2. “The ‘theory’ is that single payer healthcare wouldn’t necessarily be better for the USA since single payer education”
          You completely dodged my question, why is that European countries have perfectly fine public education, but not the US?
          As for European Healthcare, every European country spends less on Healthcare per capita and as a percentage of the GDP than the United States…

        3. I “dogged” your question because it’s a red herring. But certainly, if you like, you’re free to engage in conjecture as to why European public funded education is superior to American. Be my guest! Do you really need me to spell it out for you? Are you that naive?
          Your question (or answer to it) doesn’t disprove or address my “theory” or observation that if public funded education in the states is inferior to that of Europe, then making the health care system publically funded may not make it any more efficient.
          In regards to spending per capita. One thing to keep in mind is that the USA already does have a publically funded healthcare system. Ever hear of Medicaid/Medicare? 🙂 So part of the reason why the USA healthcare system is inefficient is that there’s already a publically funded system in place! If it worked so well, it would be trivial to simply expand it. That’s largely what Obamacare did.
          In the meantime, as I also observed, Europe is going through a crisis (read the news) and threatening to come apart due to a variety of issues. I invite you to research what those are to help answer your question.

        4. “Do you really need me to spell it out for you? Are you that naive?”
          I know exactly why it works in Europe and appears to not work in America: Certain “demographics” achieve less than others.
          “Ever hear of Medicaid/Medicare?”
          I never said I wanted a medicare/medicaid type system. England, Germany, France, etc. all use completely different systems that are nothing like medicare or medicaid.
          “If it worked so well, it would be trivial to simply expand it.”
          No, for two reasons, Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP are simply insurance programs for poor/old/disabled people. The programs are covering the most unhealthy demographics in the country, yet at the same time, its actually cheaper per capita than regular healthcare. At the same time, there are two MAJOR limits keeping these programs from being as cost effective as they could be, firstly, these programs as far as I know aren’t allowed to directly negotiate prices, they have to go through private insurance companies. Second, none of these programs use reference pricing, which is the most important thing to keep prices down.
          “So part of the reason why the USA healthcare system is inefficient is that there’s already a publically funded system in place!”
          No it doesn’t. For all we know, it’s DESPITE the Publicly funded part.
          “That’s largely what Obamacare did.”
          Actually, no, it didn’t. That is what Obamacare WAS going to do for some people, but then it got struck down by the supreme court.
          “In the meantime, as I also observed, Europe is going through a crisis”
          You mean a bunch of invading sand people? That isn’t the fault of their healthcare system.

        5. So you appear to know why “single payer” public education is failing in the states. It’s not just that factor, of course, but rather overall corruption that’s the mess which leads us back to healthcare.
          I’ve read claims that medicaid/care are supposedly cheaper per capita but a simple google search brings up $10K per person which appears to be on par with the average. I’ve heard through talking to my doctor that medicare/care are indirectly subsidized by some doctors/hospitals basically dumping the costs onto private patients (along with illegals dumping a few anchor babies and walking away too.)
          In any case I’m not optimistic that these problems would all go away if the affirmative action government took them over (in the states at least). Heck, look at the mess of Obamacare already. Or the university system as well which is also a massive overpriced boondoggle. The goal of the left is to make the USA suck and the right elites make a buck off of it too which is why the F-U candidancy of Trump got such populist support.
          All that said, I do concur that healthcare in the states is a mess for a variety of reasons due to a patchwork of bad ideas being implemented on top of each other (including Obamacare) until we got this so perhaps going N*zi, so to speak, would be a step up. At some point, it’s so awful that being in the USSR doesn’t seem all that bad.
          Nonetheless, even going back to my grandparents youth, they told me stories of how it was not uncommon to check into a hospital, pay cash, and wind up with a bill similar to what you pay for mobile phone service. This competitive environment enraged the local doctors of the time who sought to make things more expensive. Insurance companies especially like seeing primiums go up, not down, just as realtors also like housing prices going up even if people’s standard of living is decreasing.
          From what I can tell, Obamacare wasn’t struck down by the supreme court in a significant way. On the contrary, the right wing judge Roberts declared it as a “tax” and let it go through. The right was enraged.
          All that said, the goal of the white ethnic cleansing agenda of the left was to make room for 3rd world Democratic voters (similar to Charles Manson’s strategy to build a utopia in the California desert) because white voters in the states didn’t dig socialism. Now after decades of it and the right even getting in on the action (for a quick buck) I’m at the point to where I’d say eff it. Tar and feather the oligarchs, the lot of ’em, and the USSR of the 70’s would be better than this but the leftists would have to go too. Fair enough?

    6. If we reduce their wages, they really need to also give them free education through med school.

  16. Trump’s two big campaign promises were healthcare and tax reform.
    Now that his plans for healthcare have been buggered by an inept subordinate, he NEEDS to succeed with his tax reform. If he doesn’t, he will have torpedoed his chances of reelection within his first year as President.

    1. Those were big, but the centerpieces of the campaign were the wall and jobs. Start building the wall and bring back jobs (tax reform is only a means to that end) and he’ll be OK.
      This healthcare bill would’ve destroyed him and it is a long term gain that it wasn’t passed. Repealing Obamacare doesn’t mean shit if it’s replaced with something even worse.

  17. One thing that gets me are the insurance hogs. An unproductive sickly person can sponge a quarter mil from the system easily while a male breadwinner does without. An uninsured working guy needs a joint, sprain or hernia fixed to keep his active machine running and is required to pay out the ass or rob a bank. Look at the list prices of meds for both chronic physical and psychiatric treatments covered by state insurance. Many indigents consume many times over their personal and combined household income in converted state funds to cover their meds and never ending ‘treatments’. If only there were a way to ‘convert’ and intercept the funds funneled from the insurance moguls to the schuyster providers, then families with an indigent member would be looking at 80-100k capital to buy organic, buy a gym set to rehab and trim up the sick shit and then buy a new house, guns, gold and Trump bonds.
    Take this lady for example:
    http://c8.alamy.com/comp/C0BF8W/miami-beach-florida-overweight-obese-fat-woman-electric-wheelchair-C0BF8W.jpg
    She’s got two perfectly good legs. Lord knows the amount of funds she’s sapping as she’s napping. And men without legs blown off in war have to monkey around and find handrails everywhere to get around while she gets a push button control for her back recliner. How the fuck does a person get like that?
    https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/13-1n005-fatfall4-c-300×450.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=300
    Every time I see some lame fat ass with tubes running out their nose on a mobility scooter, I don’t necessarily hate on them, but my mind throws out a figure guesstimating the amount of funds they draw in care, meds and therapy and I imagine what better uses that person could do if they had half a mil in their pocket and would only cut the junk diet, work out and feed their brain with the good meat of the gods as found here on ROK. Shit these people could buy a nice place on a Pacific island, climb trees for coconuts and surf for exercize if they would only clean up their crappy lifestyle and figure a way to extract back all their sick money they drew.
    http://66.media.tumblr.com/04f8ccec4d8410d36d501a50617bc4a9/tumblr_o9sypfSK3i1rn7bzro1_500.gif

    1. The price of meds in the USA is artificially high. In the 3rd world they are all a fraction of the cost. This is a pricing problem, the people who need are victims of a state price fixing cartel.
      You need to fix the rampant profiteering by the pharmaceutical companies.
      Similar game in the UK, prescription fee $20, but the meds are only worth $1 ……. x20 profit for the state. Outside the western state monopoly of the doctor/health care system, I can buy almost any meds from a supermarket at around $1 a time.

      1. It’s full scale racketeering where you the patient gets pumped up with meds costing into the thousands. If a nurse comes to me with a big needle, I’ll say “STOP, not so fast. How much does that shit cost? Hmmm? Well how bout just forking the money over to me and skipping the shot. Stick the shot up your ass and gimmee the money. I want the money your system skimmed off my wages” . . or I’d bend over with my back pocket open and say “here, right in my back pocket. You need a funnel? Yeah just stuff all the large bills into my pocket and call it a done deal”

  18. Paul “women are to be revered” Ryan stabbed Trump in the back during his darkest hour during the campaign. He should be shining shoes on the street.

  19. These fucking assholes. For 6 years they talked about repealing and replacing Obamacare, but when its their turn up to bat they dont have shit?
    Do you know how I know all these asshats are college educated? Because they try to finish their homework in class.

  20. Replacing Obamacare with something just as bad. Terrible policy and politics.

  21. “The Failure Of Ryancare Is A Win For Trump”
    WTF? Respectfully, and sorry to say this but the title of this article is just feel-good nonsense that makes no sense and is dodging the major bigger picture going on.
    And the bigger picture is this: the harsh fact here is from what we have seen with the travel ban being repeatedly blocked and now getting nowhere with his healthcare plan, one cannot help but get the impression that president Trump has about as much authority to do things in America as the janitor who cleans the toilets at the White House.
    Desperate times are calling for desperate measures.
    Trump needs to put together a possee of hardcore henchmen who will be absolutely loyal to him and will eliminate the opposition.
    It’s time to remove the gloves. Liquidate anyone who gets in his way.
    It’s that simple; it’s that ugly.

    1. Yeah no to mention I highly doubt that Ryan did all this in secret. is this another General whats his face all over again? I forgot his name, the one that met with some Russians behind Trump’s back. So far then, two of Trump’s advisers already betrayed him and we are not even half a year in……..

  22. Ryan seeks to preserve the rent seeking cartel. Unknown how much he understands but it is irrelevant because his goal is to serve the cartel and feed it more of the wealth of the american people.
    Trump doesn’t have a clue about how things got the way they are.
    Expect the next bill to be a republican single payer program.

      1. That will go nowhere. It is not correct politically and not coming from the right people. It will not be seriously considered.

  23. Google is paying 97$ per hour! Work for few hours & have longer with friends and family! !dg301c:
    On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $8752 this last four weeks.. Its the most-financialy rewarding I’ve had.. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it
    !dg301c:
    ➽➽
    ➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleFinancialCashJobs591ShopPerfectGetPaid$97/Hour ★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫★★★✫::::::!dg301c:….,…….

  24. To the simpler political minds; the GOP looks weak.(which they do)
    Interestingly enough, this didn’t effect my man Trump in the least but what it did do was steer the media and democrats back to the job at hand, which is policy, not the return of the Red Scare.
    The next time that Trump has a crack at HC, he’ll have all the leverage to dictate what he wants in the bill.
    I assume everyone here knows how politics work. The push to reform HC failed FOR NOW…..

  25. Part of the problem is the Insurance industry vs the Hospital industry are fundamentally at odds.
    You have the for profit, and even state hospitals overbilling obscene amounts. You have the Insurance industry trying to pay as little money as possible. Something has got to give.

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