Government run health care and government run schools

[Thunder]

We have government run elementary, junior, and high school. They are funded by tax dollars. No one HAS to send their children to government-run schools. They can always go to secular private schools or religious run schools.

Its all the choice of their parents. They can even home school. But all children MUST be educated.

This should be the same guide for government run health care. it should be an OPTION...not a mandate.

people can use private HMOs or government-run healthcare, or the companies mandated by their employer. ALL Americans should be mandated to have health care, but how they do it should be their choice. Government funded, corporate private HMOs, not-for profit HMOs, whatever, as long as they have coverage.

I hope this is the plan Congress comes up with.

[Upchurch]

We have government run elementary, junior, and high school. They are funded by tax dollars. No one HAS to send their children to government-run schools. They can always go to secular private schools or religious run schools.
As the product of public (i.e. government-run) schools, I can say that it works best when parents are actively involved in the education process. (Which is true of any school, really.)

Likewise, I think a public health care will work best when the people it effects are active in making sure it does so.

[Rolfe]

And that first post is different from how universal healthcare works everywhere* else, exactly how?

I just don't understand American posters who assume that universal healthcare means that only the universal system will exist. Every night I watch cute ads on TV telling me how nice it is to go to a BUPA (http://www.bupa.co.uk/) hospital, and how they have great health insurance plans I'd love like nothing on earth. And they have. I used to have one in my last job.

I watch the commercials and then I go do something else, because experience tells me that the NHS (free at point of need) is overwhelmingly likely to pick up the pieces if and when I fall to bits.

They have a perfectly good business and perfectly good profits, catering to people who like a private room, and elective procedures done at a time of their own convenience, and preferably not even to be in the same building as the Great Unwashed. But nobody has to go to BUPA or die, and most people don't bother with them.

* Well, the bits of everywhere I'm passingly familiar with, anyway.

Rolfe.

[brodski]

And that first post is different from how universal healthcare works everywhere* else, exactly how?

I just don't understand American posters who assume that universal healthcare means that only the universal system will exist. Every night I watch cute ads on TV telling me how nice it is to go to a BUPA (http://www.bupa.co.uk/) hospital, and how they have great health insurance plans I'd love like nothing on earth. And they have. I used to have one in my last job.

I watch the commercials and then I go do something else, because experience tells me that the NHS (free at point of need) is overwhelmingly likely to pick up the pieces if and when I fall to bits.

They have a perfectly good business and perfectly good profits, catering to people who like a private room, and elective procedures done at a time of their own convenience, and preferably not even to be in the same building as the Great Unwashed. But nobody has to go to BUPA or die, and most people don't bother with them.

* Well, the bits of everywhere I'm passingly familiar with, anyway.

Rolfe.

It is my understanding (which is probably flawed) that Canada has some pretty tight restriction on fully private healthcare, and (for obvious reasons) the Canadian system is the system which most US pundits look too when discussing "socialized medicine".

[thaiboxerken]

I think most of the conservative pundits describe a caricature of universal health care, where people bleeding to death are waiting days for emergency treatment, the doctors are minimum wage teenagers and there is no sanitation in the surgery suites.

[Rolfe]

It is my understanding (which is probably flawed) that Canada has some pretty tight restriction on fully private healthcare, and (for obvious reasons) the Canadian system is the system which most US pundits look too when discussing "socialized medicine".


Yeah, I thought there were exceptions. And I suppose the countries where the whole thing is based on an insurance-funded system work differently as well.

I just can't get my head round the idea that anyone would even dream of trying to impose a system like that on Americans. Practically, it has significant disadvantages, and it's so contrary to the American mindset I'd have thought it was a no-brainer.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

I think most of the conservative pundits describe a caricature of universal health care, where people bleeding to death are waiting days for emergency treatment, the doctors are minimum wage teenagers and there is no sanitation in the surgery suites.


Like this comment on an article about Obama's healthcare plans (http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/president-obamas-presser-public-option)?

I am a small biz owner. I pay for my own Health insurance. I watch every penny and do not go an ER room for a cold. My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer (we are in our 40's). I thank God everyday that I live here instead of a socialist country where his late stage cancer would not have been seen by a doctor for 6 months. He is cured. He would not have lived the 6 months waiting. I suggest all on this site grow up and start taking your health as your own responsibility NOT the GOVERNMENT'S. You will face a health issue, Let's hope that you won't have to wait (or be too old) to get help. I'll pray for all of you that this will not pass.


No, Madam. We do not have to wait six months to see a doctor if we have cancer. Or a burst appendix. Or Mexican flu. Or pleurisy. Or DVT. Or even a sprained ankle. Don't believe everything you read in the papers.

Rolfe.

[oldhat]

Republicans have been making the exact same stupid argument about universal healthcare for 50 years.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o193/noahyzimmerman/reaganmed.jpg

Literally.

What do they think, a bunch of Red Chinese are going to burst into your doctor's office and force you to sing the International?

[thaiboxerken]

Another silly couple of silly questions by the GOP Fox News people is "If there is government run healthcare, could that not encourage a business to drop private coverage for the cheaper government version? Where is my choice then?"

To which the answer is YES. However, most people currently don't have a choice as to whether their company carries health insurance or not, and companies have been known to change providers without the consent of their workers. Under the current situation, there is a choice, work for a company with health care or one without. I'd rather have a third choice of having healthcare regardless of the companies decision as to which provider they want.

[Thunder]

Another silly couple of silly questions by the GOP Fox News people is "If there is government run healthcare, could that not encourage a business to drop private coverage for the cheaper government version? Where is my choice then?"

has the existence of public schools driven secular private and religious schools out of business?

nope. and nor would government health care drive private insurers out of business. if anything, it would insure better competition for lower costs and higher quality. capitalism at its finest.

[Rolfe]

The very idea of having to rely on my employer to provide my healthcare coverage scares me witless. Especially when I appear to have bugger-all employment rights or security of employment. How many Americans are hanging on to dead-end jobs they hate because they need the healthcare coverage?

And having been an employer too, in my time, the idea of having to provide healthcare coverage for that mob and still keep the business solvent also scares me witless.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

has the existence of public schools driven secular private and religious schools out of business?

nope. and nor would government health care drive private insurers out of business. if anything, it would insure better competition for lower costs and higher quality. capitalism at its finest.


I don't think you two are disagreeing.

Rolfe.

[Holler Hoojer]

A few years back, I worked for a company that had plants in the US and one in Canada. In the US, we had BC/BS. In Canada, they had the national system. We visited back and forth a lot and, of course, sometimes discussed health care. They had a heck of a time getting elective surgery (stomach stapling, deviated septums (septa?), knee replacements, and so on) and fast care for cancer, heart attacks, etc. On the other hand, we had high premiums, a $2000 deductible, and limited drug choices. They did not seem to envy our system.

[Ziggurat]

We have government run elementary, junior, and high school. They are funded by tax dollars. No one HAS to send their children to government-run schools. They can always go to secular private schools or religious run schools.

Except that they're still paying for public schools, even if they aren't attending. And many parents can't afford to pay for both simultaneously, so for many parents there is no realistic choice other than government-run schools. Which is why voucher systems have become attractive for many lower-income parents.

This should be the same guide for government run health care. it should be an OPTION...not a mandate.

But it will be effectively a mandate if you have to pay for government healthcare even if you don't use it.

Oh, and even among the very poor, in fact maybe especially (http://city-journal.org/2009/bc0619lj.html) among the very poor, government-run education doesn't have a clear advantage over private education.

[oldhat]

On the other hand, we had high premiums, a $2000 deductible, and limited drug choices. They did not seem to envy our system.

They also can't cancel your policy if you ever happen to get an illness that's too expensive for them to turn a profit on.

[thaiboxerken]

The very idea of having to rely on my employer to provide my healthcare coverage scares me witless.

Me too, especially since I was just laid off. Also, some companies will, and have, terminated people with chronic illnesses because of health costs and such. Yes, it's illegal to do so, but they find ways to do it.

[Rolfe]

Except that they're still paying for public schools, even if they aren't attending. And many parents can't afford to pay for both simultaneously, so for many parents there is no realistic choice other than government-run schools. Which is why voucher systems have become attractive for many lower-income parents.

But it will be effectively a mandate if you have to pay for government healthcare even if you don't use it.

Oh, and even among the very poor, in fact maybe especially (http://city-journal.org/2009/bc0619lj.html) among the very poor, government-run education doesn't have a clear advantage over private education.


Um. But you're paying for government funded healthcare at the moment. Just like we are. The only difference is you can't access it. With the suggestion in the OP, you become free to access the system you are paying for. If you choose.

And it may be that private education is better. It may be that private medicine is better. In each case you can access that "better" if you want to and can pay for it. So what? The point is that the government funded system (not necessarily government-run for pity's sake) is sufficient.

That would leave a huge number of people massively better off than they are at the moment. Nobody has to pay for anything over and above the universal system, but if you want to, nobody's stopping you. That's how it works here.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

They also can't cancel your policy if you ever happen to get an illness that's too expensive for them to turn a profit on.


And nobody is counting up what's been spent on you in total in order to tell you that you've reached a limit so you're out on the street.

Rolfe.

[thaiboxerken]

Except that they're still paying for public schools, even if they aren't attending.

I'm paying for public schools, and I have no children! I should be able to opt out.


But it will be effectively a mandate if you have to pay for government healthcare even if you don't use it.

It sure is. I should also be able to opt out of paying taxes for the upkeep of the streets and traffic lights since I walk to work.


Oh, and even among the very poor, in fact maybe especially (http://city-journal.org/2009/bc0619lj.html) among the very poor, government-run education doesn't have a clear advantage over private education.

Isn't a poor education better than no education? Government-run education isn't about having an advantage over private education, it's about providing a minimal standard of education to all children. Likewise, I'd like to see all people have access to health care, not just people with jobs. I'd like a system where getting cancer doesn't bankrupt a person because their health insurance provider finds a way to wiggle out of paying.

[Dr Adequate]

But it will be effectively a mandate if you have to pay for government healthcare even if you don't use it. Yeah, and you have to pay for the police even if you hire your own bodyguards, and you have to pay for federal highways even if you own a private jet.

So?

[Ziggurat]

Um. But you're paying for government funded healthcare at the moment. Just like we are. The only difference is you can't access it.

First off, you presume falsely if you think I'm satisfied with current health care conditions. And secondly, that's irrelevant to my criticism of parky's statements about public education in the US.

[shawmutt]

We're already paying for health care we don't get. The US government pays among the most, per capita, for health care among the industrialized nations.

[Biscuit]

My fear is that congress is to far gone up the road the health care lobbyists want them to be on and what the american people will get is a public option that is so mangled with ridiculous restrictions and red tape that it will be destined to fail. Then the GOP will jump up and down screaming, "The government can't run anything!!!"

I will site medicare not being allowed to negotiate for cheaper drug prices as one such handicap the Congress has imposed to the detriment of the people.

I have dual citizenship with the U.K. and lived there using the health care system for several years in my late teens and early twenties. During that time I had a bad accident and seriously wrenched my lower back, I was able to see a doctor the next day, was fully checked out, got prescriptions, and had several follow up visits with no trouble. I do not recall hearing anyone in England wishing there was only a private option despite what reservations they had about the public one.

Several years later, back in the U.S., I re-injured my back. This time it took a week to see my primary care who insisted I had only torn a muscle and sent me away with pain pills despite the fact I had pain down my leg. Three months of seeing him and insisting it wasn't a torn muscle I was finally sent for an MRI and guess what, it was a ruptured disc! I eventually had to have surgery on it and got an infection from the hospital where I had had the surgery.

I had insurance through my job but still had to pay around $6,000 for the first surgery. Now get this, the same hospital that gave me the infection in the first place came into my room after the surgery to remove the infection with a bill for another $3,000 for the second operation. I had barely come out of anesthetics when this occurred and they wanted me to sign for the bill to be charged to my CC. My mother was in the room and stopped me as I had no idea what I was signing. The hospital hounded me for months for that money and I fought with them over it. I ended up settling for half the amount. So now I have a pre-existing condition and can't get any kind of reasonably priced insurance. There is no way I could ever be covered in our private system at an affordable rate so I go without for now.

I know I am just one of millions of hard working, mostly healthy americans, that needs an option that we can afford.

[Rolfe]

I'm paying for public schools, and I have no children! I should be able to opt out.

It sure is. I should also be able to opt out of paying taxes for the upkeep of the streets and traffic lights since I walk to work.

Isn't a poor education better than no education? Government-run education isn't about having an advantage over private education, it's about providing a minimal standard of education to all children. Likewise, I'd like to see all people have access to health care, not just people with jobs. I'd like a system where getting cancer doesn't bankrupt a person because their health insurance provider finds a way to wiggle out of paying.


You're understating the case, Thaiboxerken.

At the moment the US taxpayer is paying just as much as the British taxpayer to fund publicly-funded healthcare. The only difference is that the US taxpayer doesn't get to access the system he's paying for. People who carp about being "forced to pay for a public system even if you don't want to use it" seemto forget that at present they are forced to pay for a public system they can't use even if they want to. And paying just as much as we are in Britain for the system we can all access, too.

Publicly-funded healthcare doesn't have to be poor. Given the amount of money America currently pours into healthcare, it could be very good. Which still wouldn't stop some people from wanting to pay extra for luxuries like a choice of time, and a swanky posh room, and a hospital where none of the Great Unwashed can be seen. They do that here, and that's fine.

Basic, sufficient, universal care need not be poor in quality.

Rolfe.

[Ziggurat]

Yeah, and you have to pay for the police even if you hire your own bodyguards, and you have to pay for federal highways even if you own a private jet.

So?

So don't pretend that it's a level playing field. You want to argue that it's better that way? Fine. In the case of police, for example, I'd agree. But education in the US isn't simple an unconstrained choice between public and private: it's very constrained by the fact that you pay for public education even if you don't use it. To not acknowledge that reality (and parky didn't) is to tell a half-truth.

[Ziggurat]

I'm paying for public schools, and I have no children! I should be able to opt out.

Boy, you really don't understand what I'm saying at all. Not that I'm surprised.

[Thunder]

I'm paying for public schools, and I have no children! I should be able to opt out. .

you don't think the children of American should be educated huh?

I also don't have children, but I am happy to have my tax dollars fund NYC schools.

I am also not on Medicare, but I'm happy to have my tax dollars pay for the health care of older folks.

I'm sorry, but your view seems very selfish and frankly unAmerican.

[thaiboxerken]

Boy, you really don't understand what I'm saying at all. Not that I'm surprised.

Oh, I do, I really do.

[thaiboxerken]

you don't think the children of American should be educated huh?

I also don't have children, but I am happy to have my tax dollars fund NYC schools.

Perhaps I should've placed the :rolleyes: at the end the posts above. I was being sarcastic and showing the ridiculousness of Ziggy's arguments.

[Rolfe]

First off, you presume falsely if you think I'm satisfied with current health care conditions. And secondly, that's irrelevant to my criticism of parky's statements about public education in the US.


It is entirely relevant. You are working from the premise that the public system will inevitably be so poor that even people on low incomes would wish to access the private system. If you have that problem with your schools, i suggest you need to deal with that separately.

The objection, however, does not apply to healthcare. The existence of universal healthcare in Britain is exactly why private health insurance is so cheap here. The insurers know that certain events will inevitably be dealt with entirely by the public sector, so they only need to offer cover for additional items.

It's more as if the public schools taught a range of basic subjects well, but if you wanted your child to learn Sanskrit or musical compositioin then you could access the private system for extra lessons - far cheaper than paying for all the kid's education.

Rolfe.

[Ziggurat]

You're understating the case, Thaiboxerken.

No, he's going off on a tangent because he thinks I'm talking about something other than I actually am. And you seem to have made the same mistake. Let me clue you in: the fact that the choice between public and private education in the US is constrained does NOT mean that it's necessarily wrong to have set the system up this way. But it does mean that it's foolish to pretend that we have complete choice in the matter. You seem fixated on proving that this is better than an anarcho-capitalist approach to the problem, but ignoring the actual point I made that our choices in education are constrained. Whether or not that is worth it is a separate question. But if you can't even acknowledge that our choices are, in fact, constrained, then there's really no point in any further discussion.

[Thunder]

A healthier America is a stronger and better America. That's the gist of it. And I have no problem with my tax dollars going to pay for some of that.

I think selfishness is behind all those folks who don't want their tax dollars paying in ANY WAY for the health-care of someone else.

But yet, they pay for Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and the FDIC. These are all programs that help someone else. So whats the big deal????

[Rolfe]

So don't pretend that it's a level playing field. You want to argue that it's better that way? Fine. In the case of police, for example, I'd agree. But education in the US isn't simple an unconstrained choice between public and private: it's very constrained by the fact that you pay for public education even if you don't use it. To not acknowledge that reality (and parky didn't) is to tell a half-truth.


Frankly, I don't think he had to say something quite that obvious. It was integral to his point.

You already have systems in place where everyone has a right of access to a publicly-funded service without further charge in addition to normal taxation, but where private provision can also be bought in addition. Nobody gets a rebate on their taxes if they pay for private education, or evenif they have no children.

And yet the country hasn't fallen apart.

The private security firm is an even better parallel. You don't lose the support of the police if you employ one. You have more protection over and above the police force. You can still call on them, and they are still the most appropriate means of dealing with certain eventualities.

Just so, someone who wants to pay for private healthcare does not lose access to the public sector, and may well still use it for a number of issues. This will greatly reduce the cost of the private insurance.

Rolfe.

[thaiboxerken]

Ziggy, if there were no public schooling, do you think there would be greater choices for education? I would think this would simply eradicate the choice of certain people to get any education, particularly poor people.

[leftysergeant]

And secondly, that's irrelevant to my criticism of parky's statements about public education in the US.

We understand that. It's all about you.

That isn't the way civilization works, above a feudal level.

You aren't paying to have your larvae educated. you're paying to have an educated, productive society.

A healthy nation is also going to be a more productive nation.

In a nation with an ecconomy so driven by consumption, how can it be good for any segment of that ecconomy other than financial services that we are spending about 50% or more of our individual income on things that do not neccessarily result in a single factory order, but move more and more money into fewer and fewer hands?

Right wingers are so short-sighted.

[thaiboxerken]

This will greatly reduce the cost of the private insurance.

Rolfe.

This may well reduce the profits of private insurance companies as well, which is what I think the real obstacle is in Washington.

[Rolfe]

No, he's going off on a tangent because he thinks I'm talking about something other than I actually am. And you seem to have made the same mistake. Let me clue you in: the fact that the choice between public and private education in the US is constrained does NOT mean that it's necessarily wrong to have set the system up this way. But it does mean that it's foolish to pretend that we have complete choice in the matter. You seem fixated on proving that this is better than an anarcho-capitalist approach to the problem, but ignoring the actual point I made that our choices in education are constrained. Whether or not that is worth it is a separate question. But if you can't even acknowledge that our choices are, in fact, constrained, then there's really no point in any further discussion.


Look, your choices are always going to be constrained. It's a tough world.

Can I repeat what I said about the limitations of the education analogy. Once a child is enrolled in a private school, there is generally little benefit being taken from the public school sector. In contrast, private healthcare running aongside a public system is more akin to having the money to pay for extra classes or extra subjects on top of the basic curriculum.

So long as the basic curriculum is sufficient, then those who do not have the money to go beyond it are not, in my view, unacceptably disadvantaged. Those who have more money will always be able to buy privilege. This should not be an issue.

Rolfe.

[Thunder]

How come conservative Republicans, who claim to care soo much about human life, are soo unwilling to pay an extra dime to make sure their fellow Americans are healthy???

They will fight tooth and nail to defend life within the womb, but once he/she pops out..you're on your own to sink or swim??? And if you sink..it ain't my fault or my problem?

Pro-life my ass. Hypocrites all.

[Ziggurat]

It is entirely relevant. You are working from the premise that the public system will inevitably be so poor that even people on low incomes would wish to access the private system.

Inevitability is irrelevant. In many places they are poor, and people want a choice. Without something like a voucher system, many don't have any realistic alternative. That's the reality of it.

The objection, however, does not apply to healthcare.

I doesn't make what I said wrong: if you have to pay for government-run health care, your choices about health care are constrained. Regardless of the advantages that this might provide, my statement is still true. You're so hung up on our previous conversations that you can't actually evaluate what I actually said here.

[Ziggurat]

We understand that. It's all about you.

When you want to talk about what I actually said, we can talk. I have no interest in spending my time burning your strawmen.

[Thunder]

Government run health care will be not-for-profit. That means lower costs. Private HMOs will have to lower their rediculous costs in order to keep up and stay competitive. Maybe even reduce CEO pay and yearly bonuses!!! God forbid!!

Free market wins.

[Rolfe]

This may well reduce the profits of private insurance companies as well, which is what I think the real obstacle is in Washington.


Well, I think so too. It's not so much about the profits as the size of the sector. The private health insurance industry in Britain is healthy and profitable, it's just not very big.

They're looking significant downsizing in the face, and they don't like it. In many ways I don't blame them. It would be better to confront this and deal with it than pretend the problem isn't there. in my opinion.

One way would be to examine the healthcare systems in countries that use the insurance companies to deliver the universal healthcare. I don't entirely know how that works, but it seems to work just fine. Another would be to accept that insurance company downsizing is a likely consequence and put in place structures to allow this to happen in a controlled way and without causing hardship.

Harness makers were doomed when the motor car was invented. But they didn't starve, they diversified. Tobacco companies should be forcibly downsized into oblivion and hell mend them. Somewhere in the middle is how to manage the health insurance industry in America. pretending it will all be hunky-dory isn't going to get it done though.

Rolfe.

[Ziggurat]

Ziggy, if there were no public schooling, do you think there would be greater choices for education?

There might not be better choice, but there would, without a doubt, be more choice.

And I'm not opposed to public education. I'm a product of public education, and I believe quite strongly that it should be universally available. Did you think otherwise?

[Rolfe]

Inevitability is irrelevant. In many places they are poor, and people want a choice. Without something like a voucher system, many don't have any realistic alternative. That's the reality of it.


And you still haven't taken on board what I've said at all. Unless you're implying that a government-funded healthcare system will be poor, so poor that people will want to reject it even though it's free at point of use, and pay for something else. And in that case we're just back to the piss-up in the brewery argument again.

I doesn't make what I said wrong: if you have to pay for government-run health care, your choices about health care are constrained. Regardless of the advantages that this might provide, my statement is still true. You're so hung up on our previous conversations that you can't actually evaluate what I actually said here.


And this is different from where you are at the moment how, exactly? You have to pay for government-funded healthcare at the moment. The difference is that in a universal system you get to access it. If you want.

I fail to see how that makes anyone worse off.

Rolfe.

[thaiboxerken]

There might not be better choice, but there would, without a doubt, be more choice.

How? Those who can't afford it simply won't be able to get it. How is that a choice at all?

[shawmutt]

I doesn't make what I said wrong: if you have to pay for government-run health care, your choices about health care are constrained. Regardless of the advantages that this might provide, my statement is still true. You're so hung up on our previous conversations that you can't actually evaluate what I actually said here.

This ignores the fact that many folks in the US are constrained with the current system. Have you seen the increase in copays lately? I had a hell of a time even finding a doctor in my pretty cushy health plan that was accepting new patients. Trying to get my son into a specialist for a serious eczema problem and resulting staph infection was damn near impossible. We had to hope someone canceled an appointment, and drop everything when the call came, or wait six months.

The US does provide universal health care, of a sorts. By law, emergency care has to be provided. This is a completely ass backwards way of doing things, is expensive and inefficient, and is choking the system. Universal health care allows folks to take preventative steps, and to visit less expensive health clinics, that avoid expensive emergency room visits.

[Rolfe]

You all keep on about "government-run" healthcare. Why should your government want to run healthcare?

It's about the government paying for healthcare.

Rolfe.

[shawmutt]

Well, and as mentioned before, there seems to be a false dichotomy when dealing with healthcare--employee based vs. "socialized". There are many ways to provide universal health care. Wikipedia has a decent article of different ways around the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care

[Thunder]

You all keep on about "government-run" healthcare. Why should your government want to run healthcare?

It's about the government paying for healthcare.

Rolfe.

government run...government paid for...whatever.

its good for the American people. if the current system was soo good...there wouldnt be 30 million folks without health care.

[Ziggurat]

How? Those who can't afford it simply won't be able to get it. How is that a choice at all?

Those people don't have any choice now either. What they get now may be better than a no-government-education scenario, which is why I specifically made a distinction between quality and amount of choice, but they wouldn't have any less choice. Overall, choice would increase, not decrease. I never claimed that amount of choice was the only issue, and in fact indicated that it was not.

[Rolfe]

I still don't understand the constant idea that a government-funded system will or even might be so inadequate that even people on limited incomes would want to reject what they could have for free and arrange to pay privately.

Even the cheapest universal healthcare systems are able to provide sufficient primary care and emergency care to keep the vast majority of their populations perfectly satisfied with what they're getting. Even people with private health insurance still use the NHS for ordinary primary care stuff, and for all emergancy treatment. It's only if your doctor tells you that you need elective surgery that you call on the insurance plan - and that's not so you can have the surgery at all, but so you can have it in a nicer hospital, at a time of your own choosing, and usually a bit quicker. I had a sinus operation done that way, but if I hadn't had the insurance (or been repared to pay from my own funds) the same surgeon would have done the same operation on my anyway, just about five miles away and three months later.

Oh yes, and if you do need emergency treatment, and you wake up in an NHS hospital, that's when you can start asking for your private room in your private clinic. But the ambulance that rushed you for emergency surgery, and the emergency surgery will all be on the NHS. Since the NHS is unrivalled at providing this service, nobody even thinks of doing it differently.

Why would a US system be any worse? We are simply back at the piss-up in the brewery.

Rolfe.

[Ziggurat]

This ignores the fact that many folks in the US are constrained with the current system.

No, it does not ignore that at all. I know damned well that the current healthcare system has lots of constraints on our choices in it. That doesn't change anything I said, because I never claimed or suggested this was not the case.

[Ziggurat]

I fail to see how that makes anyone worse off.

I fail to see that I made such a claim anywhere within this thread.

[thaiboxerken]

It seems to me, Ziggy, that you're advocating choices only for those who can afford it. Screw the rest, they don't need no education.

[Rolfe]

Who, exactly, is going to be worse off in the proposed system you're arguing against, Ziggurat?

People on low incomes will have access to healthcare free at the point of need. They may not be able to afford extra bells and whistles on that, but they can't afford anything at the moment.

People on middle incomes will be able to access the healthcare system they're currently paying for, if they want to. And if they don't want to, or want extra provision, they can take out more insurance, or pay for it up-front. They have one more choice that they didn't have before, and no reduction in choice.

The rich will get what they want when they want it like they always do. They won't want to access the public healthcare system, probably, but that won't affect them in any material way. Indeed, it may advantage them further, because it is probable that they will have more exclusive access to expensive facilities that don't have to take any responsibility for looking after the Great Unwashed emergency cases.

So who actually loses out, and how and why?

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

I fail to see that I made such a claim anywhere within this thread.


OK, are you implying that you don't believe anyone will be worse off? Then what's your beef?

Notional, hypothetical ideas of "choice" that aren't actually real-world available options aren't a very good foundation to biuld a healthcare system on.

I seriously do not see what your objection is.

Rolfe.

[Ziggurat]

Who, exactly, is going to be worse off in the proposed system you're arguing against, Ziggurat?

I'm not trying to argue against any system in this thread, Rolfe. Which you would have noticed if you actually paid attention to what I wrote. I was arguing against parky's deeply flawed logic. But apparently because we've disagreed in the past on the topic of health care, and parky was arguing for what you believe in, the illogic of his argument was overlooked and my objections to that flawed logic became interpreted as an attack against what you believe in.

[Ziggurat]

It seems to me, Ziggy, that you're advocating choices only for those who can afford it.

No, thai. I'm not actually advocating anything in this thread except a recognition of the actual effects of different options. A recognition clearly absent in parky's post that I originally replied to.

[Rolfe]

I don't think what Parky said was deeply flawed at all. It was an analogy. And like all analogies it only goes so far. I've already pointed out areas in which it doesn't really hold.

Your argument seems to be going right back to, if I choose not to access the publicly-funded system ( of education, roads, police, libraries, foreign embassies or whatever) then I should not have to pay the proportion of my taxes that goes to fund these things.

That way lies the breakdown of society.

Rolfe.

[Ziggurat]

Your argument seems to be going right back to, if I choose not to access the publicly-funded system ( of education, roads, police, libraries, foreign embassies or whatever) then I should not have to pay the proportion of my taxes that goes to fund these things.

You are wrong. I am not suggesting anything of the sort. Recognizing that those costs constrain a person's choices is not the same as saying that everyone should be able to opt out of any such costs. Recognizing that many people in the US do not have a free choice between public and private education is not the same thing as calling for an end to public education. Can you really not understand the difference between recognition of a reality and expression of a preference?

[Rolfe]

Nope, still don't see what was wrong with what parky said initially. And it's not about what I believe in. It's about what I see working day in day out, and which you seem to constantly misrepresent in order, apparently, to avoid the danger of enjoying the same benefits.

He didn't mention that those who choose to send their children to private school still pay their taxes towards the puplic school system, because that's taken as read.

He didn't agonise over the inability of low-waged people to opt out of the publicly-funded system because that is not a choice that is essential to getting an education. Or it shouldn't be.

If your point is that for some people the public school system is not sufficient, and you thus infer that a publicly-funded healthcare system will also prove to be insufficient, so that even poor people will want to reject it and find help elsewhere, then I submit we are merely back at the piss-up in the brewery argument.

And even if that were all true, the availability of publicly-funded healthcare for these people would still be an improvement on nothing at all, which is what they have at the moment. So they will have more choice by definition.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

You are wrong. I am not suggesting anything of the sort. Recognizing that those costs constrain a person's choices is not the same as saying that everyone should be able to opt out of any such costs. Recognizing that many people in the US do not have a free choice between public and private education is not the same thing as calling for an end to public education. Can you really not understand the difference between recognition of a reality and expression of a preference?


I repeat, I do not understand what you are objecting to. People with greater resources always have greater choices. This will be so in education, healthcare, home security, everything.

What reduction in choice would the system being proposed result in for anyone?

Rolfe.

[kallsop]

Nobody has the details down that fine yet, and everything is subject to change. Having said that, I expect the government will be happy to have you pay for their health care and not use it. That wasn't possible with Hillarycare but Obamacare is a whole different beast and the democrats surely learned from their 1994 electoral wipeout?

[Thunder]

I don't think what Parky said was deeply flawed at all. It was an analogy. And like all analogies it only goes so far. I've already pointed out areas in which it doesn't really hold.

Your argument seems to be going right back to, if I choose not to access the publicly-funded system ( of education, roads, police, libraries, foreign embassies or whatever) then I should not have to pay the proportion of my taxes that goes to fund these things.

That way lies the breakdown of society.

Rolfe.

I don't drive on highways in Oregon. Why should my tax dollars pay for highways I don't drive on???

why should my tax dollars pay for the medical care of veterans? its not like they are gonna fight any more...right?

I gotta watch out for number one. No free rides!!!

;)

[Ziggurat]

And it's not about what I believe in. It's about what I see working day in day out, and which you seem to constantly misrepresent in order, apparently, to avoid the danger of enjoying the same benefits.

Like I said, you're stuck on carrying things over from other threads. What misrepresentations have I made in this thread? Either point to a specific post, or admit that I have done nothing of the sort here.

He didn't agonise over the inability of low-waged people to opt out of the publicly-funded system because that is not a choice that is essential to getting an education. Or it shouldn't be.

No. He simply ignored the fact that the obligation to pay into the public system prevents many people from making alternative choices.

If your point is that for some people the public school system is not sufficient, and you thus infer that a publicly-funded healthcare system will also prove to be insufficient

That is not my point either. Rather, mandatory payments into the public system will prevent some people from making alternative choices. Whatever its advantages, that is still the reality, a reality which parky's post studiously avoids, and which you have done likewise.

And even if that were all true, the availability of publicly-funded healthcare for these people would still be an improvement on nothing at all

Which is irrelevant to my position, because I have not claimed otherwise.

[Rolfe]

I have to say I'm quite surprised by the lack of detail being shown so far. Is the proposal that universal healthcare be delivered by the insurance companies, as it is in parts of Europe, or that the insurance companies should remain entirely in the private sector as in Britain?

Is the government intending to fund the universal care out of taxes, with people paying in proportion to what they earn, or is there a proposal for people to pay on a different system, such as perceived-risk or even flat rate contribtions?

Does the government intend merely to pay existing providers to deliver the free-at-point-of-need care, or does it intend to set up a completely parallel system of public and private hospitals?

Surely to God such things have been thought about?

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

No. He simply ignored the fact that the obligation to pay into the public system prevents many people from making alternative choices.

[....] mandatory payments into the public system will prevent some people from making alternative choices. Whatever its advantages, that is still the reality.


Please make up your mind. You have already agreed that nobody is disadvantaged by the system being proposed. You have failed to demonstrate any actual, real options that are being denied to people by the proposed system.

If people have enough income that they are liable for tax, then they will be paying tax at present. Allowing them to access the tax-funded system is not depriving them of an alternative choice.

If people have so little income that they are not liable for tax, then theywill be getting something for free. Yay them. Where is the lost choice?

To imply some mythical lost choice of a privately-paid-for service that even the poorest could afford if it weren't for these pesky taxes, and use this as the main plank of what seems to be a spirited opposition to the proposed system, is looking a bit like a straw man.

Rolfe.

[Ziggurat]

If people have enough income that they are liable for tax, then they will be paying tax at present.

Which means that they are currently being denied choices that they would have if they didn't have to pay. Which contradicts what I've said... how? Oh, that's right: it doesn't.

[corplinx]

Likewise, I think a public health care will work best when the people it effects are active in making sure it does so.

I don't think HSAs are part of Obama-care. I'm not sure how we make sure people use their new insurance responsibly and shop the best deals.

[Rolfe]

Which means that they are currently being denied choices that they would have if they didn't have to pay. Which contradicts what I've said... how? Oh, that's right: it doesn't.


So is this just a general sort of Libertarian anti-tax statement? We'd all be so much better off if we were allowed to retain the money we presently pay in tax and spend it in whatever way we choose?

Interesting philosophical position, but not really of great practical relevance to a specific debate on healthcare - an area where, quite clearly, a high proportion of people would not be able to fund their requirements if they were forced to rely exclusively on their own private means.

Rolfe.

[FarmallMTA]

Republicans have been making the exact same stupid argument about universal healthcare for 50 years.

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o193/noahyzimmerman/reaganmed.jpg

Literally.

What do they think, a bunch of Red Chinese are going to burst into your doctor's office and force you to sing the International?

Actually, that would be the Obama administration that will burst into your doctor's office and force you to sing the Internationale. But given all the under-the-table campaign contributions from China funneled into the Obama and Clinton campaigns, it will be the Red-Chinese-by-proxy who will do the bursting and forcing.

Not for me, though. I'm 'pushing' back until the waiting room is cleared of the bursters and forcers.

[FarmallMTA]

Government run health care will be not-for-profit. That means lower costs. Private HMOs will have to lower their rediculous costs in order to keep up and stay competitive. Maybe even reduce CEO pay and yearly bonuses!!! God forbid!!

Free market wins.

Name me one single industry in which government control lowers costs. Just one. And just what is it that you think profits are and what is it that you think they do?

[Ysidro]

I just want to chime in and say I have no idea what Ziggy's point is about anything here. I think it's something to do with choice, but I'm afraid I'll get accused of not reading his posts if I go further.

[Upchurch]

Except that they're still paying for public schools, even if they aren't attending. And many parents can't afford to pay for both simultaneously, so for many parents there is no realistic choice other than government-run schools. Which is why voucher systems have become attractive for many lower-income parents.
Interesting idea. Public school is usually paid for through local taxes (income, property, what-have-you). Lower-income parents generally pay a lower amount of those taxes.

To support your thesis, you would need to show that what the amount lower-income parents pay in taxes would be comparable to what it would cost to send their children to private school.

For that matter, it might be interesting to see if even middle- to higher-income families could pay for private school for roughly what they pay in public school-bound tax money, given that it is subsidized by tax payers who do not have school aged children.

[Rolfe]

I just want to chime in and say I have no idea what Ziggy's point is about anything here. I think it's something to do with choice, but I'm afraid I'll get accused of not reading his posts if I go further.


Oh, good. I was beginning to wonder if it was just me.

Of course we'd all have more choice if we were allowed to spend the money we pay in tax any way we liked. Until we desperately needed something that wasn't provided for us and which we hadn't saved for. Too bad, you already made your choice.

What, you want the nanny state to make sure you save for the things you might desperately need in the future? You want the government to wipe your backside for you too? What happened to personal responsibility?

Well, yeah. I want the state to make sure other people save for the things they might desperately need in the future too. So the burden of caring for those who draw a crap hand in life is shared equitably among all citizens, and not left to those who are the softest touches when the charity rep comes calling.

Rolfe.

[Ziggurat]

Interesting idea. Public school is usually paid for through local taxes (income, property, what-have-you). Lower-income parents generally pay a lower amount of those taxes.

To support your thesis, you would need to show that what the amount lower-income parents pay in taxes would be comparable to what it would cost to send their children to private school.

No. My position does not require that the costs in taxes equals the cost to pay for alternatives. My position only requires that if people could keep the money they pay in taxes, they would be able to afford alternatives. So for example, if they pay half the cost of private school in taxes, and could only pay for half the cost of private school after taxes, then without taxes they could pay for private school. Simple logic, Upchurch. Do you seriously think nobody falls into such a category? Given that incomes and expenses are distributed across a continuum, it's rather difficult to imagine how you could ever not end up with people in that position.

[Ziggurat]

So is this just a general sort of Libertarian anti-tax statement? We'd all be so much better off if we were allowed to retain the money we presently pay in tax and spend it in whatever way we choose?

Yet again, you find it irresistable to create strawmen. Did I say anything about people being better off? No, I did not. So stop attributing positions to me which I have never expressed. It's getting old. There are benefits to having taxation, benefits which I have not denied. But the existence of benefits, while it may outweigh the costs, does not magically make those costs go away. Why is it that a statement merely recognizing those costs is automatically attributed to categorical opposition to any form of taxation? It simply doesn't make sense. Hell, categorical opposition to taxation is not even a libertarian position, it's an anarchist position, so you're apparently confused not only about what I believe, but about what libertarianism is (and here's a hint: I'm not a libertarian). So why would you attribute such a position to me, Rolfe, when it simply doesn't follow from anything I've said? Why do you keep doing this?

[3point14]

Yet again, you find it irresistable to create strawmen. Did I say anything about people being better off? No, I did not. So stop attributing positions to me which I have never expressed. It's getting old. There are benefits to having taxation, benefits which I have not denied. But the existence of benefits, while it may outweigh the costs, does not magically make those costs go away. Why is it that a statement merely recognizing those costs is automatically attributed to categorical opposition to any form of taxation? It simply doesn't make sense. Hell, categorical opposition to taxation is not even a libertarian position, it's an anarchist position, so you're apparently confused not only about what I believe, but about what libertarianism is (and here's a hint: I'm not a libertarian). So why would you attribute such a position to me, Rolfe, when it simply doesn't follow from anything I've said? Why do you keep doing this?


I think the reason is that your position is perceived as unclear.

Perhaps rather than refuting the positions that people are trying to crowbar you into, you could let us know what your position is? Or refer me to where in the thread your position is stated as I must have missed it. Sorry.

[Rolfe]

Seconded.

Ziggurat, it seems as if you have absolutely failed to make your actual position clear either to me or to several others. Now if you're just making idle remarks rather than participating in discussion, then fine. But if you are intending to contribute towards the discussion, then one would hope that it would be possible for the reader to discern your actual point.

If none of the positions I've tried to discern from your posts is your actual position, then help us all out here, please.

Rolfe.

[ponderingturtle]

And that first post is different from how universal healthcare works everywhere* else, exactly how?

Because that is how it works in canada.

[ponderingturtle]

I think most of the conservative pundits describe a caricature of universal health care, where people bleeding to death are waiting days for emergency treatment

Wait we have this already...

[ponderingturtle]

The very idea of having to rely on my employer to provide my healthcare coverage scares me witless. Especially when I appear to have bugger-all employment rights or security of employment. How many Americans are hanging on to dead-end jobs they hate because they need the healthcare coverage?

We had a poster who was hanging onto a marriage for exactly that reason.

[Ziggurat]

I think the reason is that your position is perceived as unclear.

Because people keep trying to read more into my posts than what I am actually saying. What I'm saying really isn't that complicated. Parky tried to make a comparison between publicly funded health care and publicly funded education, based upon the notion that free choice in education was unrestricted despite the existence of public funding and so free choice in health care would be similarly unrestricted. But that's simply wrong, because choice is restricted because of public education, and under any public funding of health care. My position does not preclude the existence of other arguments for public health care, and it makes no judgment about whether the benefits are outweighed by restrictions on choice. It is, and was, simply an argument against a bad argument on Parky's part: choice is restricted by public funding. That's a reality, regardless of the benefits. It's kind of sad how rarely people are willing to recognize that bad arguments in favor of things they like are still bad arguments.

[ponderingturtle]

Except that they're still paying for public schools, even if they aren't attending. And many parents can't afford to pay for both simultaneously, so for many parents there is no realistic choice other than government-run schools. Which is why voucher systems have become attractive for many lower-income parents.

And what about non parents having to pay for the children of others? Does this bother you or not?

[ponderingturtle]

Boy, you really don't understand what I'm saying at all. Not that I'm surprised.

You object to having to pay for a public education system you don't use, this seems to apply to people with out children just as much as people who want to send their children to private schools.

You seem to not know what you are saying.

[ponderingturtle]

There might not be better choice, but there would, without a doubt, be more choice.

And I'm not opposed to public education. I'm a product of public education, and I believe quite strongly that it should be universally available. Did you think otherwise?

You just seemed to think that only those useing it should have to pay for it.

[ponderingturtle]

You all keep on about "government-run" healthcare. Why should your government want to run healthcare?

It's about the government paying for healthcare.

Rolfe.

You know us americans, we are not good at subtleties.

[ponderingturtle]

There is actualy a problem with cutting health care costs. In massachucets they have universal(well 97%) coverage, but no reduction in costs. In part this is because costs tend to be a part of national regulation, and in part because with 20% of the work force is in healthcare, cutting even unnessacary costs will have jobs attached to it.

[ponderingturtle]

No. My position does not require that the costs in taxes equals the cost to pay for alternatives. My position only requires that if people could keep the money they pay in taxes, they would be able to afford alternatives. So for example, if they pay half the cost of private school in taxes, and could only pay for half the cost of private school after taxes, then without taxes they could pay for private school. Simple logic, Upchurch. Do you seriously think nobody falls into such a category? Given that incomes and expenses are distributed across a continuum, it's rather difficult to imagine how you could ever not end up with people in that position.

But you have not made a clear case why two people, call them A and B, should be treated differently.

A is sending his kids to catholic school, he would like to not have to support the public schools

B is childless, he would like not to have to support the public schools

Why should the desires of A and B be treated differently? Neither are using the public schools, so the benefit both get from it is the benefit to society.

You seem to be trying to give people tax breaks to help support private schools. Why should this be done?

[Rolfe]

You object to having to pay for a public education system you don't use, this seems to apply to people with out children just as much as people who want to send their children to private schools.

You seem to not know what you are saying.


I'm starting to think he's not saying anything. He's just making some random observations.

He thinks Parky should have referred explicitly to the fact that taxes to pay for education are compulsory, whereas I thought that was so obvious it didn't need saying. As far as that goes, the situation with a universal healthcare system is closely comparable. You have a publicly-funded system that you can't avoid paying for, which is (or bloody well ought to be) sufficient for any reasonable needs. But if you want extra bells and whistles you are free to pay extra for them. Though if you do that, you won't get a tax rebate.

I don't see the problem. Yes, we agree that if the tax take wasn't there, people would have more money for the bells and whistles in theory. Whether thinking along these lines is likely to lead to either a workable or an equitable solution is however quite a different matter. It seems as if Ziggurat doesn't really want to go there though, he just wants to pass an idle remark.

Rolfe.

[ponderingturtle]

Because people keep trying to read more into my posts than what I am actually saying.


This is because we are trying to make what you are saying fit into an overall framework. You are not being clear.

Interesting, the thing you suggest is similar to how the system in Germany works. There there is a payroll tax to fund public health care but you can opt out of it if you are in a private health care system.

[ponderingturtle]

I'm starting to think he's not saying anything. He's just making some random observations.

He thinks Parky should have referred explicitly to the fact that taxes to pay for education are compulsory, whereas I thought that was so obvious it didn't need saying. As far as that goes, the situation with a universal healthcare system is closely comparable. You have a publicly-funded system that you can't avoid paying for, which is (or bloody well ought to be) sufficient for any reasonable needs. But if you want extra bells and whistles you are free to pay extra for them. Though if you do that, you won't get a tax rebate.

I don't see the problem. Yes, we agree that if the tax take wasn't there, people would have more money for the bells and whistles in theory. Whether thinking along these lines is likely to lead to either a workable or an equitable solution is however quite a different matter. It seems as if Ziggurat doesn't really want to go there though, he just wants to pass an idle remark.

Rolfe.

He also seems to have some position that you should have tax breaks if you use alternatives to public systems. But not if you simply just don't need those systems.

[3point14]

Because people keep trying to read more into my posts than what I am actually saying. What I'm saying really isn't that complicated. Parky tried to make a comparison between publicly funded health care and publicly funded education, based upon the notion that free choice in education was unrestricted despite the existence of public funding and so free choice in health care would be similarly unrestricted. But that's simply wrong, because choice is restricted because of public education, and under any public funding of health care. My position does not preclude the existence of other arguments for public health care, and it makes no judgment about whether the benefits are outweighed by restrictions on choice. It is, and was, simply an argument against a bad argument on Parky's part: choice is restricted by public funding. That's a reality, regardless of the benefits. It's kind of sad how rarely people are willing to recognize that bad arguments in favor of things they like are still bad arguments.

Okay, I think I see what you're saying, but that's when the analogy between schooling and healthcare breaks down.

If UHC provides a base level for everyone, then that's paid for by public funds (paid through some sort of taxation obviously). If you want anything over and above that, you pay extra. The only removal of choice is that you are 'forced' into paying for the base level of healthcare via taxes. Unlike schooling, you can add to the baseline you are recieving, rather than having to opt out completely as you would have to with schooling.

At least, that's how it works here.

[nescafe]

Name me one single industry in which government control lowers costs. Just one. And just what is it that you think profits are and what is it that you think they do?
Air traffic control, police, military, health care, and justice off the top of my head.

You may note that they are all industries where having a profit motive results in worse outcomes via perverse incentives.

Why else do you think us 'merkins are paying around twice as much in taxes and health insurance premiums for health care than every other Western democracy, and somehow at the same time having worse outcomes than they do?

[Ziggurat]

This is because we are trying to make what you are saying fit into an overall framework.

In other words, you're trying to fit everything I say into either being in support of or opposed to public health care. The idea that I might be addressing the validity of an argument, and not of public healthcare itself, is apparently cause for confusion.

Interesting, the thing you suggest is similar to how the system in Germany works. There there is a payroll tax to fund public health care but you can opt out of it if you are in a private health care system.

Sounds like a reasonable compromise between the competing interests.

[Ziggurat]

He thinks Parky should have referred explicitly to the fact that taxes to pay for education are compulsory, whereas I thought that was so obvious it didn't need saying.

No. I think Parky should have admitted that many people are not free to choose between public and private education.

As far as that goes, the situation with a universal healthcare system is closely comparable.

Yes: which means if payments for healthcare are similarly obligatory, many people would likewise not be free to choose. And hence the entire premise of Parky's post comes crashing down: choice doesn't exist for many people.

I don't see the problem.

No, I don't suppose you do.

[Ziggurat]

He also seems to have some position that you should have tax breaks if you use alternatives to public systems. But not if you simply just don't need those systems.

And you probably can't imagine what possible logic could support such a position.

[ponderingturtle]

In other words, you're trying to fit everything I say into either being in support of or opposed to public health care. The idea that I might be addressing the validity of an argument, and not of public healthcare itself, is apparently cause for confusion.

No the problem is that people are trying to fit what you are saying into a relevent consistent position. Talking solely about schools is rather off topic and so not relevent. And wondering why you seem to care about why someone is not using the public school system instead of the simple fact that they are not using it is not clear to many people here how that fits into a consistent position


Sounds like a reasonable compromise between the competing interests.

Probably would not work in the US, as you need enough higher income people in the system to make up for the lower income. Of course income disparity might be less in Germany than in the US. The report also indicated that there was certain social considerations to people who use private health insurance to jump que's at doctors and the like.

[ponderingturtle]

And you probably can't imagine what possible logic could support such a position.

You can not possibly be clear about what your position actually is.

The argument you were useing is that people shouldn't have to pay for things that they don't use. This applies equaly to the childless as it does to people who want to send their children to private schools.

Changing this to that we should give tax breaks to people who send their children to private schools is a different position.

What about a family with two houses who has kids in public school, should they have to pay the school tax on the house that is not their primary residence as they are not using that school system? Yes would seem to fit with the first argument you presented. No would seem to fit with the current position you are articulating.

You have not presented a clear and consistend position in this thread.

[Ziggurat]

The argument you were useing is that people shouldn't have to pay for things that they don't use.

No, that is not the argument I am using. Where did I ever say that?

[Upchurch]

No. My position does not require that the costs in taxes equals the cost to pay for alternatives. My position only requires that if people could keep the money they pay in taxes, they would be able to afford alternatives.
Which is why I said "comparable" and not "equal", meaning that if they weren't paying the tax they could afford to pay for private school. Like I said (and you apparently agree, based on your second sentence), you need to show that this is the case.

(On a side note, I love how much you complain about straw men and people not understanding your point and then immediately jump to all sorts of conclusions about other people's positions.)

So for example, if they pay half the cost of private school in taxes, and could only pay for half the cost of private school after taxes, then without taxes they could pay for private school. Simple logic, Upchurch. Do you seriously think nobody falls into such a category? Given that incomes and expenses are distributed across a continuum, it's rather difficult to imagine how you could ever not end up with people in that position.
You say the voucher systems have become attractive for many lower-income parents. How many of them could afford to pay for private school if they didn't have to pay the local taxes that go to public school?

Of course, there would be diminishing returns. Parents with multiple children don't pay more local taxes to fund public schools, but they would have to pay multiple tuition, even though the second/third/etc. kid is usually cheaper.

What evidence do you have to back up your claims?

[ponderingturtle]

No, that is not the argument I am using. Where did I ever say that?

your first post in this thread when your argument was this

Except that they're still paying for public schools, even if they aren't attending. And many parents can't afford to pay for both simultaneously, so for many parents there is no realistic choice other than government-run schools.

[Ziggurat]

The argument you were useing is that people shouldn't have to pay for things that they don't use.

Except that they're still paying for public schools, even if they aren't attending. And many parents can't afford to pay for both simultaneously, so for many parents there is no realistic choice other than government-run schools. Which is why voucher systems have become attractive for many lower-income parents.


No. I said nothing about what people should and shouldn't have to do. I said something about a consequence of them having to do things (a consequence which has not been disputed). I also said something about what people like, but not only is that different from what they should have to do, it's also not something you're actually contesting.

[Ziggurat]

You say the voucher systems have become attractive for many lower-income parents. How many of them could afford to pay for private school if they didn't have to pay the local taxes that go to public school?

I never claimed any particular number, so this is irrelevant to my position.

What evidence do you have to back up your claims?

Simple logic. Unless there is a discontinuity in incomes, then at some point in the income distribution, the tax burden going towards schools will make the difference in being able to send children to private schools. Can you really not understand that?

[ponderingturtle]

No. I said nothing about what people should and shouldn't have to do. I said something about a consequence of them having to do things (a consequence which has not been disputed). I also said something about what people like, but not only is that different from what they should have to do, it's also not something you're actually contesting.

You are structuring the statement as a criticism, so it seems reasonable to most here that it was intended as such regardless of what you intended it to be.

When everyone enterperates something you say in a particular way, there are likely good reasons for that.

[Ziggurat]

You are structuring the statement as a criticism,

It was a criticism: of Parky's implication that everyone had free choice in education, when that's just not the case.

[ponderingturtle]

It was a criticism: of Parky's implication that everyone had free choice in education, when that's just not the case.

And everyone read into it that you have a certian idea about how to rectify this criticism.

[Ziggurat]

And everyone read into it that you have a certian idea about how to rectify this criticism.

Yeah: don't make arguments that don't make sense. Quite easy, really.

[ponderingturtle]

Yeah: don't make arguments that don't make sense. Quite easy, really.

You know that many people here do make arguements like that. It is a very libertarian position, and skeptics are rife with libertarians.

So it is not a position that would be suprising to run into someone holding such a position here.

You were not clear as to why you were making random off topic observations and people tried to understand them. As you are refusing to consider that you were anything less than perfectly clear you must of course blame them for your mistake.

[BeAChooser]

No one HAS to send their children to government-run schools. They can always go to secular private schools or religious run schools.

But the government does take taxes from those who want their kids in private schools and uses that money to fund the public system. Are you advocating that here? That those who want to use private healthcare pay for it twice ... once to the government and once to the private company?

Also, democrats (and specifically Obama) have acted to prevent the use of vouchers, which many say would introduce the same sort of competition that Obama claims the health care system needs ... into the public school system. Seems a bit hypocritical, don't you think?

And there is a third comparison we can draw between government run schools and government run healthcare. Government run schools have done an abysmal job of educating a vast number of children. It is shocking that with higher costs per pupil than ever before about half of kids in the public schools of major cities do not even graduate high school. And test scores continue to drop. In comparison, private schools in general graduate a much larger percentage of students at less cost. So is that what we can expect from the government run health care? Higher costs and poorer health care?

[Rolfe]

Piss-up, brewery....

Rolfe.

[Upchurch]

I never claimed any particular number, so this is irrelevant to my position.
You said "many". If "many" is 87% of lower income families for which a voucher system would allow them to send their children to private school, then your position is relevant. If "many" is 3 families, your position is interesting but irrelevant.


Simple logic. Unless there is a discontinuity in incomes, then at some point in the income distribution, the tax burden going towards schools will make the difference in being able to send children to private schools. Can you really not understand that?
Your "simple logic" makes some rather large assumptions. Namely that affordability is a function only of family income and tax burden. It is quite possible, if not likely, that the intersection of tax burden, standard of living, tuition, and portion of family income that could go towards tuition happens well above the income distribution of lower income families (however you are defining that).

But you don't know that because you aren't basing your position on any real-world data. That isn't logic. It's a WAG. A very simplistic WAG, at that.

[Architect]

For all the complaints about misrepresentation, I do agree that the problem is simply that Ziggy seems incapable of presenting a cogent position.

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by FarmallMTA
Name me one single industry in which government control lowers costs. Just one. And just what is it that you think profits are and what is it that you think they do?

Air traffic control, police, military, health care, and justice off the top of my head.

Can you prove any of that? I don't think so.

You can't honestly believe that our justice system is cost effective. Here's a article, for instance, about a study that found "privately run prisons produce results equal to or better than publicly run correctional institutions and at a lower cost": http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sparksfly.shtml . And you can't possibly think the prosecutorial side of our justice system is efficient. The trial of OJ is a case in point.

Nor can you honestly believe that Medicare, Medicaid and other government run portions of the health care system are efficient and cost effective. Here's an article (http://blog.heritage.org/2009/06/22/pri-government-run-health-care-costs-rise-faster-than-private-sector-care/ ) on how government-run health care costs are rising faster than private sector care.

And do you really think the military can be fairly described as a "cost effective" organization? No, it's a get the job done no matter the cost organization. As the cost of numerous wars prove. As the cost of military equipment and parts prove. There is a reason that civilian organizations are asked to perform certain functions for the military. Cost.

As for police, I again challenge your claim. What proof can you offer that a government-run police organization is less expensive than a private one? I can offer sources like this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_bwf1EG1mC0C&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=cost+per+policeman+public+private&source=bl&ots=VZKyzolZQh&sig=xUsOzNQztfsUl4yGkKYGRjNGDW0&hl=en&ei=K-VDSsjKOJHYtgP75rjmDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2


From a purely financial perspective, alternative service providers, such as private security firms, provide certain savings. For example, ... snip ... The private officers were paid $10.00 per hour for the patrol services. Conversely, public police cost 2.79 times as much as private police in 1979. More recent data reveals that it costs at least $100,000 per year per police officer when salary, benefits, and overhead expenses were calculated into the equation (Reynolds, 1994:2)

As for government funded air traffic control being less costly (you're not the first to suggest this one), are you kidding?

The cost inefficiency of the FAA is notorious. How could an organization that allows controllers to earn over $200,000 a year, not including benefits, be considered cost effective compared to a private run system? Even the FAA recognizes the problem (http://www.dot.gov/affairs/faa060205.htm ) but have they really done anything to fix it?

And if government run air traffic control is such a good idea, why have so many countries gone in the other direction? Here:

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-34639774_ITM


Commercializing air traffic control: have the reforms worked?(Report)

Publication: Canadian Public Administration

Publication Date: 01-MAR-08

... snip ...

This industry depends, in turn, on a network of air navigation service providers (ANSPs) that manage the flow of air traffic. A badly run ANSP can jeopardize safety, cause substantial travel delays, or impose heavy costs on cash-strapped airlines.

The ANSP sector has experienced extraordinary innovation over twenty years. By 2005, over forty countries had commercialized their ANSPs--a process that typically involves the introduction of new funding methods for the reorganized ANSP, new governance arrangements, and new mechanisms for safety and economic regulation. ... snip ...

The United States has not followed this path. Air traffic control remains within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which in important ways is still organized as a conventional government department.

... snip ...

In this article, we provide results from an unparalleled study of the performance of ten commercialized ANSPs, as well as the FAA, between 1997 and 2004. This study was undertaken by a team led by a former government executive who managed the commercialization of the Canadian air navigation system and overseen by an advisory panel of government and industry representatives from several countries.

We find that ANSP commercialization has generally achieved its objectives. Service quality has improved in most cases. Several ANSPs have successfully modernized workplace technologies. The safety records of ANSPs are not adversely affected by commercialization, and in some cases safety is improved. Costs are generally reduced, sometimes significantly. Other risks of commercialization--such as erosion of accountability to government, deterioration of labour relations, or worsened relationships between civil and military air traffic controllers--have not materialized.


So again, I challenge you to support your claim. :D

[Ziggurat]

Your "simple logic" makes some rather large assumptions. Namely that affordability is a function only of family income and tax burden. It is quite possible, if not likely, that the intersection of tax burden, standard of living, tuition, and portion of family income that could go towards tuition happens well above the income distribution of lower income families (however you are defining that).

In other words, you think that the middle class, rather than lower income families, fall into this category. Sure, that's possible.

[Ziggurat]

For all the complaints about misrepresentation, I do agree that the problem is simply that Ziggy seems incapable of presenting a cogent position.

Translation: I have nothing to add, but I'll follow the herd!

[Architect]

If everyone is telling you you're wrong, then at some point you have to face the fact that you're either (a) a genius or (b) wrong. Take your pick.

[Ziggurat]

If everyone is telling you you're wrong

And is everyone telling me that? Why, no. The complaint is not that I'm wrong, but that I'm not being clear. So not only can you not get my position correct, you can't even get other people's position correct.

[Rolfe]

OK, you're wrong when you imply that you have clearly stated your position.

Is that better?

Rolfe.

[thaiboxerken]

And is everyone telling me that?

Except for BeaChooser, yes.;)

[Ziggurat]

OK, you're wrong when you imply that you have clearly stated your position.

Is that better?

If you want to follow Architect's lead and engage in argument ad populum, then yes, I suppose for that purpose it is. Congratulations, Rolfe: you've proven me wrong by consensus.

[Rolfe]

If you've got a point to make, make it. Otherwise I call derail.

Rolfe.

[nescafe]

Can you prove any of that? I don't think so.

You can't honestly believe that our justice system is cost effective. Here's a article, for instance, about a study that found "privately run prisons produce results equal to or better than publicly run correctional institutions and at a lower cost": http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sparksfly.shtml . And you can't possibly think the prosecutorial side of our justice system is efficient. The trial of OJ is a case in point.

Why did you assume that I meant "prisons and prosecutions" when I said "justice", and why did you assume I was limiting my scope to the US? And why did you ignore the part of my post that talked about profit motives and perverse incentives? Are you completely ignorant of history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Strike)?

Your link is also worthless -- a hodgepodge of quotes does not equal evidence. Show me the numbers.

Nor can you honestly believe that Medicare, Medicaid and other government run portions of the health care system are efficient and cost effective. Here's an article (http://blog.heritage.org/2009/06/22/pri-government-run-health-care-costs-rise-faster-than-private-sector-care/ ) on how government-run health care costs are rising faster than private sector care.

Again with the US centric viewpoint. First, the article you link to appears to be very selective in its analysis of data -- something I expect from the Heritage Foundation.

Second, virtually every other developed Western democracy has universal health case in one form or another, and they end up paying about half what we do on a per-capita basis for better overall outcomes. Rolfe, darat, and several others have explained this ad nauseam in several different threads. Overall, they have health care systems that are cheaper and more effective than ours at making sure people stay healthy and don't get forced into bankruptcy due to things beyond their control. Maybe our government is uniquely incompetent at administering a healthcare system, but that does not excuse the huge amounts of wasteage our current hodgepodge of private insurers inflict upon us in the name of profit.

And do you really think the military can be fairly described as a "cost effective" organization? No, it's a get the job done no matter the cost organization. As the cost of numerous wars prove. As the cost of military equipment and parts prove. There is a reason that civilian organizations are asked to perform certain functions for the military. Cost.
My point was more along of the lines of the nightmare that would be a private military organization whose services were for sale to the highest bidder, or do you really think that society would be better served by having multiple mercenary military organizations instead of our current arrangement?

As for police, I again challenge your claim. What proof can you offer that a government-run police organization is less expensive than a private one? I can offer sources like this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_bwf1EG1mC0C&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=cost+per+policeman+public+private&source=bl&ots=VZKyzolZQh&sig=xUsOzNQztfsUl4yGkKYGRjNGDW0&hl=en&ei=K-VDSsjKOJHYtgP75rjmDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2

Sorry, I can't be bothered to read the whole book to digest your point. Summarize it, please. So we have private security services, and rentacops are cheap. I don't care about that. I care about not returning to the days of Pinkertons distorting the market by enforcing the will of the highest bidder using quasi police powers, or justice not being done because you can't afford it -- those lines are blurry enough as is without a profit motive entering into it.


As for government funded air traffic control being less costly (you're not the first to suggest this one), are you kidding?

The cost inefficiency of the FAA is notorious. How could an organization that allows controllers to earn over $200,000 a year, not including benefits, be considered cost effective compared to a private run system? Even the FAA recognizes the problem (http://www.dot.gov/affairs/faa060205.htm ) but have they really done anything to fix it?

And if government run air traffic control is such a good idea, why have so many countries gone in the other direction? Here:

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-34639774_ITM

I have never payed much attention to privatized air traffic control. As I said, they were examples pulled off the top of my head. It may be that a well-regulated for-profit market in that area is more efficient than a non-for-profit one, although how such a market would be structured is beyond me. I will concede the point for now.

[KoihimeNakamura]

More choice does not neccesarily mean its' better.

[Ziggurat]

More choice does not neccesarily mean its' better.

Of course it doesn't necessarily mean that. I've explicitly stated that already. Who said it does?

[Phrost]

The argument against universal health care is ridiculously simple:

The government's too incompetent to run the few social progams that already exist. Giving it a broader mandate to waste taxpayer money is just the product of irrational idealism and wishful thinking.

[FlamingMoe]

I just don't understand American posters who assume that universal healthcare means that only the universal system will exist.
HR 676, which had almost 100 cosponsors in the House of Representatives last Congress, explicity stated that the government plan would cover all medically necessary procedures, and any insurance plan that covers a procudere the government covered would be illegal.

Gosh, I have no earthly idea where anyone could come up with the notion you've described.

[nescafe]

The argument against universal health care is ridiculously simple:

The government's too incompetent to run the few social progams that already exist. Giving it a broader mandate to waste taxpayer money is just the product of irrational idealism and wishful thinking.
Really. Then how does every other developed Western democracy manage it?

Besides, UHC does not have to be perfect, it simply has to be more competent than our current system in the USA. Judging by the healthcare systems in most other developed nations, this is a fairly easy task -- at least it would be if the major HMOs and insurance companies were not so good at marketing and making a profit via arguably unethical means.

[Rolfe]

Piss-up, brewery....

Well, I'm pretty glad I don't live in America then.

Ziggurat, the more money you have, the more choices you have, in almost every area. Nobody is disputing this. If people didn't have to pay taxes, then the vast majority of them will have more money. This is also axiomatic.

These are commonplace platitudes. I think everyone was paying you the compliment of assuming you were repeating them because you had a point you wanted to make.

We have now established that no, you don't actually have a point.

Will that do?

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

HR 676, which had almost 100 cosponsors in the House of Representatives last Congress, explicity stated that the government plan would cover all medically necessary procedures, and any insurance plan that covers a procudere the government covered would be illegal.

Gosh, I have no earthly idea where anyone could come up with the notion you've described.


So once upon a time someone proposed a bad idea. Soome people supported it. One wonders whether their motives might not have been more of the wrecking variety than genuine enthusiasm (I've seen it before - interest groups supporting something that was blatant nonsense, because they wanted to discredit the idiots who were proposing it, and to make sure that the entire issue was buried for the next 10 years).

This does not mean that no other ideas can be considered, and that the entire concept must be rejected because of course there's no other way to do it but that discreditied proposal. :rolleyes:

Rolfe.

[Ziggurat]

I think everyone was paying you the compliment of assuming you were repeating them because you had a point you wanted to make.

We have now established that no, you don't actually have a point.

Do me the favor of not pretending that you're being polite when you try to insult me.

[Rolfe]

I wasn't pretending I was being polite.

Now, about that point you didn't clarify whether or not you ever intended to make....

Rolfe.

[FlamingMoe]

So once upon a time someone proposed a bad idea.
HR 676 is back again this term. It's even got the same bill number.

Soome people supported it.
90+ Congressmen is a little more than "some."

One wonders whether their motives might not have been more of the wrecking variety than genuine enthusiasm
You need to take a look at who cosponsored the bill. I'll sum it up for you: the loudest whiners in the "health insurance for all" noisebox.

This does not mean that no other ideas can be considered, and that the entire concept must be rejected because of course there's no other way to do it but that discreditied proposal. :rolleyes:
You were the one who wondered why some are of the opinion that the plan would make government the only vehicle for health insurance.

If you didn't want the answer...

[nescafe]

HR 676 is back again this term. It's even got the same bill number.
And aside from the no competition clause, it looks like a reasonable stab at a government run UHC system. It has the great benefit of being short and to the point.

[thaiboxerken]

The argument against universal health care is ridiculously simple:

The government's too incompetent to run the few social progams that already exist. Giving it a broader mandate to waste taxpayer money is just the product of irrational idealism and wishful thinking.

Our government could do a great job at all of it's social programs. The reason it doesn't do very well is because of the opposition, the conservatives tend to do things that handicap these programs. Medicare is not allowed to barter for lower prescription drugs because of a rule mandated by conservatives, for example. The government isn't always a failure, take our military, for example, it's the gold-standard in the world. The mandate to have universal health care is not the product of irrational idealism, but of observation of what we could have. Many, many other modern societies have universal health care, and it works well.

[Upchurch]

The argument against universal health care is ridiculously simple:

The government's too incompetent to run the few social progams that already exist.
Ridiculously simple or simply ridiculous?

How do you feel about the USPS?

[Thunder]

How do you feel about the USPS?

government run mail service is Communism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:)

[Architect]

If you've got a point to make, make it. Otherwise I call derail.

Rolfe.

It's a common technique used by Truthers; refuse to say what you actually think happened because then everyone else can poke holes in it. Instead, "just ask questions". Ziggy is particularly adept at it, then acting hurt when people summarise his position.

BeAChooser, in comparison, does actually state a position and backs it up with links, etc. most of the time. I may disagree with him (profoundly), but it seems to me that he's much more interested in debate/discussion.

[Phrost]

Really. Then how does every other developed Western democracy manage it?

Besides, UHC does not have to be perfect, it simply has to be more competent than our current system in the USA. Judging by the healthcare systems in most other developed nations, this is a fairly easy task -- at least it would be if the major HMOs and insurance companies were not so good at marketing and making a profit via arguably unethical means.

The United States is not "every other developed western democracy". Tiny countries with large revenues from natural resources (Norway) and a much more active lifestyle might be able to pull it off.

We can't. We can't run Social Security. We can't run Medicaid. We can't run the freaking Veteran's Administration and health care for our own soldiers.

If you think our government can somehow take on the health care of the entire population of the US then you're operating on the exact same kind of faith that tells a Christian that God will solve all his problems. Only in this case, your "God" is Government.

Hallelujah.

[Architect]

The United States is not "every other developed western democracy". Tiny countries with large revenues from natural resources (Norway) and a much more active lifestyle might be able to pull it off.


How do (say) France, Germany, or the UK fall into this category (popn. 50m, 60m, 80m or thereabouts respectively)?

We can't. We can't run Social Security. We can't run Medicaid. We can't run the freaking Veteran's Administration and health care for our own soldiers.

Aha. The "piss up in a brewery" argument. Really, why not get a competent government instead?


If you think our government can somehow take on the health care of the entire population of the US then you're operating on the exact same kind of faith that tells a Christian that God will solve all his problems. Only in this case, your "God" is Government.


See above.

[nescafe]

The United States is not "every other developed western democracy". Tiny countries with large revenues from natural resources (Norway) and a much more active lifestyle might be able to pull it off.
They do. So does France, the UK, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and virtually every other European country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care#Europe). Of all those, I believe only Norway has the "special conditions" you assume are a prerequisite to providing universal health care.

We can't. We can't run Social Security. We can't run Medicaid. We can't run the freaking Veteran's Administration and health care for our own soldiers.
Yes, blame it on the unique incompetence of our own government. That is so much easier than actually taking responsibility and voting out the politicians who use those programs as a way to keep score in their political game, proposing legislation to fix what is broken, or running for office to have a more direct hand in fixing the problems.

If you think our government can somehow take on the health care of the entire population of the US then you're operating on the exact same kind of faith that tells a Christian that God will solve all his problems. Only in this case, your "God" is Government.
No, I am looking at all the governments who can and do manage such a feat, and wonder what makes out government so uniquely bad at handling it. Then I remember that our elected officials have an annoying propensity to use our entitlement programs as political footballs and vote (again) to oust the ones I can who do that.

[leftysergeant]

We can't. We can't run Social Security. We can't run Medicaid. We can't run the freaking Veteran's Administration and health care for our own soldiers.

VA works just fine for me, as long as we don't have a Republican jerk with no concept of how to treat veterans and working people cutting back staff and facilities. Medicare and Medicaid were providing health care to a lot of people who would otherwise have been left to die in the streets before the Shrub came along.

REPUBLICANS cannot run a health care system that does not exist to redistribute wealth upward, so it is probably best right now that they sit sit down and shut the hell up until it is time to vote on the finalized bill.

If you think our government can somehow take on the health care of the entire population of the US then you're operating on the exact same kind of faith that tells a Christian that God will solve all his problems. Only in this case, your "God" is Government.

Hallelujah.

No, we do not consider government to be God. God only enters into it in the minds of those who actually understand the Bible in the sense that governments are ordained of God to be a minister to us for good, and a fright to evil doers.

YOUR god, Mammon, on the other hand, has proven utterly incapble of providing health care to any but the ecconomicly comfortable, at least until they are no longer able to pay the outlandish premiums that allow leeches like Bill Frist to live in Byzantine splendor.

[Phrost]

If the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results, then what is doubling the amount of effort applied to that thing?

Blaming one party or another is idiotic; it just shows that you're a mindless partisan who bathes in the kool-aid.

But keep turning responsibility for your own life over to the government. Absolutely nothing bad could ever come of it, after all.

[Earthborn]

The argument against universal health care is ridiculously simple:

The government's too incompetent to run the few social progams that already exist.Even if that was true (and I don't think it is), it would not be an argument against universal healthcare. It would at most be an argument against government run universal healthcare. We had discussions like this before, so by now you should know that there are other forms of universal healthcare.

[Phrost]

Those aren't the ones being suggested in the US, to my knowledge.

Entirely too many self-described "Skeptics" have a religious-like faith in the goodness and effectiveness of Government, despite thousands of years of human history which indicates that when you centralize power in distant hands, you end up with tyranny.

This is the reason why the founding fathers envisioned and created a limited Federal government, investing much of the power to the individual states. But we seem to be on a mad rush to toss our money and freedoms at Washington, and hope they'll manage all the unpleasant aspects of our lives for us.

It's shameful.

[leftysergeant]

Entirely too many self-described "Skeptics" have a religious-like faith in the goodness and effectiveness of Government, despite thousands of years of human history which indicates that when you centralize power in distant hands, you end up with tyranny.

Thousands of years of human history show more clearly that when large financial interests accumulate too much power into their hands, you get tyranny. Feudalism and latifunda were the sources of untold human suffering in their days.

[Architect]

You've completely ignored overlooked the point that, say, Germany (popn. 80m) managed just fine despite not being a tiny, oil rich country. Why did you miss it?

[BeAChooser]

Why did you assume that I meant "prisons and prosecutions" when I said "justice", and why did you assume I was limiting my scope to the US?

Since you were so vague I had to assume something. Seems to me that looking at the operation of prisons and the "cost effectiveness" of bringing folks to "justice" during the prosecution phase is reasonable. If you want to be more specific as to what you really mean by the cost effectiveness of "justice", no one is stopping you. The ball is in your court, so to speak. And I don't see why the cost effectiveness of any government institution outside the US is really relevant to this discussion since we need to know whether the US government can actually do something in a cost effective manner because it's the US government that will be running the health care in this country, not Kenya.

And why did you ignore the part of my post that talked about profit motives and perverse incentives?

I didn't. Some of the links I cited actually do talk about profit. But why do you assume profit motive is a bad thing? As to "perverse incentives", again, you are much too vague. Hard to debate a shadow or ghost.

Are you completely ignorant of history?

You throw out a link and expect us to figure out what you mean. What point are you trying to make with the "Homestead Strike"? Do you think this "hodgepodge" of facts about the "Homestead Strike" clarifies your meaning of the cost effectiveness of "justice"? Believe me, it doesn't. And do you really think an example from the 1890's is relevant to addressing the question of whether government is more effective than private enterprise TODAY? Surely you can come up with something a little more ... current.

Your link is also worthless -- a hodgepodge of quotes does not equal evidence. Show me the numbers.

:rolleyes: Did you actually look at the link I cited concerning prisons? Apparently not. Apparently you don't believe the UPI when they state:


Privately run prisons produce results equal to or better than publicly run correctional institutions and at a lower cost, according to a recent study from a Los Angeles think tank.


Did you not see the paragraph that states:


In their analysis, Segal and Moore examined 28 government and institutional studies comparing public and private facilities and found that 22 of the private prisons demonstrated significant cost savings. Overall, the researchers estimated cost savings at between five and 15 percent over comparable public institutions.

Those are numbers. Just numbers that you don't like ... that show your claim was wrong ... at least as far as the running of prisons is concerned. And the cost of running prisons is not insignificant. Look at this:

http://realcostofprisons.org/blog/archives/2007/04/or_prison_costs.html


Prison costs shackling Oregon

April 22, 2007

Oregon is on the verge of a milestone: In the next two years, the state will spend tens of millions more tax money to lock up prison inmates than it does to educate students at community colleges and state universities.

... snip ...

Oregon taxpayers now spend roughly the same money to incarcerate 13,401 inmates as they do to educate 438,000 university and community college students. But spending on prisons is growing at a faster rate than education and other state services.



In fact, the cost of running prisons is a substantial part of the overall justice system cost. According to this: http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/jeeus03.txt ,


in 2003 the United States spent a record $185 billion
for police protection, corrections, and judicial and
legal activities. ... snip ...

Between 1982 and 2003, per capita expenditure, including
Federal, State, and local governments across justice
functions, increased from $158 to $638, over 300%.
During the same time period:

* Correction expenditures increased 423%, from $40 to
$209 per U.S. resident.

* Judicial and legal expenditures increased 321%, from
$34 to $143.

* Police protection expenditures increased 241%, from
$84 to $286.


Now if you do the math, the correction expenditures are nearly a third of all "justice" costs (if you include police costs in that). But since you broke out police as a separate category of cost effectiveness, one could say that corrections costs are 60% of the justice costs. You like those numbers? :D

And on the subject of prisons, I leave you with this (because it has even more "numbers"):

http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=6504


Prison Privatization: A Growing National Trend


April 26, 2004

Prison systems and their management represent the virtual “undiscovered country” of privatization in Michigan. The state has less than 1 percent of its prisoners under private management. Yet two studies released in 2003 show that states can save money by privatizing prisons and thereby slow the rate of growth in prison costs.

From Tennessee to New Mexico, states have been contracting with private, for-profit businesses to manage their prison populations. No state has privatized the management of its entire correctional system, but New Mexico comes closest, with as much as 45 percent of its prisoners housed under private management.

A 2003 study by the New Mexico-based Rio Grande Foundation showed that New Mexico spent $9,600 less per prisoner in 2001 than did states with no prison privatization. The state saved more than $50 million in 2001 over the previous year, by contracting out for management of less than half its prison system.

In 1998, Tennessee almost signed a deal to outsource its entire prison system, and officials there estimate the move could have saved as much as 22 percent of that state’s entire correctional system budget. ... snip ...

In addition, a study published by Vanderbilt University researchers in August, 2003 showed that states using privately owned and/or run prisons saw their daily cost of housing prisoners grow almost 9 percent slower than states not using the privatization option.

... snip ...

Michigan does have experience with prison privatization. In 1999, it contracted with the Wackenhut Corporation (now Geo Group, Inc.) to build, own and operate a youth correctional facility in Baldwin, which is located in Lake County. According to Frank Elo, warden of the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility, a conservative estimate of the savings resulting from the contract with Geo Group comes to 20 to 22 percent a year compared to what it would cost the state to run the prison.


Looks to me like Game, Set, Match, where "justice" costs are concerned. Unless you want to be more specific about what you meant by "justice" (and assuming "justice" doesn't include running a correctional system). :D


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Nor can you honestly believe that Medicare, Medicaid and other government run portions of the health care system are efficient and cost effective. Here's an article (http://blog.heritage.org/2009/06/22/...e-sector-care/ ) on how government-run health care costs are rising faster than private sector care.

Again with the US centric viewpoint.

Again, why should we care about how efficient completely DIFFERENT government systems and cultures are at running health care systems? Unless you think that Obama is going to change our government system and culture into something that looks like theirs so what you suggest will work? Are you and the other defenders of socialized medicine suggesting that's Obama's agenda? Because he's sure lied to Americans about his agenda, if that's the case. :D


First, the article you link to appears to be very selective in its analysis of data -- something I expect from the Heritage Foundation.

You are wrong. The Heritage Foundation didn't do the analysis of the data. Didn't you actually read the article? They merely reported an analysis done by a group called the Pacific Research Institute. And here's what one of the authors of that study reported in Investor's Business Daily about the study and it's conclusions (which by the way is totally consistent with what the Heritage Foundation reported):

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=480067


Public Option To Cut Health Costs? Medicare's Record Says Dream On

By JEFFREY H. ANDERSON
06/19/2009

... snip ...

A new study I've completed, published by the Pacific Research Institute, takes all health-care spending in the United States and subtracts the costs of the two flagship government-run programs, Medicare and Medicaid. It then takes that remaining spending and compares its cost increases over time with Medicare's cost increases over time.

The results are clear: Since 1970 — even without the prescription drug benefit — Medicare's costs have risen 34% more, per patient, than the combined costs of all health care in America apart from Medicare and Medicaid, the vast majority of which is purchased through the private sector.

Mr Anderson even provides this nice chart for you to look at: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/PhotoPopup.aspx?id=480066 . Now where in that study were they "very selective" in their analysis of the data? Time to be a little more specific ... if you can. :D

Second, virtually every other developed Western democracy has universal health case in one form or another, and they end up paying about half what we do on a per-capita basis for better overall outcomes.

Another unsupported claim, and you are comparing apples and oranges to draw a conclusion that is simply not warranted.

First, you haven't shown that in those other countries, government-run health care has reduced cost over private health care in those countries. That would be more of an apples and apples comparison. One fact that makes me suspicious that's not the case is the movement in recent years in many of those countries to re-privatize portions of their health care system. For example, the recently elected head of the Canadian Medical Association runs one of the largest private hospitals in Canada. And he is planning to open several more. I read that in 1996 he had 30 doctors on staff. Now he has about 120 doctors on staff. And the provincial state care system sent them over 1000 patients for operations they simply couldn't do. Why would they do that if things were so wonderful under socialized medicine?

Could it have something to do with wait times?

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html


government researchers have provided the best data on the doctor shortage, noting, for example, that more than 1.5 million Ontarians (or 12 percent of that province’s population) can’t find family physicians. Health officials in one Nova Scotia community actually resorted to a lottery to determine who’d get a doctor’s appointment.


A Commonwealth Fund study (Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International update on the comparative performance of American health care, May 15, 2007) found that 24% of Canadians waited 4 or more hours in the emergency room, versus just 12% in the US. And 57% waited 4 or more weeks to see a specialist, versus only 23% in the US.

In a 2003 survey (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001977834_cihak13.html ), when hospital administrators were asked "for the average waiting time for biopsy of a possible breast cancer in a 50-year-old woman, 21 percent of administrators of Canadian hospitals said more than three weeks; only 1 percent of American hospital administrators gave the same answer." And "fifty percent of the Canadian hospital administrators said the average waiting time for a 65-year-old man who requires a routine hip replacement was more than six months; in contrast, not one American hospital administrator reported waiting periods that long. Eighty-six percent of American hospital administrators said the average waiting time was shorter than three weeks; only 3 percent of Canadian hospital administrators said their patients have this brief a wait."

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html[/url]


Rick Baker helps people, and sometimes even saves lives. He describes a man who had a seizure and received a diagnosis of epilepsy. Dissatisfied with the opinion—he had no family history of epilepsy, but he did have constant headaches and nausea, which aren’t usually seen in the disorder—the man requested an MRI. The government told him that the wait would be four and a half months. So he went to Baker, who arranged to have the MRI done within 24 hours—and who, after the test discovered a brain tumor, arranged surgery within a few weeks.

Baker isn’t a neurosurgeon or even a doctor. He’s a medical broker, one member of a private sector that is rushing in to address the inadequacies of Canada’s government care. Canadians pay him to set up surgical procedures, diagnostic tests, and specialist consultations, privately and quickly.

... snip ...

Some of the services that Baker brokers almost certainly contravene Canadian law, but governments are loath to stop him. “What I am doing could be construed as civil disobedience,” he says. “There comes a time when people need to lead the government.”

Baker isn’t alone: other private-sector health options are blossoming across Canada, and the government is increasingly turning a blind eye to them, too, despite their often uncertain legal status. Private clinics are opening at a rate of about one a week. ... snip ... Testifying to the changing nature of Canadian health care, Baker observes that securing prompt care used to mean a trip south. These days, he says, he’s able to get 80 percent of his clients care in Canada, via the private sector.


And lest you think I'm just picking on Canada, note this:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html


Nor were the problems I identified unique to Canada—they characterized all government-run health-care systems. Consider the recent British controversy over a cancer patient who tried to get an appointment with a specialist, only to have it canceled—48 times. More than 1 million Britons must wait for some type of care, with 200,000 in line for longer than six months. A while back, I toured a public hospital in Washington, D.C., with Tim Evans, a senior fellow at the Centre for the New Europe. The hospital was dark and dingy, but Evans observed that it was cleaner than anything in his native England. In France, the supply of doctors is so limited that during an August 2003 heat wave—when many doctors were on vacation and hospitals were stretched beyond capacity—15,000 elderly citizens died. Across Europe, state-of-the-art drugs aren’t available.

... snip ...

And if we measure a health-care system by how well it serves its sick citizens, American medicine excels. Five-year cancer survival rates bear this out. For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England—a striking variation.

... snip ...

This privatizing trend is reaching Europe, too. Britain’s government-run health care dates back to the 1940s. Yet the Labour Party—which originally created the National Health Service and used to bristle at the suggestion of private medicine, dismissing it as “Americanization”—now openly favors privatization. Sir William Wells, a senior British health official, recently said: “The big trouble with a state monopoly is that it builds in massive inefficiencies and inward-looking culture.” Last year, the private sector provided about 5 percent of Britain’s nonemergency procedures; Labour aims to triple that percentage by 2008. The Labour government also works to voucherize certain surgeries, offering patients a choice of four providers, at least one private. And in a recent move, the government will contract out some primary care services, perhaps to American firms such as UnitedHealth Group and Kaiser Permanente.

Sweden’s government, after the completion of the latest round of privatizations, will be contracting out some 80 percent of Stockholm’s primary care and 40 percent of its total health services, including one of the city’s largest hospitals. Since the fall of Communism, Slovakia has looked to liberalize its state-run system, introducing co-payments and privatizations. And modest market reforms have begun in Germany: increasing co-pays, enhancing insurance competition, and turning state enterprises over to the private sector (within a decade, only a minority of German hospitals will remain under state control).



Second, those other countries do not face the same problems we do.

Other countries do not have nearly as serious an illegal immigration problem. Illegal immigrants comprise somewhere between 2.6 and 6.6% of the US population. That's ten times the number in France, as a percentage of population. It's 2.5 to 6 times the number of illegals, as a percent of population, in Germany. And the cost of treating those millions of illegal aliens impact our overall health care costs in substantial ways.

Our system also has to deal with more low birth weight children (caused by drugs and higher smoking rates), more obese people, and a much older (on average) population than many of those other countries you allude to in your claim. The accident and homicide rates in other western countries are less. Apples and oranges. These factors affect the statistics that you folks often use to claim those other countries provide better health care ... like life expectancy. Let me demonstrate with some numbers and sources:

For example, life expectancy statistics include fatal accidents (like those in car accidents). In 2005, 4,990 people died in traffic related accidents in France (http://www.thisfrenchlife.com/thisfrenchlife/2006/01/number_of_road_.html ). In a population of about 60 million. In 2005, the population of the US was 296 million, five times as much. But the number of traffic related fatalities was almost 43,000, 8.6 times as high as France.

Life expectancy statistics also include homicides. The murder rate in the US (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita ) is around 43 per million people. The rate in France is 17 per million. The rate in Canada is 15 per million. You see? Apples and oranges.

Birth weight dramatically impacts infant mortality. The percent of low birth weight infants in France in 2004-2005 was 6.85 according to http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/indicator.jsp?&indicatorid=4 . The same source says the statistic for the United States is 8.1% (almost 20% higher). But the causes for this are varied and mostly have nothing to do with the adequacy of the health care system.

Here, maybe this will help you understand:

http://www.governing.com/articles/0901healthmyths.htm


January 2009

... snip ...

In the U.S., life expectancy is determined 40 percent by lifestyle (such as smoking and overeating), 30 percent by genetics and 20 percent by public health interventions (such as immunizations and seatbelts), and only 10 percent of life expectancy is attributed to medical care. Medical care is defined as what patients receive in health practitioners' offices and hospitals, such as coronary bypass surgery. Mortality after coronary bypass surgery is a medical care index, not a health index.

Some of the major determinants of health care are social: gross domestic product, socioeconomic status, level of education and occupation. In the United States, there are highly significant disparities in health care related to race, ethnicity, education, socioeconomic status and living in either rural or inner-city areas. For example, the life expectancy at birth for an African American man is six years less than for a white man. African Americans are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to develop cancer, and 30 percent are more likely to die from it. Inequalities in income and education underlie many of the disparities in health and are related: The death rate for people with 12 years or less of education is more than two and a half times the rate for persons with 13 or more years of education, and lower income and education levels are associated with higher levels of violent crime and more deaths due to firearms, motor vehicle accidents and substance abuse. Higher incomes permit increased access to medical care and allow people to afford better housing and live in safer neighborhoods. All the medical care in the world will not change the fact that the life expectancy for an African-American man in Harlem is lower than the life expectancy in Bangladesh.


Again from http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html:


Americans live 75.3 years on average, fewer than Canadians (77.3) or the French (76.6) or the citizens of any Western European nation save Portugal. Health care influences life expectancy, of course. But a life can end because of a murder, a fall, or a car accident. Such factors aren’t academic—homicide rates in the United States are much higher than in other countries (eight times higher than in France, for instance). In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don’t die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country.


Third, other countries have more uniform cultures and different governance systems, and those things affect the efficacy of health care and the resulting statistics, too. Our system has to deal with being literally balkanized. We have dozens of languages spoken and printed on our ballots. By law those folks have to be dealt with in their native tongue. Our legal system affects our costs in many ways that other countries do not experience. We are primarily a nation of immigrants and those immigrants often bring their problems to us. Problems which affect our health care system ... how it can be run and the cost of running it. Do you know that most of the babies born in certain hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegals? For free.

I recently had a discussion with someone from the Netherlands. The US, unlike the Dutch, automatically make these cute little babies citizens ... and their parents are then anchored to the US by those babies. And we have to provide health care for them. You think that has no costs? You think other countries have comparable costs? Do other countries make the children of illegal immigrants citizens?

I learned that the Netherlands government is very different from ours, organized around a process called the poldermodel. We really couldn't duplicate their health care system and it's results without duplicating that process. But that process took 100's of years to become what it now is in the Netherlands. We simply couldn't duplicate it without changing our culture, the way we see each other, the way we settle disputes. And that simply isn't going to happen overnight just by socializing medicine or declaring the government the insurance provider.

Here's another example of what I mean from my conversations with the poster from the Netherlands. http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=66&c=nl&l=en indicates that US death rate per 1000 has been around 8.1 the last few years and stable. The death rate in the Netherlands per 1000 has steadily climbed from 8.66 in 2003 to 8.71 now. Could that be due to their health care system? Due to, for example, wait times to be treated or decisions not to treat the more elderly? Thirty percent (or more) of US health costs are spent in the final year of life. Do the Dutch devote as much resources to such people? Do these other countries you compare us to? Maybe not. If not, then in order for us to match the health care performance of other countries, perhaps we are going to have to withhold treatment to 90 year olds. In which case, you are talking about a change in culture, not just in the form of our health care insurance provider. At least you and democrats need to be honest with the American public about what you are asking Americans to do.

Fourth, I think you are simply wrong in claiming these other western nation's overall health outcome is better. I've already mentioned the error in merely looking at statistics like "life expectancy" which many of you do. You have to delve deeper.

For example, you probably think that France provides better health care than us. But not only is their life expectancy statistic based on other factors than ours (that have nothing to do with the quality of health care), we find examples like the following.

In 2003 temperatures in France were 104 degrees over a week long period. And 15,000 people died as a result of inadequacies in the health care system, according to the French Parliment (http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2003-09-25-france-heat_x.htm ). In 1980, the US midwest (with an area and population larger than that of France) saw temperatures that were over 100 degrees for more than two weeks. Memphis saw temperatures of 108 degrees F. Dallas/Fort Worth (and area with a population that's more than 10% that of France's) recorded temperatures above 100 degrees for 42 days in a row. At times the temperature reached 113 degrees. It saw 29 days where the record high temperature was broken or tied. And the net result? Across the US 1,700 people died. A tenth the number in France. A sign our health care system is better.

How about dental care? What has socialized medicine brought to England but more bad teeth?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/alicethomson/3553839/Bad-teeth---the-new-British-disease.html


31 December 2008
Bad teeth - - the new British disease

... snip ...

A survey by Mori for the Citizens Advice Bureau this week found that seven and a half million Britons have failed to gain access to an NHS dentist in the past two years. In one quarter of the country, no NHS dentists are allowing new patients to join their lists. And despite government targets that every child should have his teeth seen by an expert every year, more than one in three children never see an NHS dentist.

... snip ...

There is, of course, the option to go private, but with more and more former NHS patients forced to pay, dentists' charges are now the most expensive in Europe.


How about this case from Canada where a woman could have been saved had the same accident occurred in the US.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-oped0325natashamar25,0,3093948.story


Could actress Natasha Richardson's tragic death have been prevented if her skiing accident had occurred in America rather than Canada? 

This is a legitimate question because of how Canadian and American medical care differ. Canadian health care de-emphasizes widespread dissemination of technology like CT scanners and quick access to specialists like neurosurgeons.
... snip ...

Richardson died of an epidural hematoma, a bleeding artery between the skull and brain that compresses and ultimately causes fatal brain damage via pressure buildup. With prompt diagnosis by CT scan, and surgery to drain the blood, most patients survive. Could Richardson have received this care? Where it happened in Canada, no. In many American resorts, yes.


And what about cardiac patients? If things are so wonderful in a socialized Mecca like Canada, why are people coming to the US for treatment?

http://blog.acton.org/archives/2220-Will-Socialized-Health-Care-in-the-US-Kill-Canadians.html


March 3, 2008

... snip ...

More than 400 Canadians in the full throes of a heart attack or other cardiac emergency have been sent to the United States because no hospital can provide the lifesaving care they require here.

... snip ...

At least 188 neurosurgery patients and 421 emergency cardiac patients have been sent to the United States from Ontario since the 2003-2004 fiscal year to Feb. 21 this year.


Canada can't even handle it's own births:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/08/canadas_universal_health_care.html


August 17, 2007

... snip ...

Canada welcomes the birth of the newest set of quadruplets born to proud Canadian parents. Karen and J.P. Jepp. However, the Jepp quads will be eligible to run for the presidency of the United States when they reach the age of 35, having been born in Benefis Hospital in Great Falls, Montana, 325 miles from their home in Calgary, capital of the Canadian oil industry.

The precious gift of American citizenship comes to the Jepp Quads because there were no hospital facilities anywhere in Canada able to handle 4 neonatal intensive care babies. Not in Calgary, a city of over a million people, the wealthiest in Canada, or anywhere else in Canada. *Local officials looked.

However, Great Falls, a city of well under one hundred thousand people, apparently had no problem with unusual demand for such facilities.

As Don Surber points out, the United States functions as Canada's back-up medical system, enabling it to run with less investment in facilities. America's evil, heartless private medical care system saved the day. In any capital-intensive field, whether it be electric power generation or medicine, gearing up for peak demand costs a lot of money.

... snip ...

Having the government pay means having other people pay your medical bills, and that leads to endless demand, which leads to rationing, which leads to insufficient capacity to handle peak demands, like, say, the birth of quadruplets.


And what happens if the US health care system becomes just like Canada's? We will experience the same sorts of inefficiencies, quality and supply problems that they have, and more Canadians will die as a result, because the safety net that currently exists in the United States will be gone. Here's another article that points out that obvious fact:


Canada's vaunted socialized medical system depends on America for more than peak capacity back-up, of course. When was the last time you heard about a new drug being developed by a Canadian pharmaceutical company? Under the price control system in Canada it makes no sense to develop drugs there. Canada lets the United States bear the major burden of drug development (and so does the rest of the world). Our high drug prices and federal research subsidize the world's medical R&D.



Do you know that:

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649


Tuesday, March 24, 2009

... snip ...

Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.

... snip ...

Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report "excellent" health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent). Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as "fair or poor."

Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long - sometimes more than a year - to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.

Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding.

Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the "health care system," more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).

... snip ...

Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single developed country. Since the mid-1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to American residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past 34 years did a scientist living in America not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States. [See the table.]


And I can go on and on and on.

In June of 2008, the Toronto Star reported (http://www.thestar.com/article/445835 ) that over 4 MILLION Canadians (12 and older) have no family doctor. That's about 15% of the population (12 and older). Why is the Brain and Spine Clinic in Buffalo serving about 10 border-crossing Canadians a week? According to http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/09/does-canadian-health-care-really-stack.html , a recent study comparing the two countries found that in six out of eight medical conditions investigated, Americans have higher treatment ratios. Americans also do better when it comes to preventative procedures such as PAP smears, mammograms and PSA tests. In the US 88.6% of women ages 40 to 69 have had a mammogram. In Canada only 72.3%. In the same age group, 54% of American men have been tested for prostate cancer. Only 16.4% of Canadians have received this test. Both men and women in America receive testing for colorectal cancer six times as often as their Canadian counterparts.

American outcomes appear superior after hip fracture repair and cataract surgery (in fact, the hip replacement center of Canada in Ohio -- at the Cleveland Clinic, where 10 percent of its international patients are Canadians). Just 62.5% of Canadians from ages 20 to 64 said their health was very good or excellent compared to 67.5% for Americans in the same age group. For those over 65, it was 38% for Canadians and 40% for Americans. American doctors have more training than Canadian doctors (according to one source, 50% of all Canadian doctors are general practitioners compared to only 10% in the US).

The better access we have to more highly trained doctors (expressed in much shorter wait times and not having to leave the country to find a specialist), better access to high tech diagnostic equipment (we have 5 times the number of MRIs and 3 times the number of CT scanners, per capita), and better access to preventive tests is of course going to translate into higher costs for us. But those also translate into better care. You simply are not justified in claiming the health care systems of countries with socialized medicine provide better outcomes. Or that they are less expensive for the same outcome.

We can have a system with costs like the Canadians, but don't think there won't be consequences in terms of care. Don't think the quality of our health care won't go DOWN if we do that. And don't think that the quality of health care in the rest of the world won't go DOWN if we do that either. We are a backup system for many other countries. And when it comes to drugs ...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/other/interviews/taurel.html


June 19, 2003

... snip ...

Thirty years ago, because of the quality of its pharmaceutical scientists, France was number two in pharmaceutical innovation in the world. Today, after 30 years of price controls, it is number nine. ... snip ... More than 60 percent of new drugs are invented and developed in the United States. ... snip ... We've seen that, again, not only in France, but in Japan, in Italy, in Spain, in Canada. Really, most of the pharmaceutical innovation is now concentrated in the United States. More than 60 percent of new drugs are invented and developed in the United States.


Those facts translate into cheaper health care in other countries. Because they get benefits their citizens do not pay for.

And fifth, you might want to read this before we continue. It makes the point again that we need to compare apples and apples, not apples and oranges. Medical costs are only a portion of a health care system's costs. Other things affect the health of a country's citizens. If we really wanted to compare what two countries' health care systems cost, we'd need to compare not only medical costs but what is spent on things like parks, which enhance health.

http://www.governing.com/articles/0902healthmyths.htm


You Get What You Pay For?

February 2009

... snip ...

In the United States, we know what our medical care costs are, but we haven't a clue what our real health care expenditures are. And the rest of the world doesn't know what it spends on health either.

... snip ...

Generally, what we call "health care costs" is really spending on medical care. Medical care is only part of health care, as it is largely made up of what happens between patients and doctors. The United States indeed spends a lot on medical care. But if we confuse health care and medical care, we might conclude that our medical care system is responsible for an individual's overall health, when medical care is a very small part of the picture.

... snip ...

These differences between health care and medical care are important when discussing how to overhaul the overall U.S. health system. To calculate health care expenditures, we would need to include widespread social expenses, such as law enforcement to combat violent crime, a portion of prison costs as a deterrent to crime, the cost of city green space construction to permit jogging, a portion of the cost of after-school programs to help deter teen pregnancy, a portion of welfare payments to combat poverty, subsidized housing, and the costs borne by children of the elderly who care for their parents at home, to name a few. Those are rarely included in calculations of what we call "health care costs."

... snip ...

We spend about 16 percent of our gross domestic product on medical care.

... snip ...

Canada spends a greater percentage of its GDP on nonmedical but health enhancing "social programs" compared with the United States. And that key difference is not reflected when comparing the statistics on medical expenditures.


:D


Maybe our government is uniquely incompetent at administering a healthcare system, but that does not excuse the huge amounts of wasteage our current hodgepodge of private insurers inflict upon us in the name of profit.

But you haven't proven that government can do any better. And as noted in my first post, in the area of government run schools (the second part of the OP), government has already demonstrated it can't do a better, more cost effective job than the private system. Why do you think it will do better when it comes to running health care? Why do you think that a government that has spent over 10 trillion dollars in the last 45 years to end poverty and racism ... and failed ... will suddenly be able to cure some exaggerated problems with our health care system? I'm back to what I asked you. PROVE that the government (specifically the US government acting within US culture and limitations) can do a better job than private industry in any of those areas you mentioned? I think I've proven you are wrong.

My point was more along of the lines of the nightmare that would be a private military organization whose services were for sale to the highest bidder

Your claim was that government military is more COST EFFECTIVE than private military. Whether it would a nightmare (your unsubstantiated opinion) to have private military organizations providing services instead of a government military is beside the point. They still might be able to do the job they are asked for half of what the US military costs us (given all the interference by congressmen and the waste that results from infighting between the services). And again, the needs in war are different than health care. Apples and oranges.


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
As for police, I again challenge your claim. What proof can you offer that a government-run police organization is less expensive than a private one? I can offer sources like this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_bw...esult&resnum=2

Sorry, I can't be bothered to read the whole book to digest your point. Summarize it, please.

I didn't ask you to read the whole book. I quoted you some "numbers" from the page I linked in the book. Let me quote them again since you obviously just ignored them:


From a purely financial perspective, alternative service providers, such as private security firms, provide certain savings. For example, ... snip ... The private officers were paid $10.00 per hour for the patrol services. Conversely, public police cost 2.79 times as much as private police in 1979. More recent data reveals that it costs at least $100,000 per year per police officer when salary, benefits, and overhead expenses were calculated into the equation (Reynolds, 1994:2)


So we have private security services, and rentacops are cheap. I don't care about that.

:rolleyes: Never mind that I just proved your initial claim, that the government can provide cheaper police protection ... wrong. :D

I have never payed much attention to privatized air traffic control.

Yet, you were so bold as to claim government run air traffic control is cheaper than private run traffic control. :D

As I said, they were examples pulled off the top of my head.

You stated it as if it were established fact. You just didn't think someone would challenge you on it. :D

And by the way, you weren't the first on this forum to make that claim about air traffic control. But you may be the first to be challenged regarding it. :D

[BeAChooser]

Our government could do a great job at all of it's social programs. The reason it doesn't do very well is because of the opposition, the conservatives tend to do things that handicap these programs.

ROTFLOL! That has to be the funniest claim you've made yet.

[Earthborn]

Do other countries make the children of illegal immigrants citizens?No, but that does not stop them from providing them healthcare. And it should be noted, it does not stop them from having them pay into the healthcare system either.

The death rate in the Netherlands per 1000 has steadily climbed from 8.66 in 2003 to 8.71 now. Could that be due to their health care system?If so, that would be very bad news for opponents of socialised healthcare. During that time, the healthcare system in the Netherlands became less socialised and more free market based.

Do the Dutch devote as much resources to such people?Probably even more so. In the Netherlands the number of subsidised services to the elderly borders on the ridiculous.

[leftysergeant]

BAC, you are too hung up on the idea of cost-effectiveness. Private prisons are an abomination. They should not exist for profit. Private air traffic control is a disaster waiting to happen. As soon as private industry has their dirty paws on it, they will start cutting corners to stretch profits. It aint supposed to be profitable. It is supposed to be effective, regardless the cost and ACCOUNTABLE.

And don't even think again of the possibility of privatizing more military functions. Mercs are pirates and are not liokely to rebel if ordered to commit an atrrocity. Hundreds of years of history argue against your blather.

In the world I grew up in, hospitals were a public utility and health insurance was non-profit andthey worked just fine.

Government spends more money than private industry, but that matters less than whether the job gets done. Private industry does not exist to do a job, but the make money. If the job suffers, too bad.

Not a way to run a country, unless the country is Chile...

No, wait. They figured that out themselvs and ran the Friedmanite garbage out of ther halls of power.

[Geezer]

The argument against universal health care is ridiculously simple:

The government's too incompetent to run the few social progams that already exist. Giving it a broader mandate to waste taxpayer money is just the product of irrational idealism and wishful thinking.

If you are that crappy at handling your country perhaps it's time to call it quits and call HMQ and ask to be part of Great Britain again.
:rolleyes:

[Geezer]

<snip>They do. So does France, the UK, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and virtually every other European country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care#Europe). Of all those, I believe only Norway has the "special conditions" you assume are a prerequisite to providing universal health care.
<snip>

Very true, Sweden has trees and iron...oh and hot blondes and still manages to provide UHC.

[FlamingMoe]

Can anyone point to the clause in the Constitution which authorizes the government to get its paws into providing health care?

Anyone?

Didn't think so.

Case closed.

[Dr Adequate]

Can anyone point to the clause in the Constitution which authorizes the government to get its paws into providing health care?

Anyone? Article one, section eight, paragraph one.

What do I win?

Didn't think so. And how wrong you were.

Case closed. Thank you.

[nescafe]

Can anyone point to the clause in the Constitution which authorizes the government to get its paws into providing health care?
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts (http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#IMPOST) and Excises (http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#EXCISE), to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare (http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#WELFARE) of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts (http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#IMPOST) and Excises (http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#EXCISE) shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Didn't think so.

Case closed.
Read it and weep.

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Do other countries make the children of illegal immigrants citizens?

No, but that does not stop them from providing them healthcare.

Are you sure?

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/197745/france_illegal_immigrants_lose_health_care_under_n ew_law/


France: 'Illegal' Immigrants Lose Health Care Under New Law

4 August 2005

The French government's decision to tie medical care to legal status has cut off about 400,000 illegal immigrants from access to treatment.

The government introduced a new law July 29 requiring all immigrants needing medical care to provide evidence first of their legal entry into the country.


And like I noted, other countries don't have anything near the level of illegal immigration that the US experiences. I wonder if other countries would be nearly so generous (if they really are as generous as you CLAIM) if they had to handle 5 or 10 TIMES the number of illegal immigrants they do now, and provide the level of care the US provides it's illegals. Here's the sort of care we provide and the sort of impact they might see on their health system:

http://www.theamericanresistance.com/issues/health_care.html


In 1994, California paid for 74,987 deliveries to illegal alien mothers, at a total cost of $215.2 million (an average of $2,842 per delivery). Illegal alien mothers accounted for 36 percent of all Medi-Cal funded births in California that year.

In a recent year in Colorado, the state's emergency Medicaid program paid an estimated $30 million in hospital and physician delivery costs for about 6,000 illegal immigrant mothers - average of $5,000 per baby. Those 6,000 births to illegal aliens represent 40% of the births paid for by Medicaid in Colorado. ...snip ...

... snip ... Medical service for Americans in affected communities is being severely damaged as hospitals absorb more than $200 million in unreimbursed costs. Some emergency rooms have shut down because they cannot afford to stay open. Local tax-paying Americans are either denied medical care or have to wait in long lines for service as the illegals flood the facilities. ... snip ...

These costs are staggering. The Cochise County, Arizona Health Department spends as much as 30 percent of its annual $9 million budget on illegal aliens. The Copper Queen Hospital in Bisbee, Arizona, has spent $200,000 in uncompensated services out of a net operating budget of $300,000.


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43275


Illegal aliens threaten U.S. medical system
Docs journal reports hospitals being closed, previously vanquished diseases being spread

March 13, 2005

... snip ...

In fact, the increasing number of illegal aliens coming into the United States is forcing the closure of hospitals, spreading previously vanquished diseases and threatening to destroy America's prized health-care system, says a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

"The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences," writes Madeleine Pelner Cosman, author of the report. "We judge reality primarily by what we see. But what we do not see can be more dangerous, more expensive, and more deadly than what is seen."

According to her study, 84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non-reimbursed tax on the system.

"Anchor babies," the author writes, "born to illegal aliens instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income."

... snip ...

According to the report, between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because half their services became unpaid. Another 24 California hospitals verge on closure, the author writes.


Read those two articles and you'll see the extent the US provides health care to illegals CURRENTLY. You'll see the sort of impact on our health care system that illegals in other countries simply do not cause the health care systems of those countries either because they aren't nearly so numerous or because they are NOT given the same benefits as they receive in this country.

And it should be noted, it does not stop them from having them pay into the healthcare system either.

Perhaps they do (through things like VATs ... and is that the sort of tax are recommending for the US to pay for universal health care?), but do these other countries really provide the health care benefits to the illegals that you claim they do? If so, why do I find articles like these:

http://humanrights.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/06/19/illegal-immigrants-in-france-mobilize/


Illegal immigrants in France mobilize

For the past few years, Europe has gravitated towards nationalism and government policy initiatives geared against immigration and asylum seekers. ... snip ...

France refers to immigrants without proper legal status as sans-papiers, literally "without papers". ... snip ...

Five thousand sans-papiers took to the streets in protest in Paris on May 1st. France's high tax scheme provides comfortable benefits. Untold thousands pay into the system and yet are denied any rights to social welfare and health care.


http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2008/04/sweden-illegal-immigrants-to-get-low.html


According to the country's health and medical care laws, everyone staying in Sweden has the right to emergency and urgent care. But while others pay 140 kronor ($24) for an ordinary visit to the doctor, it can cost 1,400 kronor for those who don't have the correct documentation, according to a UN report which criticized Sweden for breaching the human rights of, and discriminating against, refugees in hiding.



http://www.erblawg.com/illegal-immigrants-in-berlin-germany-may-receive-health-care-without-repercussions-in-the-future/


February 28, 2009

There are approximately 1,000,000 illegal immigrants in Germany, 250,000 alone in the capital Berlin. These people live without any papers and without an insurance card that allows them access to the German health system.

... snip ...

German law states that people who help, instigate, prolong or support the stay of an illegal immigrant can be penalized. That means that doctors, nurses and other hospital staff is required to report people to the authorities when the illegal status of an immigrant seeking medical help.


Gee, things don't quite seem to be the way you described. :D


Quote:
The death rate in the Netherlands per 1000 has steadily climbed from 8.66 in 2003 to 8.71 now. Could that be due to their health care system?

If so, that would be very bad news for opponents of socialised healthcare. During that time, the healthcare system in the Netherlands became less socialised and more free market based.

Now why would they be privatizing if their previous socialized system was as wonderful as Obama and the democrats claim?

You see, you actually have made my case. Perhaps the privatization of health care has resulted in a few hundredths of a percent increase in the Dutch mortality rate. But wouldn't that be acceptable if the result is a system with half the total cost and whose subscribers are amongst the most satified in the world (as they apparently are)? That would VERY bad news for advocates of Obamacare ... because the Dutch system is nothing like what Obama and democrats are proposing. You see, the Dutch system is now entirely based on private insurers.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Free_Market_Reforms_Transforming_Health_Care_in_th e_Netherlands.html


Free Market Reforms Transforming Health Care in the Netherlands

10/31/08

The Netherlands is the best example of Europe's move toward market-oriented reform. Before U.S. officials devote even more taxpayer dollars to health care, they should take a long look at how the Dutch have improved their health care system by reducing the government's role in it.

... snip ... During the sixties, the Dutch government gradually took over the entire healthcare industry. This crescendoed in 1971 when a national bureaucracy was established to plan everything from funding to staffing and pricing.

Unsurprisingly, the Netherlands' healthcare costs spiraled out of control, far outpacing overall growth in prices and incomes. The government tried to limit price hikes by rationing care, resulting in fewer choices, waiting lists, and staff shortages.

But such rationing did little to rein in costs. So Dutch leaders turned to the private sector.

Today, every Dutch citizen is required to have basic insurance coverage for major areas like medical treatments, long-term care, and dental and maternity care. Citizens and noncitizens alike in the Netherlands choose from among 14 private insurers. Supplemental insurance for vision or dental care is available; about 90 percent of the population has such coverage.

To enforce the mandate, the government imposes a fine on anyone who doesn't purchase basic insurance. The fine is steep – thirty percent more than the cost of insurance for the period they weren't covered.


I'd be ok with that sort of plan.

The Dutch experience also works because in 2006 all but 1.5 percent of the population purchased health insurance according to the new legislation (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/In-the-Literature/2008/May/Universal-Mandatory-Health-Insurance-in-The-Netherlands--A-Model-for-the-United-States.aspx ). In contrast, democrats in this country want to GIVE many tens of percent of our populace health insurance FOR FREE.

But unfortunately, the Dutch system also heavily depends on the way their country makes decisions to make it work. Their health care has evolved via the poldermodel. But we don't have anything like that in this country. So even if the Dutch system is wonderful, can we in fact duplicate it? But I'd be willing to try it. But would democrats? Or is their eagerness to institute socialized medicine under government control merely a means of increasing their power base by making more beggars happy by promising those constituents even more *freebies*?


Quote:
Do the Dutch devote as much resources to such people?

Probably even more so. In the Netherlands the number of subsidised services to the elderly borders on the ridiculous.

Well I admit my comment was just a supposition. But democrats are actively talking about rationing health care to the elderly in our country as a way to cut costs (not that I'm saying that's a bad idea), so you'll have to pardon me for thinking that might be one way the Dutch cut their costs. Especially given the fact that the Dutch are far more tolerant of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide than Americans. You know that in 2002 they legalized euthansia. That law had some strict requirements but that hasn't stopped young children and people with dementia from being killed. Euthansia requests are on the rise (http://townhall.com/news/religion/2009/06/05/dutch_euthanasia_requests_on_the_rise ) and some reports say that as many as a 1000 people, without requesting euthansia, have been killed by Dutch doctors. That has to have saved the Dutch health care system some money because the care of handicapped or demented people can be very expensive.

[BeAChooser]

Private prisons are an abomination.

An unproven assertion that's already debunked by the sources I linked.

Private air traffic control is a disaster waiting to happen. As soon as private industry has their dirty paws on it, they will start cutting corners to stretch profits.

And unproven assertion that's already debunked by the sources I linked.

And don't even think again of the possibility of privatizing more military functions. Mercs are pirates and are not liokely to rebel if ordered to commit an atrrocity. Hundreds of years of history argue against your blather.

Speaking of blather that completely misses the point. :rolleyes:

Government spends more money than private industry

And that's the point.

but that matters less than whether the job gets done.

Except the government has shown itself incapable of getting the job done. Not in education. Not in anti-poverty programs. And not in those portions of the health care currently run by the governent.

Private industry does not exist to do a job, but the make money. If the job suffers, too bad.

Yes, lefty, I already know you don't understand or appreciate the economic system that made this country so great. :D

Back on ignore. ;)

[BeAChooser]

Sweden has trees and iron...oh and hot blondes and still manages to provide UHC.

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA555_Sweden_Health_Care.html


May 2007

Sweden's Single-Payer Health System Provides a Warning to Other Nations



http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/03/04/swedens_government_health_care

Sweden's Government Health Care


http://www.thelocal.se/11924/20080522/


Sweden's parliament on Wednesday approved a centre-right government proposal to deny subsidized public healthcare services to illegal immigrants as of July 1st.

The law, which is largely a formalization of the current practice, stipulates that clandestine immigrants and rejected asylum seekers can only receive emergency medical care if they pay for it themselves.


And the price?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world

Sweden's corporate tax rate is 26.3%. It's personal tax rate is from 29% to 59%. It's payroll tax is over 32%. And it has a 25% VAT, 12% GST and 6% sales tax on top of everything else.

Compare that to the US according to the same source. America's corporate tax rate is 15-39% (federal) and 0-12% (state). Our personal tax rate is 0-35% (federal) and 0-10% (state). Our payroll tax is about 15%. There is no VAT. And state and local sales taxes are 0-10%.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the Swede's are much more highly taxed. Isn't government health care wonderful? :rolleyes:

One last citation:

http://www.namyth.com/SocialismWORKS!/index.php?sw=Sweden

:D

[nescafe]

I didn't. Some of the links I cited actually do talk about profit. But why do you assume profit motive is a bad thing? As to "perverse incentives", again, you are much too vague. Hard to debate a shadow or ghost.[/url]
The profit motive is all well and good. When it motivates things like happily taking someone's insurance premiums while they are healthy, and then dropping their coverage when it turns out they have cancer, we call that a perverse incentive.

You throw out a link and expect us to figure out what you mean. What point are you trying to make with the "Homestead Strike"? Do you think this "hodgepodge" of facts about the "Homestead Strike" clarifies your meaning of the cost effectiveness of "justice"?Andrew Carnegie hiring Pinkerton's and using them as his own private police force, with no judicial oversight. Lead to needless deaths on both sides of the conflict

And do you really think an example from the 1890's is relevant to addressing the question of whether government is more effective than private enterprise TODAY?
Yep. Wouldn't have brought it up otherwise.

Those are numbers. Just numbers that you don't like ... that show your claim was wrong ... at least as far as the running of prisons is concerned. And the cost of running prisons is not insignificant. Look at this:

[URL]http://realcostofprisons.org/blog/archives/2007/04/or_prison_costs.html (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive)

Yes, running prisons is expensive. Yes, placing more of our population in prisons is even more expensive. I happen to be of the opinion that outsourcing prison-related functions to for-profit companies is missing the forest for the trees -- work on ways to decrease the overall prison population instead of find cheaper ways to run prisons. Who knows, we may be violently agreeing here and not knowing it.

Again, why should we care about how efficient completely DIFFERENT government systems and cultures are at running health care systems?
Completely different? They all look like Western-style representative democracies with lots more similarities than differences to me.

That they can all run universal health care systems based on different payer models with comparable or better outcomes (http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php) for less per capita and as a percentage of GDP (http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm) than we can tells me something important about just how crappily our current health care systems are run.

And I can go on and on and on.I know. Too bad you only ever look at what agrees with you.

[Corsair 115]

It is my understanding (which is probably flawed) that Canada has some pretty tight restriction on fully private healthcare, and (for obvious reasons) the Canadian system is the system which most US pundits look too when discussing "socialized medicine".


Yes, but it should be noted some of that punditry utilizes misinformation or misrepresentation when it comes to analyzing the Canadian system. Whatever Americans decide to do in regards to their health care system, it should be done on the basis of honest and accurate information about the different types of systems used in other nations and not on misinformation or misrepresentation.

[FlamingMoe]

Article one, section eight, paragraph one.
Ah, it appears you're one of the misinformed individuals who thinks the general welfare clause is a power unto itself. This notion really doesn't jive with the fact that the Constitution was laying out a federal government whose powers "are few and defined" (Federalist No. 45) now does it?

What do I win?
Losers don't generally win a prize.

And how wrong you were.
Only according to those who don't understand the Constitution.

Thank you.
I'm always happy to educate people on the Constitution. You're welcome.

[Dr Adequate]

Ah, it appears you're one of the misinformed individuals who thinks the general welfare clause is a power unto itself. This notion really doesn't jive with the fact that the Constitution was laying out a federal government whose powers "are few and defined" (Federalist No. 45) now does it?


Losers don't generally win a prize.


Only according to those who don't understand the Constitution.


I'm always happy to educate people on the Constitution. You're welcome.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9459/constitutionor8.jpg

[Geezer]

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA555_Sweden_Health_Care.html




http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/03/04/swedens_government_health_care




http://www.thelocal.se/11924/20080522/



And the price?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world

Sweden's corporate tax rate is 26.3%. It's personal tax rate is from 29% to 59%. It's payroll tax is over 32%. And it has a 25% VAT, 12% GST and 6% sales tax on top of everything else.

Compare that to the US according to the same source. America's corporate tax rate is 15-39% (federal) and 0-12% (state). Our personal tax rate is 0-35% (federal) and 0-10% (state). Our payroll tax is about 15%. There is no VAT. And state and local sales taxes are 0-10%.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the Swede's are much more highly taxed. Isn't government health care wonderful? :rolleyes:

One last citation:

http://www.namyth.com/SocialismWORKS!/index.php?sw=Sweden

:D

Thanks for that first link that shows that Sweden's Healthcare costs 9 % of GDP, that's sounds quite cheap compared to the US cost of 17% of GDP (And you guys don't even HAVE UHC
http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

The last link is totally bogus though and the Tax rates you are reading wrong, VAT is 25%(most stuff) or 12%(food bought in resturants) or 6 % (books), there is no other sales tax than VAT.

The taxes are pretty high but quite manageble that being said they are also being brought down in general since the Centre-Right government took over.

The bit about removing coverage for illegals is shameful and is debated quite hard here and while they cover it under cost reasons the sad truth is it has more to do with the success far-right parties are having in elections and is a part of limiting imigration from non-european countries.
Several councils and Hospitals ignore the law in question and gives care with the same conditions anyway.

Here's an op-ed on the matter (in swedish only I'm afraid) http://www.gt.se/nyheter/2.1255/1.1175129/papperslosa-har-ratt-till-vard
While it is an op-ed it does contain some info on the matter.

The Walther E Williams article was quite fun to read, of course if you are going to bring up the worst case scenarios for why ignore the worst case scenarios in US healthcare?Mostly because it wouldn't make your case look better I suspect.
Fact is that worst cases prove nothing since we are ALWAYS going to find cases where things have gone terribly wrong.
None of the things he states is a normal event.

The quote "Dr. Olle Stendahl, a professor of medicine at Linkoping University, pointed out a side effect of government-run medicine: its impact on innovation. He said, "In our budget-government health care there is no room for curious, young physicians and other professionals to challenge established views. New knowledge is not attractive but typically considered a problem (that brings) increased costs and disturbances in today's slimmed-down health care." is even translated wrong in a quite important bit.

It's from this article http://www.dn.se/opinion/debatt/flitiga-lakare-blir-problem-i-var-slimmande-sjukvard-1.555440
This is it in swedish "I vår ekonomistyrda sjukvård finns det inte utrymme för nyfikna unga läkare och andra professionella att utmana etablissemanget och nedärvda dogmer. Ny kunskap är inte attraktiv utan ses mest som problem, ökade kostnader och störningar i dagens slimmade sjukvård där rationella vårdprogram och kvantitativa mått styr. Det landsting och de sjukvårdsdirektörer som kan uppvisa ett positivt ekonomiskt resultat premieras. Vårdkvalitet och patientnytta kommer i andra hand."

See the bolded word?
He does NOT say "budget-government" he says "economy-driven" i.e. he complains that the hospitals are looking too much on what it costs rather than the benefits and he implies that that hospitals trying to make a profit is bad.

[KoihimeNakamura]

PSST:

"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

Maybe you should read it yourself (A1 S8)

[Earthborn]

Are you sure?Providing healthcare to illegal immigrants is indeed somewhat controversial, unfortunately. In many countries illegals get the same sort of healthcare as citizens in the US without health insurance. Basically some 40 million Americans are treated as if they are illegal immigrants...

Now why would they be privatizing if their previous socialized system was as wonderful as Obama and the democrats claim?Capitalism is a very popular ideology.

Perhaps the privatization of health care has resulted in a few hundredths of a percent increase in the Dutch mortality rate.Earlier you pretended that it was a significant increase when you thought you could use it as an argument against socialised healthcare. Now that you know that it can't be used that way you start claiming that it isn't such a big deal. I hope you realise how dishonest that may appear to others.

But wouldn't that be acceptable if the result is a system with half the total cost and whose subscribers are amongst the most satified in the world (as they apparently are)?The Dutch didn't half the total cost of healthcare.

I'd be ok with that sort of plan.Welcome to the Club Of People In Favour Of Universal Healthcare.

Euthansia requests are on the riseEuthanasia requests are not acts of euthanasia. Just because someone requests it, doesn't mean that request is honoured. Doctors are generally reluctant to honour requests for euthanasia.

and some reports say that as many as a 1000 people, without requesting euthansia, have been killed by Dutch doctors.Were these cases reported to the police? They should be.

That has to have saved the Dutch health care system some money because the care of handicapped or demented people can be very expensive.There is no financial incentive to euthanise patients though. Insurance companies can't request euthanasia, doctors get paid whether the patient lives of dies.

[nescafe]

Ah, it appears you're one of the misinformed individuals who thinks the general welfare clause is a power unto itself. This notion really doesn't jive with the fact that the Constitution was laying out a federal government whose powers "are few and defined" (Federalist No. 45) now does it?
Good thing Federalist no. 45 is not law, then.

[leftysergeant]

Except the government has shown itself incapable of getting the job done. Not in education. Not in anti-poverty programs. And not in those portions of the health care currently run by the governent.

Neither has private industry, except as it gives special care to those who have money and reduces the working classes to peons to support the monied classes. Education worked just fine in the this country up until Nixon, and then went downhill really fast after the jelly-brain from California started selling off the infrastructure and calling government the problem.



Yes, lefty, I already know you don't understand or appreciate the economic system that made this country so great.

And you seem unable to grasp that these are the things that run civilization into the ditch at longer or shorter intervals, depending on how firmly government reins in the freebooters who would steal the commons out from under us and cut down the last tree if allowed to do so.

Hospitals and health care shopuld be part of the commons, maintained by all of us for the public good, not for the private profit of lunatics like Bill Frist.

[ponderingturtle]

If you've got a point to make, make it. Otherwise I call derail.

Rolfe.

The thing is he never had a point, just pointless observations, it is the expectation that he had some underlying point that was the cause of the problem.

[ponderingturtle]

The United States is not "every other developed western democracy". Tiny countries with large revenues from natural resources (Norway) and a much more active lifestyle might be able to pull it off.

Yep americans are uniquely stupid and incompetent at running large opperations. This is see so readily in the armed forces, or the moon landing.

[Rolfe]

Uh, yes. Europe is really tiny (I mean only about half as big again as the USA) and is completely awash with natural resources, it would be absolutely impossible to "pull it off" otherwise. :rolleyes:

Rolfe.

[BeAChooser]

The profit motive is all well and good.


And yet you don't seem to support it.

When it motivates things like happily taking someone's insurance premiums while they are healthy, and then dropping their coverage when it turns out they have cancer


And we have a system for righting such wrongs:

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/18/business/fi-blue18


Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield -- two of the state's biggest health plans -- agreed Thursday to pay a total of $13 million in fines and to offer new health coverage to more than 2,200 Californians the companies dropped after they became ill.

... snip ...

Earlier this year, Kaiser Permanente, Health Net and PacifiCare all made similar agreements but paid smaller penalties that reflected their willingness to meet the department's terms, which, Ehnes said, made the restoration of coverage the highest priority.


Now what recourse will we have when the government ends up doing this sort of thing to people? None. You know that old expression. You can't fight city hall.

And generally, when insurance coverage is pulled, there is more to the story. Recission (retroactive denial of insurance coverage) generally only happens when it is found that the insured intentionally lied on their application for insurance about some health issue that they new about prior to filling out the application. And recission also generally only happens on temporary health plans. Except in 5 states, companies cannot rescind group coverage, even when it's found the insured lied in their disclosure of pre-existing conditions. And companies also can't legally deny coverage because of a pre-existing condition, just adjust the premium accordingly.

Andrew Carnegie hiring Pinkerton's and using them as his own private police force, with no judicial oversight.

Which is not what's being suggested here in the first case. Your example is nothing more than a red herring. And a really out of date one at that. Perhaps you should have just gone back to the days of Ghengis Khan. ;)

Yes, running prisons is expensive. Yes, placing more of our population in prisons is even more expensive. I happen to be of the opinion that outsourcing prison-related functions to for-profit companies is missing the forest for the trees -- work on ways to decrease the overall prison population instead of find cheaper ways to run prisons.

The issue was whether government run prisons are cheaper than private run prisons (of comparable quality). I offered several reports suggesting that's not true. ... that just the opposite is true. If you want to discuss decreasing prison population, start another thread.

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Again, why should we care about how efficient completely DIFFERENT government systems and cultures are at running health care systems?

Completely different? They all look like Western-style representative democracies with lots more similarities than differences to me.


They are different enough for the specific reasons I cited. I notice that you don't want to get into those specifics. :D

That they can all run universal health care systems based on different payer models with comparable or better outcomes

You seem to just want to make a claim and not get into the specifics when challenged. Your source bases it's claim that other countries have better outcomes by ONLY looking at life expectancy. But I cited numerous specific reasons (with backup data to support them) why life expectancy is not a very good parameter to make that comparison. Are you just going to ignore the reasons I cited like everyone else? :rolleyes:

Let me add another to those reasons, since your source makes a direct comparison between the US and Cuba, implying Cuba's health system is so much better than ours. Do you really want us to emulate Cuba's health care system? Where they have no right to privacy, no right of informed consent, not right to sue for malpractice, no right to refuse treatment?

Maybe the reason their costs are so low is that doctors get paid $15 a month. Do you wish to duplicate that here in the US? Maybe the reason their health is good is that they have a doctor for every 170 residents. You think you can duplicate that here and still keep our costs down? :rolleyes:

And maybe a lot of their health costs are paid for via the black market, and therefore not recorded. The Canadian newspaper National Post interviewed Cubans (http://www.cubaverdad.net/references/for_cubans_a_bitter_pill.htm ) and found that even items such as Aspirin and antibiotics are only available via the black market. They found surgeons must re-use latex gloves and patients must buy their own sutures on the black market ... and even provide bedsheets and food for extended hospital stays. Maybe that's why their costs are so low?

Afterall, we know from past experience that totalitarian countries lie about their health statistics to the world. Just a few years before the Soviet Union collapsed, prominent liberals (many being exactly the sort of socialists that Obama has had associations with the past 20 years) were telling us what a wonderful health care system the USSR had. A few years after the collapse, we learned the reality ... that their system was so broken that they were even reusing hypodermic needles. Do you believe statistics supplied by the Cuban government can be trusted? Can we, in fact, even believe your source's charts about Cuba's health costs?

And maybe the reason Cubans live so long now is their low calorie diet and better exercise? Ever think of that? Scientists know that calorie intake and exercise have a marked effect on longevity. Well, when the USSR collapsed in 1989, they stopped sending food and fuel to Cuba and as a result, over the next few years, Cuban's began to eat a third less calories a day ... and had to walk or bike to work. Dr Manual Franco, lead author of a recent study in the American Journal of Epidemiology, says that a third fewer people died of heart disease, and diabetes deaths were halved. http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=nature-health/cuba-has-higher-life-expectancy-than-US.txt . In fact the drop in calorie intact may have been even greater than noted above. According the the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the calorie intact of the average Cuban fell from 2,600 calories a day in the late 1980s to between 1000 and 1500 calories a day by 1994. And this, if scientists are right about the link between calorie intact and longevity, would have had a marked effect on Cuban life expectancy. Do you not see what I mean about comparing apples to apples, not oranges? Or are you so blinded by your own ideology that you can't see it?

One more point. Your source also makes the claim that 40 million Americans lack basic health insurance. But as I noted previously, that statistic is completely BOGUS. At least ten million of those aren't even American citizens. Do you know how Cuba deals with illegals? Eight million have incomes equal to or higher than the average US citizen. They just CHOOSE not to buy health insurance. And lacking health insurance isn't the same thing as lacking medical care. Isn't your source just being dishonest when it uses statistics like that to make it's case?


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
And I can go on and on and on.

I know. Too bad you only ever look at what agrees with you.

You really should look in the mirror. :D

[BeAChooser]

Thanks for that first link that shows that Sweden's Healthcare costs 9 % of GDP, that's sounds quite cheap compared to the US cost of 17% of GDP

The per capita GDP of the US is about 22-26% higher than that of Sweden. So aren't Americans allowed to spend more on health care, if they are wealthier? Or do you deny them even that?

And let's look at the rest of the apples and oranges.

Unlike Sweden's, the US' health care system has major expenses due to illegal immigrants. As I already pointed out, somewhere between 2.6% and 6.6% of the US population consists of illegal immigrants ... and by law they MUST be treated just like US citizens if they go to US hospitals and ERs. I cited numerous examples of how that group is impacting the cost and availability of health care in the United States. In fact, some have even been given multiple liver transplants for free due by our health care system.

In comparison, the Swede's have a much smaller fraction (as a percent of the population) of illegals and deny them medical care, unless they pay for it themselves (http://www.thelocal.se/11924/20080522/ ). If Swedes had to supply the same medical treatment to the same fraction of illegal population that we do, their health care costs would be dramatically higher than they now are ... perhaps 5 percent.

And as I already pointed out, not only do Swedes make illegal aliens pay for health care, they often charge them exorbitant amounts for that treatment, compared to what they charge their own citizens for the same treatment. In effect, they are subsidizing the health care of their own UHC members on the backs of illegal immigrants. Don't let them do that and those UHC costs would go up even more.

Here's another apple and orange that you need to consider. To get it's health care result, Sweden has about 3.3 doctors per 1,000. The US has only 2.3-2.6 doctors per 1000. So to get their result, it looks like we need to increase the number of doctors in this country by about 50%. But do you think we can do that and keep down costs? Before you answer, consider how the pay scales for doctors in Sweden compare to those in the US?

According to http://mdsalaries.blogspot.com/2008/05/doctor-salaries-in-sweden.html , in 2007 the average Swedish doctor salary was between $74,000 to $85,000. In comparison, the average salary of doctors in the US looks to be well over $120,000 (http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Doctor_of_Medicine_(MD)_Degrees/Salary and http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Jobs_as_Physicians_%2F_Doctors/Salary ). In fact, this http://www.the-travel-nurse.com/doctor_best_salaries.html states that


In 2003 there were 111,990 family and general practice doctors in the United States earning approximately $139,640 per year.

... snip ...

In 2003 there were 50,140 general internists in the United States earning an average of $160,130 per year.

... snip ...

In 2003 there were 23,790 anesthesiologists earning an average of $184,880 in the United States.

... snip ...

There are approximately 19,180 Obstetricians and Gynecological doctors working in the United States with the latest data being from 2003. The average annual salary is $180,660

... snip ...

According the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics there were 26,910 Pediatricians in 2003. They earn a low of $77,120 to a high of $178,050 per year. The average doctor salaries for pediatricians is $143,300 per year.

... snip ...

In 2003 there were 19,530 psychiatrists working in the United States earning an average salary of $139,300.

... snip ...

There were 49,730 surgeons in the United States in 2003 earning a range of $113,000 to $210,000 per year on average.

... snip ...

Podiatrists in 2003 numbered 7800 and had average annual earnings of $106,430.


And that was back in 2003. Check it out yourself (here's another source: http://www.physiciandepot.com/Physician-Salaries.aspx ) and you'll find that US doctors earn far more than Swedish doctors. In fact, two to three times as much, on average.

Now of course, part of that difference is that Swedish doctors are under the thumb of the government. Their single payer system applies to doctors as well. If that becomes the case in the US (despite the claim by Obama that's not what he's intending), no doubt there will be tremendous downward pressure on US doctor salaries. But the truth is that in a country like the US, the incomes of highly skilled health care workers, like doctors, are determined partly with reference to the incomes that equally capable and skilled people can make in other occupations. If you artificially lower the income of doctors and not those of other professions, the more capable people are going to choose to enter those other occupations rather than medicine. And the quality of doctors will naturally go down. It's simple logic and human nature. So if you don't want the quality of our physicians to drop at the same time you force their salaries lower, you are going to have to cap the salaries of everyone else in the US? Is that Obama's plan? Looks like he's already made a start in the auto industry. ;)

Or perhaps you don't really care about the quality of doctors? I hear that Swedish doctors are giving even their European neighbors problems.

http://www.thelocal.se/19630/20090524/


Swedish doctors criticized after botched UK ops

Elderly British patients were left nursing their injuries after botched operations by Swedish doctors brought in to cut waiting lists, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reports.

A new report has shown that as many as one in three of the patients treated by the so-called "flying doctors" from Scandinavia suffered poor outcomes with one in five needing repeat operations.

... snip ...

An audit, published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, of more than 200 patients who underwent knee surgery between 2004 and 2006 has revealed that the number of below par operations was ten times the national UK average.


:D

There are other reasons US doctors have higher salaries than Swedes (and doctors in many other countries). US doctors make a larger financial investment in their education ... which is better education, by the way (for example, in Sweden a surgical resident will perform 300-400 surgeries during his residency while in the US that number is closer to 1000). Those doctors must recover the large amount of debt they incur. If they can't do that, do you think anyone is going to want to be a doctor in the US? Again, how are you going to duplicate the Swedish system unless you also change the way doctors are educated in the US and who pays for their education? It looks like the Swedish system basically has the government doing that. Is that what you are proposing for the US too? Do you really believe the government can do that well and without impacting the quality of US doctors. The facts suggest otherwise.

Another way the Swedes keep health care costs down is to push patients through the hospital system quickly. The average length of stay is just over 4 days. In the US, the average length of stay is a little over 5 days. Guess we'd better shorten those hospital stays by about 20% to keep things comparable. Right? But I wonder if our populace will like that?

Now I already pointed out some complaints with quality of health care in the Swedish system. One of them is long waiting times. A health care guarantee was established by Sweden at the end of 2005 that no patient would have to wait for more than three months once it has been determined what care was needed. How has that worked out?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aRXJhrzR9yzc&refer=europe


Jan 25 (2009)

... snip ...

Waiting times for medical care in Sweden are the longest in Europe, according to the Health Consumer Powerhouse, which analyzes health-care systems in the region. About 33,000 people had been waiting more than three months for surgery or other major treatments at the end of August, an increase of 43 percent from May, a report by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions showed.


In fact, I read the Swedish government even more recently introduced a six-month waiting guarantee. And despite that http://spectator.org/blog/2009/04/07/socialized-medicine-an-interna "Earlier this year, the National Board of Health and Welfare found that nearly 45% of patients have longer wait times than are supposedly guaranteed by the health care system."

Now in comparison, a recent survey of wait times in US cities indicated the following average time to appointment for various specialties (http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/05/15/the-doctor-will-see-you-when-appointment-wait-times-in15-cities.aspx ):

Cardiology - 15.5 days
Dermatology - 22.1 days
Obstetrics-Gynecology - 27.5 days
Orthopedic Surgery - 16.8 days
Family Practice - 20.3 days

All well under a month.

You think this is minor? Wait times have consequences. People sometimes die waiting for diagnosis and treatment. That being said, I leave you with a bunch of other horror stories concerning Sweden's *wonderful* health care system. :D

http://www.jpands.org/vol13no1/larson.pdf


Lessons from Sweden’s Universal Health System: Tales from the Health-care Crypt

... snip ...

there is a side of this issue that rarely is told, especially not by advocates of a government medical monopoly. It is the story of those who pay the price for the serious rationing in a
single-payer system.

Rationing of care is a reality under universal health insurance. Yet, its advocates seem universally oblivious to it. In an effort to unmask the reality of “universal coverage,” here are some actual case histories of real people with real experiences. They were reported by Swedish news media, in some instances numerous times.

... snip a bunch of examples of children dying from treatable problems ...

You do not have to be a child to die from denial of care in
Sweden.

... snip an example of an adult dying from treatable cancer that went untreated ...

Even those who do not die from encountering denials of care suffer considerably under Sweden’s universal coverage. Mr. D., a multiple sclerosis patient, lives in Gothenburg, a city of 500,000. His doctor told him about a new medicine that is considered a breakthrough in MS treatment. But, when the doctor put in a request to have Mr. D. treated with it, the request was denied. Reason: it would cost 33 percent more than the old medicine, and that was more than the government was willing to pay. When the government denied Mr. D. the new medicine on the grounds that the subsidies would cost too much, he offered to pay the full cost of the medicine himself. He was denied the option to pay full cost out of his own pocket because, the bureaucrats said, it would set a bad precedent and lead to unequal access to medicine. In Sweden, there is no way to obtain access to medication outside the government-run system.

... snip ...

This is reality in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city. To see a physician the 280,000 residents of Malmo have to go to one of two local clinics before they can see a specialist. Except during business hours, only one of the two clinics is open to serve all the city’s residents. As a result the clinic is severely overcrowded. The security guards serve two functions. They keep patients from becoming unruly as they sit and wait for hours to see a doctor, and they keep new patients from entering the center when the waiting room is considered full.


... snip ...

In Gothenburg, a hospital was blessed with having a talented orthopedist on its staff. Dr. Leif Sward worked part time for the government-run hospital, part time for a local soccer club at its private orthopedic clinic, and part time for the British national soccer team. You would expect a man with such credentials and experience to be considered a prized asset in a tax-supported hospital. But the government bureaucrats were unhappy with the fact that Dr. Sward was not working full time for them. They considered his work for the private health clinic “competing employment”—the soccer players should come to the tax-supported hospitals instead so as to increase their revenues. So they gave Dr. Sward an ultimatum: quit the private sector or leave us. Dr. Sward chose the latter. By giving Dr. Sward this ultimatum, the medical bureaucrats showed that their priority was to control and stifle competition and choice, an action contrary to the interests of patients.

... snip ...

In the midst of all this, you would expect Sweden, oft cited as the epitome of equality, to at least care for women’s health better than any other nation. Not so. Sweden is suffering badly from lack of physicians with expertise in interpreting mammograms. The city of Uppsala, with 200,000 people, well known for one of Europe’s oldest universities, has only one specialist in mammography. This is not unique. Sweden’s National Cancer Foundation reports that the situation is so precarious that within a few years most women in Sweden will not have access to mammography. This is, in part, because all medical schools are under government control and subject to the same budget-cap policies as the rest of the system

... snip ...

It has been estimated that a Swedish-style single-payer health insurance system in America would cost the median-income household some $17,200 per year in health care taxes.

... snip ...

If we implement a universal, single-payer model in America today, the negative effects will reliably occur about a generation from now. The question that we need to ask ourselves as we enter the election season is this: Are we willing to send that bill down the road for our children to pay?


Obviously, based on Obama's 10 trillion dollar deficit creating budgets, he is willing to send that bill to our children. But do American's really want that? I don't think so.


The last link is totally bogus though and the Tax rates you are reading wrong, VAT is 25%(most stuff) or 12%(food bought in resturants) or 6 % (books), there is no other sales tax than VAT.

Even if I misinterpreted that column of the table, my point stands. Swedes pay far more in taxes than we currently do. http://www.thelocal.se/17964/20090303/ "If hidden taxes are also included, the total highest marginal tax rate on labour is a full 74 percent in Sweden." And one consequence of those higher taxes and all the freebies offered by the government, has been higher welfare dependency. In 1970, 11 percent of Sweden's adult population was living off welfare rather than work. In 2006, this figure was 22-26%. This is their real unemployment rate. This is one consequence of socialism.


Here's an op-ed on the matter (in swedish only I'm afraid)


:rolleyes:


The quote "Dr. Olle Stendahl, a professor of medicine at Linkoping University, pointed out a side effect of government-run medicine: its impact on innovation. He said, "In our budget-government health care there is no room for curious, young physicians and other professionals to challenge established views. New knowledge is not attractive but typically considered a problem (that brings) increased costs and disturbances in today's slimmed-down health care." is even translated wrong in a quite important bit.

Fair enough. But do you think changing the word to "economy-driven" changes the FACT that Sweden's health care (as well as its hospitals) is government-run or changes what the professor says Sweden's system does to stymie curiousity and new knowledge?

[elbe]

The per capita GDP of the US is about 22-26% higher than that of Sweden. So aren't Americans allowed to spend more on health care, if they are wealthier? Or do you deny them even that?

That seems like a very silly thing to argue. If I could afford it I would be allowed to spend a million dollars on a ford probe, but it certainly wouldn't be a good idea. Value for money is, of course, the important factor, not just whether you can afford it.

[BeAChooser]

In many countries illegals get the same sort of healthcare as citizens in the US without health insurance.

Another unfounded claim. Prove it. In this thread I've already shown that's not true in Sweden, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. What countries actually do what you claim?

Basically some 40 million Americans are treated as if they are illegal immigrants...

Why do you folks keep repeating this bogus number? That number includes 10 million (or more) illegal aliens. And when will even one of you respond to the fact that 8 million of those 40 million have incomes equal to or higher than the national average? They most certainly are not being treated like illegal aliens. They are doing it to themselves.


Quote:
Now why would they be privatizing if their previous socialized system was as wonderful as Obama and the democrats claim?

Capitalism is a very popular ideology.


So it has nothing to do with capitalism working better? :rolleyes:


Quote:
Perhaps the privatization of health care has resulted in a few hundredths of a percent increase in the Dutch mortality rate.

Earlier you pretended that it was a significant increase

No I didn't. I never said it was a significant increase. I merely noted the trend in the rate and asked if that trend "could" be due to their health care system. Misrepresenting my stated views does not improve the validity of yours.

Now that you know that it can't be used that way you start claiming that it isn't such a big deal.

No, that only made me look at the data a different way. One that again is not flattering to advocates of Obamacare. :D

The Dutch didn't half the total cost of healthcare.

According to this, http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm , in 2007 health expenditures in the Netherlands were $2909 versus $5711 in the US. That's close to a 50% difference. Here's another source that agrees: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934556.html . 50%.

Euthanasia requests are not acts of euthanasia. Just because someone requests it, doesn't mean that request is honoured. Doctors are generally reluctant to honour requests for euthanasia.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/1100/Euthanasia-Assisted-Suicide-Euthanasia-in-Netherlands.html


There have been several professional studies conducted into Dutch euthanasia practice. Most have reported that approximately 2,700 deaths are caused each year in the Netherlands by either euthanasia or assisted suicide—approximately 3 percent of all Dutch deaths. Proponents claim this relatively low figure rebuts opponent's fears that euthanasia will become a relatively routine event. Opponents counter that this figure is horrifying: if the same percentage of Americans died with the direct assistance of doctors, it would amount to approximately sixty-eight thousand annual deaths, more than tripling the U.S. suicide rate.

Opponents also claim that the number of people actually killed by Dutch doctors is significantly understated in these studies. They note that the term "euthanasia" is very narrowly defined by the Dutch government, with the effect if not the design of undercounting the actual number of euthanasia deaths. If a doctor kills a patient with barbiturates and a curare-like poison at the patient's request, the Dutch classify the death as "euthanasia." However, if the patient is killed by an intentional overdose of morphine administered with the primary intention of ending the patient's life, it is not considered euthanasia because morphine is a palliative agent. Yet, intentional morphine overdoses may exceed "euthanasia" deaths. In 1990, according to a Dutch government report, 8,100 patients died through the intentional morphine-overdose method of mercy killing. A latter study found that about 1,500 die annually through the intentional morphine-overdose method of killing. Whatever the actual annual figure, if intentional morphine-overdose deaths are counted as euthanasia, the statistical mercy killing rate in the Netherlands significantly exceeds the published statistics.

... snip ...

Pediatric euthanasia has also become a part of Dutch euthanasia practice. Opponents point with alarm to a 1997 study published in the British medical journal The Lancet indicating that about 8 percent of all infants who die in the Netherlands are euthanized—approximately 80 per year.

... snip ...

Opponents also claim that Dutch euthanasia is "beyond significant control" since approximately 59 percent of euthanasia and assisted suicide deaths are not reported to the coroner as required by the guidelines. Thus, they claim that the actual number of Dutch patients killed is probably far higher than the statistics seem to show.


http://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/?show=435


About every five years, statistics on Dutch euthanasia are released. The figures for 2005, published in May this year and highlighted today, show that the number of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands fell from 3,500 in 2001 to 2,325 in 2005. The drop, from 2.6% to 1.7% for euthanasia cases as a percentage of all deaths, may appear reassuring on the surface and this is indeed how it is being spun.

However, these figures, which were set out in a detailed report in the New England Journal of Medicine by a group of Dutch doctors, including some of the country's leading advocates of euthanasia, on deeper scrutiny reveal a very different picture. They show that a small decrease in voluntary euthanasia has been more than offset by a hefty increase in what is called "terminal sedation". Patients are given drugs which sedate them "continuously and deeply" until death, in 8.2% of all deaths! To put it more starkly, voluntary euthanasia (1.7%), non-voluntary euthanasia (0.4%) and terminal sedation accompanied by withdrawal of nutrition and hydration, now account for nearly one in ten Dutch deaths. Even if we were to disregard the increasing use of "terminal sedation" by Dutch doctors the argument that legalising euthanasia in the Netherlands has not led to an increase in people having their lives ended without giving consent is deeply flawed for the very simple reason that euthanasia has been legally sanctioned in the Netherlands for over 20 years.


Now what if one in ten deaths in the US were *encouraged* deaths? Given the very high cost of end of life care, wouldn't that substantially lower US health care costs?

There is no financial incentive to euthanise patients though.

:rolleyes: According to http://www.seniormag.com/seniormagmk.pdf , the elderly account for about 60% of all health care spending, 74% of prescription drugs and 51% of all over the counter drugs in the US. And other sources indicate the concentration of expenditures in the top 1, 5 and 10 percent of the elderly population is 12, 34 and 50 percent, respectively. In other words, the really old use a very large fraction of the overall health care resources. Cutting even days off the life of a very old person can save tens of thousands of dollars. There may be no overt financial incentives in the Dutch system to euthanise, but don't kid yourself into believing there aren't any. The Dutch maintain the low cost of their system by killing off the old. I'm not saying that's necessarily wrong but that appears to be the facts. :D

[BeAChooser]

That seems like a very silly thing to argue. If I could afford it I would be allowed to spend a million dollars on a ford probe, but it certainly wouldn't be a good idea. Value for money is, of course, the important factor, not just whether you can afford it.


But if it's your money, it's still your right to spend it how you wish, good idea or not. Or are you a socialist/communist who doesn't believe in people having a say over how their own money is spent? Maybe you believe the government should take most of a persons money and spend it more *wisely*. :D

[elbe]

But if it's your money, it's still your right to spend it how you wish, good idea or not. Or are you a socialist/communist who doesn't believe in people having a say over how their own money is spent? Maybe you believe the government should take most of a persons money and spend it more *wisely*. :D

My stupid ford probe example is still true, if I had that kind of cash I could pay a million for one, but I'm not stupid. If it is being demonstrated that american's are, basically, being stupid with their health care money, don't you think they should be allowed to look at other options?

[BeAChooser]

If it is being demonstrated that american's are, basically, being stupid with their health care money, don't you think they should be allowed to look at other options?

Allowed? Do you think Obamacare is really about "allowing" them to look at other options? Do you think socialized medicine is about "allowing"? Sweden doesn't even "allow" it's citizens to get medicines outside the government system. You are not even happy "allowing" Americans to spend more money on healthcare than Swedes, even though they are about 25% wealthier, if the source I cited is accurate. You're not about "allowing", but forcing people to do what you think is smart, regardless of whether we think it is smart. :D

[elbe]

Allowed? Do you think Obamacare is really about "allowing" them to look at other options? Do you think socialized medicine is about "allowing"? Sweden doesn't even "allow" it's citizens to get medicines outside the government system. You are not even happy "allowing" Americans to spend more money on healthcare than Swedes, even though they are about 25% wealthier, if the source I cited is accurate. You're not about "allowing", but forcing people to do what you think is smart, regardless of whether we think it is smart. :D

What Sweden does or does not allow it's citizens to do is largely irrelevant, American isn't Sweden.

And I shall repeat, US citizens are allowed to look at other options if they so choose. If, for whatever reason, they find that some sort of single payer system is what they (for various definitions of "they") want then that's what they can choose. You seem to wish to remove them the ability to even consider other systems that you, personally, don't like. How "free" is that?

I shall also say that most proponents of a US single payer system want public funding for private services, not total government control.

Oh, and "Obamacare" is stupid, at least call it something descriptive.

[BeAChooser]

What Sweden does or does not allow it's citizens to do is largely irrelevant, American isn't Sweden.

It's relevant when many an Obamacare proponent points to Sweden as a model of the wonders of socialized medicine. :D

And I shall repeat, US citizens are allowed to look at other options if they so choose. If, for whatever reason, they find that some sort of single payer system is what they (for various definitions of "they") want then that's what they can choose.

In a multi payer system, people really are allowed to choose the one they want. In a single payer system, they are not. The government chooses for them, irregardless of whether a large fraction of the population don't like it. One approach is freedom. The other is tyranny.

I shall also say that most proponents of a US single payer system want public funding for private services, not total government control.

And how is that going to work? Any better than Sweden's system? :D

Oh, and "Obamacare" is stupid, at least call it something descriptive.

Sorry, but Obama's the one that is pushing this, regardless of what form it takes. It should be named after him. :D

[elbe]

It's relevant when many an Obamacare proponent points to Sweden as a model of the wonders of socialized medicine. :D

I'll admit that I haven't fully been reading along to this thread, looking in when I happen on it and all that, but from previous threads it seemed that many proponents of single payer often look to the UK system as a model, and then acknowledge that the US should try to customize it to best fit its needs. Has there been someone who says we should be just like Sweden?

In a multi payer system, people really are allowed to choose the one they want. In a single payer system, they are not. The government chooses for them, irregardless of whether a large fraction of the population don't like it. One approach is freedom. The other is tyranny.

While it's true that a multi payer system offers choice, often the choice comes down to whether or not you even have health care. I have insurance through my work, a decent one I think, but I doubt I could afford it on my salary if it wasn't offered.

But once again, most proponent want a UK-like system, where you choose the doctor of your choice and the government (acting as a single insurance provider) foots the bill - often with less bureaucracy, from what I understand. You are free to buy secondary insurance or doctor shop.

And how is that going to work? Any better than Sweden's system? :D

Probably something like the UK system, which UK posters seem to enjoy the benefit of.

Sorry, but Obama's the one that is pushing this, regardless of what form it takes. It should be named after him. :D

I honestly don't recall any tradition of naming policies after presidents, except, I guess, when you don't like the president and want to make everything sound sinister.

[nescafe]

And yet you don't seem to support it.
It has its place. It is far from a universal solution, especially when death or paupership are things to be tolerated in its name.

And we have a system for righting such wrongs:

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/18/business/fi-blue18
I am sure that a slap on the wrist will convince them to never to it again, and that it comes as a solace to those who found that they were without insurance, unable to get any due to a preexisting condition, and faced bankruptcy due to large medical bills they were suddenly faced with and could not pay.

Now what recourse will we have when the government ends up doing this sort of thing to people? None. You know that old expression. You can't fight city hall.

And generally, when insurance coverage is pulled, there is more to the story. Recission (retroactive denial of insurance coverage) generally only happens when it is found that the insured intentionally lied on their application for insurance about some health issue that they new about prior to filling out the application. And recission also generally only happens on temporary health plans. Except in 5 states, companies cannot rescind group coverage, even when it's found the insured lied in their disclosure of pre-existing conditions. And companies also can't legally deny coverage because of a pre-existing condition, just adjust the premium accordingly.

All of that is simply not an issue under a universal health care system. You pay your taxes, and are entitled to coverage. It cannot be pulled without your rights being infringed, and there is usually only one risk pool (and therefore cost): the population of the country as a whole. A win for UHC.

You seem to just want to make a claim and not get into the specifics when challenged. Your source bases it's claim that other countries have better outcomes by ONLY looking at life expectancy. But I cited numerous specific reasons (with backup data to support them) why life expectancy is not a very good parameter to make that comparison. Are you just going to ignore the reasons I cited like everyone else? :rolleyes:

Yes. Your examples are cherry-picked and mostly consist of special pleading.

Let me add another to those reasons, since your source makes a direct comparison between the US and Cuba, implying Cuba's health system is so much better than ours. Do you really want us to emulate Cuba's health care system? Where they have no right to privacy, no right of informed consent, not right to sue for malpractice, no right to refuse treatment?

How about we pick the UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, or Switzerland instead?

I hear they have all those rights, and still have better macro-scale outcomes for lower overall cost.

[Rolfe]

Yup.

No maximum lifetime ceiling on coverage.
No co-pay apart from a small (£5) prescription tax.
No restrictions or exclusions due to pre-existing conditions.
Access to the highest-tech cutting-edge interventions if we need them irrespective of social class or income.
No need to consider healthcare coverage when changing jobs or leaving the workforce.
Freedom to choose and change your doctor at will (though if you do want to change your GP he might be a bit cross because he'll lose money as a result).
Freedom to choose any suitable NHS facility for hospital outpatient or inpatient treatment.
Contributions are at their maximum when we can most afford them (that is, when we have a high income) and taper off when we can't afford them, without loss of cover.
Specified entitlements as regards waiting times and availability of treatments.
No-cost participation in population-wide health screening programmes.

Just as an academic question, what would an insurance policy offering all that cost in the USA?

But if we're still not comfortable that we have as much coverage as we want, freedom to purchase as much private insurance as we want, or simply to pay for private treatment out of capital. The main advantage of which is that we don't have to rub shoulders with the Great Unwashed in NHS facilities.

Do you wonder that we like it, or that we'll kick any politician who tries to cut back on NHS cover out of office in a heartbeat, even if he's promising bread and circuses all round in other areas?

Rolfe.

[Cobalt]

Government run schools are hardly about educating children.

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Government run schools are hardly about educating children.
Are they about indoctrinating them into homosexuality? 'Cause that's what my textbook tells me...

[Cobalt]

Are they about indoctrinating them into homosexuality? 'Cause that's what my textbook tells me...

Nah.

[BeAChooser]

Has there been someone who says we should be just like Sweden?


Oh ... so now you folks don't want us to be like Sweden? ;)


While it's true that a multi payer system offers choice, often the choice comes down to whether or not you even have health care.

There is a difference between lacking health care and lacking health insurance. Even people without health insurance get health care in the US under the current system. It's the law. As opposed to the situation in many of those socialist *utopias* that have been mentioned. :)

I have insurance through my work, a decent one I think, but I doubt I could afford it on my salary if it wasn't offered.

If it wasn't offered, perhaps your salary would be higher. Funny how that works. :)

But once again, most proponent want a UK-like system, where you choose the doctor of your choice and the government (acting as a single insurance provider) foots the bill - often with less bureaucracy, from what I understand.

I can compare the US to the UK too (warning ... you folks are running out of countries to use as examples of socialized medicine utopias). :D

First, the WHO in 2000 ranked the healthcare of the UK, 15th in Europe. I'm curious why you'd pick the one that was ranked 15th and not 1st? I'm not suggesting the WHO did a very good job in it's rankings. It is based on 5 factors that mostly reward the uniformity of socialized health care, independent of the care actually delivered. One factor is life expectancy which I've already shown is problematic (in fact, http://www.patientpowernow.org/2008/06/06/united-states-health-care-ranking-who/ indicates that when you adjust for fatal injury rates, "U.S. life expectancy is actually higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation.") Another WHO factor is "financial fairness", which inherently assumes that everyone should pay the same percentage of their income on health care regardless of their income or use of the system. But I don't understand why you folks, champions of fairness, wouldn't accept the WHO ranking criteria. In which case, why pick 15th instead of 1st? Just curious. :D

Second, the per capita GDP of the US is 28-36% higher than the UK's. Is it really problematic if our per capita health care spending is also more than the UKs? Granted, a factor of 2 difference in per capita health care spending may not be explained by this but it reduces the disparity if wealth is allowed to buy health. Or is that not going to be permitted in utopia?

Third, the US has a large illegal immigrant problem (2.6-6.6% of its total population). In comparison, the UK's problem is tiny (0.8-1.2%) and again, the UK is a country that tries to prevent illegals from getting any health care (much less insurance). If the British had the same percentage of illegal aliens we do and gave the same measure of medical care to them as we do, that would narrow the spending gap between our countries even more.

Fourth, the British pay for their health cost savings in many ways.

Waiting times have already been mentioned. But let's mention them again because waiting times can kill.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_cost_of_free_government_he_1.html


The United Kingdom's National Health Service recently congratulated itself for reducing to 18 weeks the average time that a patient has to wait from referral to a specialist to treatment.


Patients are denied the latest technology and medicines. From the above source:


Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence usually won't approve a medical procedure or medicine unless its cost, divided by the number of quality-adjusted life years that it will give a patient, is no more than what it values a year of life in great health - £30,000 (about $44,820). So if you want a medical procedure that is expected to extend your life by four years but it costs $40,000 and bureaucrats decide that it will improve the quality of your life by 0.2 (death is zero, 1.0 is best possible health, and negative values can be assigned), you're out of luck because $40,000 divided by 0.8 (4 X 0.2) is $50,000.



In a Commonwealth Fund/Harvard/Harris 2000 survey of physicians in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom, physicians in all countries except the United States reported major shortages of resources important in providing quality care; only U.S. physicians did not see shortages as a significant problem. According to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Health Data (2008), there are 26.5 MRIs and 33.9 CT scanners per million people in the United States compared to ... snip ... 5.6 MRIs and 7.6 CT scanners in the United Kingdom.


The United Kingdom has a much lower use of new cancer drugs than the US with resulting lower cancer survival rates. From the above source:


The CONCORD study published in 2008 found that the five-year survival rate for cancer (adjusted for other causes of death) is much higher in the United States than in Europe (e.g., 91.9% vs. 57.1% for prostate cancer, 83.9% vs. 73% for breast cancer, 60.1% vs. 46.8% for men with colon cancer, and 60.1 vs. 48.4% for women with colon cancer). The United Kingdom, which has had government-run health care since 1948, has survival rates lower than those for Europe as a whole.


The percentage of people treated for end-stage renal disease in the UK is a third of that in the United States. Britain is rationing such care and that is killing people because such treatment is too expensive for most people to afford out of pocket.

As discussed previously by me, dental care has been deteriorating in the UK under socialized medicine.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/alicethomson/3553839/Bad-teeth---the-new-British-disease.html


31 December 2008
Bad teeth - - the new British disease

In Britain today ... snip ... You may be rolling on the bathroom floor in agony with an abscess, your gums may be riddled with disease, or people may recoil at the sight of your fangs as you walk down the street, but the NHS doesn't have to help you.

... snip ...

A survey by Mori for the Citizens Advice Bureau this week found that seven and a half million Britons have failed to gain access to an NHS dentist in the past two years. In one quarter of the country, no NHS dentists are allowing new patients to join their lists. And despite government targets that every child should have his teeth seen by an expert every year, more than one in three children never see an NHS dentist.

... snip ...

The situation for adults is even worse. One friend, Victoria, was told that a crown would cost her £700 privately, the price of her summer holiday. The queue for an NHS dentist was so long that her tooth broke before it was treated and she had to spend £350 having it pulled out. She should have followed the example of the Wiltshire toothache sufferer who told the Citizens Advice Bureau that he now takes out many of his teeth in his shed - with pliers. More than one in 20 have said they resort to DIY surgery.

There is, of course, the option to go private, but with more and more former NHS patients forced to pay, dentists' charges are now the most expensive in Europe.

... snip ...

But there are increasingly two dental nations in Britain and those who can't afford the fees have worse teeth than ever before. With bad teeth, you are less likely to find a good job or a successful relationship. The elderly, in particular, can find their lives racked by toothache and an inability to eat properly. Gum disease also increases the risk of mouth cancer, and pancreatic cancer in men.


Browse the internet and you find one problem after another with Britain's socialized medical system.

According to a August 2008 article from a UK media source,

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/doctor-warns-over-nhs-meltdown-908909.html


One of Britain's most senior doctors claimed today that thousands of hospital patients are "starving" because nurses are too busy to feed them.

Professor Paul Goddard, a former radiology section president of the Royal Society of Medicine, launched a scathing attack on the way the health service is being run ... snip ...

He said the NHS is in "meltdown" and claimed medics refused to speak up about the problems for fear of being sacked.

... snip ...

Superbugs were killing people by the "hundreds", he said, but "doctors don't dare speak out, the staff don't dare speak up because they will get sacked".

... snip ...

"You can't get dental care. Your elderly patients - what happens to them? You have to pay to have them looked after."

He said draft guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) to deny patients four kidney cancer drugs on the NHS was a "disgrace".


Sure, we can make our system look like Britain's. But at what cost?

And how big a change in our country will be needed to do it?

I discussed doctors salaries in my discussion of Sweden. What does the UK pay it's doctors and how many doctors do they have relative to the US?

Far less than US doctors:

http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/People_with_Jobs_as_Physicians_/_Doctors/Salary

So what are you going to do about that without totally changing the pay scale of all professions in the US or impacting the quality of the people going into medicine?

Quote:
Sorry, but Obama's the one that is pushing this, regardless of what form it takes. It should be named after him.

I honestly don't recall any tradition of naming policies after presidents, except, I guess, when you don't like the president and want to make everything sound sinister.


Come on, if this is so great, one would think Obama would love to have it named after him. :D

[elbe]

There is a difference between lacking health care and lacking health insurance. Even people without health insurance get health care in the US under the current system. It's the law. As opposed to the situation in many of those socialist *utopias* that have been mentioned. :)

What you are talking about is less "health care" and more "emergency care". I can't go to the emergency room for an annual checkup, now can I?

If it wasn't offered, perhaps your salary would be higher. Funny how that works. :)

Probably not, sorry. Most businesses would probably still pay the same base wages regardless of what benefits are being offered, unless unions got involved.

I can compare the US to the UK too (warning ... you folks are running out of countries to use as examples of socialized medicine utopias). :D

To be honest, I don't really care about your wall-o-links. I was just making a point that the UK system is the one most like what single payer proponents appear to want. They also say they'd have to modify it so it would work the best for the US. Modify was the key word there. No matter what we aren't just going to completely emulate another country's system.

I've never declared there to be a "socialized medicine utopia", and I kind of have a hard time believing someone else has, but I also don't think there is a capitalist medicine utopia. There are significant faults in our current system and we really should do something, but what that something is will have to be decided in the future. Hopefully without blind partisans, on either side, who refuse to even listen to the opposing side.

Come on, if this is so great, one would think Obama would love to have it named after him. :D

And yet, politicians don't seem to name policies after themselves. I wonder why... (rhetorical)

[BeAChooser]

It is far from a universal solution, especially when death or paupership are things to be tolerated in its name.

So I guess under the economic system you prefer, death and paupership will not be tolerated. :rolleyes: Seems to me that's been promised a time a two ... by socialist and communist governments that either brutalized their citizens in countless ways because they became too powerful, or by governments that eventually collapsed due to totally unrealistic economic fantasies. Shall I start listing them?

I am sure that a slap on the wrist will convince them to never to it again, and that it comes as a solace to those who found that they were without insurance, unable to get any due to a preexisting condition, and faced bankruptcy due to large medical bills they were suddenly faced with and could not pay.

So you don't like our system of justice either. I see. So what will you replace it with? Something similar to that used in those many socialist and communist failures I alluded to above? :D

And don't you find it odd, folks, that given nescafe's feelings, that lawyers in this country by a large margin are supporters of the democrat party?

All of that is simply not an issue under a universal health care system.

Not an issue? :rolleyes: If you don't like what the government does under universal health care, there is no recourse. You can't sue the government. Think of the way you are treated at the DMV and imagine that's your health care provider. Remember that folks.

Not an issue? :rolleyes: The only reason you think lying to insurance companies and simple economics are not issues is that lying doesn't matter to liberals and universal health care will remove all economic sanity from the system. Note what liberals in government did to the economy of California. And imagine those folks are now running 1/7th of the US economy. TANSTAAFL. Ever hear that expression, nescafe?

You pay your taxes, and are entitled to coverage.

What if you don't pay any taxes. You still entitled to coverage?


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
You seem to just want to make a claim and not get into the specifics when challenged. Your source bases it's claim that other countries have better outcomes by ONLY looking at life expectancy. But I cited numerous specific reasons (with backup data to support them) why life expectancy is not a very good parameter to make that comparison. Are you just going to ignore the reasons I cited like everyone else?

Yes. Your examples are cherry-picked and mostly consist of special pleading.

Thank you for proving my point.


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Let me add another to those reasons, since your source makes a direct comparison between the US and Cuba, implying Cuba's health system is so much better than ours. Do you really want us to emulate Cuba's health care system? Where they have no right to privacy, no right of informed consent, not right to sue for malpractice, no right to refuse treatment?

How about we pick the UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, or Switzerland instead?

I'm not the one that posted a source using Cuba as the example of good health care. That was YOU. Now all of a sudden you want to abandon it but you don't offer another source. :D

I hear they have all those rights, and still have better macro-scale outcomes for lower overall cost.

All unproven, especially if by macro-scale you mean life expectancy. And as I noted in the comparison with some of those countries, you are comparing apples and oranges.

I notice also that you AGAIN have nothing to say about my observation that the 40 million uninsured statistic is bogus. That's significant given that your side uses that statistic as the primary reason why we need wholesale reform. Aren't you willing to even try defending that reason? Or shall we just conclude that the reason given by liberals for this massive takeover and intrusion by the government is a LIE? :D

[BeAChooser]

I can't go to the emergency room for an annual checkup, now can I?

You wouldn't have to pay very much for a health plan that covered only annual checkups, now would you? :D

Most businesses would probably still pay the same base wages regardless of what benefits are being offered, unless unions got involved.

You really don't like (or understand) free market economics, do you? Is that why you believe in single payer systems? :D

Tell me, if single payer systems are so great for health care, do you think they'd be good for other types of services?

To be honest, I don't really care about your wall-o-links.

Maybe not, but that only shows you aren't very inquisitive or open minded. Fact is, I rather guessed I wouldn't change your mind about anything regardless of what facts I brought to the table. My post (actually most of the posts I make on this forum) was directed not at you but at other readers who *might* have more interest in the actual facts and more of an open mind. :D

I was just making a point that the UK system is the one most like what single payer proponents appear to want.

And yet you don't seem prepared to defend it. :)

They also say they'd have to modify it so it would work the best for the US. Modify was the key word there.

OK. How would they modify it? Specifics. Don't you think we should discuss that before we all jump on the single-payer bandwagon? For example, perhaps you can answer my question about doctor salaries and the number of doctors? :D

I've never declared there to be a "socialized medicine utopia", and I kind of have a hard time believing someone else has

Then you simply haven't noticed the Obama supporters in the media swooning over the wonders of socialized medicine.


Quote:
Come on, if this is so great, one would think Obama would love to have it named after him.

And yet, politicians don't seem to name policies after themselves. I wonder why... (rhetorical)

Could it be that very little of what governments do is something politicians want named after them? Could it be that those politicians know what common folk still haven't grasped? :D

[elbe]

A free moment from work and a little more calm.

You wouldn't have to pay very much for a health plan that covered only annual checkups, now would you? :D

Annual checkups can often lead to more expensive procedures being performed if problems are found. That's sort of the point to annual checkups. In the long run they should reduce overall pay.

You really don't like (or understand) free market economics, do you? Is that why you believe in single payer systems? :D

First off, where did I say that I "believe in single payer systems"? Second, I understand free market economics fine, thank you very much, and I know that companies aren't jumping at the bone to pay their employees more "if only they didn't have to pay for that pesky insurance". If you can show that they will, be my guest.

Tell me, if single payer systems are so great for health care, do you think they'd be good for other types of services?

It would, I imagine, depend on the service. The military appears to work while "socialized". Police and fire departments too. It seems, to me, that things that are for the general welfare (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.preamble.html) of the country are paid for by the state. Whether health care is part of the "general welfare", I guess, is up for debate.

Maybe not, but that only shows you aren't very inquisitive or open minded. Fact is, I rather guessed I wouldn't change your mind about anything regardless of what facts I brought to the table. My post (actually most of the posts I make on this forum) was directed not at you but at other readers who *might* have more interest in the actual facts and more of an open mind. :D

You know nothing of my inquisitiveness or openmindedness, just that I find your posts to be dull and mean spirited. Why should I waste my time on such as those? I just have this tendancy to point out mistaken claims if I notice them, like when you claimed that single payer proponents wanted the government to take over the entire system. Or when you claim to know what I want when I have said nothing on the matter.

And yet you don't seem prepared to defend it. :)

Pointing out what others wants means I should be the one to defend it? Hmm, interesting world you live in.

OK. How would they modify it? Specifics. Don't you think we should discuss that before we all jump on the single-payer bandwagon? For example, perhaps you can answer my question about doctor salaries and the number of doctors? :D

Those would, of course, be perfectly valid questions to ask. I've not the professional level of knowledge needed to properly answer them. Somehow I question that you do either.

Then you simply haven't noticed the Obama supporters in the media swooning over the wonders of socialized medicine.

I've noticed, through your various threads, that you have a very odd view of Obama supporters that doesn't quite mesh with the majority of them. I don't support everything he's done, though I think we could do far worse. From what I've seen Obama supporters have, in general, been vocal in their dislike of policies they don't agree with (though, perhaps, still being apologetic about them). For what it's worth, the media does not speak for everyone no matter how much they "swoon".

Could it be that very little of what governments do is something politicians want named after them? Could it be that those politicians know what common folk still haven't grasped? :D

Politicians probably don't want things named after them in case they go south, but I have a hard time believing most politicians expect programs they support to go south. While politicians cannot be said to always be working in the best interests of their constituents, I don't think they are conspiring to actually harm them.

[nescafe]

So I guess under the economic system you prefer, death and paupership will not be tolerated. :rolleyes:

Where they are preventable by non-heroic measures, yes. Universal health care seems to fall into that category

You may also note that there has never been a pure capitalist utopia either. I know you are categorically unable to consider things from any other viewpoint than the hardcore libertarian one, but please try to consider that others may more know more about this issue than you, despite your wall o' links Gish gallop debating style.

So you don't like our system of justice either. I see.
Well, the article you linked to was a few tens of millions of dollars worth of fines with no admission of guilt and no mention of recompense to those whose insurance (and insurability) vanished in a puff of profit.

Not an issue? :rolleyes: If you don't like what the government does under universal health care, there is no recourse. You can't sue the government.

Sure you can. You can also vote the chiseling politicians out of power, run for office yourself, or suggest legislation to you local rep to change things -- that is what representative democracy is all about, after all.

Not an issue? :rolleyes: The only reason you think lying to insurance companies and simple economics are not issues is that lying doesn't matter to liberals and universal health care will remove all economic sanity from the system. Note what liberals in government did to the economy of California. And imagine those folks are now running 1/7th of the US economy. TANSTAAFL. Ever hear that expression, nescafe?

Way to totally miss the point and retreat your ideology. You win 5 internets.

In a UHC as most Western democracies run it, lying about preexisting conditions is a total nonissue because you are covered, not because they are part of a society that encourages lying about your health.

There is also a great deal of evidence that a UHC is more economic than our system -- see the stats posted upthread about healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP and life expectancy. Bloviate about special circumstances and make excuses as to how it could never work for us all you want, those numbers drown your blather out.

What if you don't pay any taxes. You still entitled to coverage?

Oooh, trying to set me up for a "nescafe doesn't think children and the unemployed deserve healthcare despite everything else he has said!"

Most other UHC's cover you even if you don't pay taxes under certain circumstances, and being a child and/or unemployed are generally covered. I personally think that taking a play from Germany's book is the best thing here -- children are national treasures, and so all their healthcare is covered by the government as a matter of course.

Unlike you, I think UHC is a moral imperative, and that everyone should be covered -- to do otherwise would be inhumane. I am willing to make some compromises w.r.t citizenship and/or taxes paid as a necessary precondition to coverage, but the default should be that you are presumed entitled until proven otherwise.

I'm not the one that posted a source using Cuba as the example of good health care. That was YOU. Now all of a sudden you want to abandon it but you don't offer another source. :D
No, you simply want to magnify a small portion of one source I used all out of proportion because it mentioned that Cuba has a UHC.

I notice also that you AGAIN have nothing to say about my observation that the 40 million uninsured statistic is bogus.

Because you brought it up, and I do not care one way or another about that statistic.

That's significant given that your side uses that statistic as the primary reason why we need wholesale reform.
Yes, because this complex issue can simply be boiled down to a us vs. them black and white issue. Things must be so simple in your little world.

I am in favor of UHC because anything else is inhumane and causes unnecessary drag on our society by making the populace as a whole less healthy.

Or shall we just conclude that the reason given by liberals for this massive takeover and intrusion by the government is a LIE? :D
Yes, because the rest of the civilized world groans under the shackles of their universal health care systems. We Americans are blessed to live in a society where it is OK to lose your insurance because your insurance company decides it is no longer profitable to carry you, or you change jobs, or get diagnosed with pancreatic cancer while involuntarily unemployed.

Try to see past your ideology at least once.

[Rolfe]

I mentioned just a selection of the benefits we have with the NHS system of universal healthcare. I'm still curious to know what sort of premiums a US citizen would have to pay for the same level of benefits.

No maximum lifetime ceiling on coverage.
No co-pay apart from a small (£5) prescription tax.
No restrictions or exclusions due to pre-existing conditions.
Access to the highest-tech cutting-edge interventions if we need them irrespective of social class or income.
No need to consider healthcare coverage when changing jobs or leaving the workforce.
Freedom to choose and change your doctor at will (though if you do want to change your GP he might be a bit cross because he'll lose money as a result).
Freedom to choose any suitable NHS facility for hospital outpatient or inpatient treatment.
Contributions are at their maximum when we can most afford them (that is, when we have a high income) and taper off when we can't afford them, without loss of cover.
Specified entitlements as regards waiting times and availability of treatments.
No-cost participation in population-wide health screening programmes.
Rolfe.

[3point14]

Just a quick question:

Are we agreed then that if you take the 40 Million Americans without healthcare, subtract the 10 million illegal immigrants and the eight million who can afford insurance but don't buy it, then there are only 22 million Americans without access to healthcare outside of turning up at the local A&E and getting their treatment at the point of most cost. That's only a little over 7%. What's all the fuss about?

[leftysergeant]

Allowed? Do you think Obamacare is really about "allowing" them to look at other options? Do you think socialized medicine is about "allowing"? Sweden doesn't even "allow" it's citizens to get medicines outside the government system.

There is no proposal to prohibit private insurance in anything that I have seen put forth so far. There is a call for a public program that cannot exclude anyone, not for profit.

It would suck the life out of for-profit health care, but so what? You are not entitled to profit from the discomfiture of another person to begin with.

[Rolfe]

The main objection seems to be that the private insurance sector would shrink to a fraction of its current size. Fear of that is what's fuelling all the hype, propaganda and lobbying.

So, Henry Ford just invented the automobile. Oh noes, horse riding will become a leisure sport only, and the demand for saddles, harness and farriery will shrink to a fraction of its current size!

Progress marches on. If demand for your product declines, find a new and/or better product.

Rolfe.

[leftysergeant]

Let the for-profit companies do supplimentals for things like boob jobs and private rooms and consierge medical care.

Basic health care should be nonn-profit.

Insurance companies were set up so that doctors would get paid. They do not need to turn a profiot for investors in order to do this. By expanding the pool of persons copvered, they could have minimized the risk while still providing affordable coverage that actually paid the doctors and got their clients taken care of.

Basicly, they are insisting on a right to make a profit by not doing things they were created to do. Odd that they should think that they are supposed to matter to us.

[nescafe]

I mentioned just a selection of the benefits we have with the NHS system of universal healthcare. I'm still curious to know what sort of premiums a US citizen would have to pay for the same level of benefits.

No maximum lifetime ceiling on coverage.
No co-pay apart from a small (£5) prescription tax.
No restrictions or exclusions due to pre-existing conditions.
Access to the highest-tech cutting-edge interventions if we need them irrespective of social class or income.
No need to consider healthcare coverage when changing jobs or leaving the workforce.
Freedom to choose and change your doctor at will (though if you do want to change your GP he might be a bit cross because he'll lose money as a result).
Freedom to choose any suitable NHS facility for hospital outpatient or inpatient treatment.
Contributions are at their maximum when we can most afford them (that is, when we have a high income) and taper off when we can't afford them, without loss of cover.
Specified entitlements as regards waiting times and availability of treatments.
No-cost participation in population-wide health screening programmes.

Rolfe.

I have no idea. I would cheerfully exchange 10% of my gross income to be covered by such a plan, though. I understand that UK citizens manage to pay less than that -- amazing what a well-run bureaucracy can do, I suppose.

[3point14]

I have no idea. I would cheerfully exchange 10% of my gross income to be covered by such a plan, though. I understand that UK citizens manage to pay less than that -- amazing what a well-run bureaucracy can do, I suppose.

Think how effeicient it would be if there was no government intervention. By the laws of free market economics it would surely be better...

Of course, it would be challenging in the US due to the scale. You'd probably have to think up some method of splitting up the country into different administative regions, I'm not sure that it would be possible to come up with a fair and agreed upon basis to split up the country...

[Rolfe]

I have no idea. I would cheerfully exchange 10% of my gross income to be covered by such a plan, though. I understand that UK citizens manage to pay less than that -- amazing what a well-run bureaucracy can do, I suppose.


I think that's why it seems so painless. We do pay as a percentage of income, not as a flat rate or according to perceived risk. Thus, everybody can afford the necessary contributions quite easily and nobody is desperately scraping around to find an insurance premium.

This, of course, is anathema to right-wingers. Why should high-earners pay more? Well, from their own point of view, to ensure that the system is sufficiently funded. Remember, they are as entitled to access it as anybody else, and with sufficient funding, supported by high-earning contributors when they can afford it, it will be there for them even if they lose all their money on the stock market or some such disaster, or if they find themselves running out of capital and resources after retirement. And from the point of view of society, to prevent freeloading. And by freeloading, I mean in this context the rich person who decides to shirk his responsibility to contribute to the welfare of the less fortunate. In a tax-funded system, this duty is not all heaped on the charitable and the soft-hearted.

And in a word, it works.

Rolfe.

[nescafe]

Think how effeicient it would be if there was no government intervention. By the laws of free market economics it would surely be better...
Be careful with that sarcasm, BAC might think you were being serious.

Of course, it would be challenging in the US due to the scale. You'd probably have to think up some method of splitting up the country into different administative regions, I'm not sure that it would be possible to come up with a fair and agreed upon basis to split up the country...
Nah, that is crazy talk. The states would never agree to it. :)

[Architect]

And in a word, it works.

Rolfe.

But BAC doesn't believe that. Hell, he's hosted a whole ream of links allegedly showing otherwise. And it's going to take ages to work through them, dammit - I feel I do owe him the courtesty of a reply (but I go on hols on Friday).

[Rolfe]

I've met some of BaC's links before. It wasn't worth it.

Have a nice holiday, I'll email you when you get back..

Rolfe.

[BeAChooser]

Annual checkups can often lead to more expensive procedures being performed if problems are found.

And you'd be wrong. They don't find problems all that often. Most medical problems are only discovered when a person goes to a doctor complaining about something specific. Which is exactly how the uninsured currently use ERs and hospitals.

My proof?

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/05/05/prsb0505.htm


Physicians examine the role of annual checkups in prevention

... snip ...

research is raising questions about whether annual physicals -- the most common reason patients visit the doctor's office -- serve as much of a preventive role as once thought.

... snip ...

Dr. Mehrotra said he was surprised to learn that 80% of preventive care, such as cholesterol screenings and weight loss counseling, occurred at visits other than annual checkups or yearly trips to the gynecologist.

... snip ...

If all patients had physicals, those visits would account for 41% of primary care physicians' direct patient time, the study said.

"We don't have the work force to do that," said David Dale, MD, president of the American College of Physicians,


http://www.thirdage.com/medical-care/diagnosis-annual-checkups-overrated


Diagnosis: Annual Checkups Overrated

Posted April 28, 2008


... snip ...

The annual physical examination -- that encounter when a physician looks in your throat, listens to your heart, pokes your abdomen, checks your reflexes and tests your blood -- is no longer a generally recommended medical practice.

That's because there is scant scientific evidence showing that yearly checkups help prevent disease, death or disability for adults with no symptoms. Many tests and procedures performed during the visits have questionable value, experts say.

... snip ...

"There is very little evidence, if any, that doing [comprehensive] exams yearly on patients without symptoms is good for anything," said Dr. Ned Calonge, chairman of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which does not endorse yearly physicals.


First off, where did I say that I "believe in single payer systems"?

But you did jump in to stick up for those who believe in them. And you had only good things to say, initially, about a UK-like (i.e., single payer - like) system. And when I challenged your expressed assumption that the UK system works, you ignored my comments and changed to saying we need only modify it to make it work. Sorry if I misinterpreted your position. Glad to hear you don't believe in single payer systems. ;)

Second, I understand free market economics fine

Not if you think wages are unaffected by what employers offer in terms of benefits. Not if you think there is no competition between employers for quality workers. Not if you think unions are the solution.


Quote:
Tell me, if single payer systems are so great for health care, do you think they'd be good for other types of services?

It would, I imagine, depend on the service. The military appears to work while "socialized".

Equating military needs to health care is totally bogus. Centralized control is essential to the effectiveness of a military force. That is not the case when it comes to health care. Furthermore, a citizen cannot take care of their own military protection needs. That requires collective action at the national level. There is no alternative. But that is not true when it comes to health care. Individuals can go out on their own or in small groups and take care of their health care needs. And should their health care fail, other folks health care can still be unaffected.

Police and fire departments too.

I already posted some sources that indicate police protection can be provided at less cost by private companies than by the government. And the truth is police and fire protection are totally unlike what is being demanded by you folks in health care. Police and fire protection are heavily dependent on the economy of given neighborhoods. Wealthy communities have better protection than less wealthy communities. They do not distribute their protection equally between those who pay taxes and those who do not. Also, police and fire protection are not handled at the nation level in most cases. Why can't health care be handled at the state and local level too?

I'm thinking more along the lines of ... bread. We all eat bread. Now why doesn't the government take control of bread making and bread distribution? Surely, if what you folks claim is true, they could do it better than the way it is currently done. Just think of all the money we could save? :D

It seems, to me, that things that are for the general welfare of the country

"General welfare" is a very vague term. Protecting our national borders is obviously of general utility to all of us. But about half the country does not believe a government takeover of health care is in their interest. So how can you claim it qualifies as "general welfare"? Because it make YOU happy?

Whether health care is part of the "general welfare", I guess, is up for debate.

Indeed it is. And there's another problem.

The first clause of Article I, Section 8, reads, "The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." That does not give Congress the power to legislate for the general welfare. That power is reserved to the states through the 10th Amendment, which says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The Constitution only allows Congress to spend federal money for the general welfare. But Obama and company are unconstitutionally trying to do much more than that. It's unconstitutional because this issue has already been ruled on by the Supreme Court. In United States v. Butler, 56 S. Ct. 312, 297 U.S. 1, 80 L. Ed. 477 (1936), the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a federal agricultural spending program because a specific congressional power over agricultural production appeared nowhere in the Constitution. According to the Court in Butler, the spending program invaded a right reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment.

You know nothing of my inquisitiveness or openmindedness, just that I find your posts to be dull and mean spirited.

Do the facts I cite in my posts bore you? I'm sooooo sorry. And I object to your calling my posts "mean spirited". They are neither malicious or petty. I think it's that you just don't like what the facts suggest about socialized medicine and its supporters. :D

I just have this tendancy to point out mistaken claims if I notice them, like when you claimed that single payer proponents wanted the government to take over the entire system.

Now where did I say that in this thread?

Pointing out what others wants means I should be the one to defend it?

Hey, if you don't want to defend the UK system, fine with me. :D

Those would, of course, be perfectly valid questions to ask. I've not the professional level of knowledge needed to properly answer them.

And if you don't want to tell us how to modify it, that's fine with me, too. :D

[elbe]

And you'd be wrong. They don't find problems all that often. Most medical problems are only discovered when a person goes to a doctor complaining about something specific. Which is exactly how the uninsured currently use ERs and hospitals.

My proof?

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/05/05/prsb0505.htm

Interestingly, that article does not talk about emergency care, but preventative care. ER trips are not preventative, you go if you know something is wrong.

http://www.thirdage.com/medical-care/diagnosis-annual-checkups-overrated
Instead of asking patients to come in every year for a checkup, physicians should be figuring out which patients need what types of preventive care and making sure they get those services, experts suggest.

So it's arguing that instead of all-purpose checkups they do targeted care. That's still preventative and still not emergency care.

But you did jump in to stick up for those who believe in them. And you had only good things to say, initially, about a UK-like (i.e., single payer - like) system. And when I challenged your expressed assumption that the UK system works, you ignored my comments and changed to saying we need only modify it to make it work. Sorry if I misinterpreted your position. Glad to hear you don't believe in single payer systems. ;)

Can you do me a favor and quote where I had "only good things to say" about a UK-like system? I remember saying that is what people seem to be more interested in, and I remember saying that that is much more preferable to the government running everything (like you once claimed defendants wanted), but I don't recall this "only good things" thing. But my memory has never been perfect. I did say that the UK posters seem to think it works fine. I don't live in the UK so I don't have any first hand experience. I tend to leave my opinion out of matters because I don't trust it.

Not if you think wages are unaffected by what employers offer in terms of benefits. Not if you think there is no competition between employers for quality workers. Not if you think unions are the solution.

I think employers offer what they think they can get employees for, I have my doubts that the average employee really thinks about how much the company pays for their benefits, instead thinking about the part that comes out of their paycheck. Employers can use that to their advantage where if they didn't offer medical benefits they can point to the paychecks and say "you have more money in your net pay" without raising gross wages.

Unions have nothing to do with it.

Equating military needs to health care is totally bogus. Centralized control is essential to the effectiveness of a military force. That is not the case when it comes to health care. Furthermore, a citizen cannot take care of their own military protection needs. That requires collective action at the national level. There is no alternative. But that is not true when it comes to health care. Individuals can go out on their own or in small groups and take care of their health care needs. And should their health care fail, other folks health care can still be unaffected.

We did, once, have an alternative, non-centralized military system, the militia system. Granted, that's not a very efficient military, but it served its purpose once. I mention the military primarily, and I know it's a common reference, to show that the government can actually run centralized systems.

I already posted some sources that indicate police protection can be provided at less cost by private companies than by the government. And the truth is police and fire protection are totally unlike what is being demanded by you folks in health care. Police and fire protection are heavily dependent on the economy of given neighborhoods. Wealthy communities have better protection than less wealthy communities. They do not distribute their protection equally between those who pay taxes and those who do not. Also, police and fire protection are not handled at the nation level in most cases. Why can't health care be handled at the state and local level too?

It has actually been offered as a suggestion for single payer health care to be managed on the state level. Did you not notice that?

I'm thinking more along the lines of ... bread. We all eat bread. Now why doesn't the government take control of bread making and bread distribution? Surely, if what you folks claim is true, they could do it better than the way it is currently done. Just think of all the money we could save? :D

Bread and health care are not similar, as you mentioned that the military and health care are not. Health care is, really, a somewhat unique area. It isn't a consumer good (as in you don't buy an MRI scan and keep that MRI scan), and it isn't exactly a service. You pay for what you need when you need it, there isn't a standardized price across the board (blood work would cost less then a knee replacement). You can't, in general, expect to partake of any particular medical service, except routine ones - mammogram, prostate exam, etc. - so people are unlikely to save up their money for that liver transplant they've always wanted.

"General welfare" is a very vague term. Protecting our national borders is obviously of general utility to all of us. But about half the country does not believe a government takeover of health care is in their interest. So how can you claim it qualifies as "general welfare"? Because it make YOU happy?

It is a very vague term, yes. Often used just for military and basic public services. I mentioned it because it is a way the government can do it, as in, it is within its power if it feels that health care is part of the general welfare of the country.

Indeed it is. And there's another problem.

The first clause of Article I, Section 8, reads, "The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." That does not give Congress the power to legislate for the general welfare. That power is reserved to the states through the 10th Amendment, which says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The Constitution only allows Congress to spend federal money for the general welfare. But Obama and company are unconstitutionally trying to do much more than that. It's unconstitutional because this issue has already been ruled on by the Supreme Court. In United States v. Butler, 56 S. Ct. 312, 297 U.S. 1, 80 L. Ed. 477 (1936), the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a federal agricultural spending program because a specific congressional power over agricultural production appeared nowhere in the Constitution. According to the Court in Butler, the spending program invaded a right reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment.

Continuing from my bit above your quote: If, as some people may argue, health care is a part of the "general welfare" then it would be a power delegated to the united states by the constitution and thus not one reserved for the states. It is very easy to see how health care can be in the in the federal government's interests for the general welfare. We already keep them (the citizens) safe, so we'll keep them healthy.

Do the facts I cite in my posts bore you? I'm sooooo sorry. And I object to your calling my posts "mean spirited". They are neither malicious or petty. I think it's that you just don't like what the facts suggest about socialized medicine and its supporters. :D

The facts? No. You tend to be repetitive and, from what I've observed, unable to admit errors. There really is little interest in debating someone who is unwilling to consider the idea they may be mistaken. The "mean-spirited" is that there is a, shall we say, general theme of your threads where democrats are viewed as people who wish to harm america. Intentionally, apparently. While I doubt, very much, that any politician is spick and span, you present a very biased view.

Now where did I say that in this thread?

I don't believe it was in this thread, but the thread I thought it was in wasn't it. I'll have to look more. If memory serves, I replied to you there saying how the proponents didn't want the government to control is it all, but to just pay for the private services, and you responded with feigned shock to the effect of "You expect to get that!!!" (paraphrasing, but I think that's along the right lines). I shall try to find the post later.

Hey, if you don't want to defend the UK system, fine with me. :D

I do not feel I am in any way qualified to defend the UK system, but UK posters, such as Rolfe and Architect, seem more able. I'm sorry, I've never been there, though it does seem lovely.

And if you don't want to tell us how to modify it, that's fine with me, too. :D

As a guess, I would say how much doctor's would be paid and what services would or would not be covered would be a part of the modifying. Those are, at least to me, things that would need to be considered after doing a study.

Forgive me, if you will, I haven't been feeling particularly great lately and have mostly just been killing time on here in place of working on my projects.

[BeAChooser]

Where they are preventable by non-heroic measures, yes. Universal health care seems to fall into that category

You don't think assuming control over 1/7th of the American economy qualifies as "heroic"? :rolleyes:

You may also note that there has never been a pure capitalist utopia either.

Yeah, but in general capitalist systems have tended to be much more free and much more prosperous than their socialist and communist counterparts. :D

I know you are categorically unable to consider things from any other viewpoint than the hardcore libertarian one

I'm not a libertarian.

despite your wall o' links Gish gallop debating style.

Are you another who finds facts dull? :D

Well, the article you linked to was a few tens of millions of dollars worth of fines with no admission of guilt and no mention of recompense to those whose insurance (and insurability) vanished in a puff of profit.

Obviously, you didn't actually read the article.

First, the article states the firms agreed to offer new coverage to those whose policies were canceled (should I point out that they were probably canceled because the people lied on their applications?).

Second, the article clearly states:


The insurers also agreed to establish a process for former members to recover medical expenses they paid out of pocket after they were dropped as well as other damages, such as homes or businesses that were lost because unpaid medical debts ruined the former members' creditworthiness.


I guess you found that part too *dull* to read? That's the problem with your side of this debate. Facts are unimportant. Emotion is all that matters. You think to make things right, we need to seize control of 1/7th of the economy and make the wealthy pay for insurance for anyone who choses not to purchase insurance. :rolleyes:


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
If you don't like what the government does under universal health care, there is no recourse. You can't sue the government.

Sure you can.

You are right. I meant that only in the sense of that old saying ... "you can't sue the government".

Actually, a government cannot be sued unless it allows itself to be sued. Here is what the US government now allows:

http://www.finchmccranie.com/refresher.htm


The Federal Tort Claims Act was enacted by Congress in 1946 in recognition of the inequities caused by the failure to permit tort suits against the United States Government. ... snip ... When the United States Government is now sued in tort, the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 346(b), 2671 - 2680, comes into play, providing a limited waiver of sovereign immunity. The Act allows monetary recovery against the United States for damages, loss of property, personal injury or death. In seeking recovery, one must show that the damages occurred as a result of the negligent or wrongful acts of government employees acting within the scope of their employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred. 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b).


It's important to note that the law does not allow punitive damages. In other words, asking for 10 million dollars to discourage the government from a given behavior is not allowed. Only provable damages. So while you may take the time and sue the government, and win, you can do nothing to encourage the government not to do the same thing to the next guy, as you could under a multi-player, non-government system.

Also the law states that the government cannot be liable unless the cause of the action is predicated on the negligence of an employee of the government. Now if an employee simply follows whatever guidelines Obama sets for disallowing some medical treatment, how is one to sue? The government won't be liable as long as the employee is obeying the rules handed down to them by some government *committee*.

You also need to realize that before you can sue, you must file a claim with the government, that they must deny, and a certain amount of time (6 months minimum) must pass. But more important, note that there is no right to a jury trial. In other words, whether you win or not is going to be up to a member of the government. So good luck with that suit. :D

You can also vote the chiseling politicians out of power, run for office yourself, or suggest legislation to you local rep to change things

Good luck with that too. Your not likely to have much effect when the beggars outnumber the choosers, the media is enamored with socialism, and most people will be satisified with their healthcare regardless. :D


Way to totally miss the point and retreat your ideology.

I don't think I missed the point at all. I think the point is that UHC is predicated on the democrat belief that there's such a thing as a free lunch. Which is why I asked if you were familiar with the term TANSTAAFL. :D


There is also a great deal of evidence that a UHC is more economic than our system -- see the stats posted upthread about healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP and life expectancy. Bloviate about special circumstances and make excuses as to how it could never work for us all you want, those numbers drown your blather out.

Go ahead. Do what all the rest on your side of this debate have done so far. Completely ignore everything I posted about comparing apples and oranges where costs are concerned. For example, ignore the cost of providing medical care to illegals (something the US actually does in large amounts but which many of those socialized dots in your so-called stats don't do in even small amounts). Ignore everything I posted about life expectancy being a very poor indicator of how well a country's health care system actually works. Ignore the links I provided that state if certain non-health care system related factors are accounted for (like deaths in accidents), the US has the highest life expectancy. Completely ignore the fact that the 40-45 million uninsured figure that is promoted ad nauseum by your side to justify the health care takeover (including in the article that presented those *stats* on GDP and life expectancy that you allude to) is nothing short of a LIE. You only prove my point about your side in this debate.

:D


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
What if you don't pay any taxes. You still entitled to coverage?

Oooh, trying to set me up for a "nescafe doesn't think children and the unemployed deserve healthcare despite everything else he has said!"


No, I actually just want to know how you feel about the large numbers of employed adults in this country that pay no federal taxes? As pointed out during the election, according to the IRS, in 2006 some 43 million federal tax returns (representing 91 million people) had zero or negative tax liability. These aren't children or the unemployed (who don't have to file at all). Should these people get free health care on the backs of the others who actually do pay taxes? Are they really *entitled* to coverage?

Also, at least 8 million people in that 40 million uninsured statistic that your side cites earn more (some, significantly more) than the median income of the US. Should they get free health care on the backs of everyone else too? Are they *entitled*?

I personally think that taking a play from Germany's book is the best thing here -- children are national treasures, and so all their healthcare is covered by the government as a matter of course.

Yeah, but Germany actually has a shrinking population. We don't. In fact, if anything, we need to discourage some people, especially the poor, from having too many children. Forcing parents to pay for their own children's care might do that.

Unlike you, I think UHC is a moral imperative

ROTFLOL!

Shouldn't it also be a moral imperative to stop people from being obese? Afterall, obesity has been identified as one of this nations top health problems because so many health problems are clearly linked to obesity. Perhaps the Federal government should institute a cap and trade type law on calorie intake? In the name of the "general welfare".

Shouldn't it also be a moral imperative to stop children from seeing too much TV? Afterall, spending too much time in front of TVs has been linked to poor performance in school and obesity. And it affects the black population in particular because black kids watch nearly twice as much TV as the national average. Maybe Obama, in the interests of the "general welfare", should institute a cap and trade type law where the number of hours children can watch TV is concerned. Perhaps allow each child 1 hour a night, but allow TV viewing time to be traded ... like carbon emissions.

And I could go on and on with examples.

:D


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
I'm not the one that posted a source using Cuba as the example of good health care. That was YOU. Now all of a sudden you want to abandon it but you don't offer another source.

No, you simply want to magnify a small portion of one source

It wasn't a small portion of the source. Out of all the countries they could have chosen to focus on, they chose Cuba. And regurgitated the 40 million uninsured LIE. By the way, that link no longer appears to be working. :D

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
I notice also that you AGAIN have nothing to say about my observation that the 40 million uninsured statistic is bogus.

Because you brought it up

No, I didn't bring it up. The link YOU supplied that compared GDP and quality of healthcare brought it up ... along with Cuba.

and I do not care one way or another about that statistic.

You should, since that's the statistic that Obama and company are using to justify the reform of America's health care system.

See this: http://www.foxbusiness.com/search-results/m/22705345/is-the-number-of-uninsured-accurate.htm . It quotes Obama claiming the 46 million uninsured is why we need reform and then shows that the figure is an outright LIE.


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
That's significant given that your side uses that statistic as the primary reason why we need wholesale reform.

Yes, because this complex issue can simply be boiled down to a us vs. them black and white issue. Things must be so simple in your little world.

No, the simplicity is in your little world. One filled with LIES.

I am in favor of UHC because anything else is inhumane

Well if inhumane is your concern, why don't we offer this wonder health care to every child and uninsured person in the world? Or does your humanity only extend to Americans?

and causes unnecessary drag on our society by making the populace as a whole less healthy.

You make the assumption that those 40-46 million are unhealthy. They are not. In fact, on the whole they are quite healthy. In fact, a large fraction of that number (see the above link) are under 35. Their being healthy is probably the #1 reason they chose not to buy health care even though 8 million or more of them could clearly afford it. But being selfish (and probably democrats), they didn't give what they would have spent on health insurance to help others. No, they used it to buy CDs, go see rock concerts, purchase recreational drugs or the latest cell phone, and donate to Obama's campaign. :D


We Americans are blessed to live in a society where it is OK to lose your insurance because your insurance company decides it is no longer profitable to carry you, or you change jobs, or get diagnosed with pancreatic cancer while involuntarily unemployed.


And Cubans are even more blessed. Right? :rolleyes:


Try to see past your ideology at least once.


Look in the mirror. And stay out of my pocket. :D

[BeAChooser]

It would suck the life out of for-profit health care, but so what?

There you go, folks ... an admission (which the Obama administration denies) that the public program will eventually result in a single payer system ... because the government plan will operate with an unfair advantage ... not having to make a profit. And all these years, people on the left have been insisting that monopolies are bad. :D

[BeAChooser]

That's only a little over 7%. What's all the fuss about?

Especially considering the fact that in June of 2008, the Toronto Star reported (http://www.thestar.com/article/445835 ) that over 4 MILLION Canadians (12 and older) have no family doctor. That's about 15% of their population (12 and older). And the article said Canada's poor and underprivileged were affected the most. In that socialized medicine utopia.

[BeAChooser]

This, of course, is anathema to right-wingers. Why should high-earners pay more?

Of course, left-wingers say ... why should those who make more get better health care? And why should they drive better cars? And why should they get to live in better houses? And why should their kids get to go to better schools? And they are depending on Obama to correct all those injustices. It's called communism folks, whether the Obama supporters admit it or not. So you better ask yourself if you want to live in a communist country.

And by freeloading, I mean in this context the rich person who decides to shirk his responsibility to contribute to the welfare of the less fortunate.

And what about the freeloading at the other end? Decades ago, about 11 percent of Swedes lived on handouts rather than jobs. Now over 20 percent do. And the major accomplishment of LBJ's War on Poverty was to build into our system a minimum poverty rate that we've never been able to get below, despite over 10 trillion dollars in spending.

In a tax-funded system, this duty is not all heaped on the charitable and the soft-hearted.

Funny how when it's a voluntary system, conservatives are far more generous (charitable and soft hearted) than liberals. Guess liberals don't see it as a duty but as a annoyance. That why they want others to pay for their *charity*. :D

[Lemastre]

Me too, especially since I was just laid off. Also, some companies will, and have, terminated people with chronic illnesses because of health costs and such. Yes, it's illegal to do so, but they find ways to do it.And perhaps more diabolical is the insurance company that offered a small businessman the choice of firing an employee whose kid racked up a large medical bill on her dad's company policy or losing coverage for all employees. I suppose it's a mere coin-toss for the company owner, since he loses the respect of his employees either way unless he can get coverage elsewhere really quickly.

[Geezer]

<snip>

In a multi payer system, people really are allowed to choose the one they want. In a single payer system, they are not. The government chooses for them, irregardless of whether a large fraction of the population don't like it. One approach is freedom. The other is tyranny.



And how is that going to work? Any better than Sweden's system? :D

<snip>
You are aware that Sweden also has private hospitals right?
You know that you can choose your doctor in Sweden too?
You of course know that you can go to any EU country for care and that the Swedish government still pays for it, right?

Yep, sounds like Tyranny to me...in the way that it doesn't.

[Geezer]

<snip>
Fair enough. But do you think changing the word to "economy-driven" changes the FACT that Sweden's health care (as well as its hospitals) is government-run or changes what the professor says Sweden's system does to stymie curiousity and new knowledge?

It discredits Williams that you used as a source when he mistranslated by mistake (or even by choice) an article that in fact wants the government to spend more money on research and makes NO argument on the discussion if being private would be better.

[Cobalt]

Can someone give me the tl;dr version of the back and forth between BAC and elbe without sarcasm and such?

[Architect]

There you go, folks ... an admission (which the Obama administration denies) that the public program will eventually result in a single payer system ... because the government plan will operate with an unfair advantage ... not having to make a profit. And all these years, people on the left have been insisting that monopolies are bad. :D

1. You're pushing your luck in claiming that Lefty's quote takes you as far as that.

2. You claim that private healthcare is a superior option, so why should i go down the pan? Surely everyone will be clamouring to pay for this superior, high quality treatment? In fact, health insurance companies will no longer have to pay for what you consider to be the spongers, and hence can offer a more cost-effective service!

Perhaps you've not really thought this through, eh?

[Architect]

Can someone give me the tl;dr version of the back and forth between BAC and elbe without sarcasm and such?

Well BAC and Ziggy both believe that UHC systems such as those employed in the UK, Canada, France, and Sweden all have lower clinical outcomes than the US system but refuse to respond to statistics which suggest that they're all pretty much on a par. However underlying this appears to be a political (small p) concern about being forced to pay for coverage and a perception that this will encourage/allow more spongers.

There's also a lot of use of annecdote and press stories rather than statistics.

[Architect]

And perhaps more diabolical is the insurance company that offered a small businessman the choice of firing an employee whose kid racked up a large medical bill on her dad's company policy or losing coverage for all employees. I suppose it's a mere coin-toss for the company owner, since he loses the respect of his employees either way unless he can get coverage elsewhere really quickly.

Don't let's tell BAC about European employment protection laws.

[GreyICE]

Can someone give me the tl;dr version of the back and forth between BAC and elbe without sarcasm and such?

0.21

[Cobalt]

Well BAC and Ziggy both believe that UHC systems such as those employed in the UK, Canada, France, and Sweden all have lower clinical outcomes than the US system but refuse to respond to statistics which suggest that they're all pretty much on a par. However underlying this appears to be a political (small p) concern about being forced to pay for coverage and a perception that this will encourage/allow more spongers.

There's also a lot of use of annecdote and press stories rather than statistics.

May I inquire as to the definition of "clinical outcomes?" I've not heard that term before.

[Architect]

Of course, left-wingers say ... why should those who make more get better health care? And why should they drive better cars? And why should they get to live in better houses? And why should their kids get to go to better schools? And they are depending on Obama to correct all those injustices. It's called communism folks, whether the Obama supporters admit it or not. So you better ask yourself if you want to live in a communist country.


Appeal to emotion, eh?

Adequate healthcare is a right, just the same as education. If you're quite happy for the poor to go without anything other than the most basic of emergency procedures, then just state it. But don't argue that providing such care is "communism". Or perhaps you don't support free universal education, either?

As for housing, you've got a problem there. All of the western democracies have public-sector housing and laws enacted to control slum developments - all in order to ensure that people have, as a minimum, a tolerable level of accommodation. Or perhaps you don't support these either?

After all, it's all their own fault for being poor.

[Architect]

May I inquire as to the definition of "clinical outcomes?" I've not heard that term before.

In considering comparative healthcare outcomes you need to look beyond, say, waiting times and to the overall results - what does it matter if you have to wait 4 weeks to get a verucca removed if, in fact, it's not an urgent condition. The question is how effective the system is in ensuring overall health according to a series of benchmarks.

Key indicators are things life like expectancy, cancer survival rates, infant mortality levels, child innoculation levels, and so on.

On a fair reading, the US is only middle of the pack (at a cost of roughly double that of the other developed countries).

[3point14]

Especially considering the fact that in June of 2008, the Toronto Star reported (http://www.thestar.com/article/445835 ) that over 4 MILLION Canadians (12 and older) have no family doctor. That's about 15% of their population (12 and older). And the article said Canada's poor and underprivileged were affected the most. In that socialized medicine utopia.



I strongly suspect that having no family doctor is very, very different from having no healthcare. I don't think that the Canadian system would force any of these people into bankruptcy if they contracted a serious or life threatening illness. The current US system would.

Also, I have to ask if you think 7% of the population having healthcare only by using up resources at an emergency facility* is acceptable in the largest economy on the planet?




*ETA - Do they receive a bill for this? Does it mean that they have to pay up eventually, disappear off the paperwork or declare bankruptcy? Or are these costs just written off?

[Rolfe]

Of course, left-wingers say ... why should those who make more get better health care? And why should they drive better cars? And why should they get to live in better houses? And why should their kids get to go to better schools? And they are depending on Obama to correct all those injustices. It's called communism folks, whether the Obama supporters admit it or not. So you better ask yourself if you want to live in a communist country.


That's a pretty slippery slope you have there. Bobsleigh run quality.

Why should those who make more get to live in better houses? Because they can pay for them. That doesn't mean that the poor should be forced to live on the streets. Every civilised country has a basic level of social housing provision to prevent homelessness. None that I know of forces affluent citizens to live in council houses though.

Why should those who make more get to drive a better car? Because they can pay for it. Actually, having a car at all is not regarded as a necessity of life anywhere. Taking the bus may be inconvenient, but it won't kill you. So, no subsidised Reliant Robins for the poor. However, note that there are public transport subsidies for the poor.

Why should those who make more get better healthcare? Well, if they want something which isn't provided by a universal healthcare system, they can pay for it. Why not? The real question is, what should that be?

Note that in none of the above examples is there no publicly-funded help for the less well-off. And indeed, in the USA at present there is publicly-funded healthcare for the less well-off. All we're arguing about is what level of provision there should be, and who gets to access it.

The universal healthcare proponents are arguing that minimal healthcare is no healthcare at all. This is where the parallel with housing and transportation breaks down. Nobody needs a million-pound mansion to stay alive. Nobody needs a Rolls Royce Silver Spirit to stay alive. The basic functions can be perfectly well performed by a small apartment on the wrong side of the tracks, or a bus ticket. The rest is luxury.

In contrast, it is entirely commonplace that someone needs a liver transplant, or a quadruple bypass, or expensive chemotherapy to stay alive. This is not luxury. Therefore, it should be available to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. This puts healthcare into an entirely different category from the other examples.

So much for level of coverage. Level of coverage has to be high and comprehensive simply because for some people expensive procedures are a necessity of life and not a luxury.

This puts your "better healthcare" remark into perspective. You are arguing for less than comprehensive coverage for the less well-off, even though that means some people will die because they need something very expensive, purely in order to have some sort of "extra care" option available to those who want to pay more. News flash. Being able to afford a quadruple bypass when your neighbour can't is not in the same league as being able to afford a Rolls Royce when your neighbour can't. The idea of restricting healthcare to the poor just so that the rich can feel superior due to their ability to afford lifesaving procedures is diabolical.

So there you have it.

Now, who gets to access the publicly-funded system as opposed to having to pay for it themselves? Who might find themselves in desperate need of a procedure they are unable to pay for? Well, just about anybody. Sure, many reasonably well-off people who are in good health could probably afford to pay for the level of treatment they need, but come on, why should they? These people are after all the ones who are providing the bulk of the funding for the public provision, it would be unconscionable to tell them that they were barred from any benefit. Indeed, why should you force people with a good income and savings to pay for something that is available for free to those who have not saved or been prudent with their money?

In addition, setting the standard of access at "everybody" is extraordinarily cost-effective. Whether or not you decide to exclude illegal immigrants is a different matter, and indeed most countries with universal healthcare systems have some restrictions on non-citizens accessing publicly-funded care. But as far as legal citizens are concerned, then if everybody is eligible for coverage then you just lost a huge layer of bureaucracy dedicated to deciding who is covered and who isn't, and for what procedures.

So, you have a level of care which is comprehensive so that all necessary medical procedures are available to anyone who needs them. Because restricting the level of coverage below that just so that rich people can have something to be exclusive about is uncivilised. And every citizen is entitled to access this care. Because dammit, they're paying for it! And because it saves an awful lot of administration.

But no, you want "better" healthcare for the rich. Why? Just so that they can thumb their noses at the poor who have the misfortune to be dying because they needed an expensive "luxury" procedure?

You louse.

If the rich want to thumb their noses at the poor in the healthcare stakes, by all means let them pay for a swanky private clinic with luxurious rooms and gourmet menus and Old Masters on the walls. Well, even let them pay to have their procedure done at a time more convenient to them than the public system is able to offer.

But we will not let them pay for a lifesaving procedure which we deny to someone of modest means. Not because we refuse to let them pay, but because we refuse to deny the less well-off person the lifesaving procedure. If that's too egalitarian for you, then I'm sorry.

Rolfe.

[Random]

I strongly suspect that having no family doctor is very, very different from having no healthcare. I don't think that the Canadian system would force any of these people into bankruptcy if they contracted a serious or life threatening illness. The current US system would.

Also, I have to ask if you think 7% of the population having healthcare only by using up resources at an emergency facility* is acceptable in the largest economy on the planet?




*ETA - Do they receive a bill for this? Does it mean that they have to pay up eventually, disappear off the paperwork or declare bankruptcy? Or are these costs just written off?

Yes, they do recieve a bill. And they will be taken to collections if they do not pay it.

Indeed, a lot of anti-US healthcare anecdotes are about this. Sicko featured a woman who was in a car accident, and her insurance company refused to pay for the ambulance because it was not pre-approved.

This is why the claim that every American "has access to medical care" via emergency rooms really irks me.

Health care costs are currently pushing a million Americans a year into bankruptcy.

[Rolfe]

Oh, but.... .... Healthcare costs aren't the [I]only cause of most of the bankruptcies. Most of these people have other debts as well. So you see, it's nothing to do with healthcare costs. [another sarcasm smilie for good measure]

The concept that people often have manageable levels of debt which are pushed into unmanageable by healthcare costs is not something the right-wing camp seems to recognise. Of course, if everybody simply saved aggressively, and put every spare penny they have into either a health insurance policy or a health savings account, nobody would ever have to go without necessary healthcare. [and another of these smilies....]

We had one recent poster who was proud of doing exactly that. "Saving aggressively" was his own term. He did it, and so should everybody else. Because you don't know when you're going to need your next open-heart surgery.

That got me thinking. If everybody did that, what sort of an effect would it have on the economy? I've got a fair chunk of savings myself, but I'm currently contemplating spending a slice of it. I need a new car, and I fancy a "better" car (http://www.topgear.com/uk/volkswagen/golf-gti), exactly as BaC believes I should be entitled to do. I also want to do some alterations on my house - not essential maintenance, there's nothing wrong with it except that I don't like the layout of the upper floor. Would I spend that money if it was always at the back of my mind that a catastrophic healthcare need might arise?

Possibly not. I'd go for a smaller, cheaper car, and leave the house alone. The money would stay in my bank account, and the car manufacturer and the building firms (and Architect) would just have to lump it.

Maybe that wouldn't affect the economy - I don't know. If the money in the bank account is lent out for other purposes it could be fiscally neutral. But I can't help feeling that there are providers of goods and services who would be doing less well. And I'd be having a lot less fun.

I suspect the majority of Americans go for the fun, and the hell with it. There's a limit to how austere a life most people are prepared to lead, just so they can build up a big bank balance in case of a catastrophic emergency which may well never happen. But if they do that, and maybe they have a small amount of consumer debt, maybe some outstanding finance on the car, and the catastrophe happens, well, bankruptcy.

But this wasn't caused by the healthcare need, because if only they'd been prudent and not taken out that car loan, they'd have been fine.

[last sarcasm smilie]

Rolfe.

[Fiona]

Just as as small addition to Rolfe's points: Do people really understand how costly major medical intervention can be? Many people are not in a position to save very much, be they ever so thrifty. Others, better off, can save a lot. But few can save enough.

ETA: browsing around I found this:

http://www.healism.com/

[Rolfe]

That's absolutely true. Lack of awareness of how big the bill might be is a big problem. And I suspect if you told the average Joe what the amount might be, he'd just zone out because of the number of zeros.

This seems to have caused trouble in relation to the mis-selling of health insurance. I recall one story about a family who had been sold a low-deductibiles, low-ceiling plan. The maximum benefits were actually risible, but this wasn't pointed out to the family. They liked the low co-pay, and the reasonable premiums. Then the father maxed out the benefits when he needed knee surgery. Which resulted in the mother begging her son to "hold on till morning" when he developed acute appendicitis, rather than take him to A&E. Outcome, ruptured appendix and acute septic peritonitis and a huge bill which bankrupted the family. And very nearly a dead boy.

$12,000, or whatever that particular policy paid out, sounds like a fortune to low-income people, and they easily imagine that will be enough to cover their likely medical needs. But it so easily might not be.

[Insert obligatory moan.] Of course, the anti-universal-healthcare brigade, when presented with this shocking story, simply maintained that it was the father's own fault in the first place for having chosen an inappropriate insurance policy. I won't be able to find a comparable horror story relating to universal healthcare because every mother knows that if her child appears to be seriously ill she can dial 999 and an ambulance will show up and her child will be cared for and money won't even be mentioned. However, if the anti-universal healthcare brigade do find a horror story in a universal system, then it is of course all the fault of the system and absolute proof why Americans don't want any part of your commie health provision.

Rolfe.

[Architect]

There's a story in today's Herald about low IVF treatment rates in the UK compared to other European countries. I'm not sure how correct it is, but the fact remains that when this kind of issue arises then it's plastered over the press - the Government can't "hide" it, it becomes a debating point, and quite often something changes. Whereas an insurance company could just say "yah boo sucks" and thumb their nose at everyone.

[funk de fino]

The NHS has saved my mums life twice and is hopefully doing it again at this moment.

When I was younger, and we were a lot less well off, she would have died if we did not have the NHS. The non UK posters who rant about it are clueless and shameless.

[Rolfe]

http://www.healism.com/


I reacll when that was quite popular in Britain among people who had been hit by long wait times for NHS treatment. It was a lot cheaper than paying for private treatment in Britain. India and eastern Europe were popular. The problem was that when the patient came home and needed aftercare, they didn't slot easily into the system. And NHS surgeons didn't like spending time when they should have been operating on new patients doing revisions on some Polish surgeon's miscalculation.

I've not heard much about it at all, recently. I think the waiting times have been sorted out to the extent that most people who have a real clinical urgency are being seen quickly, and most people would rather wait to have it for free than travel and pay to have it a few weeks sooner.

Still, we know that when a country's citizens choose to go abroad for treatment, that proves their own system is crap. And that when people travel to a country for treatment, it means their standards are the best in the world. Tell me again how US medical standards are crap and India's are the best in the world?

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

There's a story in today's Herald about low IVF treatment rates in the UK compared to other European countries. I'm not sure how correct it is, but the fact remains that when this kind of issue arises then it's plastered over the press - the Government can't "hide" it, it becomes a debating point, and quite often something changes. Whereas an insurance company could just say "yah boo sucks" and thumb their nose at everyone.


[Rolfe rummages in briefcase for newspaper which so far has only had the tennis reports read....]

Oh, I see it. And we'll have the usual debate about whether infertility is a medical conditin requiring NHS treatment, or whether people who are otherwise healthy should have to pay for it themselves if their only problem is that they can't get pregnant. I wonder how this is covered in private medical plans? However, enough bad publicity and Something Will Be Done. It usually is.

I also see, plastered on the front page, that a woman is suing Lothian Health Board over a false negative test result for cystic fibrosis in her ante-natal screening. For £100,000. [sarcasm again] But of course you have no legal redress if the government-run system screws you over, you can't sue them! News flash - yes you can.

Well, at least that woman and her child will receive free NHS care for as long as it is needed, even including a lung transplant. If she was liable for medical bills for the child on top of all the mental distress and so on, I dread to think what the payout would be.

Rolfe.

[nescafe]

You don't think assuming control over 1/7th of the American economy qualifies as "heroic"? :rolleyes:
The government already has direct control over 20% of the economy by the standards you are using (at least, that is approx. how much I am taxed at), and indirect control over the other 80%.

I want them to spend some of that 20% more wisely. I think UHC (specifically, single-payer UHC) is a no-brainer because we already have a couple of examples that it can and does work, and I am willing to pay more in taxes to cover the cost of running one. If that wipes out private health insurance (which I doubt it will), I will not shed a tear over their loss.

Yeah, but in general capitalist systems have tended to be much more free and much more prosperous than their socialist and communist counterparts. :D
I am shocked to hear that Canada and the UK (to single a couple prominent nations with a UHC out) no longer have freedom or prosperity. I am sure that the forum members who are citizens are wailing and gnashing their teeth over their loss. My sympathies.

I don't think I missed the point at all. I think the point is that UHC is predicated on the democrat belief that there's such a thing as a free lunch. Which is why I asked if you were familiar with the term TANSTAAFL. :D

Oh, I don't think UHC supporters are looking for a free lunch. I know that a UHC will cost money to run. I am perfectly willing to fund it out of my taxes, and willing to pay more in taxes to fund it, as long as it has similar or better overall outcomes to the current system and has better economies of scale. Looking for a free lunch does not enter into it -- I am asking the US government to create a single risk pool for health care costs that covers the populace of the US as a whole, and asking them to set premiums based on that risk pool, and asking them to apportion costs out on a percentage of income basis. Nothing terribly radical about any of those suggestions.

No, I actually just want to know how you feel about the large numbers of employed adults in this country that pay no federal taxes? As pointed out during the election, according to the IRS, in 2006 some 43 million federal tax returns (representing 91 million people) had zero or negative tax liability. These aren't children or the unemployed (who don't have to file at all). Should these people get free health care on the backs of the others who actually do pay taxes? Are they really *entitled* to coverage?
Yes, especially when the alternative is to let them die in the street. Same reason we enacted Medicare and Medicaid.

Also, at least 8 million people in that 40 million uninsured statistic that your side cites earn more (some, significantly more) than the median income of the US. Should they get free health care on the backs of everyone else too? Are they *entitled*?
Yes -- the cost of a major medical intervention (quadruple bypass from a surprise heart attack, chemo to treat undiagnosed cancer, putting your body back together after getting nailed by a drunk driver or killing a deer at 65mph, and so on) and followon care can easily get into the 6 and 7 figure range, which is enough to bankrupt all but the very rich.

Yeah, but Germany actually has a shrinking population. We don't. In fact, if anything, we need to discourage some people, especially the poor, from having too many children. Forcing parents to pay for their own children's care might do that.
Sure, blame the children for being born to the wrong parents. This must be some of that compassionate conservatism I hear about.

No, the simplicity is in your little world. One filled with LIES.
You keep mentioning LIES. So am I one of those liars, or merely an unwitting dupe mindlessly repeating what Obama has told me to? I don't feel like either one.

Well if inhumane is your concern, why don't we offer this wonder health care to every child and uninsured person in the world? Or does your humanity only extend to Americans?
I recognize that we have to pay for UHC somehow.

[Dr Adequate]

Of course, left-wingers say ... why should those who make more get better health care? And why should they drive better cars? And why should they get to live in better houses? And why should their kids get to go to better schools? What curious lies you tell abot left-wingers. One would almost think that you were insane enough to believe what you're saying.

And they are depending on Obama to correct all those injustices. It's called communism folks, whether the Obama supporters admit it or not. So you better ask yourself if you want to live in a communist country. No, I take that back. You can't be insane enough to believe what you're saying.

And what about the freeloading at the other end? Decades ago, about 11 percent of Swedes lived on handouts rather than jobs. Now over 20 percent do. And the major accomplishment of LBJ's War on Poverty was to build into our system a minimum poverty rate that we've never been able to get below, despite over 10 trillion dollars in spending. Already debunked: see the responses to your previous lies.

Funny how when it's a voluntary system, conservatives are far more generous (charitable and soft hearted) than liberals. Guess liberals don't see it as a duty but as a annoyance. That why they want others to pay for their *charity*. :D Already debunked: see the responses to your previous lies.

[elbe]

Can someone give me the tl;dr version of the back and forth between BAC and elbe without sarcasm and such?

You didn't miss much. I just tried to argue that just because other counties' systems are brought up doesn't mean we want to crib their system wholesale, but we'd mix, match, and modify to get the best system we can. BAC doesn't seem to think America is inventive enough to create a better system.

[3point14]

Funny how when it's a voluntary system, conservatives are far more generous (charitable and soft hearted) than liberals. Guess liberals don't see it as a duty but as a annoyance. That why they want others to pay for their *charity*. :D

I'm not sure I know of any 'liberals' (what the hell does that actually mean) who are saying that taxes should be paid by everyone but them. I think the 'liberals' just want everyone to pay according to their ability (including themselves) and don't particularly want anyone to have to go cap in hand to the rich man, begging for scraps off his table so the rich man can feel mightily superior and charitable.

In conclusion, 'liberals' (WTHDTM) don't want others to pay for their charity, they just want everyone (including themselves) to pay according to their ability. Why you would make the above statement when it's patently untrue is beyond me.


ETA- in addition, why should any rich man deliberately disadvantage himself in business (available capital being a driving force in these things as far as I understand it) when there is no compuction for his competitor to do so?

[Corsair 115]

Especially considering the fact that in June of 2008, the Toronto Star reported (http://www.thestar.com/article/445835 ) that over 4 MILLION Canadians (12 and older) have no family doctor. That's about 15% of their population (12 and older).


And that's why there tends to be long wait times at emergency rooms—folks without a family doctor often visit the ER instead. Either way, however, the cost of their medical visit is still covered by the system.


In that socialized medicine utopia.


Feel free to point out the post or posts where it was claimed the Canadian health care system was perfection or utopian. I don't recall any such post or posts, but perhaps I missed them.

[BeAChooser]

Interestingly, that article does not talk about emergency care, but preventative care. ER trips are not preventative, you go if you know something is wrong.

Sheesh. Are you not following the discussion? Your claim was that having health insurance allows you to get annual checkups that (according to you) OFTEN find problems before they are noticed by the person. That's preventative care. That article states that annual checkups do NOT play a significant role in preventative care. And it states that if all patients had such physicals, those visit would eat up 41% of physician time. Leaving less time to deal with those patients who do come in complaining about actual problems.

So it's arguing that instead of all-purpose checkups they do targeted care. That's still preventative and still not emergency care.

My point stands. "There is scant scientific evidence showing that yearly checkups help prevent disease, death or disability for adults with no symptoms." The annual visits you used to justify providing health insurance are in fact NOT recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force. So the real solution to our health care problem lies elsewhere than supplying health insurance for free to these people so they can get annual checkups.

Can you do me a favor and quote where I had "only good things to say" about a UK-like system?

First, you suggested that a single payer system, like the UK's, would give people "options" when just the opposite is probably true. It will reduce options because it will reduce competition.

Second, you claimed that a single payer system will have less bureaucracy. That would be a good thing ... if it were true. But the US government is notoriously heavy on bureaucracy.

Third, you said that the UK system users seem to enjoy it's benefits. Well not all of them do, just as not all of them enjoy the benefits of our system. In fact, if being satisfied is the measure, the current US system is not all that different from the UK system.

For example, this poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/117205/americans-not-feeling-health-benefits-high-spending.aspx ) gives an 85% satisfaction in the UK and 83% satisfaction in the US. The UK has 15% dissatisfied compared to 16% in the US. Now given how vague the term "satisfaction" is, I'd say that difference is well within the margin of error ... especially when one is comparing apples and oranges as is the case here.

And fourth, until I pushed the issue, you did not, in fact, say a single bad thing about the UK system. Ergo, I was correct.

I think employers offer what they think they can get employees for

True, but when there are a limited number of skilled employees as is often the case, companies must compete to get them. If one company offers health insurance and another doesn't, you can be sure that a smart person is going to make a comparison and expect the company not offering health insurance to offer more money. It's the nature of the competitive free-market system. Also, in a free-market system, employees can walk. If an employer suddenly decides not to provide health care and doesn't increase salaries to make up for that change, employees will switch to an employer who does provide one or the other.


Unions have nothing to do with it.


Then why'd you bring unions into the discussion. :D

We did, once, have an alternative, non-centralized military system, the militia system. Granted, that's not a very efficient military, but it served its purpose once.

It served its purpose? We abandoned it as soon as we had to defend national boundaries from foreign powers. The role of the militia system was more like that of police today. Here is what George Washington said about the militia system in 1775:


"The militia system was suited for only to times of peace. It provided for calling out men to repel invasion; but the powers granted for effecting it were so limited, as to be almost inoperative."


:D

And, frankly, you just ignored my complaint about equating the need to nationalize the military for it to be effective to nationalizing health care. So I'll say it again. Centralized control is essential to the effectiveness of a military force. That is not the case when it comes to health care. Furthermore, a citizen cannot take care of their own military protection needs (from foreign powers). That requires collective action at the national level. There is no alternative. But that is not true when it comes to health care. Individuals can go out on their own or in small groups and take care of their health care needs. And should their health care fail, other folks health care can still be unaffected. That is not the case where military needs (against foreign powers) are concerned. Comparing military needs to health needs is totally bogus.

Quote: Why can't health care be handled at the state and local level too?

It has actually been offered as a suggestion for single payer health care to be managed on the state level.

But are they suggesting we do what we do with regards to fire and police protection at the state and local level. Pay for it at the state and local level, too? I don't think so. They want to nationalize. Don't kid yourself.

Health care is, really, a somewhat unique area. It isn't a consumer good (as in you don't buy an MRI scan and keep that MRI scan)

It is too a consumer good. You consume it. You get to keep the effects of operations. And in point of fact, you actually do own the results of that MRI scan, just as you own the results of any x-rays. HIPAA (the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act) guarantees it. You buy better health. And better consumers often get better health care. Just as better consumers get better food and better TVs. :D

and it isn't exactly a service. You pay for what you need when you need it

But that goes against the very concept of *insurance*. ;)

, there isn't a standardized price across the board (blood work would cost less then a knee replacement).

And cleaning toilets doesn't cost the same as cleaning chimneys. In fact, even the price of cereals varies from one to the next. It's the market system. The one you seem to want to abandon.

You can't, in general, expect to partake of any particular medical service, except routine ones - mammogram, prostate exam, etc. - so people are unlikely to save up their money for that liver transplant they've always wanted.


I'm not arguing against the need for insurance. Only against the solution to the problem that some people are uninsured.


Quote:
"General welfare" is a very vague term. Protecting our national borders is obviously of general utility to all of us. But about half the country does not believe a government takeover of health care is in their interest. So how can you claim it qualifies as "general welfare"? Because it make YOU happy?

It is a very vague term, yes. Often used just for military and basic public services. I mentioned it because it is a way the government can do it, as in, it is within its power if it feels that health care is part of the general welfare of the country.


ROTFLOL! You completely avoided my point and question. In effect, you are saying *they* (our leaders) can do *anything they want* as long as *they* *feel* it is part of the *general welfare*. That's a very dangerous thing to believe. The American Revolution was fought to challenge such belief. To challenge kingly powers. And as I already showed, that view was held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court years ago. Let's see if you ignore that too.

Continuing from my bit above your quote: If, as some people may argue, health care is a part of the "general welfare" then it would be a power delegated to the united states by the constitution and thus not one reserved for the states.

Indeed you did. Ignored a Supreme Court ruling. :rolleyes:

We already keep them (the citizens) safe, so we'll keep them healthy.

ROTFLOL! Look at all the things that citizens do that still are unsafe. Time to ban them. Look at all the things that citizens do that make them unhealthy. Time to ban them. Why stop there? Let's keep them happy, too. What better way to do that than feed them drugs. Keep them from thinking. Do you not see where you are headed? A 1984-like totalitarian government with Big Brother looking over everyone's shoulders ... for the "general welfare".

Quote:
Do the facts I cite in my posts bore you? ... snip ...

The facts? No.

And yet you ignore them time and time again.

from what I've observed, unable to admit errors.

And where have I not admitted an error?

The "mean-spirited" is that there is a, shall we say, general theme of your threads where democrats are viewed as people who wish to harm america.

Now why would I think that? ;)

I simply state facts that democrats don't want to hear. Will not let themselves hear (as evidenced by the fact that so many of them claim not even read my fact filled posts). I can't help if democrats have shown themselves repeatedly to be completely tolerant of liars in their own party the past few decades. I can't help if democrats have shown themselves to not believe in the rule of law, especially when it pertains to democrat actions. I can't help if democrats have proven they don't understand economics. I can't help if democrats have shown themselves to be vested in making people more dependent on the government (and believe me, that's NOT in the "general welfare"). I can't help if democrats think stealing from others (ala communism) is ok. I can't help if democrats can't face facts in issue after issue that I post on. I can't help if democrats have unfairly demonized republicans on issue after issue to the point (because they control the media) that most people believe them without question. I can't help if democrats put self and party over principle, time and again. And I don't force you to debate me. But you know that if you don't, then those facts I post go uncontested. And sooner or later that will begin to have an effect on what people think. :D


Quote:
Now where did I say that in this thread?

I don't believe it was in this thread, but the thread I thought it was in wasn't it. I'll have to look more.

Guess so. Shall I go back and look at all your quotes on this forum? :D

I do not feel I am in any way qualified to defend the UK system, but UK posters, such as Rolfe and Architect, seem more able.

Funny. Neither of them seems willing or able to challenge anything I post. Rolfe even admits he doesn't even read my posts. I wouldn't call that "able". :D

I'm sorry, I've never been there, though it does seem lovely.

I've been there. And it is lovely. But we have very different systems of government, very different cultures, very different people, and our apples are not the same as their oranges. To think Obama can solve whatever health care problems we have (and they aren't what he claims) by emulating the UK system is patently foolish. Trying that will only create other problems ... probably much bigger problems.

As a guess, I would say how much doctor's would be paid and what services would or would not be covered would be a part of the modifying. Those are, at least to me, things that would need to be considered after doing a study.

Not very specific, are you. :D But is that what's being done in any case? Seems to me the Obama crowd is in a rush to pass legislation. Obama promised that the American people and members of Congress would get time to review legislation before votes. Yet, the 1000 page energy (cap and trade) bill was passed by the House without ANYONE having time to read the completed version. In fact, they added 300 pages to it in the final hours before democrats forced the vote. Is that the way health care is going to be handled? Why shouldn't it is? Pelosi was asked if the American public and organizations like the CBO would be given time to examine and contemplate the completed health care bill before Congress voted on it. She refused to even answer. Which makes me think this legislation won't be based on studies, but *feelings*. :rolleyes:

Forgive me, if you will, I haven't been feeling particularly great lately

Sorry to hear that. Hope you feel better.

[Rolfe]

I would certainly agree with BaC about checkups for well people. Targeted screening programmes such as cervical smears and mammograms have proven value, but even there, there is concern about the needless distress caused by false positives and the false reassurance caused by false negatives. Non-targeted checkups are very poor value for money and not something done in the NHS.

Doesn't stop BUPA from pushing them like candy though. Because they make nice fat profits from them, not because they're good for patients. But that's private medicine and free enterprise so I suppose it's just peachy.... :rolleyes:

Rolfe.

[leftysergeant]

For a large number of people, yearly check-ups are a good idea.

Everybody on both sides of my family gets diabetes, eventually.

I get my primary care through VA. They test me regularly for diabetes and prostate cancer.

My brother, three years older than I and over-weight didn't know he was diabetic until his right foot nearly fell off. He is on an HMO.

I'm glad I have my "substandard" VA benefits.

[elbe]

Sheesh. Are you not following the discussion? Your claim was that having health insurance allows you to get annual checkups that (according to you) OFTEN find problems before they are noticed by the person. That's preventative care. That article states that annual checkups do NOT play a significant role in preventative care. And it states that if all patients had such physicals, those visit would eat up 41% of physician time. Leaving less time to deal with those patients who do come in complaining about actual problems.

My point stands. "There is scant scientific evidence showing that yearly checkups help prevent disease, death or disability for adults with no symptoms." The annual visits you used to justify providing health insurance are in fact NOT recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force. So the real solution to our health care problem lies elsewhere than supplying health insurance for free to these people so they can get annual checkups.

I read the article, and I understand what it says, and agree with it (though I never had given it much thought before). It doesn't, however, change my basic point. Annual checkups, whether they are efficient or not, are meant to be preventative, not emergency care. The articles recommended targeted preventative care instead, which is still not the same as going to the emergency room when it's an emergency. So I apologize for saying annual checkups, but I still say preventative care is important and you don't get that through the ER.

First, you suggested that a single payer system, like the UK's, would give people "options" when just the opposite is probably true. It will reduce options because it will reduce competition.

While anecdotal, it is valid here: The UK posters seem to have voiced having options for which doctors they want to go to. I don't, unless I want to pay through the nose for a doctor not on my insurance plan.

Second, you claimed that a single payer system will have less bureaucracy. That would be a good thing ... if it were true. But the US government is notoriously heavy on bureaucracy.

Our current insurer system is incredibly heave on bureaucracy, is private bureaucracy better than public? I don't like jumping through hoops because I need medical care, and at least one UK poster has said they didn't have to, just show up and get care.

Third, you said that the UK system users seem to enjoy it's benefits. Well not all of them do, just as not all of them enjoy the benefits of our system. In fact, if being satisfied is the measure, the current US system is not all that different from the UK system.

For example, this poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/117205/americans-not-feeling-health-benefits-high-spending.aspx ) gives an 85% satisfaction in the UK and 83% satisfaction in the US. The UK has 15% dissatisfied compared to 16% in the US. Now given how vague the term "satisfaction" is, I'd say that difference is well within the margin of error ... especially when one is comparing apples and oranges as is the case here.

Polls are unreliable, especially "satisfaction" polls, but then so are anecdotes. If anything I think we should just not be afraid to consider potential options.

And fourth, until I pushed the issue, you did not, in fact, say a single bad thing about the UK system. Ergo, I was correct.

That is a rather disingenuous conclusion, but I'll accept it if it'll make you happy.

True, but when there are a limited number of skilled employees as is often the case, companies must compete to get them. If one company offers health insurance and another doesn't, you can be sure that a smart person is going to make a comparison and expect the company not offering health insurance to offer more money. It's the nature of the competitive free-market system. Also, in a free-market system, employees can walk. If an employer suddenly decides not to provide health care and doesn't increase salaries to make up for that change, employees will switch to an employer who does provide one or the other.

I don't see the average worker having nearly as much free market job choices as one might like. There seems to be something of a "you take what you can get" attitude in the job market these days.

Then why'd you bring unions into the discussion. :D

Hmm, so I did. It was several posts ago and something of an aside, I'd forgotten about it. I apologize.

It served its purpose? We abandoned it as soon as we had to defend national boundaries from foreign powers. The role of the militia system was more like that of police today. Here is what George Washington said about the militia system in 1775:

We still had it, and it probably did serve it's purpose for when it was created, some sort of minimal defense (possibly against the natives). It isn't good for war, obviously.

And, frankly, you just ignored my complaint about equating the need to nationalize the military for it to be effective to nationalizing health care. So I'll say it again. Centralized control is essential to the effectiveness of a military force. That is not the case when it comes to health care. Furthermore, a citizen cannot take care of their own military protection needs (from foreign powers). That requires collective action at the national level. There is no alternative. But that is not true when it comes to health care. Individuals can go out on their own or in small groups and take care of their health care needs. And should their health care fail, other folks health care can still be unaffected. That is not the case where military needs (against foreign powers) are concerned. Comparing military needs to health needs is totally bogus.

It is different, and I think I said that, but some people, apparently, feel that single payer health care is essential for the our nation to adopt. If they didn't, then this wouldn't be much of a national debate, would it? Some people feel that health care is too important to be left up to those who don't have our best interests in mind. It is not in the best interests of the country to fight a free-market war with everyone paying for their own weapons, perhaps its not in the nations best interests to have people getting sick and dying in situations that could easily be prevented.

But are they suggesting we do what we do with regards to fire and police protection at the state and local level. Pay for it at the state and local level, too? I don't think so. They want to nationalize. Don't kid yourself.

I just said it was an option presented, I didn't say it was the best one.



I didn't mean the results of the scan, I meant that the scan you buy won't last forever. Odd wordings, I think I'm blanking. If I get a scan now, I might still need a scan in the future, today's scan wouldn't be accurate for next year.

[quote]But that goes against the very concept of *insurance*. ;)

The insurance still pays for it when you need it. This whole consumer good thing is awkward, and I'm not going to bring it up again.

I'm not arguing against the need for insurance. Only against the solution to the problem that some people are uninsured.

And single payer acts as one giant insurer.

ROTFLOL! You completely avoided my point and question. In effect, you are saying *they* (our leaders) can do *anything they want* as long as *they* *feel* it is part of the *general welfare*. That's a very dangerous thing to believe. The American Revolution was fought to challenge such belief. To challenge kingly powers. And as I already showed, that view was held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court years ago. Let's see if you ignore that too.

It would have to be constitutional, yes. Which is certainly up the courts. The constitutions is, however, worded in such a way that it could easily be considered constitutional.

ROTFLOL! Look at all the things that citizens do that still are unsafe. Time to ban them. Look at all the things that citizens do that make them unhealthy. Time to ban them. Why stop there? Let's keep them happy, too. What better way to do that than feed them drugs. Keep them from thinking. Do you not see where you are headed? A 1984-like totalitarian government with Big Brother looking over everyone's shoulders ... for the "general welfare".

Feh, won't even bother.

And yet you ignore them time and time again.

Ignore, sometimes, disagree, others.

And where have I not admitted an error?

I can't say I ever remember you admitting an error, even small ones. It could be posts I didn't read, or just my shoddy memory.


Now why would I think that? ;)

It is, well, tedious. Arguing against the enacted policies of Obama is one thing, posting evidence that the church he attended while in grade school housed draft dodgers as some sort of claim against him just muddies the waters.

Guess so. Shall I go back and look at all your quotes on this forum? :D

Ah, I was distracted by work and forgot to look further. If you feel like browsing all my old, stupid posts, be my guest. Seems like an overall waste of anyone's time, but whatever. Edited to add: Try this (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4846113&postcount=193)

Funny. Neither of them seems willing or able to challenge anything I post. Rolfe even admits he doesn't even read my posts. I wouldn't call that "able". :D

Able, but not willing.

I've been there. And it is lovely. But we have very different systems of government, very different cultures, very different people, and our apples are not the same as their oranges. To think Obama can solve whatever health care problems we have (and they aren't what he claims) by emulating the UK system is patently foolish. Trying that will only create other problems ... probably much bigger problems.

It doesn't look like Obama has any interest in emulating the UK, though other think it's worth consideration.

Not very specific, are you. :D

I'm sorry, I'm not a politician and I really have no say in the matter.

Sorry to hear that. Hope you feel better.

I always get queasy before a vacation. It's quite annoying.

[BeAChooser]

You are aware that Sweden also has private hospitals right? You know that you can choose your doctor in Sweden too?

Sure, let's talk about Sweden's private hospitals and how the government treats them:

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:a_baXA-bDS4J:www.healthcoalition.ca/sweden-p3.pdf+sweden+private+hospitals&hl=en&gl=us


February 28, 2004

Sweden bans privatisation of hospitals

The Swedish coalition government has banned the privatisation of hospitals, amid fears that the expansion of private health care could destroy the principle of a fair and free public health service.

Health minister Lars Engqvist, a Social Democrat, said that new legislation would end the practise of private patients "buying their way past" hospital waiting lists. Provincial authorities, which are responsible in Sweden for the local healthcare system, will not be allowed in future to hand over the running of a hospital to a profit making company.

The ban comes after two provincial authorities, both controlled by centre right parties, began to privatise state hospitals that had expanded their private care. Both authorities are controlled by the centre right. Hospital staff and patients reportedly had strong praise for the new system.

However, the government, a coalition of Social Democrat and center left parties, said that the privatisation of hospitals risked undermining a central principle of the country's health care -- namely that medical treatment must be given to every patient according to their need, not their ability to pay.


You know, there a name for that central principle ... it's called communism. And the way it was enacted is called tyranny. :D

Continuing ...


But existing private hospitals will be allowed to continue in existence, and private profit making companies will be allowed to start new hospitals, as long as they do not treat state insured patients.


So the private portion of the hospital system can't treat state insured patients. How's that for *choice*? :rolleyes:

Bet some of the politicians in that country have opted out. Just like they'll no doubt do in this country. Same way they opt out of public education for their kids. ;)

Continuing ...


Sweden has few private hospitals. ... snip ... In 2002, just under 8% of all the money that was spent from state insurance on reimbursing hospitals for treating patients went to private hospitals.


So it turns out there aren't that many private options. And you have to pay for them IN ADDITION to paying for the public system. Some "option". :rolleyes:

As for choice of doctors, how much choice do they really have when there is only one specialist in mammography in a city of 200,000 people? How much choice can they have when there are only two clinics in Sweden's third largest city and one of those clinics is closed much of the time? How much choice can they have when Sweden has half the number of neurologists per capita that even their nearest neighbors have? How much choice can they have when doctors are so overworked that waiting lists to see a specialist are the worst in Europe?

Actually, the only way they can really choose their own doctor is to do what the wealthy in Sweden are doing ... starting their own private hospitals. Like the Martina Children's Hospital, which recently opened in Stockholm. http://www.eurotopics.net/en/presseschau/medienindex/media_articles/archiv_article/ARTICLE21648-Sweden-s-first-private-children-s-hospital . Given that these parents MUST also fund the public system through their taxes, they obviously don't have much faith in the adequacy of the public system. They are marching with their feet and their pocketbooks. So why should we have so much faith in the Swedish public health system that we duplicate it here?

You of course know that you can go to any EU country for care and that the Swedish government still pays for it, right?

Oh my ... that excuse speaks so highly of the Swedish health care system. :rolleyes:

But maybe they have to do that when Swedish nurses go on strike (and of course they have to also hope that the other government-run healthcare system they head for also isn't being struck at the time):

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/22/content_8024679.htm


2008-04-22

STOCKHOLM, April 21 (Xinhua) -- 2,500 nurses and health professionals in Sweden went on strike Monday ... snip ...

This is the first major strike in the sector for over a decade in Sweden and it has affected more than 50 hospitals and healthcare centers. Some emergency wards had to be closed and hundreds of operations had to be canceled.


http://seachange.wbumpus.com/node/14501


May 5, 2008

... snip ...

Swedish union spokeswoman Anna Nybom Chance said 4,400 more Swedish nurses have joined the 3,400 already on strike to demand higher wages.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ghMnGz9QKqAOtqBWYvNmv_qkwMRg


May 5, 2008

Swedish hospitals crippled as nurses' strike spread


http://www.westandfirm.org/blog/2008/05/nurses-strike-in-sweden.html


May 6, 2008

Currently, Swedish nurses are in the third week of a strike.

... snip ...

These strikes are not unusual in countries with government-run medical care. ... snip ... In Denmark, around 65,000 nurses, midwives and laboratory assistants remain on strike, ... snip ... This strike over wages has led to some 40,000 canceled operations as of its second week, and is expected to be long-lasting.


http://www.epsu.org/r/194


6 June 2008

After six weeks of strike action nurses have agreed to a new three-year pay agreement that gives them a guaranteed minimum increase of 4% this year and 3% and 2% in 2009 and 2010.


:D

[BeAChooser]

Well BAC and Ziggy both believe that UHC systems such as those employed in the UK, Canada, France, and Sweden all have lower clinical outcomes than the US system but refuse to respond to statistics which suggest that they're all pretty much on a par.

Garbage. It's your side that is refusing to respond to statistics. As this thread proves, since I'm the only one that has been providing specific statistics ... other than your side's claim that life expectancy says it all. But then I've thoroughly debunked the life expectancy argument ... again without comment from your side. You also refuse to respond to the statistics that show the justification for reform because of 40-46 million uninsured is totally bogus.

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Of course, left-wingers say ... why should those who make more get better health care? And why should they drive better cars? And why should they get to live in better houses? And why should their kids get to go to better schools? And they are depending on Obama to correct all those injustices. It's called communism folks, whether the Obama supporters admit it or not. So you better ask yourself if you want to live in a communist country.

Appeal to emotion, eh?

Shouldn't we get emotional about whether we want to live in a communist or a free society? And I don't think I've been unfair about what left-wingers have been saying either. Those are exactly the things they've been saying.

Adequate healthcare is a right, just the same as education.

And is having babies you don't support a *right*, too? So is stealing from others to support those babies a right, too? I see.

If you're quite happy for the poor to go without anything other than the most basic of emergency procedures, then just state it.

If you're quite happy misrepresenting the actual situation for the *poor*, I can't stop you. But I have proven you are misrepresenting the situation for those 40-45 million uninsured.

But don't argue that providing such care is "communism".

Let me quote the Swedish health ministry:


medical treatment must be given to every patient according to their need, not their ability to pay.


Let me quote Karl Marx:


From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

Sure sounds like communism to me.


Or perhaps you don't support free universal education, either?


TANSFAAL.

As for housing, you've got a problem there. All of the western democracies have public-sector housing and laws enacted to control slum developments - all in order to ensure that people have, as a minimum, a tolerable level of accommodation. Or perhaps you don't support these either?


But now Obama and ACORN want to ensure that the poor get access to just as good of housing as the non-poor get. So they are encouraging them to take out loans they can't afford and promising that should they default on those loans, Uncle Sam will make sure they don't lose their homes ... at the expense of others who actually did take out loans they could afford and kept up with those payments.

After all, it's all their own fault for being poor.

Often times, the reason people are poor is of their own making. No one made them have children out of wedlock. No one made them have more children than they could afford. No one made them not do their best in school. No one made them take drugs. Or play the lottery and smoke cigarettes instead of investing.

And you are doing exactly what I said democrats have done ... make unfair representations about republicans and conservatives instead of dealing with facts. I have no problem giving a helping hand to those who really can't earn a living or who have come onto hard times. Conservative like me are demonstrably more generous with our money than liberals when it comes to helping out the unfortunate. But it is not your *right* to make me pay for the stupidity of other people. That's called tyranny.

[Corsair 115]

It's heartening to hear, I guess, that in America the ideology of a solution to a problem is still much more important than the efficacy of the solution.

[Architect]

Shouldn't we get emotional about whether we want to live in a communist or a free society? And I don't think I've been unfair about what left-wingers have been saying either. Those are exactly the things they've been saying.

So the UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, and other countries with UHC are all "communist"? Interesting viewpoint, I can't wait to see how you support that claim.

Incidentally, you'll find that I'm actually centre-right of the UK political spectrum.

And is having babies you don't support a *right*, too? So is stealing from others to support those babies a right, too? I see.

Everyone is entitled to a decent standard of healthcare, regardless of income = everyone is entitled to have babies who are supported by the state? Bit of a leap there, old bean. Still, if someone who can't afford a baby does have one, we should clearly let it starve to death, eh?


If you're quite happy misrepresenting the actual situation for the *poor*, I can't stop you. But I have proven you are misrepresenting the situation for those 40-45 million uninsured.



Only for a given value of "proof".


Let me quote the Swedish health ministry:


You clearly feel you're on to a winner with the Swedes. It's just a shame that no-one supporting UHC actually really raised Sweden except you.



Let me quote Karl Marx:

Sure sounds like communism to me.


Really? I could quote you large parts of the New Testament which would quite clearly lead any Christian to support the welfare state, but I don't think it made Jesus a communist.


TANSFAAL.


IRDKWTIM

But now Obama and ACORN want to ensure that the poor get access to just as good of housing as the non-poor get. So they are encouraging them to take out loans they can't afford and promising that should they default on those loans, Uncle Sam will make sure they don't lose their homes ... at the expense of others who actually did take out loans they could afford and kept up with those payments.

Zzzzz.



Often times, the reason people are poor is of their own making. No one made them have children out of wedlock. No one made them have more children than they could afford. No one made them not do their best in school. No one made them take drugs. Or play the lottery and smoke cigarettes instead of investing.

And often is isn't of their own making. They worked in industries which closed down. They had abusive parents and dropped out of school. They just weren't bright enough to get well paid jobs. They were from the wrong side of the tracks. They couldn't get healthcare and are now unable to work.

DO you have a point, caller? Or just a wee rant?

And you are doing exactly what I said democrats have done ... make unfair representations about republicans and conservatives instead of dealing with facts. I have no problem giving a helping hand to those who really can't earn a living or who have come onto hard times. Conservative like me are demonstrably more generous with our money than liberals when it comes to helping out the unfortunate. But it is not your *right* to make me pay for the stupidity of other people. That's called tyranny.

Nope. It's called a democracy. Like it or lump it, I don't care.

[Architect]

Garbage. It's your side that is refusing to respond to statistics. As this thread proves, since I'm the only one that has been providing specific statistics ... other than your side's claim that life expectancy says it all. But then I've thoroughly debunked the life expectancy argument ... again without comment from your side. You also refuse to respond to the statistics that show the justification for reform because of 40-46 million uninsured is totally bogus.

Actually, that's not true. On the other healthcare thread, before your own little ray of sunshine broke through the clouds, you'll find that there was a discussion regarding the different benchmarks which included a brief review of various measurement systems. The worst interpretation of this was that the advanced western countries all enjoyed a similar standard of healthcare, although some had strengths in some areas and others in, well, others. However against this backdrop we, i.e. those of us in UHC systems, were only paying around 7 to 8 % of GDP on healthcare whilst the US was paying 15%. Or, to put it another way, you pay double for broadly similar clinical outcomes.

What I hear is some bizarre arguments about you having more cash than us, hence you want to spend more (!!!!!). Aye, that'll be right. We'd better double the cost of all the food on your supermarket shelves then, help deprive you all of all that hard-earned cash.

:rolleyes:

[elbe]

I feel a slight need to apologize for wasting the time of anyone who bothered to read my exchange with BAC. I mostly just used it as a time waster while avoiding my projects. I like to try to not argue irrelevancies, but sometimes I get carried away.

[Geezer]

Sure, let's talk about Sweden's private hospitals and how the government treats them:

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:a_baXA-bDS4J:www.healthcoalition.ca/sweden-p3.pdf+sweden+private+hospitals&hl=en&gl=us



You know, there a name for that central principle ... it's called communism. And the way it was enacted is called tyranny. :D

Continuing ...



So the private portion of the hospital system can't treat state insured patients. How's that for *choice*? :rolleyes:

Bet some of the politicians in that country have opted out. Just like they'll no doubt do in this country. Same way they opt out of public education for their kids. ;)

Continuing ...



So it turns out there aren't that many private options. And you have to pay for them IN ADDITION to paying for the public system. Some "option". :rolleyes:

As for choice of doctors, how much choice do they really have when there is only one specialist in mammography in a city of 200,000 people? How much choice can they have when there are only two clinics in Sweden's third largest city and one of those clinics is closed much of the time? How much choice can they have when Sweden has half the number of neurologists per capita that even their nearest neighbors have? How much choice can they have when doctors are so overworked that waiting lists to see a specialist are the worst in Europe?

Actually, the only way they can really choose their own doctor is to do what the wealthy in Sweden are doing ... starting their own private hospitals. Like the Martina Children's Hospital, which recently opened in Stockholm. http://www.eurotopics.net/en/presseschau/medienindex/media_articles/archiv_article/ARTICLE21648-Sweden-s-first-private-children-s-hospital . Given that these parents MUST also fund the public system through their taxes, they obviously don't have much faith in the adequacy of the public system. They are marching with their feet and their pocketbooks. So why should we have so much faith in the Swedish public health system that we duplicate it here?



Oh my ... that excuse speaks so highly of the Swedish health care system. :rolleyes:

But maybe they have to do that when Swedish nurses go on strike (and of course they have to also hope that the other government-run healthcare system they head for also isn't being struck at the time):

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/22/content_8024679.htm



http://seachange.wbumpus.com/node/14501



http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ghMnGz9QKqAOtqBWYvNmv_qkwMRg



http://www.westandfirm.org/blog/2008/05/nurses-strike-in-sweden.html




http://www.epsu.org/r/194



:D

lol you are funny, on the privatisation ban,which was enacted because the socialdemocrats didn't like hospitals built by public funds going private, that was one of the reasons why the socialdemocrats lost the election in -06

*GASP* the people didn't agree with the government and voted them out! Funny version of communism, to me it sounds rather more like a democracy.
The fact is that the majority of Swedes are in favour of UHC.The government only has power because they were voted in, if the Swedes were to change their minds and wanted to scrap UHC guess what, it would be scrapped.


The options bit, how much options do you have when you CAN'T afford it in the US?

As to the reason why there are few private hospitals, well of course the market is limited, to begin with there are only 9 million or so Swedes and they ALL have access to UHC which serves well enough it seems.

But note that I'm not saying that the Swedish system is in anyway perfect, no healthcare system is.
I'm just trying to show you that the demonisation done by you and others who hold your belief is incorrect.

Swedes, Brits, Germans, French etc are in general actually for keeping UHC and it seems quite strange that that would be the case if UHC was so horrible as you paint it.

And one more thing, not everything Karl Marx said was wrong, this is of course true even of Rush Limbaugh (or you for that matter)

[3point14]

<SNIPPED>
Swedes, Brits, Germans, French etc are in general actually for keeping UHC and it seems quite strange that that would be the case if UHC was so horrible as you paint it.


Ah yes, but that's clearly because we've been brainwashed by communists and despots and if we could all break out and see the light we would realise that the better way is, always and without fail, the way that creates profit, for without profit there can be no motivation and no advancement, no good can come of any organisation that makes no profit and you'd be a fool and a communist to state so. It is far better to motivate through profit and suffer the very minor chore of the lazy, unwashed and sometimes, let's face it, the plain unlucky seven percent of the population having access to healthcare only through emergency rooms, than it is to entrust anything at all to the government who are really only good at getting themselves voted into office when they are clearly incompetent (which is a clever trick.)

[Rolfe]

For a large number of people, yearly check-ups are a good idea.

Everybody on both sides of my family gets diabetes, eventually.

I get my primary care through VA. They test me regularly for diabetes and prostate cancer.

My brother, three years older than I and over-weight didn't know he was diabetic until his right foot nearly fell off. He is on an HMO.

I'm glad I have my "substandard" VA benefits.


Totally agree. A strong family history of a particular disease is one very good reason for having regular checkups. That's "targeted screening" though. My mother has glaucoma, and I get a letter every year reminding me to show up at an optician for my (free) eye test to make sure that if I develop the same thing, it's spotted and treated ASAP.

Dragging every single person in for the same broad-based screening regimen isn't nearly as cost-effective though. It's all about whether you have a reason to test. Clinical suspicion is one reason, family history is another. And then for the things that are quite common and may not be noticed (cervical cancer for example) you have specific programmes just looking for that.

One thing that the NHS does do though is public information dissemination. If you're waiting for an underground train, there's a fair chance that the big advertisement you're looking at on the opposite wall of the tunnel is listing all the early signs of diabetes and suggesting that if in any way you think they might be describing you, please go and talk to your doctor about it. Women's magazines have articles on how to do breast self-examination, and encourage any unusual changes to be reported. Everyone knows their doctor is there for them, at no cost, just a phone call away. If they don't have the nous to avail themselves of that when they have any inkling that something may not be quite right, well come on. Personal responsibility, anyone?

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Ah yes, but that's clearly because we've been brainwashed by communists and despots and if we could all break out and see the light we would realise that the better way is, always and without fail, the way that creates profit, for without profit there can be no motivation and no advancement, no good can come of any organisation that makes no profit and you'd be a fool and a communist to state so. It is far better to motivate through profit and suffer the very minor chore of the lazy, unwashed and sometimes, let's face it, the plain unlucky seven percent of the population having access to healthcare only through emergency rooms, than it is to entrust anything at all to the government who are really only good at getting themselves voted into office when they are clearly incompetent (which is a clever trick.)


I suppse everyone read the article by the guy who left his senior marketing job with a health insurance company because he couldn't stand it any more? One of his comments was about sitting in first class on a business flight eating gourmet food from fine china with gold-rimmed cutlery, and realising this was all being paid for from the health insurance premiums of people on modest incomes who were also being required to cough up large co-pay amounts if they ever needed medical care.

Of course another group of people being paid out of those premiums is the clerks whose job it is to try to avoid paying out on claims.

But this is all good, because it provides lots of jobs and nice fat profits, and that's what it's all about, isn't it?

Rolfe.