The "I don't want to pay for some lazy bum's healthcare" logic is faulty.

First, for those at the bottom of the economic pool the only health care options available are emergency rooms and - if you're lucky and live in large enough of an urban area to have such facilities - a free clinic. If you have the cash or if you have the insurance, you are footing the bill in higher costs when you check into the hospital. The money has to come from somewhere.

Secondly, we lack a single-payer health care plan and therefore have enormous overhead and administrative costs - much higher than any other nation - because we duplicate the same tasks over and over and over again.

Third, debilitating medical conditions put people into a situation where they must struggle to get by - thereby creating a drain on society as a whole. Easily prevented and easily treated health issues can become much more serious, and much more expensive, when routine care is not an option, only emergency room visits when the problem becomes serious enough.

We pay more per person in the United States for health care than any other country in the world. Think about that.

We pay more, and we get less. Our average life expectancy is shorter in the United States than the U.K, Canada, Japan, Most of Europe, and we keep falling further and further behind. As of 2004, we are ranked 42nd in the world in terms of life expectancy. If our healthcare system is supposed to be the best in the world, how can this be?

So let's think about this: We want to fight against the idea of a single payer health care system because we don't want to subsidize some lazy schmuck. As a result we ALL pay more for OUR OWN healthcare than we would under a single payer system that covers everyone. And what do we get out of the deal? We get a society that has to deal with the economic burdon of more people who are disabled, dying, or simply too sick to work. Does that seem like a good deal to you?

And what about that "lazy" schmuck that you don't want to help? Are you better off when the minimum wage worker down the street gets evicted from their home because they weren't able to work for a month or two due to illness? Does one more boarded up house on your street and one more homeless person in your city help your property value? What about the mother who can't get to work because her car got reposesed when she couldn't make the payment after her kid broke his arm and she had to take him to the hospital - is that going to help you out in the end? Is the economy in your town going to be better off with one less paycheck coming in and one less paycheck being spent in local shops?

Guess what folks - the more people unemployed in your city, the harder it is for anyone to get a decent job - 'cause with more people unemployed there's always someone else willing to do the same job for less. Higher unemployment means lower wages, and lower wages mean less income for merchants. The more people who scrape by just to afford the bare minimum for groceries at Aldi foods - the less money local businesses receive. Remember Joe the plumber? If someone can't afford to buy food or pay the bills, they aren't going to be calling Joe when the bathroom sink starts leaking - they'll just have to put a pot under it to catch the drips. Joe looses out.
And it isn't just Joe - what happens to whole streets when owner after owner has to put off painting their house for another year, has to put off basic repairs - what happens to YOUR home value then, neighbor? The real world isn't a big game with everyone else as the competition, it's one big interconnected economy and the better off the majority is the better the opportunities for success for any one individual in the community - including you.
IAmKowalski Reviewed by IAmKowalski on . Why is socialism so bad? Hello Everyone! I have been following the presidential race and the arguments in these forums for the past few weeks. One of the new issues is SOCIALISM. I lived in the United States for 17 years, but moved back to my home country of Finland a couple years ago. Finland is a Socialist Democracy. We have free health care, free education through your bachelor's degree (when you turn 18, the gov. also pays for 80% of your rent and grocery money(240â?¬/month), and allows you to take out Rating: 5