Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

In countries with truly socialized health care, such as Denmark, they pay around 80% income tax. 80%! So sure, everything is "free," (school, doctors, etc), but that's a hefty price to pay for something that is supposedly free. Of course, that only leaves about 20% of the rest of your income to pay for things like houses, cars, and clothes -- and there's a 25% value-added-tax on everything. On top of that, the heath care system really suffers because the state will never pay doctors as much as private patients do. So, the smart people who ordinarily would go into medicine will undoubtedly go to another field that is somewhat profitable. If you don't believe that, ask any US doctor how his income has been effected by medicaid and medicare. And if you say you don't really care that rich doctors aren't getting as rich anymore, consider this: even in a socialized system, there will always be doctors who continue to take patients who are willing to pay real money. So, the rich people who can afford private health care will pay up for the best doctors, and the rest of the middle class will be stuck with the mediocre doctors who can't command income on the private markets. Not only that, but I've seen how the government runs the DMV, and I don't want them running my doctor's office. It wasn't long ago that one of our Canadian posters was asking how she could get an appt with a doctor in the US because the wait was so long in CA.

Personally, rather than paying over 80% of my income in taxes just to have no say in what tests I'm given, who sees me, and how long I have to wait, I'd prefer to keep my money and choose how I want to spend it. Yes, there need to be systems in place to provide for the citizens who cannot provide for themselves. But moving to a wholly socialized government healthcare system is not the answer. I'm willing to bet the majority of hardworking Americans would agree with me. Let's not forget the stir that "Hilarycare" caused during the Clinton administration. Americans, on the whole, prefer to choose how their money gets spent, and to make their own medical decisions. This is why I firmly believe that if Hilary runs in 08 on any kind of socialized heathcare plan, she will lose. Kerry/Edwards were similarly unsuccessful, but suffered even more because Edwards is a notorious personal injury lawyer whose type of practice is the underlying cause for the huge increase in the insurance premiums doctors must pay. When practicing medicine becomes unprofitable, our nation's smartest people will refuse to become doctors, and we'll be left with mediocrity. That's not a tradeoff I'm willing to make.

Stepping off my soapbox now. For the record, Tommy, I also see a ton of $$ taken out of my payckeck every other week and I certainly would prefer to see more being done with it. The only tax that I really wouldn't fight to lower is sales tax. I know it sucks that it's so high, but think about how much revenue that generates when tourists come to NY and shop shop shop. Philisophically it doesn't make sense that they are paying taxes for a city they don't live in, but I'll take that tax revenue any day. You saw how much the economy suffered after 9/11 when people were too afraid to come here. I say keep the sales tax high here (and shop in Jersey!)

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Amanda

I live in the Big Apple, but I don't eat the skin

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