Stipend as Welfare

I donate now and then to opensource projects or causes i feel are important. i think a donation system is good, because you can choose to subsidise what you believe is important and let die what you believe is not.

But a mandatory tax it's just what we called in france the "gabelle" wich was a tax imposed on salt , wich back then was the only mean of conserving food, and salt was a state monopoly.

This tax was at some point administrated by a special entity and in some country you wheren't even free to decide how much salt you wanted to buy, it was imposed to you.



A goverment as we know it would probably suffer a lot if all it's projects where funded by popular donations, wich country could go to war or other aggressive actions if the citizens would rather donate for cancer research and school construction?

But then maybe then they would stop pretending being democratic and would be kinda forced into it.

as long as there's one good salesman, and one person with deep pockets left in the world, there will always be war.

According to an article I read this year in the Everett Herald, published in Everett, Washington, a doctor in Everett has already figured out how to reduce health care costs for all, and he's making money like crazy while the health care costs for his patients have dropped dramatically. He has outlawed medical insurance. It doesn't matter if you have Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Medicare, or any other insurance, it is no good in his office, ever. When you get the bill you pay him in real cash. No credit offered. 100% of it is due now, period. None of his patients have left of their own volition, nor have any been forcibly turned away, and he has more and more flocking to his office wanting appointments every week.

This does not mean he doesn't treat people with no cash. He's provided for that eventuality too. But he will never spend even so much as one second of any of his days filling out paperwork for insurance claims and waiting for insurance money to kick in.

This just goes to prove that health insurance is laughable and the promise of health insurance for all is a huge scam.

My father fought cancer for several years and was given the very best of treatment from a government scheme devoted to universal health care for all. Without insurance this would have been crippling to any family. Even with insurance there would have been burdens. Where I live, it doesnt matter if one is a millionaire or a pauper, that person will be treated equally and fairly and with compassion.
Health care schemes frighten the drug and insurance companies and health professions - they can see the"glory train" of profits made on other peoples' sufferings dwindling away.
Perhsaps a two-tiered scheme would be preerable for USA - if a person prefers private, insured health care then do so. If you wish to sign on-board a universal scheme then go ahead. All that must be assured is that BOTH schemes offer exactly the same services.

Right.... that might work for minor issues. I'd like to see a person on a low income (for instance a cashier at Wal-Mart) pay for cancer treatment that way. Or should they just be left to die due to an inability to pay?

OK, that is a very strong issue, yes. I'm sure this idea of refusing insurance isn't going to do a bit of good there. But if you've got the flu and you need health care, the no-insurance-accepted practice is far better for both yourself and society because you yourself will be guaranteed to pay less and nobody else will be spending one red cent to subsidize your health care. It's been proven to work, and more people need to adopt it.

The days when access to health care, and the quality of it, including forcing people out of the hospital when they still need the care they get at that hospital, being determined by some acccountant looking at the profit and loss sheet instead of somebody who actually knows what you need medically, need to be ended immediately.

Can someone please tell me WHY it is so hard that people - paying taxes or even insurance - find it so hard to subsidize those who are less fortunate??
In the field I am in, there is a public perception that there is self-indulgence and amoralism but I am truly astonished by "Joe Six-Pack"s lack of empathy for fellow humans.
"There but for the grace of God go I " is a fitting credo to carry in one's head at all times when confronted with other people's disasters - then give freely to help freely.

Survival of the fittest. The human race is weakening itself by supporting its runts. Sparta had the right idea. You should have to pass an IQ test to be allowed to have kids. Poverty is caused by the increasing cost of supporting the old. Socialism is a suicidal philosophy.

Is that enough?

Pep (You asked me to come over here, didn't you Jig?)

I swear YOU are (or were) a public school (USA private school) teacher. It always livened up wednesday afternoons to have a whole slew of comments like that just to get us bolshie. There is nothing more appealing that a rich socialist - we really know our business. I love Doctor Zhivago

Indeed. But it's not socialized medicine to blame. It's medicine in general. And nutrition. And the tragic shortage of man-eating predators in Lower Manhattan.

Half a gramme of soma daily would be nice. You just can't beat the warm, richly coloured and infinitely friendly world of soma-holiday.

You have missed my point - it's socialism that is "to blame", and the mechanisms whereby the weak obtain healthcare and food.

Pep (and last time I was in Lower Manhattan I found quite a few man-eating predators. )

I can only speak from american standpoint........
But govermentaly it makes sense to subsidize the poor to have more kids when looking at a manifest destiny standpoint.....plus how many of those kids grow to be consumers.......more taxes on goods sold, more jobs to make those goods etc., look at russia where welfare is very piss poor and non existant (I have many tavels and relations there due to my wifes family being there) they have a negitive population growth rate and to combat it they now offer a bonus for having a second kid so to speak

But of course medicine is just a cultural artifact, like socialism. If the former is an acceptable exemption from the Law of the Jungle, the latter may be, too. Indeed, it could be that those who haven't yet assimilated socialism are just not adaptive, and need to be thinned from the gene pool. First against the wall, etc.

*captures Kyrah in a large potato sack and drags her off to do cruelly delightful things to her*

(please don't get her going on economies and taxes and what nots!!!)

Nope, I have no problem with helping people as long as it is voluntary. I have given the last $20 bill in my pocket to the guy on the side of the road with the "will work for food" sign. But I did that of my own free will. That is the sticking point between us Jig, I think it should be done out of free will, you want to use force to make people slaves.

Which is why when you remove the ability to make money, the innovation stops.

What the hell. Maybe you need to drive through some impoverished areas of the U.S.. I know in the small city i live outside of you can drive to one particular area during the work hours and find block after block of grown adults sitting on their porches, standing on corners, gathering around cars, chit-chatting, shooting-the breeze, and in general boondoggling. Yet if you look around them everything is in a state of disrepair, their girlfriends/wives are on welfare and so are there parents who they are not caring for - yet they are not going out of their way to work or change their lives in a positive manner. Screw them. Losers.

I know people who have grown up in ghetto's and walked out of there a polished shiny example of a what a determined hardworking individual can become despite their environment - I married one of them

Choices - people make choices. People choose to eat Double Quarter Pounders at 11pm, people choose to not go to day labor places in town and get a day job to earn themselves $60-100usd, people choose not to educate themselves, people choose to drink liquor and then drive - and all of them want sympathy for the consequences they suffer from the choices they made.

Subsidize those less fortunate? I will subsidize orphans, mentally ill, disabled veterans who are homeless, battered women who are homeless, and those actually incapable of helping themselves due to medical issues beyond their control. They need to make a donation box on our tax forms just for this and let us choose how much we help on our own.

Subsidize someone elses laziness, gluttony, greed, pursuit of hedonism and general compounded poor decision making? No. Never. Not if i have a say.

If you believe this, you are severely deluded. If we had this system in the US, do you really think that Obama or Teddy "I wear water wings" Kennedy is going to the back of the line behind some crack head from the inner city?

And anyone else who knows anything about how markets work. And anyone who doesn't want to wait months for treatment that they can get today under the present system.

It is mostly because of how that money is spent. Most peopl, myself included are not against paying taxes. (Except Chris, maybe). Infrastructure and services have to be paid for, and poor and infirm people should be looked after. But, at least in this country, it doesn't happen. We pay taxes,and more taxes. They get raised, others are added. Meanwhile Highways go unpaved, bridges crumble, services keep getting cut. I live in a state that has just about every form of legalized gambling possible, and we are still broke.Only the Government can run a bookmaking operation and not turn a profit.

There is widespread corruption and fraud. After all is paid, we try to take what we have left, and see to our own needs and hopefully have something left for our retirement or to enjoy life a bit. But now they want that as well it seems.

The people responsible for all this are nothing but liars and thieves, every single one of them, the fish stinks from the head.I'm tired of it. Help people get on their feet, fine. Subsidize their entire existance...No.

Agreed. They all should be voted out of office.

Why we have private charities and hospitals. Both hospitals in my town are owned by religious organizations, both will waive the bill if people are truly unable to pay, or set up payments of $25 a month if the person has some pride and wants to try and pay.

Maybe because when it is forced upon us, it is making us slaves. I would prefer to not be a slave.

I guess i won't mention that kajirus outfit i saw you in on Port Kar...

Now, now Bri, don't you know all cultures are worthy and should be respected. We can't expect people to adopt a culture of work and helping themselves. You big meanie.