Reply #44: Health Care

[The Straight Story]

She said that other working people had to pay for that.

I would rather pay for it than have someone suffering because I was too greedy to pay for it. Christians (of which I count myself, though I cannot live up to what the name implies) and jews have no problem giving 10% to the church to help out in missionary programs and the like. the idea is that pulling resources from the people can help many.

I don't mind giving part of what I make to the government so that they can do things which help us all (military, roads, and so forth) because it is an investment and (to me) the right thing to do.


It comes down to trust. * is in power now, do you trust him with your medical care? Kerry will be in power soon - do we trust him totally to deliver in the area of medical care? If we localize we can have more control over how things go. Nationally we are at the mercy of the masses (which can be fickle).

We can compare to Ireland, et al, but we are a much larger country. State by state would be better as we can better control and direct how things go. The more we nationalize, the more we will be at the mercy of people like * when they get into power. Take power away from them and focus it on the local level and the better off we can be (IMHO). 50 states which are like 50 countries but share a common thread held together by a federal government. In this sense I suppose one could call me a libertarian more than a democrat (though my family has deep roots in the democrat party from mayors to labor unions). I still vote democrat, but wish sometimes they would do things a bit differently (and perhaps our goal is to get dems to that point, otherwise there would be nothing to debate here I suppose).

The bigger we allow the feds to grow, the more power we give people like bush/rove/et al when they get into power. States are more like countries (When comparing to europe for example) and this allows us to have a broader vision which we can compare and hone to our broader needs. Federal health care can work for the entire US, but maybe the best way to get there is to make it work at the local level first.

I am open to ideas of course, but I think that turning things over to the feds can (in some cases, like when * is in power) focus too much power into the hands of the few. Localized medicine might work for now better than national.

Thanks for the welcome! Hope I can contribute something to this forum.