8 questions for Walter Brueggeman

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brent
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Re: 8 questions for Walter Brueggeman

Post by brent » Tue Apr 07, 2015 4:56 pm

Here is capitalism. I have an idea. I make a product. I sell a product to someone who needs it. There is an exchange of money. The person who buys my product works for someone else who provides a job by providing a good/service. This system is not dependent upon people doing poorly. This system only works well when people work. The problem is, more and more people DON'T want to work and they want their consumable items provided to them for free. THAT does not work.

Now, if the government would stay out of things, and we could get to a cash based system, health care would be affordable for more people. For instance. My boss is self insured. He is a three time cancer survivor. He has negotiated his care and paid cash for a fraction of the amount insurance would have been billed. He goes often for MRIs and CT scans. He pays $300 or so and walks out with his data. That is a quarter of the national average for a CT scan. He is self insured and has paid less than he would have paid in premiums + balances of non-covered procedures.

Medi-Share and other similar organizations are not insurance, but allow believers to pay lower monthly premiums, negotiate a cash price, and use the care provider of your choice. That is the way to go in my opinion.

Now, the big jacked up line of thinking expressed by PFreak ties healthcare to capitalism. The two aren't connected. Insurance is not a right. Insurance is not healthcare. Insurance is what kicks in once you have paid all you can pay. The reason why our system is jacked up is because of the insurance industry has been relied on as the provider of health care. As a result, they have dictated what is good for them. THAT is the problem. This does not give capitalism a black eye any more than McDonalds gives beef farmers a black eye.
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Re: 8 questions for Walter Brueggeman

Post by Markus » Wed Apr 08, 2015 6:46 am

@Dan:
p-freaks Location: The Netherlands Hm... So i guess, he is one of our good old neighbors in Europe. :)

For me, i totally go with p-freak and i can honestly say, that i told multiple times people, that i'm very thankful to live in Germany for two reason:
1. health insurance
2. (Almost) No snakes in the environment. :lol:

Yes, i remember that we were very confused, when we heard that a lot of Americans are against a coverage health insurance, as - yes we have to pay a lot of money for it - we are very thankful for it.

So far, we have a social market economy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy ; hoping, this is a good quality article) and i really think taking the better aspects of capitalism and socialism is a quite good idea.

I think,if you want to succeed in capitalism, you have to grow and grow, get bigger and bigger. And i - personally - think that the risk "to put your heart on treasures", is totally stronger, than i socialism. http://www.bibleserver.com/text/KJV/Acts4/34

Brent, as far as i agree with most of your post, here i disagree. But i hope, this is ok! ;-) :lol: There are a lot of people (also in Germany) which are having a full time job (so, they are *working*) and still do not have enough money to make their own life (pay the rent, pay food). I think, this is simply not right.

Best,
Markus

PS: Could someone please fix the wink, sad, surprised, confused and very happy smiley? :D Thanks!
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brent
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Re: 8 questions for Walter Brueggeman

Post by brent » Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:37 am

Markus, your economy that's not always done well. You guys are the 16th in the freest economies. what do you think your company would do if a large segment of the population refused to work and wanted the government to pay for the food, health care, phone service, utilities, rent?
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Re: 8 questions for Walter Brueggeman

Post by p-freak » Wed Apr 08, 2015 1:20 pm

Dan wrote:P-Freak where in the U.S are you living?
I'm in of those culturally colonized states that you sometimes refer to as Europe. :lol:

Believe me, Dan, I might've never been to the States, but don't underestimate the fact that in Europe we know a gazillion times more about the US than vice versa.
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Re: 8 questions for Walter Brueggeman

Post by p-freak » Wed Apr 08, 2015 1:33 pm

brent wrote:Here is capitalism. I have an idea. I make a product. I sell a product to someone who needs it. There is an exchange of money. The person who buys my product works for someone else who provides a job by providing a good/service. This system is not dependent upon people doing poorly. This system only works well when people work. The problem is, more and more people DON'T want to work and they want their consumable items provided to them for free. THAT does not work.

Now, if the government would stay out of things, and we could get to a cash based system, health care would be affordable for more people. For instance. My boss is self insured. He is a three time cancer survivor. He has negotiated his care and paid cash for a fraction of the amount insurance would have been billed. He goes often for MRIs and CT scans. He pays $300 or so and walks out with his data. That is a quarter of the national average for a CT scan. He is self insured and has paid less than he would have paid in premiums + balances of non-covered procedures.

Medi-Share and other similar organizations are not insurance, but allow believers to pay lower monthly premiums, negotiate a cash price, and use the care provider of your choice. That is the way to go in my opinion.

Now, the big jacked up line of thinking expressed by PFreak ties healthcare to capitalism. The two aren't connected. Insurance is not a right. Insurance is not healthcare. Insurance is what kicks in once you have paid all you can pay. The reason why our system is jacked up is because of the insurance industry has been relied on as the provider of health care. As a result, they have dictated what is good for them. THAT is the problem. This does not give capitalism a black eye any more than McDonalds gives beef farmers a black eye.
You are explaining simple open market capitalism, while ignoring the much bigger scale it's happening on. The bigger companies get, the more they can decide what they want and pay a salary that doesn't cover living costs for a full time job. Markus has a very valid point about people working their a** off and still not being able to have a normal life. That is the excess of capitalism, because the company can dictate such low salaries since there are enough uneducated people who just need to earn money. This is what the government should regulate by setting minimum wages and making sure that people can survive on a full-time jobs and don't have to take 2nd and 3rd jobs just to make ends meet. That is injustice and that is incompatible with a biblical worldview.

Healthcare is something that should be available to everyone. In Europe most countries have an equal-burden system. Everyone pays what they can, which the rich paying a little bit more (which they won't miss, because they can easily afford it), and everyone gets the same care. As I said before, I don't know the details of Obamacare. I would imagine that any social system would be better than a dog-eat-dog society where everyone is left to their own devices and many can't even afford to have insurance, pushing them over the brink into poverty when they get serious health issues. That is injustice and that is incompatible with a biblical worldview.

Capitalism-gone-bad-without-government-control promotes injustice and inequality and will never go back on its steps. It's more for the rich and less for the poor and that's because they didn't work! That's rubbish. If you'd finally be able to step over your old and dusty line of poor people not being willing to work (that's not the rule - that's the exception), then you'd see that people are trampled by capitalism, resulting in the fact that they can't afford insurance/healthcare.

There is a fundamental lack of compassion in your approach and a fundamental depreciation of the call for social equality that's plastered all over the Old Testament. Jesus said to have compassion on the poor and that includes those people that you think don't want to work, but in reality are just too beaten down and trampled upon by the excesses of society. They just don't have the courage and the guts and the education and the intelligence to work their way up. That is where your compassion should start. As a believer you cannot ignore them and keep shouting that it's their own fault.
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Re: 8 questions for Walter Brueggeman

Post by Dan » Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:16 pm

p-freak wrote:
Dan wrote:P-Freak where in the U.S are you living?
I'm in of those culturally colonized states that you sometimes refer to as Europe. :lol:

Believe me, Dan, I might've never been to the States, but don't underestimate the fact that in Europe we know a gazillion times more about the US than vice versa.
I wouldn't make that broader statement, there are a few in the U.S don't know a lot about other countries, once you have been to the U.S you'll understand why, makes other places seem like nanny states.
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Re: 8 questions for Walter Brueggeman

Post by brent » Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:19 pm

I don't know what large companies you are talking about. All companies pay what the market can bare. If people want to live on minimum wage, that is their idiocy, not the company's fault. Nobody is forced to work anywhere.

We have the freedom to work where we want. People are not forced into low-paying jobs. They CHOOSE to have low-paying jobs. This sounds absurd, but it is true. Everyone has the ability to choose what they want to do for a living. There are more job openings than people willing to work. Heck, at my company, I can't find qualified techs to make $40/hr. Techs will work for a while, then get lazy. The same goes for electricians, plumbers...any type of construction has this issue.

There are waaaaaaay tooooooo many foreigners coming to this country penniless, living the American dream. We have millionaires graduating from college. Meanwhile, I service school systems where the average senior will graduate with a third grade reading level. Why? The parents should not be reproducing. They are literally stupid and are reproducing. My wife is a teacher and some of her parents can't do the class work her students do. Some people are not born with the ability to learn. That's for sure. But, we taxpayers are being forced to pay for other uninitiated, uneducated (by choice), hand-out-demanding people. The amount being spent on these people dwarfs the amount taxed. We cannot do it any longer.

I am all for helping those who need a hand up. I am not sympathetic to those living on hand outs. Obama Care robs the paying to pay the robbing. At the end of the day, they are still screwed. Obama Care is not insurance. It does not provide real health care. Doctors and hospitals are refusing to honor it. So, all the government did by literally "voting it in and reading it later" is destroy one of the best systems in the world. They gave all of the fat people with diabetes cake. Really smart.

The USA is still the top destination of people wanting to leave their home counties in search of a shot at their pursuit of happiness. Here is what they do. They come in, move where there is a potential to succeed. They move to a broke state and shack up with other poverty stricken people. even if they do, poverty plagued people here are still richer than the average person in other developing or third world countries.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall ... -humanity/
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