My Retraction Of Support For Ron Paul.
July 27, 2007 by koko chassid
When I was sitting on my recliner last night, I was thinking about people who have a sickness and their insurance will not cover them because it’s a pre-existing condition. And then I think of Ron Paul. The candidate who I supported until this very moment. Why does someone who needs help have to have permission from a private insurance company to decide their fate?
This is a failed system and Ron Paul will make it worse. A persons health shouldn’t be a business. The people on this blog were WRONG about Dr. Paul about choice, abortion, and gay rights. But his health care plan is horrible. From here on I am supporting Bill Richardson. A candidate with a serious health care plan! I am still fiscally conservative and socially liberal as I always was, but I am not supporting Ron Paul.
hallelujah! you have come back from the dark side. ron paul is definitely NOT what america needs.
[Reply]
If you don’t want healthcare to be motivated by profit what do you want it to be motivated by?
Government intervention = lower quality care and higher costs.
Vote Ron Paul 2008!
[Reply]
John so when your house burning down the fire department should call a pivate company ansk if they are allowed to put out the fire????
[Reply]
james martin Reply:
July 27th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
umm… incase you didn’t know… in 90% of the rural communities in america, that’s exactly what you would do.
[Reply]
chris Reply:
July 28th, 2007 at 5:59 am
You can’t actually be this ignorant. Do you guys honestly believe that by giving the government more power over us that we will be better off? You’re stance is completely insane. According to you the fire department should instead call this bullshit corrupt government and ask if they are allowed to put out the fire? You base your whole vote on one issue, are you kidding me? Did you not know that the IRS is bullshit and unlawful? Did you not know that the constitution which is supported only by Paul supports self government and less restrictions instead of more? You guys claim to be progressive? You’re products of the machine and unless somebody with a little empathy for you gets involved you will be progressively led to complete enslavement. Wake the fuck up!
[Reply]
The reason why health care sucks is because government got involved in it. HMO’s were green-lighted by Nixon. Healthcare used to be a combination of charitable and private doctors, working in a patchwork of non-profit hospitals. Now it’s nearly *impossible* to give charity care without having the person who’s bleeding in the emergency room 20 questions about their income. Ron Paul is absolutely correct when he says that HMO’s who are buying off politicians are the problem - can you guess who that is? None other than Hillary “universal health care” Clinton.
[Reply]
And seriously, Ron Paul does not advocate private fire departments. It’s up to every local community to decide how to put out fires.
[Reply]
Its js a comparrisent
[Reply]
People are delirious if they think what America has free market health care. The more government’s been involved the worse its gotten. It’s simple, really. Health care is a service, just like selling bread. Obviously, one is more important but the point remains that for a service to work requires the efforts of Group A on Group B. Capitalism has shown that having a profit motive is the best way to ensure maximum benefit for all. Intentions don’t matter, as communism has proven. Results do, as capitalism has proven.
[Reply]
then hy are public hospitlas being controled by private insuranse!
[Reply]
*why
[Reply]
before the increased government involvement dating back to the 1960s, such problems were addressed privately. you worked directly with caregivers and in catastrophic cases were usually charged the least price, unlike today where all are given all tests and charged the maximum. also many churches and charities ran hospitals and the care, for the poor, was often free or greatly discounted. my own family was hit by catastrophic health problems with my sister in the 1960s. we were a family of 7 and my dad was an auto mechanic. we survived it without any economic harm, and my sister recovered.
the system used to work. government involvement through legislation and managed care has isolated the patients from affordable care they need.
[Reply]
Have you talked to anybody who works in healthcare? YOU CANT GIVE CHARITY CARE ANYMORE. The government instituted insanely complicated rules controlling charity care to the point where it has been nearly eliminated. Think about how health care was in previous generations. You’d call a doctor and he’d come by. Many doctors used to do charity care, and their fees would be based upon your ability to pay. Churches used to run hospitals, which were attended by either nuns or female volunteers (i.e. nurses). Ron Paul is advocated that the Feds get out of the way so that medical practitioners can do their jobs, isntead of filing endless reams of paperwork. Now, if an individual state wants to do universal health care, that’s perfectly fine. In that case families can choose which state offers the best health care. Hell, if all states had competing universal health care, that would be great - much better than blanket federal care. Ron Paul would not stop that from happening!
[Reply]
Then how come Canada , England , France ,Germany , Israel they are all doing fine with universal health care. And do not want to hearthis bull shit about long waits!
[Reply]
“John so when your house burning down the fire department should call a pivate company ansk if they are allowed to put out the fire????”
That would actually work better than the system we’ve got. Response teams would be faster and the cost would be a lot less. That way you wouldn’t have to pay unless your house actually caught fire which 90% of the time is due to negligence. Why should I have to pay for a fire department if I have the brains to keep my house safe? A private company would do a much better job because it would be motivated by profit to save your life and your home.
[Reply]
“Then how come Canada , England , France ,Germany , Israel they are all doing fine with universal health care. And do not want to hearthis bull shit about long waits!’
Actually the countries you listed AREN’T doing fine. The people wait in long lines to recieve care and higher percentages of patients die in those countries than in the US. When you socialize something the quality goes DOWN.
[Reply]
Canada, England, France, and Germany aren’t “doing fine” with universal health care. France’s economy has been in perma-recession for years now with average GDP declining steadily. (Ignore the GDP, look at GDP-per-capita, then be sure and adjust it for inflation and population growth.) England has been shown to underinvest by 20% compared to what free markets (IE, what their own people) would choose. Canadians who want treatments frequently travel to the USA, because Canadian medicine is tied up in a permanent triage where care is organized by military standards. I don’t know anything about Germany, but I suspect they look like either England or France on this issue.
Oh, and they all have long wait times.
As for private insurance, that didn’t exist until the government gave a massive tax break to employers who provided insurance. Due to this tax break, companies started providing insurance for their employees. This spawned the insurance industry, which went from covering a tenth of medical expenses to covering nearly all of them.
The medical insurance industry is a bureaucratic nightmare which survives only on government interventions in healthcare. To fix medical care what we need to do are change tax rules to count healthcare benefits to employees as income.
Ron Paul is the only candidate who holds the anti-corporatist free market stances which would enable him to take steps in such a direction. The problem with healthcare is a market distortion. This is one element of that distortion.
[Reply]
lol your a dumbass
[Reply]
david Reply:
July 28th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
good one! burn…
[Reply]
david Reply:
July 28th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
and it’s “you’re” not “your”…dumbass
[Reply]
Hey, Howdy, and Hello…
I’ve been paying special close attention to Mr. Ron Paul for the past little while, even though I am a Canadian Citizen and unable to vote. I strongly believe he’s the man to get rid of the major plauges on America though. The IRS, The Patriot Act, and the Iraq War, as well as cleaning up a ton of the spending and bugetary rediculousness that the States are currently seeing.
But the reason I’m posting here is that I have noticed a fundemental difference in the level of care that you can recieve between the United States and Canada. My father needed a CAT scan a few years back, and was put on a year long waiting list. (I understand that people don’t want to hear about waiting lists apparently, but it is an issue. It’d be like not talking about Iraq if you wanted to talk about war.) After about a month my Dad had quite enough of this and went down to the States and paid the fee and got his Scan instantaniously.
Now, he DID have to pay for it, and it was NOT affordable, but that points more to the problem being the high costs, and less to availability. I think Ron Paul’s system is sound if people would give it a chance, it’s certianly better then what’s happening right now.
And let’s not go around kidding ourselves that the Canadian system is perfect. I have a cousin, dying, waiting for a kidney transplant. They have the donor, they have every except a doctor. Six month waiting list.
[Reply]
good rebuttal.
[Reply]
Whatever… You’re not retracting support… if you think health care is a “right” you never supported him in the first place… let’s not pretend you’re having some kind of revelation.
The health care system is a heartless monster in this country because of the government… we need to end the power of the drug companies and insurance companies by ending the lobbying machine in washington… not by creating more programs for these dirt bags to lobby for.
[Reply]
I did supprt Paul until I found out what a ass he is.
[Reply]
Yeah Ron Paul is only a Doctor. What does he know about health care anyway? I’d rather trust a lawyer (Hillary or Ghooliani) than a Doctor.
[Reply]
He is a medical doctor.If you saw SiCKO then youd see MD’s are happy with socialized medicine
[Reply]
http://freemarketcure.com/socializedmedicineissicko.php
A good intro to your socialized healthcare wet-dream.
[Reply]
In addition to the quite valid arguments others have made, the biggest argument against federal health care is simple: The federal government is objectively corrupt. The biggest advocates of universal healthcare get the most donations from HMOs. Why do you think that is? Because the HMOs think universal healthcare is going to make them less money? No, it’s because they know it will funnel trillions of your tax dollars into their coffers. It’s the same thing with every other government “problem”: Problem/reaction/solution. The government creates a problem (insurance companies taking over healthcare), the public is outraged, and the government proposes a “solution” by making the corrupt bureaucracy that caused the problem in the first place even bigger. At some point you need to realize that the government is the *cause* of the problems you want it to solve. Get the government *out* of healthcare and it will improve.
“Then how come Canada , England , France ,Germany , Israel they are all doing fine with universal health care.”
Because 1) those governments are less corrupt 2) it’s still slowly bankrupting them and 3) they are doing it on a more appropriate scale. The economy of France is smaller than the economy of California, so what makes you think that California couldn’t implement the French healthcare system? Local government is both more accountable and less corruptible, because it is more trouble to buy off all 50 states than the one federal government. You want socialized medicine? Fine. Do it. But do it where it works, at the state level.
“lol your a dumbass”
Gads, what a witty retort. I doubt anyone will be able to counter it.
“I did supprt Paul until I found out what a ass he is.”
Logic isn’t your strong suit, is it?
“He is a medical doctor.If you saw SiCKO then youd see MD’s are happy with socialized medicine”
Are you seriously using a propaganda film as evidence? As if there are no doctors who think it would be a catastrophe? Michael Moore is not a statistically valid sample.
[Reply]
Bill Richardson will be great for america
[Reply]
@Jack: Good points. Bottom line is that koko didn’t do the research when he started supporting Paul. Since koko is a fan of government welfare, it is obvious that he should never have supported Paul to begin with. Also, based on koko’s responses, it is unlikely that koko is intelligent or mature enough to even understand Paul’s message.
[Reply]
Paul’s mesage is isolation which isent bad. But when it comes to health care he falls apart!
[Reply]
Of course people’s healthcare should be a business. It should be their business.
The healthcare industry only exists because of the government. If government did not have the amount of corporate law, protecting businesses from suits, they would have to pay more attention to patients care. If government didn’t demand voluminous paperwork from healthcare workers they could spend more time with patients. If government didn’t insist on getting the lowest price ever offered for a procedure, more charity would be done, and those who have cash wouldn’t pay the most. If government didn’t protect insurance companies as corporations from suits they would be more responsive to their customers needs. If government would butt out of healthcare, it would cost less, and be better, and insurance costs would be less, and be better.
Instead government adds to the costs of both, and makes it unattractive to provide either.
There is a reason people flee across the Canadian border for our healthcare. There is a reason Americans flee across the border to Mexico for healthcare.
[Reply]
Why would someone want to ask either the GOVERNMENT or INSURANCE to decide their fate?!? By changing the system from insurance to government, you aren’t changing the problem of someone else making decisions for you! (PS, the US government already pays over 50% of the health care bills in America and look how well it’s working!)
I am in the middle of medical school right now and from what I can tell, the problem is not insurance or government per se, it’s the THIRD PARTY PAYER, you give your money to someone else (through insurance premiums or taxes) and they decide what health benefits you can get. You’re right, people should decide for themselves, but in order to make that happen, people have to control their own money and make decisions with their doctor’s, without anyone else butting in. Our health care system is broke because it’s not a free market. The consumers don’t have control over their money and health care choices because they are either giving it to insurance companies or to the government to decide for them.
Put the money back in health care consumers hands and you’ll see just how fast prices will drop and quality will go up, just like any other segment of the economy. Leading to better health care for all.
This is exactly what Ron Paul would, in the end, like to accomplish.
[Reply]
How is it there buisness when a doctor has to ask a PRIVATE insurance company to get the treatment done???
[Reply]
If Ron Paul’s health care stance was going to sell you out to the corporations, then why aren’t they all giving to his campaign. Do you think the Reps and Dems are defending us from the evil corporations and libertarians? Or is it that the libertarians are the party with YOU in mind? Why do they give to Killary and Obama?
[Reply]
Dan Solis Reply:
July 27th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
because the corporations are already donating to the top republican candidates.
[Reply]
david Reply:
July 28th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
please, they are obviously donating large amounts of money to the dems even more then the repubs.
[Reply]
Paul is such a liar he is getting money from Libertarian lobbys like CATO
[Reply]
Your position makes no sense whatsover. You do not have a “right” to healthcare, because it involves the right of other people. In order to get healthcare, someone has to provide it for you. If you have a right to healthcare, that means someone else has to lose their rights, since the government has to force them to provide that service to you.
The only thing you have a right to is to be protected from coercion: to be free. This is the role of government: to protect your freedom.
[Reply]
Glad you finally saw the light, KoKo.
[Reply]
Umm, what in the hell does Ron Paul have to with an agreement between you and your insurance company?
The writer of this post is a complete idiot.
[Reply]
It really is a dealkiller, good for you making a decision.
Having a third party candidate like ron paul is important, i hope ron paul stays in the race and expands the issues the leading two candidates will not discuss unless pressed. Even though he is dead wrong about healthcare, he is very correct about many other things.
[Reply]
The private vs. governmental is a false dichotomy. The first health/emergency insurance came through fraternal orders and some of them still supply excellent coverage to members today. In fact, it was the program of the Redman that FDR used as a model for Social Security. In government hands that had changed from entirely voluntary to mandatory very rapidly.
Insurance provided through fraternal or similar mediums works because it is NOT governmental, and so never diluted, and not for profit, because it is administered by volunteers, intentionally leaving the money paid in for the use of members.
It is silly to assume that this is an either - or. The best plans for health are very different in basic premise and design.
[Reply]
smiley, Ron Paul is not a “third party” candidate. Unless the Republican Party is now a third party…
[Reply]
Before you write off Ron Paul based upon your admirable desire for high-quality, accessible health care, I’d check out his comments on healthcare during his interview/Q&A session at Google:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCM_wQy4YVg
As a physician, Dr. Paul knows what he’s talking about. There’s no question that our current system is, in many ways, the “worst of both worlds” with the toxic mix of corporate and Federal bureaucracies. But today, we’re actually a lot closer to the single payer system that you crave than you might think. In fact, 2/3 of all health expenditures are paid by the Federal/State/local governments between Medicare, Medicaid, and DOD/VA systems. And the remaining 1/3 of “corporate care” insurance takes its cue regarding what it will cover & pay directly from Medicare itself.
I’m also a physician, and having seen medicine in the UK, Canada, and the US, I agree with Dr. Paul that what we need in healthcare is a resurgence of the doctor-patient relationship, and a drastic reduction in the corporate and government micromanagement that handicaps the current environment.
Regarding my personal experience in a true single-payer system, perhaps you’ve seen the stories about the horrors of Walter Reed and the care our wounded veterans are receiving. In training, we used to call working at the VA medical center “veterinary medicine”… not out of disrespect, but out of frustration for the level of equipment and support provided in that environment.
I hope you can understand that Dr. Paul’s desire for a truly free (as in freedom) healthcare system is much more compassionate than the totalitarian single payer alternative, or our current mutt.
[Reply]
… oh, and if you really care about your health, get out of that recliner!
[Reply]
Why is healthcare any less or more valuable than saying growing our food. Should farmers be forced to supply us with food without pay. Should food be free like healthcare since both are necessities? Where there is a need the free-market is there and solving it. Where there is a chaos and suffering one can find the hand of government intervention.
Thank you, http://www.iocca.us
[Reply]
Do you guys actually believe that this person supported Ron Paul in the first place?
Anyone who claims to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal and doesn’t support Ron Paul is either not fiscally conservative or not socially liberal.
I’m thinking it’s the first one.
[Reply]
Come on please do I really need the government take more money from me to support the majority of obese Americans. you need to wake up and provide for yourself when did America become a welfare state?
[Reply]
I can tell that you’re young, when I read your statement “Ron Paul’s plan won’t work”, because any of us over 35 KNOW that “his” plan is far from radical or strange, because this country operated under the same system for most of my life. In the “old days” (about 15 years ago, really), the U.S. was full of charitable hospitals that would serve anyone who didn’t have means to pay. Most hospitals today were founded by charitable institutions. Furthermore, without the healthcare regime of today, healthcare cost less because people were counting the cost. There is so much waste and fictitious billing in healthcare today, because that accountability has departed.
Ron Paul’s system is not one that he invented. It is the one we all grew up with, and it worked quite well until the government began to insist on employer sponsored health insurance. What’s so funny about it is that nobody ever really needed health insurance until it was forced upon us. The system we have today is a RESULT of government interference. Do you really think letting the people who run FEMA take it over is going to solve the problem?
I respect Bill Richardson, and he has some reasonable ideas, but I’m convinced that Ron Paul is the right person for today. Regardless of whether you agree or not, please don’t fall for the line that there’s a need for more government involvement in healthcare. It’s scary enough as it is. I don’t want it to get worse.
[Reply]
The fact remains that, according to the WHO, America’s healthcare system is lagging behind that of other industrialized nations with universal coverage.
The quality of our healthcare is the best in the world, but that seems a moot point if people around the country are dying because they can’t afford it.
Also, the notion that the quality of healthcare in this country would decrease under a universal system is absurd. Under a universal system, our doctors would not become less educated, our technology would not become less advanced, and our medicines would not become less effective.
The point is, no American should have to pay for necessary healthcare any more than they should have to pay for the air that they breathe when they step outside. Life-and-death issues should NEVER be frontiers for profit.
[Reply]
“the notion that the quality of healthcare in this country would decrease under a universal system is absurd. Under a universal system, our doctors would not become less educated, our technology would not become less advanced, and our medicines would not become less effective.
”
You are wrong on all points.
Our doctors would work less hard if they are employed by the government. Just think: DMV
Our technology WOULD be less advanced because there is very little reason to innovate or push for advances when there is no profit to be gained.
And yes our medicines would be less effective because they would improve at a much slower rate because there is nothing to be gained by it.
And you are also wrong about other industrialized nations. France, England, Canada, and New Zealand (countries with universal healthcare) simply have worse care. It is statistically shown that a far greater percentage of patients DIE in those countries than in the US. Do your researcb.
[Reply]
John, If the death rate in those other nations is so dismal, why do they have lower infant mortality rates? Why is their life expectancy higher? Why are their healthcare systems ranked higher than ours?
Also, I don’t even know how to address your rebuttal of my statement. It shows such a blatant lack of understanding of how a single-payer system works.
First, doctors wouldn’t be employed by the Government. That’s socialized medicine, and it’s a term used by Republicans to scare people like yourself. Under the single-payer system that most people in this country are advocating, Doctors and hospitals remain private entities. Please don’t allow yourself to be told otherwise.
Also, don’t fool yourself into thinking that the government would be making decisions about your health. Those decisions would remain in the hands of the Doctor-patient relationship.
You’ve also fallen for another myth, which is that single-payer healthcare systems hamper medical research. This isn’t true. So much of the medical research in this country is ALREADY paid for by the government in the form of the “National Institutes of Health.”
Look at any medical revolution to come from this country, and I guarantee you that the U.S. Government provided the lion’s share of research funding that made it happen. Medical research does not disappear under universal healthcare.
Also, think about this: Under the current system, you, the taxpayer, help to subsidize research on lifesaving drugs, for example, which pharmaceutical companies then charge you, a benefactor of said drug, exorbitant prices to access.
I’m glad you’re okay with that, but I’m not.
If you’d like the real facts behind a single-payer system, visit the website of “Physicians for a National Health Program.”
[Reply]
Universal health care has nothing to do with Fiscal Conservatism. Paul will never spend money there will be enough funds for socialized medicine.
[Reply]
david Reply:
July 31st, 2007 at 12:21 pm
“Universal health care has nothing to do with Fiscal Conservatism”
what are you talking about? someone has to pay the bills, The only money the government has is the money they collect from taxes. If there we to become a welfare state then they will tax us higher rates to cover those programs. we already can’t pay for what they offer, last time i checked we didn’t have a budget surplus.
[Reply]
“I would blow all of you if you voted for Richardson.”
that was not me. that was somebody else
[Reply]
[...] I never was a Republican, I never supported one of their candidates. The last post I did “My Retraction Of Support For Ron Paul” was wrong; all wrong. Ron Paul does not support private companies controlling you. He has [...]
Koko, are you a progressive? I ask because I’m a bit confused. ThinkYouth is supposed to be “News and Opinion by America’s Progressive Youth,” and yet here you are supporting Ron Paul, the very opposite of a progressive.
[Reply]
Dan Solis Reply:
August 9th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
koko used to be a progressive, he goes back and forth. we enjoy having his opinion here, but yes, the rest of us are progressives/liberals.
[Reply]