Canadian Healthcare from a Canadian...

[djnemo65]

Originally Posted by mheisig

Amen to that.

My line of work (street cop) obviously dictates that I interact with a number of poor people, ranging from the homeless, people in government subsidized housing (projects) to just your run-of-the-mill poor people living in trailers or run down houses.

The interesting thing that I've noticed, to an almost overwhelming degree, is that alot of this poverty is quite honestly a choice. How do I know it's a choice? The sheer number of big screen TVs, satellite dishes and other expensive toys that you find in the projects, in low-income neigborhoods, etc. Some of the shittiest houses I've been in have huge flat screen TVs, and the number of DirecTV and DISH Network dishes hanging on the side of tax-payer subsidized housing it's just apalling.

I don't make much money as a cop, and consequently I rent an apartment and I don't even have cable TV. I made the choice to pay my bills, pay my taxes and support my wife and daughter rather than let some other hard working tax payer pick up the slack or go into debt so I can afford a luxury item.

Now I'm not arguing that 100% of the poor choose to be that way, absolutely not. I'm certain that there are people who because of circumstance simply can't get on their feet. I will say that in my experience those people are VERY few and far between.

In my interaction with the homeless I always ask them two questions: 1) Do you have a job? 2) Why not? The answer to the first is, obviously, always "no." The answer to the second is quite often "I don't want to work." They'll flat out tell you most of the time that they just don't want to work. The others will claim it's a disability of some sort.

Bringing this back to healthcare, I personally have a really hard time coughing up more of my hard earned dollars to fund healthcare for people who choose to sit on their ass and watch TV all day long while someone else pays for their needs.

I'm all for helping those who are willing to do a bit for themselves. I think a lot of people, with probably very good intentions, want universal, tax-payer funded healthcare because they're out of touch with the world. I have personally walked the projects, walked the shithole neighborhoods, talked to these people on a daily basis. I suppose all of this can be dismissed as purely anecdotal, but I put a lot more stock in my personal experiences than pure conjecture from an ivory tower. I honestly think sometimes that the people proposing half this stuff must hop in their nice car every day, drive to the office and probably don't have a clue as to what actually goes on out on the street. I don't begrudge that comfortable lifestyle one bit, but let's not pretend that they have any real feel for how most poor people really are. It's not bad intentions, just ignorance.

You are conflating the destitute with the uninsured which is a big mistake. The fact that some irresponsible poor people waste money on luxury items has nothing to do with the failures of health care in this country.

[mheisig]

Originally Posted by djnemo65

You are conflating the destitute with the uninsured which is a big mistake. The fact that some irresponsible poor people waste money on luxury items has nothing to do with the failures of health care in this country.

I'm not mixing the two - a substantial number of the uninsured ARE destitute. I simply said that in my experience, MANY of the poor people waste money on luxury items.

If you're too poor to afford health insurance but you can manage to get a $2500 TV and $100/month for satellite TV, something seems awry. It's not the cause of the "failed" health insurance, but it's one hell of an argument against socialized medicine for the poor, funded by the tax payers.

[djnemo65]

Originally Posted by mheisig

I'm not mixing the two - a substantial number of the uninsured ARE destitute. I simply said that in my experience, MANY of the poor people waste money on luxury items.

If you're too poor to afford health insurance but you can manage to get a $2500 TV and $100/month for satellite TV, something seems awry. It's not the cause of the "failed" health insurance, but it's one hell of an argument against socialized medicine for the poor, funded by the tax payers.

Yeah but what's your argument? That because some people are irresponsible we should maintain the current system? That makes no sense. What about the people who do everything right and don't qualify for insurance, or choose to invest in their kid's education instead, or whatever. Read the article I posted for one possible example. I agree with you that there are some people who probably don't deserve help, but I fail to see the cogency of that relative to this discussion.

Come on, are you are actually saying that because you saw some big screen TV's on your cop beat we shouldn't change our current healthcare system? I'm not saying there aren't interesting arguments to be made for maintaining the status quo, but that's definitely not one of them.