You're kidding. You can get good care (I assume anything non surgical?) For $1800 a year and you don't?!? I pay that three times over for insurance that pays almost nothing until I'm $4500 out of pocket, and compared to today's market here that's a bargain.

Here I'm lucky to have a doctor at all. We have a huge shortage, always have since I've lived here.

Do you really see it getting better without the aca? Can you tell me why, since normally any improvements wouldn't go to patients or level of care but instead to higher profits?

I sure don't recall when advancements of any kind led to lower health care costs on average...my thought was the aca just spread the pain of paying for the indigent, and gave them preventative care to lower their need for expensive treatments we pay for either way, with higher insurance rates covering care for the poor and lowering overall costs or with higher care cost, leading to higher insurance and more unhealthy poor skipping out on higher bills.

I absolutely think single payer is best. Costs can be negotiated by the entire country, leading to lower costs. Everyone gets basic care, no one skips on their bill, leading to lower costs. 20% that the insurance industry takes from every medical dollar goes away, leading to lower costs. Like other nations with universal healthcare, anyone who chooses can buy supplemental insurance that covers better, more comfortable care like private rooms or choice of top doctors, so nothing's lost for patients. The only issues I see are ideological.

Oh please. It wasn't from a lack of effort, it was 100% due to republicans wanting nothing to do with fixing health care and refusing to discuss it at all beyond screaming about how bad it would be...because Obama suggested it. They spent years trying to offer compromise solutions, all ignored. The only way to move forward was to ignore the group that wouldn't accept ANYTHING suggested and wouldn't make any suggestions themselves. Eventually they came to their senses, tailored it for the senators that might vote for something, and went forward. You call it ramming it through, I call it circumventing the roadblock of republicans who would never under any circumstance vote for any Obama plan. This was essentially the Republican plan from decades earlier that they said was hyper liberal.

Fixing it properly would be moving to single payer, which no republican would vote for and red state democrats would be committing political suicide. They fixed (broke) it just enough to get those red state dems to vote for it.

It's pretty disingenuous to claim they just slapped it together quickly as a slap at republicans. They took years and had to move forward with imperfect compromised progress instead of disastrous status quo.

Now, rather than trying to fix it, Republicans have spent 10 years trying to just kill it, leaving the higher insurance and higher bills but removing all assistance and pre existing conditions safeguards.

Our health care system was stretched beyond it's limits with under 2% of Americans infected over a 9 month period, and even so 200000 died (likely more), some from lack of access to hospitals because they had zero beds available in entire states.
His plan is now to allow 35-40 times that many people to get infected in the next few years, which would lead to 7.3 million dead if we could give them the same treatment and mortality rate, but we simply cannot. 15-20% need ICU beds and equipment, in Trump's plan 9/10 won't get it at best, all those people will die, bringing the mortality rate up to as high as 20% +-.

.70 (expected minimum effective infection rate) x 350000000(population) x .20 (probable mortality rate without ICU care) = likely 49 MILLION +- expected dead if all goes to plan under Trump's herd mentality plan....an apt name since he's lining up Americans and sending us to the killing floors.

So somewhere between an optimistic 7.3 million and a pessimistic 49 million dead sacrificed Americans is his best idea (he knows tested widespread vaccines are years off and only good until the virus mutates, which it has already), plus any collateral damage from no functional health care and other factors. I can't fathom where this 3 million number that's being tossed around comes from, it seems insanely optimistic and not based in reality.

So, I'm puzzled. Health care in China is actually hard to access, to my understanding--free, but hard to access. So--how did he get to the hospital and get into the treatment queue? Happy he did, just curious

My daughter had to get braces for her arms which are these : https://www.amazon.com/TraveT-Support-Removable-Adjustable-Outdoor/dp/B076KL3QWN/

They're not like souped up better than those braces, they are THOSE.

The difference is, the ones I linked here cost $3.53
The ones my insurance was billed for and I had to co pay for cost $750.00 FOR EACH WRIST

It costs so much because they charge so much. Simple as that. That's the way @bobknight33 wants it though. Hope you don't have to learn the hard way how to pay for health care in trump's america bob. But the president is going to see to that with that lying about covid-19 shit isn't he. Don't worry, if you get it, trump will still be around to hurt people when you can no longer.

Yep, the answer to any problem from you, cut taxes. Military underfunded, cut taxes. Can't afford universal health care, cut taxes. Debt and deficit are bigger than GDP, cut taxes. Infrastructure crumbling, cut taxes. Daddy Trump's businesses are struggling, cut taxes, especially theirs.

How many trillions more do they need? How much of that goes directly into Trump's families pockets? They already took dozens, up to hundreds of millions last round despite being specifically banned from the program.

Democrats want higher taxes because we like America being a sovereign nation, and bankrupting us into third world status could change that. When the final numbers for 2020 come out, I bet you that dinner you still owe me it will be double the deficit of any other year in history or worse, $6 trillion+ in spending and another trillion+ in lost taxes from lost production thanks to not shutting down in March-May....on top of the trillion+ deficit built into the budget.....and we're heading into a global depression with this deep debt, making borrowing money near impossible.

2021 is going to be a disaster too, no matter who's elected. Trump has ensured it. Any company that can afford to leave is leaving already, bud. They took the handouts from Trump and in pure Trump fashion took the cash and ignored what it was for, many using that money for expansions outside America, companies like Harley Davidson.

Lol. All PROFESSIONAL doctors agree....and social distancing with good hygiene is not shutting down for the most part.
(There are dozens of ways to achieve relative safety and keep even schools open, but just going back isn't one of them. For instance, staggered school days, splitting classes into 5 equal groups that each attend one day a week could allow social distancing and more personal attention, online classrooms could supplement at home schooling the other 4 days a week. What won't work is Trump's plan of just sending everyone back to overcrowded classrooms all at once, that's a guarantee of new large scale outbreaks nationwide.)

Now we know the doctors that agree with you are the same doctors that say alien DNA is used to make medicines, gynecologic issues are caused by having sex with demons in dreams, hydroxychloroquine is safe and effective, and 1/2 the government is lizard people and other aliens.
Trump's got the best doctors.
*facepalm

Feeling like you're being lied to yet?

Or are these conspiracy theorist nutbags, the only ones who agree with Trump, the best and brightest doctors (in your mind) and those millions of professional and sane health care workers are in a huge perfectly executed global conspiracy designed solely to hurt Trump even in countries that love Trump like Brazil and Russia, murdering hundreds of thousands and maiming millions and starting a global depression to further the fraud?

Second question. If every nation in the world is willing to murder it's own citizens and destroy their own economies to hurt Trump, shouldn't he be removed for the good of the nation and planet? If his "leadership" has made enemies out of every other country, how does that benefit America?

I dread to ask, but why should protesters be denied health care?

Don't forget, his whole plan is based on the mistaken assumption that it's only dangerous to old people.

This from the same group that lost their minds over the fallacy that universal health care would include creating "death panels" that would decide if grandma was worth giving medical care.

Social distancing of 6 feet will not prevent overloading the health care system.

Check your state https://covidactnow.org and the point of no return of overwhelming the system.

I think of it as smelling a smoker's smoke. Sometimes you can smell their smoke from 10+ feet away. and farther if you are down wind. That smoke is what they exhaled.

When they are done and come inside or such you can smell it coming off them.

Just trade the smoke for the virus, 6 feet is not enough.

Granted, the better "caught on live mic" was afterwards when he gave a big "OooooKaaaay", indicating that the level of bullshit spouted in his speech was overwhelming even for him, but this does clearly show that how he looks was FAR more important than knowing what he's talking about during a national emergency.
Imagine Obama was caught before a major speech being so worried about his appearance, your ilk would be calling for his removal, like you all did for 8 years over anything....tan suits, terrorist fist bump, not a real American so not a real president. You don't get to whine now when your baby in chief gets 1/10 back.

Today he refused to implement travel restrictions or the defense production act to produce medical supplies already in short supply (estimates are over >3 billion masks will be needed by health care workers, we have 12 million, or .3% of what front line first responders need) lying again by claiming there's only a slight shortage in 3 states, and one state has no cases, so there's no real need. *facepalm. His lies about testing availability continue too. They could have started making them in December, but waited until late last month to get going slowly at his direction.

Trump couldn't be doing a worse job without putting Jared in charge of the (non) response...Wait....he semi did that. Fuck. Every time he speaks lately he causes a new "worst day ever on Wallstreet". Great job? At decimating the economy and putting us all in great danger? At downplaying a major pandemic and to this day refusing to take it seriously and/or take steps to mitigate the infection rates?

What morons you cultists are. Go to a Trump rally and shake hands with everyone, why don't you.

What can't the USA and progressives like Bernie talk what's necessary to get universal health care? There are many first world countries that got it. Canada, UK, EU, etc... they are bankrupt like what the Conservative fears.

Tax the rich is part of the equation, compare what the people already pay now through insurance + co-payments averages, and convert that as "tax" to support HC4A, would that be a money saving for the tax-payer? HC4A gives the government huge bargaining power to bulk-buy meds. That alone could save billions and billions.

Sets a bad presidential precedent. Trump is a bad president without anyone's help. ;-)

The Democrats need to accept that and give Warren carte blanche to do anything at all, including a blanket repeal of all Treasonous Trump's legislation and agreements, and thumb their noses at Republican whining.

I say Democrats should, for one term only, use every trick, ploy, and scheme the Republicans have used for Trump to get us back on track, closing every loophole and making it a crime to support obstruction or "refusal to cooperate" as a public official after 3 years and 9 months.
Ignore them. Dismiss them. If they suggest any legislation, crush it, call it unAmerican and stupid, and laugh at their inability to do anything about it. Defund all their pet projects and corporate welfare programs and implement universal health care with the money saved.
Turnabout is fair play. I'm sick to death of Democrats turning the other cheek in the name of civility with an uncivil adversary.

Thanks for the good questions.

a) yes
b) yes
c) no
d) yes
e) n/a

If you exclude suicide, the USA doesn't have a staggering rate of gun deaths. It is high compared to some other western countries, but on a world rate it is still very low.

When looking at public health (which is the reason for reducing gun violence) you need to be pragmatic. What will actually give a good outcome for public health? In this case there are about a half a dozen things that kill and maim US citizens at much higher rates than firearms do.

E.g. you are much more likely to be killed in a car crash than murdered by someone with a firearm. Cars by accident kill more people in the USA each year than firearms do on purpose. That's some scary shit right there. Think about that for a second, cars are more dangerous than firearms and people are not even trying to kill themselves or someone else with one. So as an example, you'd be better off trying to fix this first.

Or fix the suicide rate in the US. People aren't in a happy place there.

Obesity kills more people. Doctor malpractice kills more people. Etc. But these are hard issues to tackle that will cost billions or trillions. The low hanging fruit is firearms.

Free health care and mental health care, a better social security system, and various other means would all have magnificent outcomes on everyday life in the USA. But again, they cost a lot and require a paradigm shift.

Have you ever encountered interpersonal violence against you (i.e. had someone attack you)? Or have you maybe worked in a job where you often come into contact with people who have been attacked? I find people change their mind after they realize that they were only ever one wrong turn away from some crazy bastard who wanted to hurt them badly.