Is this where the U.S. is headed with Obamacare?

LOLfail.

This is the result of corporatized health care.  Need lifesaving, expensive care?  HMO boots you, why should your health care insurance company actually pay for health care just to save your pathetic life!

When the doc thinks you need a treatment, but your HMO doesn't, guess who wins?

More people die from lack of health coverage every year -- 45,000 per year -- in the U.S. than from traffic accidents (42,000 per year).

We are the only industrialized nation to ration health care, and we have by far the least efficient system in terms of health coverage provided for health care dollars spent.  1,500 HMO CEOs rake in an average of $10 million each while shelling out bonuses to auditors to boot people off coverage when they suddenly need expensive lifesaving care.

Nixoncare kills.

I think any system will have its nasty stories to pull out and prove a point.

Basically the US system says if you get sick then pay for it and if you can't afford its too bad, go into debt and suffer for it. The system here in Australia says if you get sick you will be cared for paid by the government but you will receive swifter care (as a generalised statement) if you pay for your own care.

I think I know which country is more like the Federation and which is more like the Ferengi   I know which is more like the Klingon, Dominion, Romulan and the Breen too

Moose, the law hasn't even taken effect yet. This stuff happened under the existing system.

The Daily Mail and the Telegraph?

What, was the National Enquirer was too busy with Lindsey Lohan to give this drivel coverage as well?

BTW whatever happened to Climategate, the last nail in the Anthropogenic Global Warming coffin?

Or speaking of dead horse issues what about Orbital Bombardment, Tactical Battle and Multiplayer in GalCiv2?

Not much good news for Democrats these days. They may as well all go back into hiding.

OP is borderline trolling...  and apparently didn't bother reading the forum rules since political (and inflammatory) posts do not belong in Off-topic.

Exactly. Though he'll likely claim that the existing system must get worse because doctor won't get paid as much. Never mind things like demographics and the recession might have had an impact as well.

And Obama's plan didn't even pass.  No public option, over a hundred million Americans will still be unable to afford health care and tens of thousands will continue dying as a result every year due to corporate health care rationing from the ongoing Richard Nixon national heatlh care "system."

Agreed... this section is reserved specifically for the brain dead.

"Richard Nixon national heatlh care "system."

Wasn't it Lyndon Johnson who brought us Medicare and Medicaid?

Whatever health care system is invisioned for the brave new world we are heading into, you can rest assured it will ebenfit the super rich and elite more than us peons.  John P. Holdren, the Obmaa Science Czar advocates no more health care for old people.  Of Course, if you are an elitist at the top, you get billions spent on you just to live a few more days.  Us peons though (peons to government AND the major corporations) can rest assured we will maintain our status as human trash to be thrown out.

Ok tards.  That's in the UK.  The health care reforms here in the US not having taken effect yet isn't exactly relevant.

It's bad enough when one idiot misses that, but you're all jumping on a bandwagon driving on the left side of the street.

I can't vouch for anyone else's interpretation of my post, but when I wrote it I was referring to the OP's present-tense statements about "permanent damage" and "restrictive mandates", not the actual article, which, as you were kind enough to point out, originated in Britain, a country that has an entirely different system of medical practice than the United States.

Wow. That was a bit of a run-on sentence...

Healthcare is THE ultimate debate

Check the country - Their SYSTEM is in place - and failing.  Moose is saying that is coming to the US. 

Incorrect. The bill that Congress passed includes some relatively minor regulations on insurance companies and a bizarre individual mandate, but medical practice remains almost entirely under the control of the private sector. The Biritish system is largely socialized.

And it's rather annoying how everybody seems to think that my original comment applied to the actual events in this article. I'd assumed that other people would at least skim the article and realize that my comment only made sense in the context of the OP's present-tense statements. Silly me...

I did read the article, and that was why your statement made no sense.  Clearly since so many of us assumed you thought the incident occurred in the US, you were the one that was not clear.

Another factor leading to the misconception is that way you phrased it.  Clearly the OP is talking about what can be, not what is (as I have been told many times by people - this is the foot in the door for a grant socialized medicine plan).  So your statement in the context of what the OP said is misleading at best, and just wrong at worst.

In that case I apologize for having worded it badly. Happy?

Ah, the marvels of a free-market driven healthcare. Aint capitalism great? What the usa needs is a *shudders* SOCIALIZED health care system, like, hmm, just about the entire rest of the developed and developing world.

The rest of the developed and developing world being more retarded doesn't mean you should join them.  What you've failed to grasp in your observations is that the rest of the world is going into debt just as fast as we are, yet they don't spend anywhere near as much on defense while taxing vastly more.  All this while they still manage to under perform because public funding is so low that they can't afford to care for all the patients they have.

When you get a clue, which wouldn't take you ten minutes if you just bothered to contemplate all the bullshit you've been told, you'll realize that your "insurance" is unaffordable because Uncle is making you pick up the tab on all the medicare and medicaid bills they're shorting, and you're paying someone else to pay your bills instead of paying them yourself.  Meanwhile your separation from the actual cost of your care, and Uncle's seriously under-managed reimbursement system and insane litigation rules lead to inflated input costs.

psychoak, the misinformation you are spewing is mind-boggling.

So you begin your argument with an offensive, prejudiced ethnocentric aspersion.   Way to go.  An entire century of social progress (women's suffrage, civil rights, triumph of democracy over authoritarianism) and this is the attitude we're left with?  The rest of the world is "more retarded" than us? As an American all too aware of my fellow countrymen's inflated opinions of themselves, it really comes as no surprise to me that Americans traveling abroad are frequently criticized as being arrogant and egocentric.  So I guess I can partly fault your poor discourse on you being a product of your environment.

I have been to and lived in other countries, and I can tell you for a fact that the U.S. does not have the best healthcare system in the world.  Our privatized system is greatly inferior to those of a number of developed nations with socialized healthcare, notably France, Sweden, and Taiwan.  We also do not have the best K-12 education system in the world. (read up on Finland for a lesson in properly educating your children)  We do not have the best infrastructure in the world. (we really lag behind the East Asian countries)  We do not have the happiest people or the highest level of income equality in the world.

So, do you really think the rest of the world is "more retarded" than us?  Because the there are many things we don't seem to be doing right or better than other nations, except perhaps defense spending... and look what that's got us into.

No, just the other rich Western nations, especially the U.K. and Germany.  Maybe you could provide some hard evidence and statistics to back up your ridiculous claims?

Again, you take the example of a few developed Western European countries and superimpose your findings on the remainder of the world.  The developed East Asians nations are great examples of countries with low taxation and quality, affordable healthcare, much of it funded by government if not completely.

Maybe you need to "get a clue" yourself, and go learn about this world you live in before heavily criticizing someone with an opinion different from yours.

Does anyone think low taxation is in the cards for us in the United States?

Excuse me?  Do you even understand your own words written?  how is that ethnocentric?  You apparently do not understand the meaning of the word.

What has that got to do with his statement?  Nothing.  To imply otherwise is to demonstrate a great degree of ignorance.  Or stupidity.  You can choose your own medicine.

Whoop-dee-do!  So have I.  And I can tell you that America does - IMHO since I have not lived in all 200.  But you are saying you have?  Oh how arrogant you are!  No, Psychoak is not the reason for the ugly American myth.  Self appointed liars and egotists like you are.

WOW!  You are damning the fact that American health care is private (for now) and then using the excuse of a government run program as proof?  So you even engage brain before working fingers?  That is your best statement yet - of stupidity!

Yea, that is why we have 20 million ILLEGAL immigrants here and the longest waiting list of LEGAL immigrants anywhere!  All because we are so bad!  So poor!  So stupid!  I will trust the intelligence of tens of millions of people over your any day, especially given your rantings and stupidity.

You MADE a claim, so how about you back it up?  Oh, sorry, facts and your rantings are mutually exclusive.

Physician heal thyself.  You have already diagnosed yourself.

I suspect this thread will be locked in the near future if any moderator bother reads this. Great job guys.