Obama Healthcare

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However let me state that America does in fact have the best healthcare in the world. I'm not sure what country you came from, the person commenting from another country, but as foreign as our system may feel, a person diagnosed of cancer or aids, and several other terminal conditions has a longer life expectancy here, than in any other country in the world. So we do have great healthcare.

Where are those statistics from? Because I thoroughly dispute them. Did you know that a male Bangladeshi has a greater life expectancy than a black male from Harlem, New York? Your so-called "great" healthcare system clearly discriminates against the poor, something which does NOT happen in the vast majority of industrialised nations.

If you're against it, as I am, what you also have to consider is that it's never been America's position to "catch up" to other countries. As a couple of you pointed out, we have the largest economy in the world, and so there's nobody to catch up to.

You have plenty of countries to catch up to in terms of your national priorities to healthcare. Stop pouring money into the military and give basic healthcare to your poorest citizens. New Zealand has only one plane in it's air force. Laugh all you want, but I'd take free healthcare over global military hegemony any day.

My boss from Morroco tried to say that Morroco has National Healthcare, so why shouldn't we, as though America were somehow supposed to follow Morroco's lead. I just love this country and believe it's the best in the world as many immigrants have felt and we got that way on the belief that nobody here gets anything for free, but you can keep everything you earn.

I've always wondered if Americans are aware how much the rest of the world does not like them, and my suspicions are confirmed - they do not know. Now I have no idea if Morocco has socialised healthcare, but if they do, then, as a developing country, they have their priorities straight. Lowering infant mortality, lowering the incidence of HIV/AIDs - all pertinent issues that need to be at the top of any political agenda in any country. Yet American's stand by their Third World health system, and do all they can to prevent Obama from carrying out much needed reforms.

The first settlers and all immigrants since have made this country the land that invented the light bulb, the car, flight, space travel and much more, and we did it because we didn't provide social safety nets. Nobody leaves this country for Healthcare. They come here, and they've come here for centuries because they know that America is the land of "opportunity" not guarantees.

FLIGHT: New Zealanders were (albeit arguably) the first people to build a working plane.

SPACE TRAVEL: Sputnik; the world's first satellite. Russian.

And what the Hell do they have to do with the absence of social safety nets? Oh look, welfare! Well, there goes space travel. Get over your phobia of welfare, America.

Lastly I'll just point out, that only 11-13 Million people out of our population of 300 Million are without healthcare. ... So we're talking about a major overhall to satisfy a small minority of people. Granted it is an important issue, but I think things like tort reform, which is not included in any proposed bill, will do a better job of reducing costs to make it more affordable for those people.

As the world's largest economy, and with such a 'small' number of people without healthcare to cover, it should be no problem.

Oh and the Congretional Budget Office in an independant analysis says that costs would rise if this plan were passed, not go down as promissed.

I don't pretend to know the details of this report, but providing free healthcare has many flow-on benefits to any economy. People are more willing and completely able to get treatment for illnesses (big or small), and then get back to work - providing tax money for the government. Granted, this is a simplification, but if my logic is challenged, I can expand on this.

Why take the risk? Why trust him?

Exactly what is the risk?

Why not reduce costs through tort reform that will lower insurance costs on doctors so your costs go down, expand medicaid to cover children, and lower taxes on businesses so they can expand coverage and hire more workers who could be covered.

That all sounds nice - but so does free healthcare.