Canadian Healthcare from a Canadian...

[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.