Prtndr there appears to be a rather large problem with the information you've presented here. Since illegal aliens by in large don't file income tax forms how are they supposed to be fined in the first place?

 

The last thing Republicans want is for Americans to stop being driven into bankruptcy by catastrophic medical expenses after insurance companies refuse to pay for illnesses and major surgeries. That would be a victory for Obama.

 

Read the footnotes.

 

You read them, tenguy, and answer these questions for me. How many people come to the United States every year for health care? What countries do they come from? How rich are they?

When I post links, I post excerpts from the links in my comments, and only include the links as confirmation of what I post. You post a bunch of right wing hot air that you expect me to walk through coughing and sneezing in search of a fact or two.

The argument that one can get the best health care in the world in the United States if one can afford it does not cut any more ice with me than the argument that a brand new Lexus provides better transportation than a thirty year old Ford Pinto. I don't care one bit if billionaires from third world hell holes fly their private jets to the U.S. for expensive treatments. I care about the people who live here and who who die because they can't afford that sort of thing.

 

No, you do not post the numbers, you post articles that refer to the numbers, just as I have.

The problem is you don't want to know that someone disagrees with your assessment of things.

Your claim that no one but the rich have access to the quality of care is foolishly wrong. 85% of or population has this access, 15% also have it, but are not proesently covered for the costs to use it. However, most of them do get the care required through programs for the indigent.

You are attempting to paint a picture of absolute breakdown in the US health care industry, where no such situation exists. Just to get your pet socialistic programs installed, shame on you.

 

By accusing me of claiming that there is "an absolute breakdown in the US health care industry," you are indulging in the straw man fallacy. I never claimed there was a breakdown. I asked three simple questions, which you have been unable to answer. Shame on you.

Americans spend nearly twice as much on health care as people in the next country, which is Norway. Nevertheless, 45,000 Americans die every year because they do not have health coverage. Shame on America.

 

You are quick to demand, but slow to acknowledge. You claim that I am unable only because you failed to read them.

How is it a "straw man", (BTW you love to invoke this when challenged), to say that you have repeated said that the system was broken.

Please show me where the 45,000 would not have died if the bill on the floor of the Senate is enacted. For this is the debate, the health care bill, not your socialist Utopian pipedreams.

 

I love facts that can be substantiated by referring to reputable sources. The kinds of numbers I have posted here are things like the unemployment rate in 1944, the top tax rate then, the average numbers of jobs created every year during various Democrat and Republican presidents, the number of people who die every year in the United States because they lack health coverage, the black murder rate, the percentage of Nobel Prize winners who were Jews, and so on. I get flamed by those who do not like the facts I present, but they cannot dispute the facts.

 

If that is true, why do I read so many right wing newspapers and opinion journals? I love to investigate other points of view, tenguy. If you still have not discovered that, you have not been paying attention.

 

New study finds 45,000 deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage

I read every one of your links. They made one assertion that I reject for moral reasons. They made another assertion that they did not substantiate.

I never said that the health bill is perfect. It has imperfections that were necessary to get it passed. This is where I got the 45,000 figure:

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Uninsured, working-age Americans have 40 percent higher death risk than privately insured counterparts

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal of Public Health. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

“The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors, and baseline health,” said lead author Andrew Wilper, M.D., who currently teaches at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease — but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.”

http://www.harvardscience.harvard.e...0-deaths-annually-linked-lack-health-coverage

 

Once again, tenguy, how many people come to the United States every year for health care? What countries do they come from? How rich are they? If you cannot answer those three simple questions, tenguy, you are blowing hot air.

 

Fallacy: Straw Man

Where did I ever use the word "broken" to describe the U.S. health system? Also, by claiming that I am a socialist, you are also resorting to a straw man argument. I do not hold up the Soviet Union as an ideal. I hold up European social democracy. A mark of intelligence is the ability to make distinctions.

--------

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

https://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

 

You just described yourself to a tee.

 

Which facts have I distorted? How have I distorted them? Where are the answers to the three questions I asked previously?

 

Survey Gives Low Grade To U.S. Health Care

Forbes March 17th, 2009 By Lisa LaMotta

The bad economy has led nearly 25% of consumers to delay medical care because they couldn't afford it or didn't have insurance, according to a new survey.

It gets worse: Forty percent of Americans give the U.S. health care system a grade of D or F, according to the report, released today by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. It polled more than 4,000 Americans age 18 and over. Sixteen percent of respondents say they've been forced to switch doctors, with a quarter of the switches due to cost. Seventeen percent of enrollees switched heathcare plans last year, with more than a quarter of them seeking a lower cost plan.

That all adds up to a case for healthcare reform, say the authors at Deloitte. Americans are caught in a web of multiple medications, chronic conditions, and the high costs that come with them.

"The current economic climate is taking a toll on American consumers prompting them to increasingly make decisions about health care that are married to their pocketbooks," said Paul H. Keckley, Ph.D., executive director, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. "The time for health care reform could not be more pressing."

http://blogs.forbes.com/sciencebizblog/2009/03/survey-gives-low-grade-to-us-health-care/

 

If Europeans have lower rates of gun violence and automobile accidents, those are not just cultural differences. They are areas of cultural superiority. Europeans restrict gun ownership and tax gasoline so heavily that people find alternatives to automobile transportation.

I am reasonably good at finding information on the Internet. Because you have not been able to explain how many people come to the United States every year for health care, I have been doing your homework for you. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to save your grade, tenguy.

I keep finding the assertion that lots of people come to the U.S. for health care, but no one gives a number, and the assertion is never substantiated.

Once again, tenguy: how many people come to the United States for health care? What countries do they come from? How rich are they? Answers, tenguy. I want answers.

 

I don't care if the Grand Poobah from Lower Thejerkistan flies to the United States in his private jet with his four wives and his ten concubines to get a brain transplant operation. I care about the 45,000 Americans who die every year because they don't have health coverage.