please take me to jail!

This was definitely a smart move. Its a shame the government doesn't have a welfare program such as Social Security Disability Insurance.... oh wait, yeah we do, I pay taxes for it every year.

I would wager a life-time of such excellent decision making is why he has achieved the lofty profession of convenience store clerk by age 59. If he would have just thought for a second, he could have even just applied at Walmart, which has excellent health insurance considering they are often such entry level positions.

At what point in our history did we give up on the idea of personal responsibility and repercussions for our actions, both short and long-term?

That's actually an old trick. I remember an older homeless man that used to be arrested here every other winter. When it started getting cold, he'd break a window at a jewelery store so he could go to jail where it was warm.

It's actually really hard to get hired at Wal-Mart, at least around here. They get like 10 applications for every opening, so they're really picky. My brother had to apply 3 times before getting hired, and he had an excellent work history. Anyone with a less-than-excellent work history doesn't have a chance. They want hard workers, and they reward them for working hard. But just saying "apply at Wal-Mart if you need a job; they hire anybody!" isn't accurate. Maybe McDonalds. . .idk.

It's also really hard to get on disability SSI. One guy I know was recently diagnosed with a heart defect (I guess it's congenital but they didn't find it when he was a kid), and has applied for SSI twice already and keeps getting turned down. He can't afford the surgery needed to fix it without the SSI because he can't work so he doesn't have insurance, and he can't work and get insurance until he has the surgery. . .and round and round we go. And the son of an elderly woman I know was actually IN a mental institution, and SSI turned down his application 5 times! Finally they approved it, but if a guy who is committed for his mental illness can't get SSI, I don't know how anyone else can.

I don't know what the answer is. But if people have to rob banks or shoot mailmen---I read this in my Postal magazine. . .a carrier got shot by a guy who needed health care and couldn't get it, so he wanted to commit a federal crime so he could go to federal prison (much nicer than state prison) and get his health care. So he shot his mailman in the knee---to get health care something is wrong.

I really hate the "just get a job at Wal-Mart" chorus. I was unemployed for quite a while recently and I did get UI benefits. I also looked for a job, which included applying at every retail and food place in the area. First off, you have to apply online EVERYWHERE. You don't get a chance to make a good impression IN PERSON for that $7/hour job you've always wanted.

Then, like Willowy said, you are competing with several other people for that same coveted $7/hour job so if you're like me with a college degree and a good work history, you either have to dumb down your resume and cross your fingers or tell the truth and cross your fingers. Then you get to wait while Wal-Mart never calls you. If you call THEM, though, to inform them you applied online and are seeking an immediate position, you will be told that they are still wading through the dozens/hundreds of applications they've received and to call back next week.

I would love it if someone, anyone who has ever uttered the words "just get a job at Wal-Mart" to actually go out and, you know, get a job at Wal-Mart.

This is why my heart bleeds for those in the USA living with the archaic health system of needing to have insurance in order to get medical help. Every human being is entitled to health care. I don't mean sub par, stabalize and send home still broken. I mean actual health care. Health care like we have in Canada where rich or poor, homeless or not, can go to any doctor or walk in clinic or hospital and get the help that they so desperately need and deserve.

Those that sit in the goverment and vito Obama's attempts to establish a universal health care system would drastically think differently if they were in this man's position without means or insurance to see a doctor. Instead they sit there with their pockets full, access to the best medical care available, and decide what is best for the rest of the USA's citizens.

It's disgusting!

Why stop there?

If people shouldn't be allowed to shop for their own healthcare provider, and be forced to pay into a government one, then why not more essential things like food and water and housing?

Surely you aren't arguing that healthcare is more vital than having food and shelter as basic human needs?

We can all be taxed collectively to eat at public cafeterias, with government water and soda rations, and live in government complexes where everyone is equal and consumption is completely divorced from contribution. Hopefully the cafeterias are great, since you won't really have any other option as the government took your money away to be able to afford to pay for the public and private options unless you're very wealthy.

Or do you propose that government healthcare be voluntary and people can opt out of it if they don't like the level of service they are getting? If all the people that can pay for their own insurance opt for their own insurance, then who exactly are the freeloaders going to mooch off of? The system would go bankrupt if you have more people using it than consuming it.

So really all we are talking about is income redistribution. And in that case, why not just call it what it is, welfare, and make it part of welfare accordingly. Personally, I don't much care to live in a compulsory single option medical care and welfare state for all of society. I believe welfare should meet very bare minimums for survival, to act as a temporary social safety net, not something all citizens everywhere are subject to. We have seen how horrible the system is in the UK, and how many British come to the United States when they actually need a specialist in any reasonable amount of time. Remember all the youtube videos of people having to pull their own teeth because of the months and months of waiting time just to get dental treatment? And frankly, a single payer doesn't address the COSTS of healthcare except by reducing the quality or quantity received. It doesn't address for example the fact that there are still going to be so many illegal aliens that hop the border to get top tier medical access for free (working in a hospital at night I can assure you that whoever told you they can be turned away is a big fat liar), and it doesn't address the millions of dollars that go towards medical litigation in the US, which is the reason the insurance for even a general practitioner is now approximately $100K a year alone.

Now you're being ridiculous

I'm talking about Universal Healthcare where some of your taxes go into a universal healthcare system that anyone rich or poor can use. To access you simply need to have an insurance card issued by the State and present it when you go to the doctor or to the hospital. The bill for your visit / procedure is then submitted to the government to pay out of your tax dollars.

For example. I live in Manitoba and all Manitobans are issued a Manitoba Health Card. That is my document that I take with me to any new doctor or hospital that I visit. Now say I go to my doctor for my annual physical and it's now time for my Mammogram and he decides to do a CT scan just in case, because I have a history of Cancer. Manitoba Health is billed for the doctor visit, the exam, the blood testing, the Mammogram and the CT Scan. I don't pay a single penny because that is how our medical system here works.

Now say for example I need a physical for work. Those types of physicals are not covered by Manitoba Health, so either I or my work place is responsible for the bill.

Not everything is covered by our universal health care.

There are some things that you still need to pay for on your own or have private insurance for. But doctor visits, hospital stays, most surgeries.....all are covered.

Things that aren't covered are eye exams (unless you have a chronic problem with your eyes such as glaucoma), dental, plastic surgery for things that are considered cosmetic and flu shots unless you are in a category of being at risk (IE: child, senior, lung disease, healthcare provider). Ambulance rides are also not covered. Neither is laser eye surgery. But cataract removals are covered.

There are also some private clinics here that if you so choose you can go and pay your own money to have a procedure done, such as lap band, prostate surgery (though the surgery is covered under our health plan if done in a hospital).

Research our healthcare in Canada for more information if you need more clarification on it.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/pubs/system-regime/2011-hcs-sss/index-eng.php
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How is it ridiculous to say that government run healthcare is more vital of a need than food, water, and shelter?

I'm talking about Universal Food&Housing where your taxes go into a universal Food&Housing system that anyone rich or poor can use. To access you simply need to have a ID card issue by the State and present it when you go to the cafeteria or projects. The bill for your food/ housing is then submitted to the government to pay out of your neighbors' wallet via taxes.
Oh, trust me, I have more information on the Canadian and British healthcare systems than I care to. Would you like a few articles about the shortage of healthcare professionals in Canada, the average grade of Canadian hospital equipment compare to in the United States, or the wait time to see specialists? It has gotten so bad that Canada has started actively recruiting from South Africa, to the point that South Africa's high commissioner André Jaque made a public appeal to the Canadian government to stop its efforts, as they have recently scalped over 1500 doctors (which generally speaking do NOT hold to the same high standard as North American physicians) from the country alone, as well as India and other developing nations. One of our largest subscriber count members on Motovlog video taped his treatment for his broken leg over in the UK. It was near impossible to get the attention of nurses, the food was unidentifiable and barely palatable (luckily friends brought over chow), he couldn't get any sleep as they didn't have enough rooms so shoved him along with another patient that was screaming in agony all through the night with no one to check on him, and eventually he had enough and we had a little donation fund raiser after watching that to get him into a proper private hospital... which he could have afforded if the government hadn't taken his money and put it towards that nonsense in the first place.

Please show me where I said it was more vital? I said:

"Every human being is entitled to health care. I don't mean sub par, stabalize and send home still broken. I mean actual health care."

And Canada isn't the only one recruiting doctors and nurses from other countries. 1/2 of my graduating class of nurses moved to the USA to work. And I know of more doctors than I can count since I've been a nurse, that have moved to the USA to work.

So you wonder why Canada recruits from other countries? Because we lose our trained nurses and doctors to the USA.

Do you know how much a Radiation Oncologist in Manitoba makes? About $500,000 per year. In the USA that same doctor would earn upwards of a million dollars. No wonder people can't afford to go to the hospital or doctor in the USA with fees like that.

Then healthcare is a more vital need than food, water, and shelter? I'm just trying to understand why one HAS to be guaranteed by a single government provider in collective taxes as a RIGHT, but we don't have the same need in our welfare system for what most would argue are more important things like food, water, and shelter.

Yes, absolutely the best doctors and nurses from Canada are finding employment in the United States privatized healthcare system because they have better pay with better working conditions and get to work with far more advanced equipment and facilities. Canadian hospitals are very cost effective, but the cost cutting corners are immediately apparent in quality and scope of care, and particularly in the case of elective surgery with queue times.

And physicians and clinicians are not the only thing crossing the border for American healthcare, patients are as well.

Canadian citizens are not required to hold a visa to enter the U.S., so no government agency tracks Canadians entering the country for medical reasons, however, one company TMA alone helps approximately 150,000 Canadian patients on extended waiting lists get access to American healthcare every year. So while there are no exact statistics on the number of medical refugees that Canadian rationing, queuing, and medical professional shortages causes, but they are reported to be very high in particular fields such as cancer treatment to the point that several Canadian provinces now have formal contracts with American healthcare providers rather than reimbursing the individual as was done in the past.

And yet many Americans brush these facts aside and insist the grass is always greener and you can get something for nothing if you just vote for someone else to pay the bill.

I think it's a pathetic statement about our country - the fact that a person feels that their only option for survival is to rob a bank so that they will be put into jail to be cared for. I don't recognize this country anymore.

The U.S. almost already has socialized health care. If you go to an emergency room, they have to take care of you regardless of your ability to pay. And that guy I mentioned with the heart defect? He's going to all the doctors/pulmonologists/cardiologists/etc. he needs to (he's not on Medicaid yet) and just doesn't pay the bills. Eventually they write them off (what else are they going to do, repossess his heart meds?), but they never turn him away. We're talking at least $50,000 by now.

My brother once went to the emergency room, and when they sent the bill he told them he couldn't afford to pay. . .so they forgave the debt. Presumably the taxpayers are already picking up the bill. So I don't see the difference between the current system and the kind of socialized medicine other countries have.

I sympathized with this guy until this part: "collect Social Security and move to the beach."

People in the US think they are entitled to everything without any hard work. At the same time, when you are out of work and options, its hard to get out.

The big difference is freedom of choice of how and where and to what extent the majority of people wish to spend their money.

The problem though is COST, but removing competition and choice from consumers doesn't really address that unless you simply start reducing and rationing care, which is what Canada and the UK primarily do to control costs. Health insurance really doesn't need to be dealt with any different than car insurance. Make it mandatory to pay for a bare minimum emergency care coverage, and then leave it up to consumers to pick who they think serves them best with the level of coverage they care for.

There is a big problem with our hospital systems being abused, but they simply could have combined existing law enforcement with hospital care to address that issue. If you're an illegal alien and you go to a US hospital, you are stabilized, arrested, fingerprinted, and deported. If you're a three-strike offender, then you are arrested first and held in a US (or work with Mexico) prison and have to work off your cost of incarceration. And if you just illegally crossed the border to deliver an anchor baby for with first rate care for free and to make him or her an American citizen, that needs to be repealed as well requiring at least one of the parents to be American or at least here on a legal work permit which would put a stop to that nonsense right away. If you are a gang-banger criminal and come in with a knife wound, the same applies except this time you are arrested. If you're a drug addict and you overdose on illegal narcotics, same deal, arrested for illegal drug use and sent to prison. If you are a legal guest on a greencard or citizen and you say you can't pay the bill, then the courts can simply dock your pay the same as if you owe child support or you owe the state back taxes. After all, if you owe the IRS money, they aren't going to just forgive the debt and use the law to get their money, why should the hospital system be any different?

Then law changes to address the legal system would be in order to get rid of the ambulance chasers and throw out frivolous lawsuits and put limitations on rewards for malpractice suits to bring hospital insurance premiums to more reasonable levels.

Legalizing mercy killings for terminally ill patients would also be more humane and save a lot of unnecessary costs as well. We have common sense in this regard to our beloved pets, but not our grandma or grandpa when they ask to be let go peacefully. Medicinal marijuana even if abused still saves a fortune on prohibition costs to the state (the war on that drug is clearly a failure) and represents a very very inexpensive pain management medication, with minimal side-effects and no chemical addiction. Lots of little things that can be done that add up.

Linda, Thank you. You are sooooo right.