Americans Want More Health Care Investment by Government

[John Dibble]

I have to wonder if the people who took this poll actually know how much the government does spend on healthcare - I mean, it already spends more than other nations, doesn't it?

[John Dibble]

I have to wonder if the people who took this poll actually know how much the government does spend on healthcare - I mean, it already spends more than other nations, doesn't it?

I have a feeling that the biggest thing you can take from this poll is that people are dissatisfied with health care to a large degree.  I say this because the natural response in most peoples' minds is "bad service = more money needed".

No disagreement there. It's the same with education - some people think simply pumping more money in will solve all our problems.

[John Dibble]

The behaviour you mentioned above was not 'irresponsible', David S, it was caused by the position of the participants in the social heirarchy.  They are powerless poors, and therefore are oppressed, lack resources and options, and therefore live in the fashion described.  The 'blame', as always, lies with the powerful who made it happen that way, not the powerless who were mere victims.

Yes, the poor have absolutely no control over their own behavior. They're incapable of making personal choices. If one is poor, one can't control whether or not one only has one girlfriend or not, or whether one commits a crime.

Reality is that poor people are just as capable of making good decisions as everyone else. Maybe you need to consider the reason that many people like the ones David described are poor because they make bad decisions, not the other way around.

[John Dibble]

I agree with you completely Dibble.  But why waste your time talking common sense to that guy?

There's this little voice in my head, my conscience perhaps, that tells me that I have this duty to speak up against idiocy. Even if the idiots don't listen, which they rarely do since they're idiots, it might make people less prone to listening to them.

[John Dibble]

Good point, John. The best long term solution is to emphasize and promote prevention, rather than focusing solely on cure.

The current system discourages prevention. A single-payer system would do just the opposite.

How? Would single payer magically change people's eating and exercise habits, even though it's already common knowledge that overeating/eating fatty foods and not exercising often are bad for you? Or would it make people stop smoking, even though it's common knowledge that smoking is bad for you?

And how does the current system prevent people from taking the same steps?