I partly agree with both: in a single payer system, having private companies make profits from public funds has proven problematic in some areas, while not in others. Emergency care can be handled well by a private company funded by the single payer. Having small clinics being bayed by the single payer for "number of patients treated" essentially, has meant that clinics compete for the "cheap" or "quick" patients, leaving the expensive and slow treated for the clinics run by the public system. Sweden is slowly learning where there is a place for private business in publicly funded healthcare, and where it doesn't work. It is a big issue in next years elections.
Private healthcare (as in both privately paid for and privately delivered) is a non-issue. You can always get what you want to pay for. Providing healthcare for those that can pay for it has never been a problem anywhere or any time. It isn't even a political issue. What confuses me isn't that a large part of americans still favour a private insurance based system. The confusing bit is that there is a majority that supports a single-payer system, but that it is STILL difficult politically.
I made that question inflammatory on purpose. But I think there is a big divide between the reasoning in the US, and in what I like to call "the rest of the modern world".
Having other (private) insurances such as car-, or home insurance cover medical expenses just means those are more expensive. If the US ever had a single payer tax financed system, of course employers would NOT pay for healthcare, and car insurance would NOT pay for healtcare in that system.
What does your car insurance cost? How much of that premium is there to cover lawsuits and/or medical treatments for whoever is hit by your car? How much of that premium is there because there may be a legal procedure first?
What if the person you ran over just got the best treatment possible, straight away, no questions asked? What would that do to your car insurance premium?
Saying that "there is a narrow window left between other insurances" just points out that its scary as hell to have a system where healtcare is provided by a patchwork of different insurances where some may even be bound to your employment and so on (That would scare the hell out of me). The fact that a doctor would have to check with some insurance company before giving me a medical treatment to see if it is covered also scares the hell out of me.
If the government promised to people they better pay it. That will come out of someones paycheck.
Still the same as defense. Also comes out of someones paycheck. And what the government promises, they better deliver if they want to be reelected. You are still not making a point I feel.
I don't know where I said that paying for public healthcare leads to a collapse.
I was thinking of this: "Like everywhere else it's been tried...let's watch the mexican economy tank in 3...2...1..."
The current method of providing healthcare is basically stealing from future generations (which will eventually lead to collapse), if you think about how it works (at least in the US) it is a big ponzi scheme. Every generation needs to convince the ones after them to buy in to the insurance/Social Security scam. Please explain how else it could work.
I don't know what you mean by "stealing from future generations". If you have a budget neutral (i.e. not deficit spending) based, tax financed, public healthcare system, how will that be problematic? Look at Sweden for example. There is a single payer universal healthcare system paid for by taxes, at the same time there is a budget surplus and the national debt has been quite rapidly reduced in the last decade. Are the current generation of swedes "stealing" from the next generation of swedes?
A healthcare system coudln't tank an economy unless people were forced to pay into it.
Single payer universal health care means healthcare is a figure in the budget, just like infrastructure, defense etc. If there is a budget deficit you have to cut down on something (infrastructure, defence, healthcare, whatever). People are "forced to pay into it" no more or less they are forced to pay into defense or infrastructure. Having too large expenses for healthcare is entirely possible, reasons can be for example if you have a shift in demographics where fewer young people pays for the healthcare of a large aging population (Japan has this problem whereas the US does not). This can cause economic issues, but the same can be true if you have an aging airforce.
Yes they say the words that make you happy... do they actually deliver?
Still trolling? Let me repeat his statements for you, in a new wording
- All of the "first world" economies, except the US, pretty much have universal socialized health care.
- The systems are popular in these countries (they are all democracies, so they would have to be quite popular to remain).
- All of these economies are of course facing more or less rough times at the moment, but their economies would still be regarded as "healthy" on a global scale or seen over a few decades.
I don't know what you are getting at here. The high standard of living in for example western europe and the US can of course be said to at least in part be due to the exploitation of third world countries.
You were arguing that public health care leads to a collapse of a countrys economy, and now you are arguing that when a countrys economy collapses for whatever reason, that country will no longer afford its public healthcare? That is not the same thing?
lol.. isn't Australia a duel health care country consisting of private and public system like England? I'm pretty sure I was going to have to buy insurance when I was thinking of moving there.
Is the NHS in the UK inadequate these days? I don't live there but I'm quite sure I'd be happy with "just" the NHS if I lived there. Having other insurances to cover e.g. loss of income from illness is one thing. I wouldn't have to have private insurance to cover transplants or cancer treatment, nor would be in a better situation to get such treatment than my poorer neighbor, and thats the important bit.
We were only discussing whether a public universal healthcare system automatically tanks the economy. Whether this system provides better or worse care, or does it for ore tax money than would otherwise be spent in private insurance is a completely separate discussion.
(but as a clue, I have seen lots of studies saying that for example the US healthcare system provides about half as much "care per dollar" than most single payer systems. A lot of this is of course due to legal and bureaucratic overhead).
What metrics do you use to assess a country's economy?
Which ever you like. I'd probably go for standard of living, life expectancy, poverty level, unemployment, number of people in higher education, literacy etc., as well as national parameters like deficit, debt.
I'd guess there is actually a strong correlation between public universal healthcare and healthy economies. But not because public universal healthcare gives a better or worse economy, but because public universal healthcare as a good economy as a prerequisite.
Would people really feel "forced" if there was a tax financed single payer system financed by taxes? Does someone feel "forced" to pay for police and other services with taxes? Would anyone rather have a private company to call in case of fire, than pay tax money for that service? Am I making a weird extrapolation between police and healthcare?
Still, they didn't invent those sequences, nor have they created a device or substance related to it. The sequence and it's connection to health effects is a discovery and nothing else. They should invent a medicine and patent that. Being able to patent a "pattern"/"sequence"/"mutation" or "gene" is nonsense. I haven't heard any reasonable explanation as to why that is a good idea. Wouldn't a politician that ran on the promise to kill this sort of patent win big?
I think that as The importance of The US marken declines (it will follow the same trend for medicine that it has for cars), lawmakers will finally see that the US patent and legal systems are very detrimental for business. Companies will avoid having R&D in the US because of the massive legal overhead costs. If I can develop software/medicine/tech in Europe or Asia, and sell it there, thereby avoiding massive patent problems and legal processes then this will be a more and more attractive option. I don't know what it will take for the US to reform its patent system, but it is necessary. Likewise, as long as companies can haves portfolio of software patents that they use as leverage and threat, something is very very wrong. Imagine a country where a tech company with 100 employees create a piec of software and sell it, without ONE of these employees being a lawyer. Sounds odd? Then you are an American!
I view the risk of the US egen trying to get Assange as zero. I.e they are a non-issue and the rest is just conspiracy theories. What are you insinuating really? That the US is trying to use the sex case to get Assange from the Swedes? Why not get him from the UK then, they have the same history and agreements as the Swedes do (e.g no extradiction when death penalty possible). The only remotely reasonable conspiracy here is that this case exists because some spin doctor in the US wants it to. The result is that wikileaks and Assange has been questioned which was then the desired result.
A legal expert, my translation of the important bit
"Who would make such a guarantee? The supreme court couldn't forego its own trial. The government could of course block the extradiction even if the supreme court said the extradiction should be made, but the government couldn't promise that in advance. That would be the government running the judiciary over, saying it has no say in the matter".
In short. The supreme court could say no, but not guarantee that in advance. The government can block the decision from the supreme court once made, but not guarantee to do so in advance.
There are allegations of sexual misconduct. He isn't prosecuted, and probably won't be. However, in most countries if there are suspicions of a crime like this with several witnesses, you WILL be questioned in the matter. There is nothing strange about that. I don't know why it is so darn controversial that someone may be questioned and THEN the case is dropped?
Since they can't promise that (the request from US or other country would be handled after it is made) he actually risked nothing when he said "I'll come if you guarantee no extradiction to the US". This was probably even known to Assange when he made that claim. If the US was after Assange, I don't know why they would get him from Sweden? Why not cut the middle man and just ask the UK? The fact that US hasn't requested Assange from the UK makes me believe they won't request him from Sweden either.
However the Ecuador government claimed that Sweden refused to guarantee that.
So who is lying here?
It isn't technically/legally possible to offer such advance guarantees to Assange. So the claim that they refused may be true, but it doesn't really say anything. A request from the US would have to be treated when the request is made. I suspect the same is true in most countries. The statement about the swedish refusal is an empty statement made to make the swedes look bad as far as I can see.
No one in Sweden can offer any such "guarantees" about future extradiction. So the claim that they asked for guarantees and were refused is a cheap trick. It wasn't possible in the first place, and it is very possible that whoever asked already knew this.
Why the swedes continue to refuse to question assange in the UK is a mystery, and at this point that is the whole reason for this debacle. I think now they will go to the UK and question assange, after which the charges will be dropped (there isn't much of a case here). Once the charges are dropped I think everyone will see how ridiculous this whole thing really was. There was no case, everything that was needed was a simple questioning, but it somehow grew to ridiculous proportions.
Do you have any reason at all to believe in conspiracies such as the one where the Swedes would want to hand Assange over to the US? No politican in sweden would be reelected if there was a questionable affair with someone handed to the US (There has been one such scanal involving suspected terrorists and the CIA here). So politicians in sweden definitely DO NOT want to hand assange to the US.
The accusation of rape or sexual misconduct isn't alleged, the accusations are very real. However unlikely and ridiculous the allegations may seem, it doesn't mean he can avoid being questioned in the matter. Why he can't be questioned in the embassy, I don't know. I believe with the new situation involving asylum in Equador, he finally WILL be questioned in the embassy.
Slashdot Mirror
Private healthcare (as in both privately paid for and privately delivered) is a non-issue. You can always get what you want to pay for. Providing healthcare for those that can pay for it has never been a problem anywhere or any time. It isn't even a political issue. What confuses me isn't that a large part of americans still favour a private insurance based system. The confusing bit is that there is a majority that supports a single-payer system, but that it is STILL difficult politically.
Having other (private) insurances such as car-, or home insurance cover medical expenses just means those are more expensive. If the US ever had a single payer tax financed system, of course employers would NOT pay for healthcare, and car insurance would NOT pay for healtcare in that system. What does your car insurance cost? How much of that premium is there to cover lawsuits and/or medical treatments for whoever is hit by your car? How much of that premium is there because there may be a legal procedure first?
What if the person you ran over just got the best treatment possible, straight away, no questions asked? What would that do to your car insurance premium?
Saying that "there is a narrow window left between other insurances" just points out that its scary as hell to have a system where healtcare is provided by a patchwork of different insurances where some may even be bound to your employment and so on (That would scare the hell out of me). The fact that a doctor would have to check with some insurance company before giving me a medical treatment to see if it is covered also scares the hell out of me.
If the government promised to people they better pay it. That will come out of someones paycheck.
Still the same as defense. Also comes out of someones paycheck. And what the government promises, they better deliver if they want to be reelected. You are still not making a point I feel.
I don't know where I said that paying for public healthcare leads to a collapse.
I was thinking of this: "Like everywhere else it's been tried...let's watch the mexican economy tank in 3...2...1..."
The current method of providing healthcare is basically stealing from future generations (which will eventually lead to collapse), if you think about how it works (at least in the US) it is a big ponzi scheme. Every generation needs to convince the ones after them to buy in to the insurance/Social Security scam. Please explain how else it could work.
I don't know what you mean by "stealing from future generations". If you have a budget neutral (i.e. not deficit spending) based, tax financed, public healthcare system, how will that be problematic? Look at Sweden for example. There is a single payer universal healthcare system paid for by taxes, at the same time there is a budget surplus and the national debt has been quite rapidly reduced in the last decade. Are the current generation of swedes "stealing" from the next generation of swedes?
A healthcare system coudln't tank an economy unless people were forced to pay into it.
Single payer universal health care means healthcare is a figure in the budget, just like infrastructure, defense etc. If there is a budget deficit you have to cut down on something (infrastructure, defence, healthcare, whatever). People are "forced to pay into it" no more or less they are forced to pay into defense or infrastructure. Having too large expenses for healthcare is entirely possible, reasons can be for example if you have a shift in demographics where fewer young people pays for the healthcare of a large aging population (Japan has this problem whereas the US does not). This can cause economic issues, but the same can be true if you have an aging airforce.
Yes they say the words that make you happy... do they actually deliver?
Still trolling? Let me repeat his statements for you, in a new wording
- All of the "first world" economies, except the US, pretty much have universal socialized health care.
- The systems are popular in these countries (they are all democracies, so they would have to be quite popular to remain).
- All of these economies are of course facing more or less rough times at the moment, but their economies would still be regarded as "healthy" on a global scale or seen over a few decades.
You were arguing that public health care leads to a collapse of a countrys economy, and now you are arguing that when a countrys economy collapses for whatever reason, that country will no longer afford its public healthcare? That is not the same thing?
lol.. isn't Australia a duel health care country consisting of private and public system like England? I'm pretty sure I was going to have to buy insurance when I was thinking of moving there.
Is the NHS in the UK inadequate these days? I don't live there but I'm quite sure I'd be happy with "just" the NHS if I lived there. Having other insurances to cover e.g. loss of income from illness is one thing. I wouldn't have to have private insurance to cover transplants or cancer treatment, nor would be in a better situation to get such treatment than my poorer neighbor, and thats the important bit.
We were only discussing whether a public universal healthcare system automatically tanks the economy. Whether this system provides better or worse care, or does it for ore tax money than would otherwise be spent in private insurance is a completely separate discussion.
(but as a clue, I have seen lots of studies saying that for example the US healthcare system provides about half as much "care per dollar" than most single payer systems. A lot of this is of course due to legal and bureaucratic overhead).
What metrics do you use to assess a country's economy?
Which ever you like. I'd probably go for standard of living, life expectancy, poverty level, unemployment, number of people in higher education, literacy etc., as well as national parameters like deficit, debt.
I'd guess there is actually a strong correlation between public universal healthcare and healthy economies. But not because public universal healthcare gives a better or worse economy, but because public universal healthcare as a good economy as a prerequisite.
Would people really feel "forced" if there was a tax financed single payer system financed by taxes? Does someone feel "forced" to pay for police and other services with taxes? Would anyone rather have a private company to call in case of fire, than pay tax money for that service? Am I making a weird extrapolation between police and healthcare?
Name one. Real economists make money off it.
Name one what? One country with universal healthcare, that has had a decent economy for at least the last few decades?
...let's watch the mexican economy tank in 3...2...1...
Whats been tried? Universal healthcare?
Still, they didn't invent those sequences, nor have they created a device or substance related to it. The sequence and it's connection to health effects is a discovery and nothing else. They should invent a medicine and patent that. Being able to patent a "pattern"/"sequence"/"mutation" or "gene" is nonsense. I haven't heard any reasonable explanation as to why that is a good idea. Wouldn't a politician that ran on the promise to kill this sort of patent win big?
I think that as The importance of The US marken declines (it will follow the same trend for medicine that it has for cars), lawmakers will finally see that the US patent and legal systems are very detrimental for business. Companies will avoid having R&D in the US because of the massive legal overhead costs. If I can develop software/medicine/tech in Europe or Asia, and sell it there, thereby avoiding massive patent problems and legal processes then this will be a more and more attractive option. I don't know what it will take for the US to reform its patent system, but it is necessary. Likewise, as long as companies can haves portfolio of software patents that they use as leverage and threat, something is very very wrong. Imagine a country where a tech company with 100 employees create a piec of software and sell it, without ONE of these employees being a lawyer. Sounds odd? Then you are an American!
I view the risk of the US egen trying to get Assange as zero. I.e they are a non-issue and the rest is just conspiracy theories. What are you insinuating really? That the US is trying to use the sex case to get Assange from the Swedes? Why not get him from the UK then, they have the same history and agreements as the Swedes do (e.g no extradiction when death penalty possible). The only remotely reasonable conspiracy here is that this case exists because some spin doctor in the US wants it to. The result is that wikileaks and Assange has been questioned which was then the desired result.
as far as I know Sweden does the same thing
which extradictions are you talking about?
A legal expert, my translation of the important bit
"Who would make such a guarantee? The supreme court couldn't forego its own trial. The government could of course block the extradiction even if the supreme court said the extradiction should be made, but the government couldn't promise that in advance. That would be the government running the judiciary over, saying it has no say in the matter".
In short. The supreme court could say no, but not guarantee that in advance. The government can block the decision from the supreme court once made, but not guarantee to do so in advance.
There are allegations of sexual misconduct. He isn't prosecuted, and probably won't be. However, in most countries if there are suspicions of a crime like this with several witnesses, you WILL be questioned in the matter. There is nothing strange about that. I don't know why it is so darn controversial that someone may be questioned and THEN the case is dropped?
Since they can't promise that (the request from US or other country would be handled after it is made) he actually risked nothing when he said "I'll come if you guarantee no extradiction to the US". This was probably even known to Assange when he made that claim. If the US was after Assange, I don't know why they would get him from Sweden? Why not cut the middle man and just ask the UK? The fact that US hasn't requested Assange from the UK makes me believe they won't request him from Sweden either.
However the Ecuador government claimed that Sweden refused to guarantee that. So who is lying here?
It isn't technically/legally possible to offer such advance guarantees to Assange. So the claim that they refused may be true, but it doesn't really say anything. A request from the US would have to be treated when the request is made. I suspect the same is true in most countries. The statement about the swedish refusal is an empty statement made to make the swedes look bad as far as I can see.
No one in Sweden can offer any such "guarantees" about future extradiction. So the claim that they asked for guarantees and were refused is a cheap trick. It wasn't possible in the first place, and it is very possible that whoever asked already knew this.
Why the swedes continue to refuse to question assange in the UK is a mystery, and at this point that is the whole reason for this debacle. I think now they will go to the UK and question assange, after which the charges will be dropped (there isn't much of a case here). Once the charges are dropped I think everyone will see how ridiculous this whole thing really was. There was no case, everything that was needed was a simple questioning, but it somehow grew to ridiculous proportions.
Your assumptions of the accusations are an insult to those who have read anything on about the matter.
The accusation of rape or sexual misconduct isn't alleged, the accusations are very real. However unlikely and ridiculous the allegations may seem, it doesn't mean he can avoid being questioned in the matter. Why he can't be questioned in the embassy, I don't know. I believe with the new situation involving asylum in Equador, he finally WILL be questioned in the embassy.