In regard to the ongoing healthcare debate in this thread...
Can we all agree that the problem with American Healthcare is that the insurance companies often fail to provide adequate treatment, and when they do provide it, that treatment is often expensive.
So what we have right now in most cases is a system in which Americans who are employed generally (but not always) have healthcare through a policy paid for by their employer. Your healthcare is managed by a third party that you have no control or power over.
Socialized medicine would take that benefit out of the hands of the employer/insurance companies and place it with the government. Despite the "democratic" process, the government is essentially another third party that you ultimately have no control over. How will this improve the system? Well, presumably your check-up visit to the doctor would be easier to schedule, and everyone would be covered. There may be waiting lists for certain important procedures, and you may not be able to get something as simple as a pacemaker in a timely fashion. There will be no other option but the government to pursue healthcare.
Now... I think we can all agree (except for Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton) that taking health insurance out of the hands of an employer is beneficial. However, is the government the only option? Do we have to disband the insurance companies?
Of course not. The problem with the insurance companies is that their clients are not the people whose healthcare they manage. Their client is your employer, and your employer wants to keep costs down, yet provide coverage, so that employees will be satisfied with their "benefits package." The insurance company knows this, and exploits it.
A better system would involve us all purchasing health insurance policies individually, and/or setting up healthcare savings accounts (which would operate like an IRA, I presume). Then the insurance company is working for YOU as it's client. If it builds a reputation of screwing people over, other people will take notice and cancel their policies. The market will force them to provide better service to individuals. Also, when you leave a job, you will still be covered.
As for the costs, there is one very simple way to keep them down, and it has nothing to do with socialism or fiat... TRAIN MORE DOCTORS. There is WAY more demand for medical education right now than we are supplying. That's why people are going to those sketchy Caribbean medical schools. It's also why tuition is expensive for doctors. Lets not forget how supply and demand affects pricing of doctor's services: Specialists cost more because there are LESS of them. If there are more doctors overall, there will be greater competition and the fees will come down. With more doctors, waiting times for any procedure would be reduced as well (more doctors = more appointment slots).
By embracing the market, we can reduce the cost of medical care and provide better service to everyone.
Can we all agree that the problem with American Healthcare is that the insurance companies often fail to provide adequate treatment, and when they do provide it, that treatment is often expensive.
that is one problem, yes. you could also take a look at the statistics i've linked and see that the U.S. lags in a few categories. like frickin infant mortality. we don't even have outbreaks of malaria here that often.
Socialized medicine would take that benefit out of the hands of the employer/insurance companies and place it with the government. Despite the "democratic" process, the government is essentially another third party that you ultimately have no control over.
but i get to vote for ron paul, surely i will have so much say in my state government's affairs soon
Of course not. The problem with the insurance companies is that their clients are not the people whose healthcare they manage. Their client is your employer, and your employer wants to keep costs down, yet provide coverage, so that employees will be satisfied with their "benefits package." The insurance company knows this, and exploits it.
hm. i think that, for a libertopist, you have a weird understanding of capitalism.
insurance companies are in the business of making money, and they do that in any way that they can. hence, they operate as they do in the current system.
A better system would involve us all purchasing health insurance policies individually, and/or setting up healthcare savings accounts (which would operate like an IRA, I presume). Then the insurance company is working for YOU as it's client. If it builds a reputation of screwing people over, other people will take notice and cancel their policies. The market will force them to provide better service to individuals.
free market fixes everything.
i'm not saying that it necessarily can't, but on what do you base your assertion? i based mine on statistics and modeling after more successful countries.
i see a lot of "free market solves x" bandied about, but based on no evidence. this has the peculiar effect of making your argument, to you anyway, perfect and unassailable. any way that i could think to argue against it is wrong, because in fact you have no basis for me to argue against. i guess that is comforting.
As for the costs, there is one very simple way to keep them down, and it has nothing to do with socialism or fiat... TRAIN MORE DOCTORS. There is WAY more demand for medical education right now than we are supplying. That's why people are going to those sketchy Caribbean medical schools. It's also why tuition is expensive for doctors.
law school is expensive. business school is expensive. they are expensive because the professors they employ are the highest paid. they are paid the most because, theoretically, they could be in very lucrative jobs if they were not teaching. i thought everyone knew this.
beyond that, malpractice insurance rates are absurd. i recall reading an article about a doctor who flew to a different state to work five days a week, staying in an apartment, before returning home for the weekend. all that because malpractice insurance made it nearly impossible for him to operate in his own state.
Lets not forget how supply and demand affects pricing of doctor's services: Specialists cost more because there are LESS of them. If there are more doctors overall, there will be greater competition and the fees will come down. With more doctors, waiting times for any procedure would be reduced as well (more doctors = more appointment slots).
america is #1 in specialists. you are suggesting we fix a problem that we do not currently have. thank you for reading the thread.
By embracing the market, we can reduce the cost of medical care and provide better service to everyone.
FREE MARKET
EDIT: here is a long article about when Pinochet installed a bunch of Friedman disciples in Chile for 16 years. Friedman called it a "Miracle," but this is the best i can find that actually has numbers instead of just calling it something. 16 years of a free market meant enormous upswings and downswings, until Chile had to be bailed out of its massive debt. FREE MARKET
Greg Palast has a slightly more entertaining article, and he also uses a lot of actual numbers. he also studied at the university of chicago with some of the Chilean poobags.
On 2008-01-21 at 02:44:02, nocal asked to smell your dick
i'm not saying that it necessarily can't, but on what do you base your assertion? i based mine on statistics and modeling after more successful countries.
In other words, you're proving that slavery and/or stealing works--fine, we get that. It worked in the past and we decided we didn't like then; we're suggesting we're not going to like it any more now just because it brings us healthcare rather than cotton. In the end, there just has to be a better way to get healthcare than to steal it.
nocal:
i see a lot of "free market solves x" bandied about, but based on no evidence. this has the peculiar effect of making your argument, to you anyway, perfect and unassailable. any way that i could think to argue against it is wrong, because in fact you have no basis for me to argue against. i guess that is comforting.
You're probably right. There are free market solutions to problems, and there are free maket models for solutions to other types of problems, and the feature that these solutions have that is so appealing to their proponents is not so much some guarantee of effectiveness, but their lack of coercive bootprint on the face of humaninty. It is comforting to not be the proponent of theft and slavery.
In other words, you're proving that slavery and/or stealing works--fine, we get that. It worked in the past and we decided we didn't like then; we're suggesting we're not going to like it any more now just because it brings us healthcare rather than cotton. In the end, there just has to be a better way to get healthcare than to steal it.
You keep calling socialized medicine slavery, there isn’t humans owning other humans, nobody is chattel. Our system is largely government-funded, with most services provided by private enterprises. I guess a more apt description would be socialized health insurance.
The goal of socialized medicine in Canada is not to enslave, but to protect and improve the lives of the citizenry.
Here is a funny thought, why not privatize defense as well? Instead of a publicly funded armed forces, your country could be defended by private militias funded by insurance companies.
____________________ the rice I had yesterday came out practically verbatim
As for the costs, there is one very simple way to keep them down, and it has nothing to do with socialism or fiat... TRAIN MORE DOCTORS. There is WAY more demand for medical education right now than we are supplying. That's why people are going to those sketchy Caribbean medical schools. It's also why tuition is expensive for doctors.
law school is expensive. business school is expensive. they are expensive because the professors they employ are the highest paid. they are paid the most because, theoretically, they could be in very lucrative jobs if they were not teaching. i thought everyone knew this.
Correct. However, if there were more doctors practicing, then the salaries outside of Medical schools would decrease, allowing the salaries of professors within medical schools to decrease as well.
beyond that, malpractice insurance rates are absurd. i recall reading an article about a doctor who flew to a different state to work five days a week, staying in an apartment, before returning home for the weekend. all that because malpractice insurance made it nearly impossible for him to operate in his own state.
I remember reading that as well. Are you proposing that under socialized medicine doctors would no longer commit malpractice? If not, this would remain a problem.
On 2008-01-21 at 12:42:08, HankRearden asked to smell your dick
Correct. However, if there were more doctors practicing, then the salaries outside of Medical schools would decrease, allowing the salaries of professors within medical schools to decrease as well.
ok, let's say this is true, which it may be. how do you propose we simply "train more doctors"? it has been stated previously in this thread that doctors are more inclined to go where the money is. so if we keep deflating the salaries of specialists by training more of them (somehow...), then aren't we going to have a paradox where less people become interested in becoming specialists?
I remember reading that as well. Are you proposing that under socialized medicine doctors would no longer commit malpractice? If not, this would remain a problem.
i mentioned several times before that malpractice insurance would plummet in cost due to a larger risk pool.
The collapse of the Chilean economy in 1982 was not caused by the free market policies (social security and other "government" services remain privatized there), but was instead due to a failed monetary policy. When they ended the fixed exchange rate and allowed their currency to devalue (to be traded freely... oh god.. the horror!), their economy recovered again.
Under the spell of their theories, the General abolished the minimum wage, outlawed trade union bargaining rights, privatized the pension system, abolished all taxes on wealth and on business profits, slashed public employment, privatized 212 state industries and 66 banks and ran a fiscal surplus.
they had all that, and you say that not trading currency freely brought the whole thing to a crashing halt? i mean, it sounds like you're making excuses.
from what i've read, the problem with their currency caused one of several recessions, and when it was allowed to be traded, they fucked it up so badly that it took a long time to recover. of course, it was not the only recession they experienced, nor was it the only problem.
it seems like the best thing they did was lower inflation massively. perhaps the U.S. should take a look at that.
In fact, during that recession, all of latin america was experiencing similar economic effects. Chile's economy was one of the first in the region to recover.
When you take both the recession and recovery into account, Chile actually had the second worst rate of growth in Latin America between 1975 and 1980. Only Argentina did worse. (6)
After the IMF loans came through, the Chilean economy began recovering in 1984. Again, it saw exceptionally high growth, averaging about 7.7 percent a year between 1986 and 1989.
Reluctantly, the General restored the minimum wage and unions’ collective bargaining rights. Pinochet, who had previously decimated government ranks, authorized a program to create 500,000 jobs.
oh...so...it recovered because of "new deal" programs, socialist programs, and foreign loans...
LOki:
In other words, you're proving that slavery and/or stealing works--fine, we get that. It worked in the past and we decided we didn't like then; we're suggesting we're not going to like it any more now just because it brings us healthcare rather than cotton. In the end, there just has to be a better way to get healthcare than to steal it.
You keep calling socialized medicine slavery, there isn’t humans owning other humans, nobody is chattel.
The hell it isn't, and you'r about to prove it Mr. Krakuhman.
LORDKAHUNA:
Our system is largely government-funded, with most services provided by private enterprises.
The government does not get their fund through vountary contributions, do they? Those funds are taken by force, on your behalf Mr. WhipKrackuh--and if someone should consider paying for your healthcare unjust, you just send your fucking mounties to thug the living fuck right out of them, don't you?
And then there's your private enterpises. Whatever in the world should happen if one of them should refuse to provide a first rate product at what they consider to be a third rate renumeration? I know what you're going to do--you're going to send your fucking red jacket thugs at them, that's what.
And do you know why 'Kahuna? The reason is YOU THINK YOU OWN THOSE FOLKS.
You don't think so? Well you essentially say so below...
LORDKAHUNA:
I guess a more apt description would be socialized health insurance.
The goal of socialized medicine in Canada is not to enslave, but to protect and improve the lives of the citizenry.
Here you say the means by which healthcare is paid for (people), and the means by which healthcare is provided (people), are owned by the state (other people with official titles that eventually equate to Mastuh Whipkrakuh). You just seem consoled by the notion that you take turns owning and being owned, and that it's all going to "even out" in the wash. "That man's not really a slave if he sells himself to me willingly; and I'm not really a complete douche for buying him if I treat him real well." The premise is just fucking repulsive, and it doesn't improve when they take turns.
LORDKAHUNA:
Here is a funny thought, why not privatize defense as well? Instead of a publicly funded armed forces, your country could be defended by private militias funded by insurance companies.
Because a primary (if not the primary) purpose of governemnt is to remove violence from the private transactions people. These insurance companies would be making investments based on the state of armed conflict. The point is the rejection of coercion for profit.
Lownotes: Loki, what is your position on socialized mail delivery,
Fed Ex
Lownotes:
law enforcement and
Already covered this with defense
Lownotes:
fire departments?
I don't have it now, so why would I want it?
Lownotes:
It seems to me, the free market would royally fuck up such services,
Except for the cops it doesn't, so you're talking out of your ass.
Lownotes:
not to say they are always paragons of efficiency and reliability already.
Considering my experiences with the cops, the DMV, TSA, INS, EPA, OSHA and the IRS I've got to say organizations like Wal-Mart, McDonalds, General Motors, Micosoft, and Starbucks are preferable.
Lownotes:
Also, do you see health care as a human right that should be guaranteed to all citizens?
Healthcare is in no way WHAT-SO-EVER a human right. Healthcare is a valuable service provided by human beings; the people who receive this service should try not to take that service for granted just because they "need" it--we all have needs.
LOki: I don't have it now, so why would I want it?
Aren't modern, non-volunteer fire departments run by city and county governments?
Weren't early fire departments run by insurance companies? Didn't that suck?
Lownotes:
Also, do you see health care as a human right that should be guaranteed to all citizens?
LOkie: Healthcare is in no way WHAT-SO-EVER a human right. Healthcare is a valuable service provided by human beings; the people who receive this service should try not to take that service for granted just because they "need" it--we all have needs.
I think the health care debate boils down to people disagreeing over this principle.
What do you see as being the short list of basic human rights?
LOki: I don't have it now, so why would I want it?
Aren't modern, non-volunteer fire departments run by city and county governments?
I don't understand "modern non-volunteer."
I don't know if municipal fire departments are any good at all.
I do know that the modern volunteer fire depaerments that have been protectin me and my stuff have been doing so just fine.
Lownotes:
Weren't early fire departments run by insurance companies? Didn't that suck?
I have no idea if they sucked or not; I was never protected by one.
Lownotes:
Lownotes:
Also, do you see health care as a human right that should be guaranteed to all citizens?
LOkie: Healthcare is in no way WHAT-SO-EVER a human right. Healthcare is a valuable service provided by human beings; the people who receive this service should try not to take that service for granted just because they "need" it--we all have needs.
I think the health care debate boils down to people disagreeing over this principle.
What do you see as being the short list of basic human rights?
The right to defend yourself from the coercive aggression of others.
Lownotes:
What do you see as being the short list of basic human rights?
The right to defend yourself from the coercive aggression of others.
that's a nifty little tagline there. how does that work in terms of a democratic system?
Oh Federalist papers 10! Monroe but that quickly gets into heady political science territory, and who really wants to learn that?
Ultimately we should seek the system of governance that steers us away from the current plutocracy [rule by the rich] and restores a more "republic"an system with smaller community bodies each devoted to their own regional/localized economic and "personal" needs.
One of the things I think the health care and other perspectives bring into play is the hugeness of modern economic entanglement. We no longer have a regional agrarian economy which makes it easy to talk about cotton in the south and textiles in the north--we have multinational businesses and the WTO which is arguably one of the largest trade regulatory bodies in history. It controls more of the actions of people world wide than any single government.
Part of our hubris as Americanses and every other stripe of nationalist is the belief that we can somehow direct the actions at the top through our plebiscite. The fiscal and economic policies [also known as : CASH, BENJAMINS, MOOLAH] are safely out of our reach. Reallocation through socialist or other methods will really not do much to change the distribution of wealth from the largest holders and allow the serfs to remain, subservient.
At least under socialism, as in communal living-ism, as in military discipline: When one member of the group commits an infraction, all group members are punished.
____________________ If you include a null character
Oh Federalist papers 10! Monroe but that quickly gets into heady political science territory, and who really wants to learn that?
so basically your answer is to be a cock and link to an argument in favor of a representative democracy (republic). which is what we have. and i doubt that loki would say that we have a government which allows us much in the way of personal freedoms.
my question was more on the order of: isn't nearly everything that any government can impose on a group of people going to be objectionable to someone and thus infringing on their freedom? it wasn't an effort to stump him or something, i am curious what loki has to say about it, because his answers often make sense. your answers, on the other hand, have the strange quality of being condescending and yet unhelpful.
Oh Federalist papers 10! Monroe but that quickly gets into heady political science territory, and who really wants to learn that?
so basically your answer is to be a cock...
Not true! If you had read a few lines below that, I write about where we still have the social and economic problems that go beyond the "settling" of the argument that brought about the setting for a representative democracy with a strong Federal government.
The issues of those times are in currency again and this is now socialism vs. "free market" which is nothing new.
I also dispute the notion that we currently have a representative democracy, hence my use of the word plutocracy. And it doesn't take an Alex Jone's Conspiracy theorist to notice that the more money you have the more rights you have--and this extends to non-human entities known as corporations.
Conversely, the less money you have the more likely you are to be swallowed up by the state apparatus [Prison Industrial Complex] or some other entity [Private Health Care] --can we simply accept the fact that the terms "minority" and "majority" have been replaced by Financial units of trade?
my question was more on the order of: isn't nearly everything that any government can impose on a group of people going to be objectionable to someone and thus infringing on their freedom?
If you want to go back to the basics of self-rule versus collective rule [Hobbs, Leviathan etc.] then yes you can either choose to give up a measure of your self control and cede that ability to a central organization that will represent your interests in the hopes that your wellbeing is furthered by that transaction. You could also choose to withdraw from that at any time--well you used to be able to do this, I am not so sure anymore. Hence the discussion I wanted to bring about financial and economic units replacing anything as flighty as "rights of man".
... your answers, on the other hand, have the strange quality of being condescending and yet unhelpful.
This is probably due to years of dealing with idiots who don't understand, my apologies. I still feel it necessary to reiterate that money is the new "value: for an individual and our institutions have been built to hold property over this "liberty" and likewise we will continue to see a conflict between the rights of "man" and the profit incentive of a protected class of individuals.
____________________ If you include a null character
Not true! If you had read a few lines below that, I write about where we still have the social and economic problems that go beyond the "settling" of the argument that brought about the setting for a representative democracy with a strong Federal government.
The issues of those times are in currency again and this is now socialism vs. "free market" which is nothing new.
I also dispute the notion that we currently have a representative democracy, hence my use of the word plutocracy. And it doesn't take an Alex Jone's Conspiracy theorist to notice that the more money you have the more rights you have--and this extends to non-human entities known as corporations.
Conversely, the less money you have the more likely you are to be swallowed up by the state apparatus [Prison Industrial Complex] or some other entity [Private Health Care] --can we simply accept the fact that the terms "minority" and "majority" have been replaced by Financial units of trade?
to a certain extent, i agree that our representative democracy is out of control, and that people might as well be commodities. shit, the way we rely on slave- and near slave-labor in other countries is clear enough.
If you want to go back to the basics of self-rule versus collective rule [Hobbs, Leviathan etc.] then yes you can either choose to give up a measure of your self control and cede that ability to a central organization that will represent your interests in the hopes that your wellbeing is furthered by that transaction. You could also choose to withdraw from that at any time--well you used to be able to do this, I am not so sure anymore. Hence the discussion I wanted to bring about financial and economic units replacing anything as flighty as "rights of man".
it's hard to imagine a modern society being one that you can choose to leave at any time. and insofar as money grants the ability to do an awful lot, it is an interesting point that money replaces rights (if that is what you're getting at, then i also agree)
This is probably due to years of dealing with idiots who don't understand, my apologies. I still feel it necessary to reiterate that money is the new "value: for an individual and our institutions have been built to hold property over this "liberty" and likewise we will continue to see a conflict between the rights of "man" and the profit incentive of a protected class of individuals.
well i appreciate the effort, i think this post of yours contributed some ideas that i was not considering. thanks.
Oh Federalist papers 10! Monroe but that quickly gets into heady political science territory, and who really wants to learn that?
so basically your answer is to be a cock and link to an argument in favor of a representative democracy (republic). which is what we have.
lulz. Yeah, Phil might have assumed you thought we operated under a straight-up democracy.
nocal: and i doubt that loki would say that we have a government which allows us much in the way of personal freedoms.
meh. I argue it's offering us less and less every day, and we have to stem that tide.
nocal: my question was more on the order of: isn't nearly everything that any government can impose on a group of people going to be objectionable to someone and thus infringing on their freedom?
You see, that's the funny thing; no. But it's a quaified no, and you're not really going to like the quaification, because it's ultimately going to tap some philosophy, but "freedom" for rational people, does not include the freedom to murder, steal, or enslave. It's rather simple math really: 0 + 0 + 0 +....=0; if individuals do not have the right to X indiviually, then they cannot collectively excercise that right.
So, in this case of healthcare; let's say you have it, and I don't. If I do not have the right to take it from you forcibly as an individual, gathering others to me are who like-minded does not grant me and my like-minded group any more right to your healthcare.
nocal: it wasn't an effort to stump him or something, i am curious what loki has to say about it, because his answers often make sense. your answers, on the other hand, have the strange quality of being condescending and yet unhelpful.
Phil is a cock, but to be honest I thought you were attempting to trap me between mob-rules and anarchy, and now I know there's a trap involved--"because his answers often make sense"--HAHAHA! WTF are you up to?
On 2008-01-25 at 05:55:56, LOki asked to smell your dick
I actually think I've been trying to explain just this sentiment:
Excerpt from "What's Wrong With American Health Care?"
"Americans - whether privately insured or publicly covered - tend to be over-insured, and thus less sensitive to prices. And so we come to a paradox: American health care is so expensive because it's so cheap. That is, with Americans paying just 14 cents out-of-pocket for every health dollar, they have little incentive to economize on health expenses. Americans have access to the most technologically sophisticated system in human history - yet pay pennies on the dollar out of their own pockets. The upshot? A health care system that is heavy in cost but not necessarily strong in satisfaction and uneven in quality. "
I actually think I've been trying to explain just this sentiment:
Excerpt from "What's Wrong With American Health Care?"
"Americans - whether privately insured or publicly covered - tend to be over-insured, and thus less sensitive to prices. And so we come to a paradox: American health care is so expensive because it's so cheap. That is, with Americans paying just 14 cents out-of-pocket for every health dollar, they have little incentive to economize on health expenses. Americans have access to the most technologically sophisticated system in human history - yet pay pennies on the dollar out of their own pockets. The upshot? A health care system that is heavy in cost but not necessarily strong in satisfaction and uneven in quality. "
This is why I would Vote- LOki for President
____________________ " I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question." ~Spock~
oh several anecdotal stories! oh a few morons who don't pay for insurance! boy that proves everything wrong.
how about this anecdote: my dad has glaucoma, which as you may or may not know, is a degenerative eye disease wherein intra ocular eye pressure increases and kills blood vessels. if it progresses, it leaves the sufferer blind. fortunately it is easily diagnosed, and treated with eyedrops that cost about $20 per month.
my dad had his insurance canceled, and could not get insurance through any agency, despite owning his own business and paying for it himself, which is extremely costly. because of $20/month eyedrops, if my dad had been in a car accident, the cost of his medical care would have easily caused his business to fold and would have left him with nothing.
thankfully, the insurance companies are greedy bitches, and so my dad got coverage when he got enough employees in his business.
"Americans - whether privately insured or publicly covered - tend to be over-insured, and thus less sensitive to prices. And so we come to a paradox: American health care is so expensive because it's so cheap. That is, with Americans paying just 14 cents out-of-pocket for every health dollar, they have little incentive to economize on health expenses. Americans have access to the most technologically sophisticated system in human history - yet pay pennies on the dollar out of their own pockets. The upshot? A health care system that is heavy in cost but not necessarily strong in satisfaction and uneven in quality. "
i can't really disagree with that, i think it does sum up the problems with healthcare pretty well.
LOL. nocal will too.
yeah i came across that link before, and it's not so good.
myths 1&2 use only canada as a model, which as i've said, has a problem with wait times. but again, our wait time to see a doctor in a non-emergency in america is now the same as in canada (6 days and rising). canada does have long wait times for elective surgery, but other nations do not.
myth 3, he argues that administrative costs would only go down a little, but then healthcare costs would skyrocket from people abusing the system. well for one, a unified computerized system would save shitloads of time and money, as well as eliminating mistakes (doctors don't write down prescriptions, nurses don't misread patient names, etc). additionally, remember that americans spend the most money in taxes and out of pocket for healthcare, while these other nations pay less. so what is he basing his assertion on? he's not basing it on anything except conjecture (surprise!)
myth 4, to say healthcare wouldn't be 100% fair is a strange point. it isn't now, and could it ever be? can anything be 100% fair? i'm only suggesting that it would improve and be less expensive, not that it would be perfectly fair to everyone.
myth 5
The truth is that single-payer systems often interfere with treatment decisions. For example, most single-payer systems have bureaucracies that delay the approval of new drugs, preventing patients from using them. Alice Mahon, a former member of the British parliament, needed the drug Lucentis to slow her macular degeneration. Because of delays due to the National Health Service not yet having approved Lucentis at the time of her diagnosis, Mahon lost much of the sight in her left eye.
the fuck is this about? i mean i understand that libertarians have this bug up their ass about the FDA, but we've seen that drugs that make it through a long approval process still kill people and cause ridiculous side effects. do we really need drugs with dubious value to instantly hit the market and let the average person be a little free market guinea pig? "ah yes, but the free market, it will kill people if it doesn't work right and then people will stop taking the drug, look how well this system works."
The problem is that life expectancy and infant mortality tell us very little about the quality of a health care system. Life expectancy is determined by a host of factors over which a health care system has little control, such as genetics, crime rate, gross domestic product per capita, diet, sanitation, and literacy rate.
this is dumb as fuck. i'll tell you why this is dumb as fuck. genetics? the sample sizes are in the millions. genetics are completely negligible with that kind of sample size, unless he is seriously trying to argue that in america we as a nation have some kind of inferior genetics. sanitation? is he arguing that america has poor sanitation compared to other countries? literacy? does that make any sense? GDP per capita? i doubt this correlates strongly.
diet and crime, yes, america is fucked in that regard. but as for diet, great britain has about as bad a diet. it has been said that scotland has the worst diet in the world.
myth 7 he argues thusly:
Furthermore, everyone in the U.S. can get care regardless of income. In 1986 the U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. This requires emergency rooms to treat any person who shows up seeking medical treatment, regardless of their ability to pay.
ah yes, people who went without treatment for years for treatments denied them by their insurance can always hoof it to the emergency room when they begin to snuff it, and that erases a longstanding degeneration in health.
myth 8, he finally introduces a study! well then i can't really argue with that. he may be right that drug companies may have a hard time keeping up their massive profits on boner pills and herpes drugs. maybe they'll have to discover the cure for cancer instead. (well ok perhaps this is one drawback...)
myth 9: oh people in canada have to wait to see a doctor! 6 days even! (oh wait we do in america too...)
myth 10
A FREE MARKET PANACEA WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING (except pay no attention to Chile)
____________________ Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately; except on holidays and weekends.
nocal:
oh several anecdotal stories! oh a few morons who don't pay for insurance! boy that proves everything wrong.
Prove? No. It puts your weepy stories about the tragedy of Americans not being insured into some perspective though.
nocal:
how about this anecdote: my dad has glaucoma, which as you may or may not know, is a degenerative eye disease wherein intra ocular eye pressure increases and kills blood vessels. if it progresses, it leaves the sufferer blind. fortunately it is easily diagnosed, and treated with eyedrops that cost about $20 per month.
my dad had his insurance canceled, and could not get insurance through any agency, despite owning his own business and paying for it himself, which is extremely costly. because of $20/month eyedrops, ...
I think the fact that your dad, and miilions like him would abuse (and are abusing) insurance with their 66 cents a day claims, is why we have this insurance crisis and why socializing healthcare more will only make this crisis worse.
Nice anecdote BTW.
nocal:
"Americans - whether privately insured or publicly covered - tend to be over-insured, and thus less sensitive to prices. And so we come to a paradox: American health care is so expensive because it's so cheap. That is, with Americans paying just 14 cents out-of-pocket for every health dollar, they have little incentive to economize on health expenses. Americans have access to the most technologically sophisticated system in human history - yet pay pennies on the dollar out of their own pockets. The upshot? A health care system that is heavy in cost but not necessarily strong in satisfaction and uneven in quality. "
i can't really disagree with that, i think it does sum up the problems with healthcare pretty well.
Well then, explain it to your dad.
nocal:
LOL. nocal will too.
yeah i came across that link before, and it's not so good.
myths 1&2 use only canada as a model, which as i've said, has a problem with wait times. but again, our wait time to see a doctor in a non-emergency in america is now the same as in canada (6 days and rising). canada does have long wait times for elective surgery, but other nations do not.
Myths 1 & 2 1 are more about rationing, not about waiting, nocal.
"In a single-payer health care system, people over-use health care. This puts strain on government health care budgets, and to contain costs governments must ration care."
And Myth 2 acutally refutes your "only Canada as a model" assertion as well as your compliant that he doesn't use actual studies (you misrepresenting douche);
"Media in foreign nations are full of stories about people suffer while on a waiting list. In Canada, Diane Gorsuch twice had heart surgery cancelled; she suffered a fatal heart attack before her third surgery. In Great Britain, Mavis Skeet had her cancer surgery cancelled four times before her cancer was determined to have become inoperable. In Australia, eight-year-old Kyle Inglis has lost 50 percent of his hearing while waiting nearly 11 months for an operation to remove a tumor in his ear. Kyle is one of over 1,000 children waiting over 600 days for ear, nose and throat surgery in Warnbro, a suburb in Western Australia.
These are not mere anecdotes. Much academic literature has examined the impact of waiting lists on health. A study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that 50 people died while on a wait list for cardiac catheterization in Ontario. A study of Swedish patients on a wait list for heart surgery found that the "risk of death increases significantly with waiting time." In a 2000 article in the journal Clinical Oncology, British researchers studying 29 lung cancer patients waiting for treatment further found that about 20 percent "of potentially curable patients became incurable on the waiting list."
And as I pointed, and you bullshitted about, Canada considers many neccessary surgeries to be "elective."
Your "studies" are just socialist propaganda bullshit.
nocal:
myth 3, he argues that administrative costs would only go down a little, but then healthcare costs would skyrocket from people abusing the system. well for one, a unified computerized system would save shitloads of time and money, as well as eliminating mistakes (doctors don't write down prescriptions, nurses don't misread patient names, etc). additionally, remember that americans spend the most money in taxes and out of pocket for healthcare, while these other nations pay less. so what is he basing his assertion on? he's not basing it on anything except conjecture (surprise!)
What's this "unified computerized system"? Is it conjecture? Is everything based on it's existence conjecture? Just wondering.
Meanwhile, what he actually says is;
"Yet comparisons of private sector administrative costs with those of government are misleading. Many government administrative expenses are excluded in such comparisons, such as what it costs employers and government to collect the taxes needed to fund the single-payer system, and the salaries of politicians and their staff members who set government health-care policy (the salary costs of executives and boards of directors who set company policy are included in private sector administrative costs). "
And as I mentioned earlier they fail to factor in the involuntary donations made by everyone forced to contribute to these everyone gets "free" healthcare ponzi schemes.
nocal:
myth 4, to say healthcare wouldn't be 100% fair is a strange point. it isn't now, and could it ever be? can anything be 100% fair? i'm only suggesting that it would improve and be less expensive, not that it would be perfectly fair to everyone.
Your suggestion is patently bullshit for a number of reasons all linked to your penchant for overlooking important bits like: no matter how you cut it, somebody has to pay for healthcare--ignoring the costs associated with collecting taxes is disingenuous, but not so disingenuous as ignoring the taxes; and healthcare is a valuable service provided by actual human beings--ignoring the involuntary donations made to the system via price fixing, and wage and fee freezing is also disingenuous bullshit.
nocal:
myth 5
The truth is that single-payer systems often interfere with treatment decisions. For example, most single-payer systems have bureaucracies that delay the approval of new drugs, preventing patients from using them. Alice Mahon, a former member of the British parliament, needed the drug Lucentis to slow her macular degeneration. Because of delays due to the National Health Service not yet having approved Lucentis at the time of her diagnosis, Mahon lost much of the sight in her left eye.
the fuck is this about? i mean i understand that libertarians have this bug up their ass about the FDA, but we've seen that drugs that make it through a long approval process still kill people and cause ridiculous side effects. do we really need drugs with dubious value to instantly hit the market and let the average person be a little free market guinea pig? "ah yes, but the free market, it will kill people if it doesn't work right and then people will stop taking the drug, look how well this system works."
The problem is that life expectancy and infant mortality tell us very little about the quality of a health care system. Life expectancy is determined by a host of factors over which a health care system has little control, such as genetics, crime rate, gross domestic product per capita, diet, sanitation, and literacy rate.
this is dumb as fuck. i'll tell you why this is dumb as fuck. genetics? the sample sizes are in the millions. genetics are completely negligible with that kind of sample size, unless he is seriously trying to argue that in america we as a nation have some kind of inferior genetics. sanitation? is he arguing that america has poor sanitation compared to other countries? literacy? does that make any sense? GDP per capita? i doubt this correlates strongly.
Actually, I'll tell you what's dumb as fuck...YOU! The point is, that life expectancy is determined NOT by the quality of a health care system as much as it is determined by a host of OTHER THINGS not controlled or related to a health care system. Much the way you like to skim over the important points of definitions to mischachacterize a person, you seem to skim over the point being made in order to misrepresent the point--BRAVO!
"Perhaps the biggest drawback of infant mortality is that it is measured too inconsistently across nations to be a useful measure. Under United Nations' guidelines, countries are supposed to count any infant showing any sign of life as a "live birth." While the United States follows that guideline, many other nations do not. For example, Switzerland does not count any infant born measuring less than 12 inches, while France and Belgium do not count any infant born prior to 26 weeks. In short, many other nations exclude many high-risk infants from their infant mortality statistics, making their infant mortality numbers look better than they really are."
Again, your studies apparently turn out to be socialist proaganda bullshit.
nocal:
myth 7 he argues thusly:
Furthermore, everyone in the U.S. can get care regardless of income. In 1986 the U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. This requires emergency rooms to treat any person who shows up seeking medical treatment, regardless of their ability to pay.
ah yes, people who went without treatment for years for treatments denied them by their insurance can always hoof it to the emergency room when they begin to snuff it, and that erases a longstanding degeneration in health.
Insurance, or lack of it, is not a barrier to getting treatment. It's just not. Get over it.
nocal:
myth 9: oh people in canada have to wait to see a doctor! 6 days even! (oh wait we do in america too...)
Again, Canadians waiting has less to do with this than you wish.
nocal:
myth 10
A FREE MARKET PANACEA WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING (except pay no attention to Chile)
I have no idea what your gripe with Chile is, but free market solutions have the benefit of being morally preferable solutions than stealing and/or slavery appurtenant to socialist solutions.
Prove? No. It puts your weepy stories about the tragedy of Americans not being insured into some perspective though.
uggggh. i showed evidence that covered americans are getting fucked more often than the people with no coverage.
Nice anecdote BTW.
i figured if that's all you can give me, i might as well give back.
Well then, explain it to your dad.
yeah my dad paid for the eyedrops himself, he wasn't making a $20/month claim. however, with that condition, he was promptly dropped by his insurance company and could not get insured anywhere.
Myths 1 & 2 1 are more about rationing, not about waiting, nocal.
oh, i could have sworn that the issue with rationing is the waiting. as in, you can't have care yet, because we're rationing, so wait.
And as I pointed, and you bullshitted about, Canada considers many neccessary surgeries to be "elective."
well then. so for one, it is conceivable that wait times increase mortality rates for some procedures, but not for others. of note is the final study, which found higher rates of death in people who were deemed to be in worse health (oh shit really?).
What's this "unified computerized system"? Is it conjecture? Is everything based on it's existence conjecture? Just wondering.
a friend of mine is a nurse for the air force. they still use paper in her hospital. during her training, they had a computerized system. that way, when you give a patient drugs, you scan your nametag, scan the drug barcode, scan the patient barcode. this system is supposed to be standard in the military at this moment. right now, they hand count pills after every shift and write down the counts on a sheet of paper.
so, no, i'm not making it up, and it would easily save time, lives, and money after implementation.
And as I mentioned earlier they fail to factor in the involuntary donations made by everyone forced to contribute to these everyone gets "free" healthcare ponzi schemes.
i don't see evidence of those assertions anywhere. i've seen lists of healthcare costs per capita, but nowhere in those lists does it say anything like "** Only U.S. Costs are Accurate"
Your suggestion is patently bullshit for a number of reasons all linked to your penchant for overlooking important bits like: no matter how you cut it, somebody has to pay for healthcare
i just assume everyone knows how this works. we're adults here, we know that freeways aren't "free" and that government collects taxes to pay for public schools.
and healthcare is a valuable service provided by actual human beings--ignoring the involuntary donations made to the system via price fixing, and wage and fee freezing is also disingenuous bullshit.
bullshit, maybe. disingenuous, i doubt that. i've admitted there are drawbacks to my plan. as opposed to FREE MARKET solutions.
What's wrong with you?
what's wrong with me is the way he lays out that argument. again, i know the libertarians have an issue with the FDA, but what the fuck. and he follows it up with more "wait time" anecdotes. i could follow this up with more "uninsured" or "denial of coverage" anecdotes, too. i know how much fun to read those are.
Actually, I'll tell you what's dumb as fuck...YOU! The point is, that life expectancy is determined NOT by the quality of a health care system as much as it is determined by a host of OTHER THINGS not controlled or related to a health care system. Much the way you like to skim over the important points of definitions to mischachacterize a person, you seem to skim over the point being made in order to misrepresent the point--BRAVO!
lol. i didn't skim over his point, if you want to read what i said a second or third time. would a stupid person stop to consider that genetics could not possibly play a role in a sample size of several million? if you assert that genetics is a factor, you are a fucking idiot, and this guy does it to pad his argument, just like he does with his stupid anecdotes.
i did admit that crime is a factor in america, as we have a high rate of incarceration (although prisoners get free healthcare...as do afghanis and iraqis...). i also admitted that diet is a very serious consideration in america, although it is in several other first world countries. i would definitely admit that japan has a large advantage over the U.S in crime rate and in diet. and in doing research, i find that the GDP per capita does correlate positively with infant mortality rate, so i was wrong about that one.
it's like it isn't good enough for you that i admit that three out of his seven points are plausible and probably contribute. i'm sorry, i thought you had a brain of your own, loki. do you just believe in 100% of this website's assertions because it has "free market" in the title?
Again, your studies apparently turn out to be socialist proaganda bullshit.
apparently you can't find any that aren't. so i'll do the work for you.
In order to minimize this problem, UNICEF uses a statistical methodology to account for these reporting differences. "UNICEF compiles infant mortality country estimates derived from all sources and methods of estimation obtained either from standard reports, direct estimation from micro data sets, or from UNICEF’s yearly exercise. In order to sort out differences between estimates produced from different sources, with different methods, UNICEF developed, in coordination with WHO, the WB and UNSD,2 an estimation methodology that minimize the errors embodied on each estimate and harmonize trends along time.3 Since the estimates are not necessarily the exact values used as input for the model, they are often not recognized as the official U5MR estimates used at the country level. However, as mentioned before, these estimates minimize errors and maximize the consistency of trends along time.
oh ok so UNICEF adjusts for that. and the UN and the CIA both do an estimate, and their estimates are very close. so the CIA and the UN and UNICEF all are involved in socialist propaganda, ron paul?
Insurance, or lack of it, is not a barrier to getting treatment. It's just not. Get over it.
again, not a barrier to emergency treatment. i'll admit it if you will.
I have no idea what your gripe with Chile is, but free market solutions have the benefit of being morally preferable solutions than stealing and/or slavery appurtenant to socialist solutions.
could be that Chile had 16 years of Friedman style FREE MARKET PANACEA and pinochet finally had to institute a minimum wage, allow unions, and create 500,000 new jobs. thank god it was morally preferable, otherwise it would have been a total bust!
