European newspapers mocked the end of the U.S. debate over heathcare by welcoming the United States to the 20th (not the 21st) century (they could have said the 19th century, since Bismarck enacted the first healthcare legislation in Germany in the 1880s).

Apparently America's healthcare woes are a regular staple in the European media. In Europe healthcare has long been seen as a right and they just can't figure out why we see it as a priviledge.


E.U. Gloats Over Belated U.S. Health Care Reform

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... t=My+Yahoo

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"Go out and run 'em."
- Lindy Ruff, 23 Feb. 2007

They're kinda right.

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and we routinely feast on the horrors produced by the NHS

So....yeah...laugh it up Europe.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

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"Go out and run 'em."
- Lindy Ruff, 23 Feb. 2007

Yeah, for those 30-33% of pissed off gents.

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"Call a cop he robbed Delmore blind!!!"
Rick Jeanerette after Marty Biron's diving save back in 2000.

"I'm going to go to the spa and have a hot tub and massage and relax," Miller said. "That's it, and it's back to work tomorrow." Ryan Miller after clinching the North East division.

Right, right. It all looks so fantastic until you research the numbers. Taxes are higher there than here, roughly 55% of every single nations budget is dedicated to health care (numbers vary nation to nation, but that is the average as of 2008), Oh, whats that you say, they pay much more and it has a ladder climb of a staggering 1.4% annually, why yes, that is the case.
Oh,e well then, it appears as though those industrialized nations that are not communist really don't have the answer do they now, well, lets dig deaper, shall we? Why yes, yes we should.
Ok, lets take a simple knee replacement surgery for example, lets say on a 60 year old male, whats the wait time on this in those naitons, well Slesh, according to the numbers, that surgery is over 19 months on the back log list, as opposed to America, where it "was" only 5 months. Hmmmm.....starting to see a painful waiting process here, but no problem, were strong people, we can handle the pain during the wait, whats there success rate for such a surgery? Well Slesh, according to 2008 and "ALL" prior years records in health care, the United States had an average 80% or better success rate, including those rates at the earliest times for surgeries such as this, ok, what about these nations with nationalezed health care? Well Slesh, the run at a staggering 61% combined. WHAT? 61% COMBINED? Why yes Slesh, almost 90% of all procedures were developed here in the GOOD OLE US OF A. That would be directly contributed to the lack of funds available to new procedures within these other nations due to the cap put on spending because of the budgetary situation on "GOVERNMENT" run programs.

Hmmmm......you don't say. "Well no Slesh, I don't say, the statistical numbers however, do say, oh, and by the way, those numbers were collected by 29 individual studies including Oxford U., Harvard,, Princton, Paris U. etc....etc...

People by now should be getting the point here. There are pros and cons to both ways health care is run.

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Lord Stanley's Cup is what its all about.
Mr. Pegula, your destiny awaits you sir.

There are quite a few folks that would take a 19 month wait over not getting the surgery at all.

I don't discount that Squanto, but this particular Bill smacks of election time crap, without thinking it through properly. Some of the Bill is common sense great stuff, some is bullshit in my opinion and will only come back and bite us in the ass as citizens later on.

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Lord Stanley's Cup is what its all about.
Mr. Pegula, your destiny awaits you sir.

I'd gladly pay more taxes for better health care; as a matter of fact, I'd be willing to stop spending so much on the military, too. I'm sick of the US being the world's pro-bono police force.

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We could easily cut down on spending if we just kept our military's pants on instead of running off to a foreigner for a little ass kicking tail.

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"Call a cop he robbed Delmore blind!!!"
Rick Jeanerette after Marty Biron's diving save back in 2000.

"I'm going to go to the spa and have a hot tub and massage and relax," Miller said. "That's it, and it's back to work tomorrow." Ryan Miller after clinching the North East division.

You know, I'm arguing myself out of a job by saying stuff like this, but on the grander scheme of things, it's important to me. I don't want my daughter to know a country at war, but I do want her to know a country that's worth living in.

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Now your talking. Now your making sense. Why do taxes have to go up when we can allocate funds from one area to another?

But, you would be wise to remember 2 things here.
First, remember well what Eisenhower warned in his remarks at the end of his second term.
"Beware the Industrial Military Complex"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdrGKwkmxAU
Second, the attempt to balance the need for defense based on aggressive behavior by our potential adversaries. Pearl Harbor is a lesson learned in blood, and a whole lot of it.

With this in mind, you could look at current defense spending and allocate a portion of that funding to a nationalized Health Care System. But in that same sentence, your asking citizens to pay for compassion in lieu of caution.
The point here is simple, whos to say the medical industry shouldn't be warned against just as the industrial defense industry was? Your merely substituting one for the other.

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Lord Stanley's Cup is what its all about.
Mr. Pegula, your destiny awaits you sir.

I think we could put off some military spending for a couple years and still be more than "just ok".

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It seems to me like some military spending should be eliminated altogether. For example, why do we have such huge numbers of troops in countries like Germany and Japan. Who the hell do they need to be protected from? I understand that Korea is a different story and that those troops are needed where they are. Outside of Korea/Iraq/Afghanistan I would think there are very few places abroad where we need to have substantial numbers of troops. Let's bring those troops back home. That would reduce the military budget, and furthermore it would mean that those troops then start spending their money on American goods and services as opposed to foreign goods and services, thereby helping our economy.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

The ability to mobilize troops. You can fly to China or Pakistan a hell of a lot faster from Germany and Japan than you can from Georgia and California. Thats why you need troops stationed all over the world, ease of mobility, and quicker response to immediate threats to not only us, but our allied nations as well.

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"She's like plan C after an 18 pack"

Squanto 7/27/2010

Inherently, this is the problem. Our allied nations don't have bases in the US to help us in case of a Canadian or Mexican attack (:snicker:).

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Well, considering Mexico and Canada are both Allied nations we dont have too much to worry about.

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"She's like plan C after an 18 pack"

Squanto 7/27/2010

I know, I know. I just don't think, with the alliances we have and the technology we have, that we need to have the bases there anymore. You can move from NC to Iraq in about 14 hours.

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