Education =/= Higher education. Most people *don't* need a PhD. And as far as I know private healthcare and higher education in Poland are vastly better than public ones, which is not a surprize.

Also, I really can see why people *don't* want to pay with their tax money for e.g. people who are too lazy to get a job (you wouldn't believe how many of those we have here).

It's a necessity in your opinion, but not in the opinion of everybody.

Slog Bait, you want to turn America into Europe.

It's not like our health care is any better. I'd rather have shitty healthcare I pay taxes for and know that it makes that shitty health care avialable to everyone rather than shovel out thousands of USD per year for shitty health care that only covers myself that someone less fortunate than me couldn't dream of affording.

Same goes for education. Higher education is definitely not for everyone, and in the end, how effective that education is varies from school to school. Regardless, when higher education isn't available to everyone, whether you regard it as shit or not, it encourages ignorance among a society.

How are we going to ever advance, when the programs that give people the opportunities to study a subject properly are so unaffordable they'd only get the chance to if they were either really lucky or born into wealth. I'd rather pay a minimal amount for mediocre education for myself and others, than pay an arm and a leg for mediocre education for myself.

To put things into perspective: I, right now, an upper middle class citizen of the states, can not afford even a year of community college out of pocket, and that's considered the lowest of the low higher education in the US.

Also if your education system is still for-profit you just outlined why your education system isn't all sparkles and unicorns and why our education system is in such an awful place right now

Also also, education for k-12 is free in the states but the funding keeps getting cut unless the sports program is like super great and that's ass

Europe.

With guns



Also also also, for those interested, found a good Q&A about democratic socialism that elaborates on it really well.

Sure are a lot or base level opinions up in this thread.

The thing is, when you (as a tax payer) don't have to spend your thousand dollars (in taxes) for public healthcare and "free" higher education, plus all the cost of political procedures that make it happen (it's a lot of money), you earn much more money in general and can afford private healthcare, which gets cheaper, because it's a competetive market, because when you have multiple alternatives and you can always choose a cheaper one and then the other one has to change approach if they want to stay in business.

That's never the case in public healthcare. Because it will exist forever as long as the politicians decide to, no matter how petty, pathetic it is.

I mean sure, you'll have more money. If you're the only person you care about that's a good thing. But what about people who don't have any money? Why should everything be treated like a business? Why should healthcare have to stay in business?

There's no reason public and private healthcare should't be able to coexist in the first place anyway.

Stop being a libertarian. It's immature and annoying.

FA, you say your country is great but at the same time you're studying elsewhere. What a Crashpunk.

Stop being right, Varrok.

@FA, You're supporting enforcing people to pay for people they don't care about. I don't. I want to be in charge of my money, that means I can pay for poor people if I think it's a right thing or don't if I think I don't. Charities do exist.

But what do I know, I'm immature and annoying. Not to mention, as bad as Nepsotic.

We're horrible people, Varrok. What we say doesn't count, remember?

I'm not saying my country is great. Also, I'm studying in the UK. Which actually has free healthcare as far as I know.

Free healthcare which is strained as fuck. I was in a hospital waiting room for 11 hours. They knew what state of mind I was in at the time yet that's how long I was sat in a room for, whilst they occasionally took me out to take my blood pressure or stick a few needles in me.

I'm not saying the US solution is better, because it obviously isn't, but no healthcare solution is perfect.

And see, that makes sense and I'd be fine with it if that's how things actually turned out, but for the longest time our healthcare just kept raising in price, like the competitive market was running in reverse, and treatment for things that had been ailing me since I was very young become completely unaffordable by the time I was in highschool, despite the fact the treatment methods hadn't changed at all.

Also, the way that our insurance companies function are so broken that even though the rates may seem really affordable, you find out once you actually receive what your healthcare plan outlines, nothing you actually need covered is covered by the plan. They cover very basic things, and this is talking about a plan that I had at one point that cost me roughly $121 a month, and that was 1 physical per year by a physician that was in-network, and something like 70% of the cost of an emergency procedure... for the first $1500 of the cost. It didn't cover any preventative healthcare, it didn't cover maintinence drugs, it didn't cover any mental health care or dental care, it didn't cover any screenings for stis or cancer, it only covered 6 "specialist" visits, and copays were outrageous. For a year of treatment under this insurance, it actually cost more than I made for that year.

I ended up spending over $5000 on healthcare expenses that year because of problems affecting me that my healthcare refused to cover, and to make things even better, even if a doctor was considered in network, the insurance company had some hidden bullshit where if the doctor in question wasn't a "plus whatever" doctor the insuranec company wouldn't cover any of the cost what-so-ever. This was something only the company could see, the doctor and person under the coverage could not, and you would not be told if they were covered until the doctor put through an invoice. Seriously.

And that was the cheapest option they had, so of course it's not going to be great and that's whatever, but when you looked at the most expensive plan they had? $937 a month for the same exact shit the only difference was they'd pay 70% on the first $5k and you got a whole 4 extra specialists visits per year. That was literally the only difference. If I'm going to pay that much for shit healthcare I'd rather pay that much so everyone has shit health care including myself


I'd like to just be able to either pay a reasonable amount for standard healthcare without all the additional bullshit involved with how American healthcare functions, and I'd like it to be accessible to everyone. Nothing more, nothing less. If that means I pay a little extra per month for it then so be it.

Just like I would like good higher education to be more readily available to people who wish to persue it because with good education comes advancement. I'm actually torn on how education should be handled, because whether it's competitive or public, it's still bound to devolve into garbage in some way or another. I feel as though allowing for public education paid for with taxes would encourage more people to further their education since it'd be an option, as well as encourage more people to take on teaching as a profession since they wouldn't have to worry nearly as much about the attrocious pay until cuts started being made again.

How education is handled is definitely something I need to sit on and consider longer, but I'm unhappy with the current state of our education, so I'm willing to hear everyone out on their proposals for how education should be handled. Healthcare, I'm pretty cemented in what I'd like out of it, on the other hand.



tl;dr: Lots of anecdotal garbage about the current American healthcare system and how I don't necessarily disagree with you but I don't fully agree with you either because I haven't observed how well everything works I've only heard theories and third party statements on the matter

Is my name being used as a swear word?

I'm... so proud.

On Topic: I'm not in America but over here in the UK, Trump looks just as stupid. That is all.

Tory cuts, pal. It's shitty and I have total sympathy with you. A&E waiting times are atrocious right now.

I understand it, but I think it's unfair to compare this using the current situation, because of the existence of free healthcare. I see it as a big almost-monopoly (well, it is one). The costs of private healthcare are higher *because* of public healthcare being paid with tax money. It's a huge system, and the prices of services only drop when there's a large customer base. How can there be a large customer base, when almost everybody chooses public healthcare (often without a further thought, because, eh, "it's free")?

Another absurd is that profits from private healthcare go... to empower public healthcare. Through the taxes they pay. It's a battle they can't win. I don't think the high prices of current private healthcare are that high because they just wanted them to be. As I said, it's a competetive market, and public, mandatory healthcare is and never will be a fair opponent. And If you don't make money, you crashpunk and go out of business. Well, unless you're finansed by the government. This way you can be incompetent and still function.

Yep. I'm not that into politics but fuck Cameron. They said I could be waiting days for a bed so I just walked out.

My missus was admitted for potential septicemia after they fitted her birth control into her birth canal, we might never be able to have kids but they still took 7 hrs to see us. Only to discharge us with nothing to show for it.

Nepsotic and FA are on the same side. So cute.

I don't look into politics nearly as much as I should, but from everything that I have read about, I'm definitely going to be voting for Sanders. Of course, I'm not expecting him to miraculously fix everything in this country, and I'm not expecting him to live up to all of his promises (whether he tries to do so or not), but in comparison to the other candidates running, I think he's probably the best choice.

I do like how he's been fighting for the same causes he's fighting for now way back in the day, too. There's enough proof to show that he isn't just utilizing popular controversies right now just to win more support. Not that his campaign isn't doing that at all, but I think it's apparent that he does have a genuine motivation behind his stances.

As far as I know, the only free services are all provided by Planned Parenthood and Women's Health offices that do free pregnancy tests and that's pretty much it. I can't think of a single thing our "public health" offices provide for free otherwise. We literally pay for everything. Everything. The hospital room, the Ambulance on the way there, all the sometimes nonconsensual scans and tests they have to perform to make sure you're in reasonable health etc

So that would be a totally understandable problem if we actually had free public health care running along-side privatized healthcare, but we don't.

From what I understand, and please please please someone correct me if I'm wrong, Canada has some form of nationalized, gov regulated healthcare and very few private healthcare options and they seem to do just fine (sans wait times, which sound like they're about as long as wait times here anyways. I've had to wait months to see a doctor for a very serious problem several times before, its not public healthcare exclusive) as far as quality of healthcare is concerned. Even the private businesses seem to flourish. So, there are ways to get it to work it just seems to be based entirely on a stupidly high number of factors.

Also I fully approve of crashpunk as a verb and swear

You totally got me here. I don't really know much about the healthcare system in USA, and know literally nothing about the healthcare in Canada. All my points are made based on the system we have in Poland. Which doesn't work at all, while we're having free healthcare from taxes.

Yeah, and the UK doesn't seem to be doing too well after cuts to their healthcare. Beforehand it sounded mildly inconvenient just waiting to see the GP but now it just sounds like the gov over there would rather people die in the streets before ever receiving treatment. It's weird how a system can work just fine in some places but others it crashpunks hardcore.

All I know is that every country with universal healthcare, free education, gun control, normal immigration laws and any combination of the above gets on just fine. Trump is a whackjob and the US has some pretty major problems, and I don’t have respect for anyone who values saving a few bucks in their taxes over providing national services for the wellbeing of the nation.

The closer we get to the end of the primaries, the more clear it becomes that Trump may very well push for certain national services because he's mentioned before (and I'm really paraphrasing and trying to interpret his Trump speak) he believes accessible health care is important because regardless of whether he's a republican candidate or not, he does not want his people dying in the streets, and hes shown a positive attitude towards accessible education as well. Trump would have no idea how to implement these in a way that would work, but the fact that he himself, and his history of just acting on feelings and impulse, has spoken positively about these topics, in debates no less, says he's definitely not the worst case scenario this election season in my eyes.

Also I legitimately can't remember but I think he said he wanted to handle our taxes by lowering them across the board and that's a really odd thing for a republican candidate in recent years to say while simultaneously showcasing that he doesn't understand how economics works

I'm not saying I wouldn't pay that money to support healthcare or help others.

I just don't want to be a) forced to do it b) forced to do it and pay the officials I don't neccessarily trust while doing it. It is a big issue. That's why many people try not to pay taxes, while they could.

Also, does the president really *need* to know how to fix those issues? He's not the prime minister, he's not the congress (or whatever you have in US).

I completely understand and it's one of those things where if my friends and I weren't directly effected on a daily basis I'd probably feel the same way.

Also after a bit of research, Trump fully supports raising taxes on the rich and lowering the taxes on the middle class, so there's that. I'm telling you guys, he's not nearly as outrageously bad as he seems at first glance. It's a little crazy

Nah, but a very persuasive guy in office that has a good grasp on how to begin fixing issues that the average citizen has no clue about is always a bonus. Being such a big spokesperson gives them a chance to raise issues and educate the masses on why a proposal will actually work. Congress doesn't really hold as much "importance" to Americans, considering the vast majority don't even know what Congress is much less how our government functions.

It’s the same system that applies to funding the police, fire services, justice system, pensions, basic education, government bodies, and the military – the residents of the country all benefit from a baseline service provision ensuring their health, wellbeing, safety and rights. Adding an opt-in system to fund any of those services then the result would be an under-funded and crippled service.

What people don’t seem to understand about paying taxes is that it pays for the infrastructure to keep the country’s vital services running. Everyone has access to those services, everyone benefits from those services, and everyone has the option to go private if they so choose.

but opting out of paying, or avoiding paying, just leads to worse services and hurts the people who rely on them most. So maybe you wouldn’t personally suffer, but someone worse off will.

I'd vote for Gary Johnson as a vote against the two party system. But under the current bullshit system, Bernie for sure.

Bernie Sanders. America needs another democratic socialist like FDR, most Americans want single-payer health care like the rest of the world; but the the private insurance companies keep buying out the politicians who try to give it to us. Bernie would outlaw private insurance companies so naturally the media constantly slanders him because they stand to lose a lot.

Honestly, my only problem with Trump is the "muslim ban" shit, the government has no right to ban people based on religion for an indeterminate amount of time. It just sounds like an Orwellian nightmare to me. But as some people have mentioned yeah he has no business calling himself a conservative.