OK, fine, but if I have to have it by law, then I want the price to be regulated.
I want forensic audits of all insurance companies. I want somebody going through the finances of the insurance companies with a fine-toothed comb, and asking questions like, "do you really need office space at $40/sq ft? Couldn't we move to some place on the outskirts of town where the rent is less?"
I guess, then, if the thinking is "everybody should have to have this type of insurance for the good of everybody", then, well, why NOT nationalize it?
Can anybody give me an example of where a private, insurance-company-run healthcare system runs better than the system in Canada, the UK, sweden, or any other OECD country but the US?
For everybody who thinks government = bad and inefficient, well, for every government inefficiency you can find, I bet I can find 2 (or maybe 10) in a system run by insurance companies.
Well, I do a lot of mocking conspiracy theorists, so I'd hate to head in that direction...
Living in Canada, I know a lot more 'bout our system than yours, but I'd say your description's pretty much accurate.
But when I say that the system's under attack, I mean things like how, in Canada, the current head of the Canadian Medical Association (don't know what the UK equivalent is) has come right out and said that he supports a US-style private healthcare system.
Now, to be fair, that's what his job is, i.e. to represent the interests of his members. But let's not forget the Adam Smith quote:
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary."
If you "just vote against them then and there by not buying their services anymore", then you're suggesting a system where the more cash you have, the more you get to vote.
In that case, just remember that, you as an individual, even if you're Bill Gates-style-rich, you're still hopelessly "outvoted" by such pleasant people as Monsanto, Union Carbide, and AT & T.
Still think "voting with your wallet" is a good idea?
"furthermore, putting more citizens on the governments teet, eliminating the need for them to take care of themselves, to take resposbility for their actions, will hurt a country in the long run."
Interesting theory, got any examples of this happening to back it up? Like how people in Canada and the UK don't bother to get their kids vaccinated, and don't bother looking both ways before they cross the street, because they're "on the government teet"?
The assertion that providing health care as a civil right (the way the rest of the developed world outside of the US handles it) will lead to people not taking care of themselves is a nasty piece of neo-con propaganda that doesn't hold water for ten minutes, because people, wait for it, actually care about their health. Also, ever hear the expression about an ounce of prevention? Preventative care is always cheaper than acute care. But if people can't afford preventative care, they end up in emergency rooms and waste time and money on something that could've been prevented or cured trivially.
Also, y'know, some diseases, um, spread, right? So even if you're healthy, and you can afford your own private insurance, you should still be concerned with the health of other citizens in your country.
"Another dark side is cost control. Cost control sounds great in theory but in practice means keeping salaries for health workers down, and getting by with inadequate staff. This has led to poorly maintained hospitals in many areas, and the current MRSA scare in the UK."
So, you'd prefer the US-style cost control, where insurance companies get to tell people how many medications they can have at one time?
Anyway, Canada or the UK are not models of what socialized medicare should look like, because for 20 or 30 years, both systems have been under persistent attack by powerful wealthy interests who would like nothing better than a US-style system. Under a US style system (compared to the UK or Cdn systems) doctors make a lot more money, and insurance companies are vastly more profitable.
If anything, the Canadian or UK systems are working pretty well DESPITE the attempts to dismantle socialized medicine by neo-cons that started under Thatcher in the UK and under Mulroney in Canada.
With examples like this, I can't help but wonder if part of the problem is, well, doctors.
What was it Adam Smith said, about "whenever 2 or more men of the same profession gather together, they do so to defraud the general public", or something like that. Badly paraphrased, but why does this not apply to doctors?
Let's not forget that, in the 60's, when Saskatchewan became the first Canadian province to bring in socialized medicare, the doctors went on strike to prevent it. Not because they felt it was bad for their patients, but because they felt it'd be bad for their wallets, and the AMA was worried that socialized medicine would spread to the US.
Yeah, imagine, the richest country in the world might some day, wonder why people go bankrupt because they got cancer.
Never forget: professions like doctors do a pretty good job of self-regulation, but they also function very much like a trade union, only they do it better than the AFL-CIO could ever dream. They have a total monopoly on their services. How's that for a union organizer's wet dream? Imagine if, a union was organized such that they got laws passed saying that "before you can work here, you must be certified by us. By law."
"People who can afford it don't want to go on waiting lists if they are in a life threatening situation."
Sorry, but that's essentially bullshit. My mom works in public health, and has her master's degree in Health Services Administration.
Here in Canada, we're getting the same story pushed by people who want a US-style system (one difference between Canada and the US: US doctors make dramatically more money, on average) that our health-care system is in crisis, and the bogeyman of "waiting lists" comes up all the time.
What conditions have waiting lists? Slow, progressive, conditions like knee replacements or cataract surgery. A condition that's been developing for years (if not decades), I don't care if that person waits 6 months or a year for surgery. It's often suggested that the long wait for MRI's is indicative of a need for private health-care.
Well, actually, if the reason for an MRI is potentially life-threatening, you get in in 24 hours or less.
The argument that long waiting lists mean the single-payer, socialized medical care is flawed has no more validity than Microsoft's "235 patents are infringed by linux".
What blows me away (speaking as a canadian) is how americans accept their current system.
Take the total amount spent by US citizens (and employers) per capita compared to what we spend on "evil-socialized-communist" health-care in Canada, you guys spend multiple times as much for a system that sucks.
Yes, yes, there's all the libertarian types who get bothered by "why should I pay for some guy who doesn't work when I'm busting my ass?" position.
Listen, I don't have kids, but still think it's important that other people's kids get educated, if nothing else, because then I'm less likely to be mugged by those kids 10 or 15 years from now. I don't own a car, and bike for 90% of my trips around the city, but I don't object to my property taxes going to roads.
Yeah, but we gotta start talking about renewable fuels, eventually. What we do today w.r.t. energy needs is like spending the principle and ignoring the interest.
So the big thing about diesel is that bio-diesel can be made from algae. And the yield from algae is an order of magnitude greater than the next closest competitor, coconut oil.
So, assuming an existing fleet of diesel vehicles, you then have a way to make your vehicles carbon neutral, with no dependence on foreign supplies, no need to clear-cut rain forests, only thing that sucks is the high initial-investment for algae bio-reactors.
But hell, the US government is perfectly happy to subsidize foreign oil (your taxes pay for military spending to, for example, guarantee the security of the Saudi regime), why not subsidize a domestic, carbon-neutral fuel source?
I think it's got more to do with how, for some reason, Detroit just doesn't like diesel.
(Speaking as somebody who once made a still in my kitchen), no matter how good your microorganisms get at producing ethanol, you still need to distill it, which is gonna be mad energy intensive, no matter where you get your initial "yeast food".
But, I mean, my mom's got a VW golf diesel, and it gets better mileage than most (if not all) hybrids. Is there some reason the US government can't say to the auto industry, "OK, you've got X number of years, and by then, you have to be producing nothing but diesel engines", and by, say, X + 5 years, no more gas engines will be legal?
No taxes, no crazy convoluted plans, just have the auto makers crank out cars that don't suck.
Can anybody tell me why americans resist a canadian-style system? Seriously, do you like wondering if your chemotherapy will require you to sell your house?
Do you like having to wonder if your insurance company will drop you now that you've had a heart-attack?
For every dollar spend on healthcare, canada spends 5-10 cents. The US system spends at least 25 cents (depending on who's numbers you believe).
So why does anybody who doesn't work for an insurance company support this?
And, besides, what's so great about devolving powers to the state level rather than the federal, anyway? All of the big projects get done by way of federal funding anyway.
Well, it's like this. You wouldn't advocate that your police or fire services would be administered and paid for in the same manner that Americans pay for health care currently. That was the point I was trying to make here.
As to rights, well, every American has the right to life, right? It's in your constitution. And if you're in a situation where you may have to declare bankruptcy, because you had to have life-saving surgery, does that not conflict with your basic right to life?
But anyway, I'll back off from the term "right", it's kind of loaded anyway.
How about instead of "rights", can I suggest that healthcare, like police or fire services, or clean drinking water, or roads, or sewage, is the sort of thing that, when you live in the richest country in the world, you ought to be able to take for granted, irrespective of wealth?
Seriously, I can't understand how any American who doesn't work for an HMO or an insurance company can defend their current system. You guys do realize, that you're the only place in the world where people accept that health care is a commodity, right? Anywhere else in the developed world, you get sick, you go see your doctor. You don't worry about "can I afford to have a cardiac bypass", like you're trying to decide if you can afford to take the kids to disneyland this year or something.
I'll concede that maybe it isn't a "right", in the sense that we usually use that term, but, c'mon, with the wealth of the USA, surely we could take medical care for granted the same way we take for granted that your tap water isn't poisoned?
It always amazes me when people make this sort of argument, as if your health and your life are just another consumer product, like a sony walkman, as if it's something you could live without. Only in the USA do people actually think of health care like a luxury good, rather than as a basic human right.
Take a look at the above comment
"Get that lump checked out? You might have to go without cable this month. See a doctor for that persistant, nagging three week old cough? No eating out for you for a while."
That is madness, in a developed country, that you would have to go through that sort of thing.
Imagine trying to make the same argument, but change "heathcare" to "fire department services" or "police services".
"Gee, my wife got raped last week, I guess we're gonna have to survive on peanut butter and kraft dinner for a couple of weeks so we can afford to pay for having the crime investigated by the police", or "gee, the house is on fire! Well, it's not a big one, I can probably borrow a fire extinguisher from my next-door neighbor and put it out myself, I don't really wanna spend 10 grand to have the fire dept show up, put out the fire, and rescue my kids from a burning building."
There was a line I heard somewhere about how socialist ideas don't catch on in the US because working people don't see themselves as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, while they wait for their turn to win the lottery.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, fine, but if I have to have it by law, then I want the price to be regulated.
I want forensic audits of all insurance companies. I want somebody going through the finances of the insurance companies with a fine-toothed comb, and asking questions like, "do you really need office space at $40/sq ft? Couldn't we move to some place on the outskirts of town where the rent is less?"
I guess, then, if the thinking is "everybody should have to have this type of insurance for the good of everybody", then, well, why NOT nationalize it?
Can anybody give me an example of where a private, insurance-company-run healthcare system runs better than the system in Canada, the UK, sweden, or any other OECD country but the US?
For everybody who thinks government = bad and inefficient, well, for every government inefficiency you can find, I bet I can find 2 (or maybe 10) in a system run by insurance companies.
Well, I do a lot of mocking conspiracy theorists, so I'd hate to head in that direction...
Living in Canada, I know a lot more 'bout our system than yours, but I'd say your description's pretty much accurate.
But when I say that the system's under attack, I mean things like how, in Canada, the current head of the Canadian Medical Association (don't know what the UK equivalent is) has come right out and said that he supports a US-style private healthcare system.
Now, to be fair, that's what his job is, i.e. to represent the interests of his members. But let's not forget the Adam Smith quote:
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary."
If you "just vote against them then and there by not buying their services anymore", then you're suggesting a system where the more cash you have, the more you get to vote.
In that case, just remember that, you as an individual, even if you're Bill Gates-style-rich, you're still hopelessly "outvoted" by such pleasant people as Monsanto, Union Carbide, and AT & T.
Still think "voting with your wallet" is a good idea?
"furthermore, putting more citizens on the governments teet, eliminating the need for them to take care of themselves, to take resposbility for their actions, will hurt a country in the long run."
Interesting theory, got any examples of this happening to back it up? Like how people in Canada and the UK don't bother to get their kids vaccinated, and don't bother looking both ways before they cross the street, because they're "on the government teet"?
The assertion that providing health care as a civil right (the way the rest of the developed world outside of the US handles it) will lead to people not taking care of themselves is a nasty piece of neo-con propaganda that doesn't hold water for ten minutes, because people, wait for it, actually care about their health. Also, ever hear the expression about an ounce of prevention? Preventative care is always cheaper than acute care. But if people can't afford preventative care, they end up in emergency rooms and waste time and money on something that could've been prevented or cured trivially.
Also, y'know, some diseases, um, spread, right? So even if you're healthy, and you can afford your own private insurance, you should still be concerned with the health of other citizens in your country.
"Another dark side is cost control. Cost control sounds great in theory but in practice means keeping salaries for health workers down, and getting by with inadequate staff. This has led to poorly maintained hospitals in many areas, and the current MRSA scare in the UK." So, you'd prefer the US-style cost control, where insurance companies get to tell people how many medications they can have at one time? Anyway, Canada or the UK are not models of what socialized medicare should look like, because for 20 or 30 years, both systems have been under persistent attack by powerful wealthy interests who would like nothing better than a US-style system. Under a US style system (compared to the UK or Cdn systems) doctors make a lot more money, and insurance companies are vastly more profitable. If anything, the Canadian or UK systems are working pretty well DESPITE the attempts to dismantle socialized medicine by neo-cons that started under Thatcher in the UK and under Mulroney in Canada.
With examples like this, I can't help but wonder if part of the problem is, well, doctors. What was it Adam Smith said, about "whenever 2 or more men of the same profession gather together, they do so to defraud the general public", or something like that. Badly paraphrased, but why does this not apply to doctors? Let's not forget that, in the 60's, when Saskatchewan became the first Canadian province to bring in socialized medicare, the doctors went on strike to prevent it. Not because they felt it was bad for their patients, but because they felt it'd be bad for their wallets, and the AMA was worried that socialized medicine would spread to the US. Yeah, imagine, the richest country in the world might some day, wonder why people go bankrupt because they got cancer. Never forget: professions like doctors do a pretty good job of self-regulation, but they also function very much like a trade union, only they do it better than the AFL-CIO could ever dream. They have a total monopoly on their services. How's that for a union organizer's wet dream? Imagine if, a union was organized such that they got laws passed saying that "before you can work here, you must be certified by us. By law."
"People who can afford it don't want to go on waiting lists if they are in a life threatening situation."
Sorry, but that's essentially bullshit. My mom works in public health, and has her master's degree in Health Services Administration.
Here in Canada, we're getting the same story pushed by people who want a US-style system (one difference between Canada and the US: US doctors make dramatically more money, on average) that our health-care system is in crisis, and the bogeyman of "waiting lists" comes up all the time.
What conditions have waiting lists? Slow, progressive, conditions like knee replacements or cataract surgery. A condition that's been developing for years (if not decades), I don't care if that person waits 6 months or a year for surgery. It's often suggested that the long wait for MRI's is indicative of a need for private health-care.
Well, actually, if the reason for an MRI is potentially life-threatening, you get in in 24 hours or less.
The argument that long waiting lists mean the single-payer, socialized medical care is flawed has no more validity than Microsoft's "235 patents are infringed by linux".
Pure, simple, FUD.
What blows me away (speaking as a canadian) is how americans accept their current system.
Take the total amount spent by US citizens (and employers) per capita compared to what we spend on "evil-socialized-communist" health-care in Canada, you guys spend multiple times as much for a system that sucks.
Yes, yes, there's all the libertarian types who get bothered by "why should I pay for some guy who doesn't work when I'm busting my ass?" position.
Listen, I don't have kids, but still think it's important that other people's kids get educated, if nothing else, because then I'm less likely to be mugged by those kids 10 or 15 years from now. I don't own a car, and bike for 90% of my trips around the city, but I don't object to my property taxes going to roads.
Same principle applies here.
Yeah, but we gotta start talking about renewable fuels, eventually. What we do today w.r.t. energy needs is like spending the principle and ignoring the interest.
_ common_crops
So the big thing about diesel is that bio-diesel can be made from algae. And the yield from algae is an order of magnitude greater than the next closest competitor, coconut oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-diesel#Yields_of
So, assuming an existing fleet of diesel vehicles, you then have a way to make your vehicles carbon neutral, with no dependence on foreign supplies, no need to clear-cut rain forests, only thing that sucks is the high initial-investment for algae bio-reactors.
But hell, the US government is perfectly happy to subsidize foreign oil (your taxes pay for military spending to, for example, guarantee the security of the Saudi regime), why not subsidize a domestic, carbon-neutral fuel source?
I think it's got more to do with how, for some reason, Detroit just doesn't like diesel. (Speaking as somebody who once made a still in my kitchen), no matter how good your microorganisms get at producing ethanol, you still need to distill it, which is gonna be mad energy intensive, no matter where you get your initial "yeast food". But, I mean, my mom's got a VW golf diesel, and it gets better mileage than most (if not all) hybrids. Is there some reason the US government can't say to the auto industry, "OK, you've got X number of years, and by then, you have to be producing nothing but diesel engines", and by, say, X + 5 years, no more gas engines will be legal? No taxes, no crazy convoluted plans, just have the auto makers crank out cars that don't suck.
Can anybody tell me why americans resist a canadian-style system? Seriously, do you like wondering if your chemotherapy will require you to sell your house? Do you like having to wonder if your insurance company will drop you now that you've had a heart-attack? For every dollar spend on healthcare, canada spends 5-10 cents. The US system spends at least 25 cents (depending on who's numbers you believe). So why does anybody who doesn't work for an insurance company support this? And, besides, what's so great about devolving powers to the state level rather than the federal, anyway? All of the big projects get done by way of federal funding anyway.
Well, it's like this. You wouldn't advocate that your police or fire services would be administered and paid for in the same manner that Americans pay for health care currently. That was the point I was trying to make here. As to rights, well, every American has the right to life, right? It's in your constitution. And if you're in a situation where you may have to declare bankruptcy, because you had to have life-saving surgery, does that not conflict with your basic right to life? But anyway, I'll back off from the term "right", it's kind of loaded anyway. How about instead of "rights", can I suggest that healthcare, like police or fire services, or clean drinking water, or roads, or sewage, is the sort of thing that, when you live in the richest country in the world, you ought to be able to take for granted, irrespective of wealth? Seriously, I can't understand how any American who doesn't work for an HMO or an insurance company can defend their current system. You guys do realize, that you're the only place in the world where people accept that health care is a commodity, right? Anywhere else in the developed world, you get sick, you go see your doctor. You don't worry about "can I afford to have a cardiac bypass", like you're trying to decide if you can afford to take the kids to disneyland this year or something. I'll concede that maybe it isn't a "right", in the sense that we usually use that term, but, c'mon, with the wealth of the USA, surely we could take medical care for granted the same way we take for granted that your tap water isn't poisoned?
It always amazes me when people make this sort of argument, as if your health and your life are just another consumer product, like a sony walkman, as if it's something you could live without. Only in the USA do people actually think of health care like a luxury good, rather than as a basic human right. Take a look at the above comment "Get that lump checked out? You might have to go without cable this month. See a doctor for that persistant, nagging three week old cough? No eating out for you for a while." That is madness, in a developed country, that you would have to go through that sort of thing. Imagine trying to make the same argument, but change "heathcare" to "fire department services" or "police services". "Gee, my wife got raped last week, I guess we're gonna have to survive on peanut butter and kraft dinner for a couple of weeks so we can afford to pay for having the crime investigated by the police", or "gee, the house is on fire! Well, it's not a big one, I can probably borrow a fire extinguisher from my next-door neighbor and put it out myself, I don't really wanna spend 10 grand to have the fire dept show up, put out the fire, and rescue my kids from a burning building." There was a line I heard somewhere about how socialist ideas don't catch on in the US because working people don't see themselves as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, while they wait for their turn to win the lottery.