I have something I feel I need to share.
 

Okay, so in Texas they were trying to pass a bill to defund Obamacare from what I understand.

So a certain senator decided to stage a filibuster...he read Green Eggs and Ham. He has a good voice. I think you should hear it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3985336.html

Discuss:
Texas
Filibusters (When was the last one? before that woman...)
Obamacare
His voice (and how if he loses the race to get elected, he should be able to get a job recording audio books)

more melodious than the one that read the phone-book?

Can't we just have health care like all the other major country's?
We are the only one, of the Major powers that doesn't have it.
I don't understand. > n <

Listening to that made me feel like I was in church. I'd be giggling non-stop, though.

The problem with socialized healthcare is wait time.

I can get a doctor's appointment if I had called while they were open, either for tomorrow or the day after.

In places with free healthcare, you could be waiting weeks which can kill a person.

It makes sense he would have a good voice since it's difficult to be elected if you don't. I good voice makes people want to listen to you, which means you're more likely to be remembered when the election booklets come out. On top of that if people like what you're saying as well (regardless if others said the same thing) they're more likely to remember your name.

@Yoku: My friend used to live in a country with free health care. I am sure that is not true. Secondly you can go to the emergency room and die as well. I have seen it on tv. A woman went to the emergency room in new york and she waited while having breathing problems till she had a heart attack and died in the waiting room.

As for Filibusters, you see the house and senate do that shit all the time when they want to delay talking about an issue until they are no longer secession. You see where it has gotten us this time. I forget the term but the senate can vote to over ride filibusters but it looks like they do not want to.

I live in a country with free healthcare and thats diliberate misinformation youve been fed yokuu, it does not take weeks to get into a doctor(a dentist or specialist maybe). Not only does the affordable healthcare help people who could never go to the doctor before but it also creates jobs, at first it may be a little hard to get into a doctor but more and more clinics will open which will need doctors, nurses, receptionists, cleaners etc. and maybe even new types of doctors that cater to the low socioeconomic groups. There will always be those people that refuse to go get treated and also others that may not make it to treatment but in the long run it will help immensely.

Also, if something is that bad that you can't wait to see a doctor for 2 weeks then you need to be going to a hospital. Most clinics will also bump you up the queue if it is an emergency, like you just need to get an insulin repeat or something.

It's true that there I often have to wait a few days to a week in order to get a doctor appointment, but that has to do with there being too many patients for each doctor, not with there being free health care. If you're really sick, you don't book a doctor's appointment anyway. You find a walk-in clinic where you don't need an appointment, or you do to the emergency room.

True, wait times are an issue in some areas of health care, but that's natural when the pool of people receiving health care is larger. One could make the argument that universal health care is bad because it means people need to wait for treatment, but then another person could say that better to have the wait times and treat everyone then to cut people out of the system who can't afford it. A person that dies on a wait list is just as dead as the person who dies because they can't afford to get the treatment they need.

This is all over simplifying things but picking apart health care is probably the topic of several theses.

Besides you can always opt to just have extras cover, thats how i do it. My GP and hospital is free and i pay $40 a month to get specialists like dentists, physio, psychiatry covered private. That way I dont sit on the massive ass free appointment list.

No, here, if you're really sick, you make a doctor's appointment and hope you don't die.

For multiple reasons. One: ER Costs. Two: Our ER sucks. Three: Usually it's nothing to go to the ER for.

And there are no walk in clinics here.

Also, when people have a pay set by the government (due to free healthcare) some people who would be in the medical profession won't unless the schooling to become one is also provided by the government (which it isn't in America).

And actually the wait does have to do with free healthcare. I'll compare myself to my cousin. She was having a panic attack, but has medicare/caid so one free visit a day unless they find something wrong on the second visit or some weird crap....so she went to the ER. She didn't listen and had another panic attack and went again. Me? I would've stayed at home and tried to calm down, just like I did when I had chest pains bad enough I couldn't breathe almost. She had free healthcare, so why wouldn't she go for any problem? Whereas me, I don't and I'm not the one who's going to be paying the bill. If I had had free healthcare, you better believe I would have went to the ER right then because there was no question if I could afford it or not. I use this example because both of us thought something was seriously wrong in both situations.

Like right now, I would go to the doctor, except it costs. Money I don't have. So it isn't worth it. And my doctor, half the time, is a complete idiot. But that's not the reason I wouldn't go.

I'll grant you that free health care can generate the wait in part, but we're still going back to the same issue; more people in the system, and in the case of several hospitals and such in Canada, more people than the system can currently handle, and suddenly turning it into a paying system won't help, except to re-arrange wait lists that already exist.

I think it's also important to note that wait has to do with severity of problem. I still see people who forget this and it drives me nuts. Every time I hear someone mutter "I was here first" I want to slap them. Take your cousin with the panic attack. In all likelihood, she would be admitted and watched, but nothing would be done while there were other people with more serious cases in the wait room, unless there was some immediate danger.

Ugh. The health care debates I see on TV always make me annoyed because it always seems to bounce around on assumptions and comparing things that probably shouldn't be compared. Are walk-in clinics factored in when people argue about wait times to see a doctor? True, if I make an appointment with my (busy) doctor, it would probably be take a few days, but if I wanted to see a doctor right now, I could do it at a clinic ten minutes from here.

There's also no small amount of philosophy that comes to play in arguments over health care as well. Is health care a right or a privilege? If the majority of people are okay with health care coverage being a perk that people can buy into if they like, then fine, but accept that there will always be people that want it but can't afford it. If everyone in a country should have a right to come degree of free health care coverage, then fine, but be prepared for the impact that will have on the system.

Okay so I don't understand where you live and why your heath care system does not have a free clinic but my leg got a spider bite, which then turned into a bad infection and for days I went to work thinking it would go away. I finally went to the clinic down the street (walking no less) and they were able to take me that day. The times my mom had to go to the ER for stabbing her self and getting bronchitis she was able to see a doctor that day and with in the hour. My mom doesn't have free health care and I am on my dads insurance. But we are both able to see doctors. I understand not going to a doctor for little things but those little things tend to add up.

The point of free health care is to enable people to take care of themselves and frankly it is not free. America will just end up paying in taxes and before you complain about that, let me put it this way. I do not want my government money to go to the military because I feel like its campaigns in foreign countries are some times frivolous but I understand its important. For the health of our society I would prefer that we switch over to this so called free heathcare but I do not get to choose where my money goes once I pay taxes.

I would also like to point out that Texas is one of the states that also started a petition to secede from the union. Which I thought was un constitutional but I could be wrong.

Well one thing, it's still not free health care. It's a fine if you don't get it. And in my state to get on their medicare or whatever, as a woman, I must be pregnant, have a child, or have cancer. Literally. So for now, I'm on my mom's but when that drops me, I can't get on anything unless I got a job somewhere that provides it.

And I'll mention again for the people still mentioning free clinics...THERE IS NO FREE CLINIC HERE! At best, there's a reduced rate clinic that's open like 10 hrs a week, but you must show proof that you're working and then you must have no insurance which really screws over people who can't find a job but need health care.

Personally, I like money going to the military for one reason. Jobs. Imagine how many people would be jobless if the military was downsized. Now, there is a lot of mismanagement of funds for military....and a lot of things.

Oh and on the admitted by seriousness....what if it's something that could be a sign of something mild OR something serious? What if it turns out to be something serious? They just get to die if there's a line? And that's how all ERs work-saw by seriousness.

It just annoys me when I hear people griping about being there first, when someone comes in bleeding from their ears or something like that.

I only mention the health clinics to illustrate that there are other variables between systems besides one being universal and one not.

And yes, panic attacks and the like can be signs of something worse but it's up to the discretion of the doctors and nurses how much to investigate, and when someone comes in who really *is* dying, that investigation may be put off or cancelled entirely, as far as emergency room stuff goes. It sucks and I'm sure people die from it, but that can happen in any system, universal or not.

I didn't specifically mean Panic attacks. But like one time I went to the university's doctor (kind of a free clinic for students....if you can get in...but then again you're paying so much in tuition it isn't really free) I had a sinus infection, but it was on the verge of being pneumonia. I thought at worse it was just bronchitis. Which, yeah, that wouldn't have happened in an hour or two, but if I had too long of a wait for a doctor, it could happen before I was seen (except I was student and could get an appointment)

My thought is that someone could be dying, but not have too many symptoms and then...they die. They didn't get treatment because a doctor assumed it wasn't dire when it was (not that I'd blame them-just saying). The ER is like that period...and we call ours Deathway...my cousin was there once...a man was having a heart attack and they rolled him around the corner (not into the ER) and left him to die. Imagine how much worse they'll get if there was free healthcare....with the influx of more people.

But how many people in situations like that die at home from not even trying to go to the doctor in the first place?

It's true though, that you can't just flip one method for the other and have things work. There would need to be big changes in infrastructure, and that takes some serious investment.

Of course the money has to come from somewhere, its called free healthcare because it's free for the low income to use. And I agree with pogs, id rather see my money going to healthcare than on military spending.

Obviously to begin with its going to be hard, weve only had subsidised healthcare since the 80s and the system was screwed then. They went through this phase when i was a kid of making you pay $80 up front that they would refund later, apparently i almost died over it. Also theres going to be fewer clinics to begin with but more will open as the need arises, if you feel there arent enough you should write to your local politician(i dont really know how your system works).

Oh and theres no such thing as a walk up clinic here, but if it's urgent but not urgent enough to go to a hospital usually a doctor will squish you in, like the time i needed stitches in my knee.

Going to my local politician will not make a free clinic open. There's only one doctor I know of in this area that even accepts walk ins. And she tends to overmedicate...though she does at least try to find the problem for the people who go to her compared to my doctor's nothing is wrong with you...when there was obviously something wrong.

Also, more clinics won't open if future doctors feel like they won't make enough money to pay off loan debt to go to school...there will be less doctors. Of course, there is no way to judge how many will change their minds. Some will still do it because they want to help people, like if I had went to be a doctor, yes I would like money, but I would like to help people too.

Oh God, I started a thing.
Well, here's my thought on the whole thing as one of those "Lazy poor people" that don't have a job. (Not saying that any of you guys think that, but thats what I hear on the tv all the time any more. I don't have a job = being a lazy F**k. :p-sweat:)

My family is dirt poor, yea? All three adults are jobless and my brother is still too young for a job. My Dad is handicapped & Diabetic the state helps pay for his things, but we still have to pay $25 a month for all of his meds and around $50 for his Diabetic supplies and other such things.

Right now we live in low-income housing thats cheap because we are living off my father's disability check. That pays the bills and little else. I pay for food when I can (I paint and sell those when I can), other than that we don't have a reliable source of money for food. If I do poorly one month we go without food for a few days or have to eat bread & butter for a few weeks.

I want a job, my mom wants a job, however there's nothing available for us that's anything more than minimum wage around here. The kicker is that because our housing is income based, our rent will go up $500 PER JOB. That works out to use both needing 3 part time jobs each to make enough to feed our family after rent, however there is a cap to how much you can make to live the (low income) housing and we would exceed that with that many jobs. So we'd be homeless again. on top of that I go to uni more than full time. Most days I'm there from the crack of dawn to dusk, if not later. I don't have time for a job as I have one that doesn't pay me anything and puts me farther in the hole money wise.

I only have partial Health care through my Uni which only pays for accidents that happen on campus and life threatening things that happen within campus grounds. That's it.
If some ass-hat runs me down on the other side of town they might as well bring the morgue van because I don't have the money for the ambulance. There's also a 25% up front, co-pay that we can't afford. We can't even afford the co-pay.

If one of us gets sick or hurt, well tuff poop. We can't even afford the doctor visit fee for the "Low income" places. I can't get my Anti-depressant pills, I know I have Diabetics but can't pay for the test to get a disability payment to help pay for it. My mom has a non-cancerous tumor that needs to come out and my brother's teeth are a mess...and there's nothing we can do about it. Nothing.

I'm NOT saying free health care will fix all our problems, but It would give me a little bit of peace to know I won't die in my sleep for "x" reason that I already knew was a problem.

That's where I come from.