An alternative to Obamacare

Quote from: Tausami on October 01, 2013, 12:59:02 PM

Tom, if there are 9 jobs and 12 people, three people aren't going to have jobs. I don't care how you try to rephrase it. I don't care if one of the jobs is having trouble hiring. Three people aren't going to have jobs. You can't blame those three for that fact. Maybe if they'd worked harder they could have taken one of the 9 jobs. But there'd still be three people without jobs.

You have it all wrong. There are not a lack of jobs in this country. There is a lack of low skill jobs. If anyone is out of a job it's simply because they have not tried hard enough.

Even the mentally retarded have managed to finish college.

Way to not address what Tausami said.  I should try just reasserting the truth I want people to buy in to as well. 

Quote from: Rama Set on October 01, 2013, 12:59:18 PM

Lets not even get in to your vacuous reasoning of how everyone automatically, and is required to have the money for school.

Tausami is going to school without the need of having money, via loans. If you haven't noticed, the government has been giving out loans out to nearly everyone, even if they have no credit at all.

In case you have not noticed, rampant, irresponsible lending like you are describing is precisely why the American economy is such a mess.  This is not a solution, nor should people be decried for not going in to debt to find work so they can then go in to debt to pay medical bills even though they have insurance.

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By your own admission this process would take over 2 years which is more than enough time to go from needing healthcare, to desperately needing healthcare, to being dead.  How do you propose to humanely take care of these people who are trying to do the right thing?

What are you talking about? I didn't suggest that seriously ill people should go to college.

What are you talking about?  I never suggested they do either.  However, now that you bring it up, what is your plan to treat people who get seriously ill and may never have an opportunity to work again?  Turn them in to Soylent Green so you do not have to tolerate their laziness?

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I would also like to add a little anecdote about my sister-in-law, who just gave birth to a baby in California, where it costed approximately $10,000 to have her child.  She had insurance.  How screwed up is that?

I don't find it screwed up. Sounds like she probably got a deal to me.

She likely had a low-cost insurance plan with a high deductible. With this sort of plan she is getting incredibly cheap insurance of perhaps $150 a month, but would be liable for any minor events through the year, usually up to $7,000 or $10,000 dollars annually.

Since many people have that sort of money laying around in their rainy day fund, these sort of plans make sense. Her monthly burden is a lot less than other people who need to pay $500 a month or more for their individual plans, and any major illnesses would be covered. She could get cancer, and rack up 200K in medical bills, yet continue paying only $150 a month. The insurance company is betting that she would only need minor medical needs under 10K.

If her pregnancy or baby had serious complications and needed $80K worth of medical treatment, she would only need to have to pay up to the amount of her $10K deductible, not the entire $80K. The next week after that she could have a heart attack, and not have to pay for any of it.

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Oh, you find it a deal to pay $10,000 to have a child.  Sorry I thought you were a regular human who has compassion and instincts and stuff.  My bad.

Why should the money I earn be taken from me and be given to people who didn't earn it?

Because you are not entirely responsible for the money you earn.  Its as simple as that.

You have it all wrong. There are not a lack of jobs in this country. There is a lack of low skill jobs. If anyone is out of a job it's simply because they have not tried hard enough.

Even the mentally retarded have managed to finish college.

Or they needed to get a job straight out of high-school to support their family, so they can keep a roof over their heads, food in their mouth, and clothes on their back.  Or they had a chronic/debilitating condition that was already a significant drain on their and their family's income, a situation similar to the above arose, and needed to find a job as soon as possible to help pay for their own costs.  These both resulting in an inability to get a proper college education as well as large amounts of debt for, probably, a large portion of their lives.

Or they chose a good career field to be educated in at the time, and the field shrank before they could finish their education and get a job in it, and have all those loans to pay off with no job prospect for lack of experience in a narrow field.  Or they were IN a good job and paying off those student loans you're touting as the catch all, until the field shrinks and they're deemed superfluous, and now they can't find a job and are choking on those very same loans.

Or, hey, they do graduate!  Except nobody will hire them because despite all their efforts, sleepless nights studying, good exam scores, there is an abundance of more qualified individuals who will work for less in their chosen field.

Or- you can see where this is going, there are more reasons that someone can't get a good education or job than for lack of trying.

Tausami is going to school without the need of having money, via loans. If you haven't noticed, the government has been giving out loans out to nearly everyone, even if they have no credit at all.

See the examples above wherein the would-be student isn't able to continue their education due to extenuating circumstances.

What are you talking about? I didn't suggest that seriously ill people should go to college.

The severely ill are part society, regardless of wealth, and oftentimes can't afford and don't have time for all of treatment, education, and a job to support themselves.

Oh, you find it a deal to pay $10,000 to have a child.  Sorry I thought you were a regular human who has compassion and instincts and stuff.  My bad.

Actually, those type of plans are very good deals. You are simply deficient with math. If she goes for a gold star individual insurance plan with nearly everything covered she would be probably be paying around $600 a month.

600 x 12 = 7200 a year.

If she goes for a low-cost, high deductible insurance with a $7500 deductible with $150 premiums she would be paying

150 x 12 = 1800 a year.

In the case of her baby, there were probably complications, since the cost of having a healthy baby should only be about $2K. It's not exactly very common that have serious medical complications like that or get seriously ill. Most people only go through major medical events maybe a few times in their lives. Under her "gold plan" she is spending $288,000 in insurance payments (7200 x 40) over the course of 40 years. Under her low cost plan she is spending $72,000 in payments (1800 x 40) with perhaps an additional $40K in deducible reserved for the few times she got seriously ill.

One plan is clearly better.

Hey Tom, why don't you ask if there were complications instead of assuming the case that supports your claim?  There were not complications.  The only additional cost they opted in to as far as I know, is a private hospital room.  To get this in Canada, we paid $250.

The fucked up thing is that you are sitting there making a financial analysis of someone's health and welfare.  You are, as they say, part of the problem.

Hey Tom, why don't you ask if there were complications instead of assuming the case that supports your claim?  There were not complications.  The only additional cost they opted in to as far as I know, is a private hospital room.  To get this in Canada, we paid $250.

The fucked up thing is that you are sitting there making a financial analysis of someone's health and welfare.  You are, as they say, part of the problem.

WebMd says the cost of having a baby is $2000. If it cost them  $10,000, they either had complications or went to a high class facility where specialists would be down the hall and a lot of special equipment is used.

If that sort of luxury is truly necessary, then fine, we can add another $10K to the $40K, for each child she has under her plan. Unless she has more than 17 children, she's still coming out ahead of the "gold plan" insurance plan.

Quote from: Rama Set on October 02, 2013, 09:23:02 PM

Hey Tom, why don't you ask if there were complications instead of assuming the case that supports your claim?  There were not complications.  The only additional cost they opted in to as far as I know, is a private hospital room.  To get this in Canada, we paid $250.

The fucked up thing is that you are sitting there making a financial analysis of someone's health and welfare.  You are, as they say, part of the problem.

WebMd says the cost of having a baby is $2000. If it cost them  $10,000, they either had complications or went to a high class private facility where specialists would be down the hall and a lot of special equipment is used.

If that sort of luxury is truly necessary, then fine, we can add another $10K to the $40K, for each child she has under her plan. Unless she has more than 17 children, she's still coming out ahead of the "gold plan" insurance.

I do not give a crap what WebMD says.  Neither of your provisos are true and it still cost $10,000.  Does your brain hurt yet?

EDIT: I just read your link.  You are an idiot Tom.  It says the average cost of prenatal care is $2,000.  That does not include actually having the baby.  It accounts for before or "pre" baby time.  Maybe you should go back to school.

I just read your link.  You are an idiot Tom.  It says the average cost of prenatal care is $2,000.  That does not include actually having the baby.  It accounts for before or "pre" baby time.  Maybe you should go back to school.

It is you who should return to school. Perhaps I provided the wrong link while scanning articles, but I am still correct. All that is medically necessary for a safe birth is a room and a midwife. Such procedured are done by the millions around the world and can be done in the privacy of your own home. The actual cost of having a baby can be very cheap indeed.

Humans have been having birth in this manner without modern hospitals for tens of thousands of years, with the vast majority of them being successful and healthy. There are more people who have been home birthed than have been birthed in a hospital.

From a lady who had a homebirth:

Here is the breakdown of the homebirth cost:

- Midwife fee which is usually between 1500-3000 dollars. This fee covers prenatal care, birth, postpartum check up, newborn check up and screening.
- Lab test which costs maximum of 100 dollars.
- Ultrasound which costs 100-200 dollars. In my case, I did not pay for my ultrasound because my midwife happens to own an ultrasound machine which she rents to somebody to operate it.
- Birth supplies.
- Water tub rent, unless your midwife provides this for free

See the following quote from The Atlantic:

"One woman quoted in the Associated Press article that ran in the Express said that her home birth cost $3,300 as opposed to over $10,000 in a hospital."

And on safety, The Atlantic points out:

"My first concern was my child's safety. Marie pointed out that home birth is safe. Most problems are identified during the pregnancy, and if something happens during labor, one can get to the hospital quickly.

Her point about safety is grounded in facts. In 2005, the British Medical Journal published the results of a study based on nearly 5,500 home births involving certified professional midwives in the United States and Canada. Eighty-eight percent of the women had positive outcomes at home. Twelve percent of them were transferred to hospitals, 9 percent for preventive reasons and 3 percent for emergencies. The study showed an infant mortality rate of two out of every 1,000 births.

This is about the same rate as in hospitals at the time, according to Robbie Davis-Floyd, a medical anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin and researcher on global trends in childbirth, obstetrics, and midwifery. The fact is that hospitals aren't failsafe either. Even medical professionals make mistakes, and there's always the risk of infection.

Marie and I also talked about the kind of experience I wanted. She made the point that birth is natural and that, absent complications, there's no need to medicalize it. "

Hospitals are a luxury. They provide the proximity of specialists and have some fancier equipment - things the child would get anyway with a 15 minute rush to the emergency room. The actual cost of what is necessary for a healthy birth is low, far under your $10,000 figure. If your sister-in-law paid such a sum for her pregnancy, she did so out of ignorance or over-protection. There is no reason a hospital is medically necessary for the safe birth of children.

Like I've said before in this thread.

Healthcare should be a completely separate issue to wealth.

Everyone should be entitled to the same standard of healthcare as a basic human right. Even if they're unemployed on benefits or the healthiest person in the world.

I love the fact that some Americans are happy with their health care system being dominated by profit. The system you guys have is pretty expensive and I'm bewildered as to why some of you wouldn't want to have it changed.

Healthcare should be a completely separate issue to wealth.

Everyone should be entitled to the same standard of healthcare as a basic human right. Even if they're unemployed on benefits or the healthiest person in the world.

Healthcare is not a "basic human right". It must be earned. The home you live in, the clothes on your back, and the food you eat must all be earned. Socialism does not work with any of these things. The easier welfare is to get, the less productive society is. People have less of a need to get a post-secondary education or start businesses to get ahead if everything is handed to them on a silver platter.

People who have low income tend to stay that way because there is nothing encouraging them to get out of it. Their needs are met through welfare programs and the democrats will give them retirement and send their children to college. Why would they bother doing anything else, or moving into higher income levels which do not receive those benefits, which might risk that?

I love the fact that some Americans are happy with their health care system being dominated by profit. The system you guys have is pretty expensive and I'm bewildered as to why some of you wouldn't want to have it changed.

Obamacare is a bad bill. All aspects of it are bad. One of Obamacare's main provisions is that pre-existing conditions are automatically covered. This defeats the entire purpose of insurance. When you get home insurance, for example, an inspection of the home must be made. No insurance company is going to insure a house that is already on fire. The entire point of insurance is to insure against something!

The results will be disastrous. Why should I maintain the insurance I have, paying $500 a month, when I can simply keep that money for my own pleasure and then simply get insured once I get sick? That would be the most logical and economical  thing to do, and what everyone will do when they catch on to this.

This is one of the carnal sins of socialism. The system assumes that everyone will act in an unselfish manner for the common good. If the only people paying for the insurance are the sick, the concept of shared risk and preventative insurance becomes meaningless. The main reason insurance can be as low as $500 a month (or even $150 a month with some plans as discussed above) is because there are significantly more people in the system who are not sick than there are who are sick.

Tausami, where can I vote for you and your platform?

Tausami, where can I vote for you and your platform?

Would that be the platform of giving everyone free food, free housing, free phones, free health care, free retirement, free education, general assistance, child care, you-name-it, don't have to earn it, and who cares what happens to society as result?

Another idea for this hypothetical Health Bank. The loan money doesn't necessarily need to be paid back in cash. Since the government makes more money if people are earning more, medical loans can be partially or wholly repaid in other ways which benefits the government and society. For example:

- Medical bills will be paid on condition of completing an 18 month program at a trade school, in a program such as Radiology or other fields the government feels are in demand. And once the student graduates he or she will be making significantly more money, and therefore will be bringing in much more in taxes over their lifetime for the government.

- Medical bills will be paid on the condition that the patient completes a round of military service.

- Medical bills will be paid on the condition that the patient forms or works in a non-profit, entities which save the government money by doing the things they usually do (schools, charities, etc).

- Medical bills can be paid back over time through part time or occasional jobs for the government, things the government would otherwise have to pay people to do. Highway work, ditch digging, trash pickup, substitute teaching, data entry, etc.

Now, not all of these are possible for everyone, but anyone can see that this is a much better idea than the evils of socialized health care, as it actually benefits society, not takes away from it.

Another idea for this hypothetical Health Bank. Money doesn't necessarily need to be paid back in cash. Since the government makes more money if people are earning more, medical loans can be partially or wholly repaid in other ways which benefits the government and society. For example:

- Medical bills will be paid on condition of completing an 18 month program at a trade school, in a program such as Radiology or other fields the government feels are in demand. And once the student graduates he or she will be making significantly more money, and therefore will be bringing in much more in taxes over their lifetime for the government.

- Medical bills will be paid on the condition that the patient completes a round of military service.

- Medical bills will be paid on the condition that the patient forms or works in a non-profit, entities which save the government money by doing the things they usually do (schools, charities, etc).

- Medical bills can be paid back over time through part time or occasional jobs for the government, things the government would otherwise have to pay people to do. Highway work, ditch digging, trash pickup, substitute teaching, data entry, etc.

Now, not all of these are possible for everyone, but anyone can see that this is a much better idea than the evils of socialized health care, as it actually benefits society, not takes away from it.

So get another job.  How many jobs do you think the government has available?  Or needs?

And trade school, who pays for it?  The patient or the government?

Quote from: Chris Spaghetti on October 03, 2013, 12:43:06 AM

Tausami, where can I vote for you and your platform?

Would that be the platform of giving everyone free food, free housing, free phones, free health care, free retirement, free education, general assistance, child care, you-name-it, don't have to earn it, and who cares what happens to society as result?

I support a basic safety net which doesn't result in people dying on the streets from a combination of malnutrition and easily-cured maladies. People will still have aspirations, from material luxuries, to holidays, to simple self-improvement.

Think of it as giving everyone the same opportunities as the children of middle-class families most of whom want to do well, to study for university, to get jobs, to make something of themselves in the world, even though it's possible for them to simply coast at home under their parents' roof.

Another idea for this hypothetical Health Bank. Money doesn't necessarily need to be paid back in cash. Since the government makes more money if people are earning more, medical loans can be partially or wholly repaid in other ways which benefits the government and society. For example:

- Medical bills will be paid on condition of completing an 18 month program at a trade school, in a program such as Radiology or other fields the government feels are in demand. And once the student graduates he or she will be making significantly more money, and therefore will be bringing in much more in taxes over their lifetime for the government.

- Medical bills will be paid on the condition that the patient completes a round of military service.

- Medical bills will be paid on the condition that the patient forms or works in a non-profit, entities which save the government money by doing the things they usually do (schools, charities, etc).

- Medical bills can be paid back over time through part time or occasional jobs for the government, things the government would otherwise have to pay people to do. Highway work, ditch digging, trash pickup, substitute teaching, data entry, etc.

Now, not all of these are possible for everyone, but anyone can see that this is a much better idea than the evils of socialized health care, as it actually benefits society, not takes away from it.

You have really drunk the kool-aid on universal health care.  As someone who lives in a country with universal health care, I can tell you that health care does not take away from society in the slightest.  I dont even know what metric you are thinking of when you spout off your nonsense like "takes away from (society)". 

Quote from: Chris Spaghetti on October 03, 2013, 12:43:06 AM

Tausami, where can I vote for you and your platform?

Would that be the platform of giving everyone free food, free housing, free phones, free health care, free retirement, free education, general assistance, child care, you-name-it, don't have to earn it, and who cares what happens to society as result?

Classic slippery slope fallacy. 

So get another job.  How many jobs do you think the government has available?  Or needs?

A lot. The government is very big. Over 40 million people are employed in some way by government. There is a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done.

For example, if the government decided to outsource much of its general data entry to the recovering sick to pay off their medical bills, that's a good thing. It is freeing up the civil servant paper pushers to focus on other more important matters.

And trade school, who pays for it?  The patient or the government?

It could be a shared burden. The tuition for such trade school programs isn't high. An 18 month Radiology Technology program tends to range from $7,000-$10,000. If someone of minimum wage, low skill employment gets sick and needs a $30,000 loan which they cannot pay back the government can cut them a deal. It will loan them $40,000, and write it all off on condition that they graduate from such a program under a certain time limit which allows for night school, and then look for a job.

In these offers the government would pick a field which is in high demand, using its own  statistics from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The government knows that there are not a lack of jobs available in the fields it picks, but too many. When that person graduates from their program and goes on to work for a hospital or clinic for $25 - 35 an hour depending on location, they are bringing in significantly more in taxes than they were at $10 an hour. If they work for an average of $30 they are now making $60,000 a year and in a new tax bracket.

Ignoring state income taxes and sales taxes, over the course of a single year at a 25% federal income tax bracket the government would be receiving $15,000 in taxes from a salary of $60,000. This is in comparison to insignificant sum of $3,120 the government would be receiving from the 15% tax bracket on a salary of $20,800.

Over the course of 10 years the person would bring in $150,000 in taxes as a radiologist tech, compared to the $31,200 that person would be bringing in if he or she had stayed in their minimum wage job. $150K minus the government's initial investment of $40K, minus the $31K they otherwise would have gotten if they had stayed low-wage means a profit of $78,800 over 10 years.

If that person happens to stay in that profession for the rest of their life, or more likely, move up in that field, it's all the more money for that person's family, more taxes for the government, and less burden on American public to support the minimum-wage welfare programs they would have been on. Everyone succeeds. It's a win-win all around.

Tom: what evidence do you have that using tax revenue to fund greater access to primary care causes society to be less productive?

I support a basic safety net which doesn't result in people dying on the streets from a combination of malnutrition and easily-cured maladies. People will still have aspirations, from material luxuries, to holidays, to simple self-improvement.

Think of it as giving everyone the same opportunities as the children of middle-class families most of whom want to do well, to study for university, to get jobs, to make something of themselves in the world, even though it's possible for them to simply coast at home under their parents' roof.

I'm not against offering opportunities to people, but I am against simply giving it to them. If my child has graduated high school and needs financial support, am I in the wrong to expect that they go to college on the condition of my support? I'm an understanding man. I'll also give them the option of working for my business and allow them to get some work experience for their resume if they face significant cognitive issues and school just isn't right for them.

Any parent would agree that the two options above are much, much better than simply giving it to them.

Where do you propose to find the funding to cover medical bills and trade school if the loans are going to be forgiven?  Also, I'm not sure if you have experience with data entry and some of the more mindless jobs, but not everyone can actually do them.  It takes a special attention to detail to prevent very costly mistakes.  Not to mention that you just put the data entry workers out of work without analyzing whether they can work elsewhere or if funding allows it.

Tom: what evidence do you have that using tax revenue to fund greater access to primary care causes society to be less productive?

For evidence, talk to any parent who has supported their children past high school. Giving young adults things without conditions causes them to be less productive.

If benefits are simply given, the children are less productive in their lives. If benefits must be earned, the children are more productive. The parents who support their children with conditions that they educate themselves will have more successful children than the parents who simply give their children things without any conditions at all.

Anecdotal evidence from an extremely biased source.  Nice one.

Quote from: garygreen on October 03, 2013, 09:15:02 AM

Tom: what evidence do you have that using tax revenue to fund greater access to primary care causes society to be less productive?

For evidence, talk to any parent who has supported their children past high school. Giving young adults things without conditions causes them to be less productive.

If benefits are simply given, the children are less productive in their lives. If benefits must be earned, the children are more productive. The parents who support their children with conditions that they educate themselves will have more successful children than the parents who simply give their children things without any conditions at all.

So you think that the relationship between the state and its citizens is a parent/child relationship?  The state is our 'parents,' and we're its children?

If your children don't do their chores, do you withhold medical care from them?  Food?  Shelter?

So you think that the relationship between the state and its citizens is a parent/child relationship?  The state is our 'parents,' and we're its children?

Correct. It is a parent/child relationship. If you are receiving welfare you are a dependent of the state.

If your children don't do their chores, do you withhold medical care from them?  Food?  Shelter?

If my children are past the age of 18 and they drop out of college and choose to hang around all day with their friends smoking pot, and are generally are doing nothing, in a pattern of leaching off of me, then they need to leave and find their own way. That's the only way they will find the incentive to succeed and do something with their lives.

If my loser child leaves my home, happy working minimum wage without insurance, and happens to get themselves into a medical situation, perhaps I would feel generous enough to step in to help them pay their medical bills and avoid wage garnishment and seizure of assets, but I would expect something in return.

Support must be lent, not given.

Quote from: DDDDAts all folks on October 03, 2013, 12:01:11 AM

Healthcare should be a completely separate issue to wealth.

Everyone should be entitled to the same standard of healthcare as a basic human right. Even if they're unemployed on benefits or the healthiest person in the world.

Healthcare is not a "basic human right". It must be earned. The home you live in, the clothes on your back, and the food you eat must all be earned. Socialism does not work with any of these things. The easier welfare is to get, the less productive society is. People have less of a need to get a post-secondary education or start businesses to get ahead if everything is handed to them on a silver platter.

People who have low income tend to stay that way because there is nothing encouraging them to get out of it. Their needs are met through welfare programs and the democrats will give them retirement and send their children to college. Why would they bother doing anything else, or moving into higher income levels which do not receive those benefits, which might risk that?

Quote from: DDDDAts all folks on October 03, 2013, 12:01:11 AM

I love the fact that some Americans are happy with their health care system being dominated by profit. The system you guys have is pretty expensive and I'm bewildered as to why some of you wouldn't want to have it changed.

Obamacare is a bad bill. All aspects of it are bad. One of Obamacare's main provisions is that pre-existing conditions are automatically covered. This defeats the entire purpose of insurance. When you get home insurance, for example, an inspection of the home must be made. No insurance company is going to insure a house that is already on fire. The entire point of insurance is to insure against something!

The results will be disastrous. Why should I maintain the insurance I have, paying $500 a month, when I can simply keep that money for my own pleasure and then simply get insured once I get sick? That would be the most logical and economically beneficially thing to do, and what everyone will do when they catch on to this.

This is one of the carnal sins of socialism. The system assumes that everyone will act in an unselfish manner for the common good. If the only people paying for the insurance are the sick, the concept of shared risk and preventative insurance becomes meaningless. The main reason insurance can be as low as $500 a month (or even $150 a month with some plans as discussed above) is because there are significantly more people in the system who are not sick than there are who are sick.

Are you willing to tell me you would watch another human being (even if it's your child) die because they can't afford medical treatment?

As a human being, that's part of a society, I could not stand buy and let that happen.

The only thing a person gets from healthcare is their health, not money, health. I pretty much take a hardline approach to the unemployed.

Also, I don't know if the Obamacare bill is good or not (it's probably not the best way of approaching your crappy system), however it's better than what you have at the moment

Quote from: garygreen on October 03, 2013, 10:00:51 AM

So you think that the relationship between the state and its citizens is a parent/child relationship?  The state is our 'parents,' and we're its children?

Correct. It is a parent/child relationship. If you are receiving welfare you are a dependent of the state.

Quote

If your children don't do their chores, do you withhold medical care from them?  Food?  Shelter?

If my children are past the age of 18 and they drop out of college and choose to hang around all day with their friends smoking pot, and are generally are doing nothing, in a pattern of leaching off of me, then they need to leave and find their own way. That's the only way they will find the incentive to succeed and do something with their lives.

If my loser child leaves my home, happy working minimum wage without insurance, and happens to get themselves into a medical situation, perhaps I would feel generous enough to step in to help them pay their medical bills and avoid wage garnishment, but I would expect something in return.

Support must be lent, not given.

That you have a black and white approach to these things shows an immature mind.  Life is more complicated than you are giving credit.  It is also pretty appalling that you would consider someone a loser just because they do not buy in to your formula of what successful is.

Are you willing to tell me you would watch another human being (even if it's your child) die because they can't afford medical treatment?

As a human being, that's part of a society, I could not stand buy and let that happen.

The only thing a person gets from healthcare is their health, not money, health. I pretty much take a hardline approach to the unemployed.

Also, I don't know if the Obamacare bill is good or not (it's probably not the best way of approaching your crappy system), however it's better than what you have at the moment

I did not say anything about letting people die. I suggested nothing of the sort. I provided an alternative to just giving it to them. We'll step in and pay your bills, but we expect something in return. If people can't pay in cash, they can pay in other ways.

Regardless, no one who is uninsured is refused life saving service by the doctor. We don't live in that kind of society. No one is faced with death because of a lack of money. They just get big medical bills in the mail and proceed not to pay it, which is why medical costs are as high as they are.

That you have a black and white approach to these things shows an immature mind.  Life is more complicated than you are giving credit.  It is also pretty appalling that you would consider someone a loser just because they do not buy in to your formula of what successful is.

I went in for an ultrasound of my internal organs the other day and the lady was telling me about how she went back to school at the age of 50 and was out in 18 months. It's entirely possible.

Most people go home and turn on the TV as the first thing they do. The average adult female watches 34 hours a week. That sounds like a big waste to me. If the government forced her to instead spend that time getting an education her life would be better off, her family would be better off, and we would all be better off.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm
Your time spent watching tv statistic seems a bit off.  This report shows an average of only 2.5 hours a day or about 17.5 a week. 

But DuckDodgers, he got the statistic from askville!