The reason healthcare is so expensive is because of the illegals and welfare losers that get free healthcare. We, the ones that actually pay for our healthcare have to foot the bill for them too. Because of the illegals and others that tie up the MTF's it takes longer for paying cutomers to get treatment. How many illegals were treated before that person that died in the waiting room? An MTF would be a great place to arrest illegals and ship them back across the border and tell them to get treatment in their country. So, why is it that the liberals are against the more strict policy the conservatives propose when it comes to illegals???

I'm waiting for the answer to that myself

Lam, I get your point and semi-agree with you, but it can't be SO black and white, we're dealing with people's lives here, people just like you and me, it's not that easy

Seriously thou, I feel bad for you, you just seem to be filled with prejudice and hatred, You need to REALLY stop being so closed-minded

Because they want to appear more concerned about the human condition.

You seem to have prejudice and hatred towards pit bulls at dog parks!!!

You say they are people like you and me. But no, they're NOT people like you and me, they're here ILLEGALLY, they don't deserve and haven't earned the right for me to pay for their sorry asses. It's nothing about being closed-minded, it's about being fed up with me paying for all the lazy and illegal people in this country. That's the problem with todays society and everything having to be so politically correct. If things were more black & white we wouldn't have 10% of the social issues we do now i.e. welfare, gangs, drugs, viloence, illegal aliens. Look at how many of the aforementioned issue you can tie directly to all of the illegals here. Welfare, yes very much. Gangs, hell yeah. Violence, umm, yeah. Drugs, you betcha! It's B.S.!

It's simple, build an electric fence along the entire border, hunt down and ship all of their sorry asses out of here now, and watch the social issues lessen.

Welcome to MaineHealth, inc. Don't get me started on these overpaid hicks from caribou who got a sports scholarship to UVM. :tsk:

Lam,

I spend a lot of time on a dog forum, learning about training, nutrition, exercise, etc.
Without so much as a second of doubt, I can tell you, that ANY and ALL Pit Bull and other "bully breed" owners who understand the animals they handle, universally agree, that BULLY BREEDS do not belong, off-leash, in a multi-dog environment, and that is regardless of how sweet or timid their Pit may seem to be.

And it is exactly the owners who do take their Pits to the park and let them off leash, that are causing the widespread problems of cities, states and countries instituting BREED SPECIFIC LEGISLATION.

So while this conversation is about Health Care, I want to take this opportunity to let you know, only morons take Pit Bulls off leash to a dog park. Regardless of how sweet they think their dog is.

How about France? Last I checked, France is very much a melting pot of Europeans, Arabs, Africans, etc.

Some statistics for you, courtesy of the CIA World Fact Book:

Infant Mortality Rate
France - 3.36 deaths/1,000 live births
U.S. - 6.3 deaths/1,000 live births

(that means about twice as many American babies die in their first year of life as do French babies)


Life Expectancy
France - 80.87 years
U.S. - 78.14 years


HIV/AIDS Rate
France - 0.4%
U.S. - 0.6%



And here are some other Health Care stats:
(http://www.nationmaster.com/cat/hea-health)

Deaths from Heart Disease (annually)
France - 39.8 per 100,000 people
U.S. - 106.5 per 100,000 people


Deaths from Cancer (annually)
France - 286.1 deaths per 100,000 people
U.S. - 321.9 deaths per 100,000 people


Deaths from Respiratory Illness (annually)
France - 32.1 per 100,000 people
U.S. - 51.6 per 100,000 people


Available Hospital Beds
France - 8.4 per 1,000 people
U.S. - 3.6 per 1,000 people

(I guess no waiting lists there since they have more than twice as many available hospital beds per capita as we do)


Babies with Low Birth Weight
France - 6.4%
U.S. - 7.8%


I cannot even find a single statistic in any single area that shows better performance of our health care system over the French system.

Number of Daily Smokers (percentage of population)
France - 27%
U.S. - 17.5%

Now how does that make sense? They smoke more than we do, yet they live longer, have healthier babies, less disease, etc. How come?

But I did finally manage to one area where we beat them:

Total Expenditure on Health Care as % of GDP
France - 9.7%
U.S. - 14.6%

And considering our GDP per capita is higher than theirs, we actually spend about twice as much per person as they do. So don't worry....if we had socialized medicine, the one thing you can be sure of is that it won't be underfunded. We actually spend way more than almost any other country in the world.

But most of the money we spend on health care does not actually pay for health care, but is profit to stockholders of the various insurance companies, drug companies, research companies, private hospitals, etc. If instead, we made sure that all of the money we spend on health care actually goes to health care, maybe we would get better results.

Couldn't you LITERALLY account for the different in the different population counts 301 million vs 63 million, sorry but you could LITERALLY take a certain demographic within those 301 million and create a negative correlation, I don't buy it


AND WHERE IS THAT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP AND HEALTHCARE FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES??? Do you offer to pay them better than your competition to offset that cost???? :yawn:

Sorry bro. But without statistics he's not going to answer that question :D