Government Health Insurance = Reparations???

[hkmb]

Originally Posted by Kaz that is good and very important. However you always have to keep in mind that anti-discrimination laws are a paradox, they are discriminatory in nature. No, they're not. Originally Posted by Kaz the best way to prevent discrimination is a free market, not government. No it isn't! Originally Posted by Kaz Milton Friedman uses a pencil to explain how the operation of the free market promotes harmony and world peace: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8 Oooh, the discredited economist must be right. You never see wars now that the free market is around. Originally Posted by Kaz its not just MRI machines, its lots and lots of other machines as well. Quite apart from the fact that the article says nothing of the sort, my argument stands. Duplication of these resources is wasteful. Originally Posted by Kaz there's nothing trivial about taking the best action preventative or otherwise when it comes to the health of your family. You're quite right. And in a socialised healthcare system, everyone can get preventive treatment. In a semi-private healthcare system like yours, the 40 or 50 million uninsured cannot access preventive healthcare. So they don't go to hospital until they get really sick. And then the state - which is the funder of last resort in these cases - has to pay US$ 1 million to try to cure someone of a cancer that's riddled their body, rather than cutting out a melanoma for US$ 200 a couple of years earlier. So the system is bad for public health, and it's enormously inefficient. Originally Posted by Kaz people can voluntarily to pay for services and the technology if they want to, not so in countries with socialized healthcare. Access to preventive healthcare in the EU, Australia, and the rest of the developed world is not restricted in the way that you seem to suggest. Yes, we don't have to pay for it (although we can if we want to), but we can still have it. Originally Posted by Kaz here are some more then "Free" government run Canadian healthcare = fail depending on the government for services that are crucial and scarce like the video from post #20 is what is really a failure. And I could give you millions more failures of the US system. Remember I said "We could play horror story tennis all day and achieve nothing"? Just because we could doesn't mean we should. Originally Posted by Kaz LOL its the countries with socialized healthcare that are the most overpriced. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/feat...-just-aint-so/ http://jr2020.blogspot.com/2009/05/c...riced-and.html competition and innovation brings prices down. Hmmm..... really? 2008 healthcare spending as a proportion of GDP: Semi-private system, obviously terribly efficient USA: 17% Universal State healthcare, obviously terribly inefficient: Switzerland: 10.9% Germany: 10.7% Canada: 9.7% France (probably the most comprehensive system there is): 9.5% Originally Posted by Kaz if you think its inefficient now, wait till you have to deal with unionized hospital staff. dealing with the DMV or the post office is bad enough, its disastrous when it comes to something as crucial as healthcare. Follow a British person as he tries to get a passport from the brilliantly-privatised passport provider. And follow and Australian as he tries to get a passport from the State-run passport provider. Then come back and tell me which is more efficient. Originally Posted by Kaz actually trying to force equality has led to more inequality in healthcare, not at all surprising. intentions are not results. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2.../health.health http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=5871 Article 2 seems deeply unsubstantiated. Article 1 is more interesting. It's telling us that, as the British government has continued to implement creeping privatisation (which you'd know it has if you knew much about the subject), inequality has increased. But thanks for backing up my argument. That's very nice of you. I'll try to return the favour. Originally Posted by Kaz "A society that tries to put equality before freedom will have neither equality nor freedom, a society that puts freedom before equality will have a great deal of both." -Milton Friedman 1. Irrelevant. 2. From a discredited economist with an axe to grind. Originally Posted by Kaz "The manner in which the benefits and burdens are apportioned by the market mechanism would in many instances have to be regarded as very unjust IF it were the result of a deliberate allocation to particular people. The absence of personal intention in a spontaneous order such as our cosmos and the laws of nature means an absence of either justice or injustice. Only if we mean to blame a creator does it make sense to describe it as unjust that somebody has been born with a physical defect, or been struck with a disease, or has suffered the loss of a loved one." -Friedrich Hayek Irrelevant again.

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[Spartan]

Originally Posted by Kaz

It costs more because its the greatest healthcare system on the face of the planet. For example, there are more MRI machines in the tiny city of Pittsburg than all of Canada.

.

Sure, Canada has a GREAT natuional health care......pile of BULLSH!T,

Digital mamographies machines are a GREAT weapon against breast cancer. So that is why the great Candian health care system has so few of them. ANY system can be more "efficient"......if it doesn't provide the care or the latest technology.

[MG]

Originally Posted by hkmb

Oooh, the discredited economist must be right. You never see wars now that the free market is around.

How the hell is Friedman discredited?

HKMB, no matter how hard you twist on this, there is no evidence anywhere that backs you up. All NHS ststems are wasteful, antiquated and morally corrupt.

http://www.heritage.org/research/soc...rity/hl276.cfm

Private systems like the US are the only way to deal with this need.

[Jen_Kenne]

Originally Posted by MG

How the hell is Friedman discredited?

Yes, he was so discredited that he won the Nobel prize. One of my favorite Friedman quote is, "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand."

Friedman was such an optimist.

[MG]

British health care rationing in action

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6733161.ece

We wouldn't want a wasteful duplication of resources by making them too plentiful now would we?

[MG]

Feinstein shows her respect for the "Average Citizen's" opinion on matters of national importance.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...n184320D61.DTL

Police were called on a group of retirees who refused to leave Sen. Dianne Feinstein's West Los Angeles office until she talked to them about health care reform.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz0MrXadKOr

[S55inPA]

50 million uninsured. BS. it is more like 10 million.
90%of population has health insurance.
health care is available to 100% of our population.
comrade obama can stick socialized health care
up his arse where it belongs.

[S55inPA]

these A holes can't even get a rebate correct for a new car sale
......and people want to trust them with their organs.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/200...rs-crushed/?hp

[Chucky300]

Originally Posted by Mister Brenton

Your parents are really smart. What the hell happened with you??

It skips a generation perhaps...

Although that would be insulting my grandparents - and confirming there will be offspring of Bradley Scott.

Imagine that!

[Jen_Kenne]

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free! -- P. J. O'Rourke

[MG]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...njections.html


UK Medical decisions left to the government bureaucrats, and boy, do they do a bang up job.

The Government's drug rationing watchdog says "therapeutic" injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.

Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.

Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.

[MG]

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/31/hea...al-reform.html

[S55inPA]

Originally Posted by MG

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/31/hea...al-reform.html

[benz rider]

the Obamabots are uniting. I feel a coup pon de horizon...seeen

[markopolo]

As they say,

A Picture Says a Thousand Words
(in this case three thousand)











and my favorite: THE HOUSE CALL

[Jen_Kenne]

The Obamanation cannot run a $1B Cash for Clunker program, so what will they do with a multi-Trillion dollar health care system?

[S55inPA]

Obama caught on video lying about putting
private health insurers out of business.

http://www.breitbart.tv/uncovered-vi...ate-insurance/

[pel C]

Originally Posted by S55inPA

Obama caught on video lying about putting
private health insurers out of business.

http://www.breitbart.tv/uncovered-vi...ate-insurance/

"access a federal system or state pool of some sort"


Details? We don't need no stinking details!

[hkmb]

Originally Posted by MG

How the hell is Friedman discredited?

The economic system he espoused is collapsing.

Originally Posted by MG

HKMB, no matter how hard you twist on this, there is no evidence anywhere that backs you up. All NHS ststems are wasteful, antiquated and morally corrupt.

There is absolutely f---ing loads. As I've already demonstrated here:

- Socialised healthcare is cheaper for everyone.
- It provides more efficient allocation of resources.
- It is far fairer. Morally corrupt? Denying preventive treatment on the basis of income is morally corrupt.

Originally Posted by MG

All NHS ststems are ...

Please could you remind me again - we've discussed this before - which one of us has a father who is involved in the independent oversight of an NHS region, and gets constant updates (too many, frankly) from his Dad on precisely this subject? 'Cause I seem to have forgotten: I'd thought it was me, but it seems that you're the one who knows about all NHS systems.

Originally Posted by MG

http://www.heritage.org/research/soc...rity/hl276.cfm

Private systems like the US are the only way to deal with this need.

Oooh, Heritage. Fair and balanced. Do you want me to post some links to Socialist Worker as a riposte?

[hkmb]

Originally Posted by MG

British health care rationing in action

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6733161.ece

We wouldn't want a wasteful duplication of resources by making them too plentiful now would we?

Before clicking through, I was going to refer to my earlier comment:

Originally Posted by hkmb

And I could give you millions more failures of the US system.

Remember I said "We could play horror story tennis all day and achieve nothing"? Just because we could doesn't mean we should.

But I read the article.

Here's the headline, which would certainly appear to back up MG's assertion that Britain's public healthcare system is so underfunded and understaffed that it needs help from freedom-loving, private-enterprise American doctors.

US surgeons drafted in as British medics exhausted by casualty surge

That must have appealed to MG.

Here are the opening paragraphs of the article for those of you (including, I suspect, MG) who didn't read it.

The surge in British casualties in Afghanistan has left military surgeons so exhausted that a US surgical team has been drafted in to help.

The British doctors have also been overwhelmed with casualties from other nations, including US Marines, Afghan troops and civilians.

Extra British plastic surgeons have had to be sent to the field hospital at Camp Bastion in central Helmand along with additional X-ray technicians and specialist nurses.

Hmm.... so this is a failure of the National Health Service how exactly? And how exactly is it a failure of socialised healthcare? And how does it demonstrate a difference between British and American public healthcare?

Which UK NHS district is Helmand in, MG? Did Britain annexe Afghanistan when i wasn't looking?

Which NHS unit is THE F---ING ARMY? Because I don't remember being treated by soldiers the last time I went to a British hospital.

And are you telling me that healthcare provision for the US army is private? That there are no publicly-funded military doctors or military hospitals, and that the US doctors who've been sent in work for a private HMO? In the name of efficiency, Beth Israel has set up a branch offering heart surgery and boob jobs in Kandahar? And that's why they had the spare doctors to deal with the surge in British casualties?

I think this is worth a look, because the approach you've taken is very much typical of the approach of people who are implacably opposed to public healthcare.

- You've found an example of a shortfall of British doctors and jumped on it because you think it proves that the private sector is the only way to provide healthcare to the public.
- You've decided to completely ignore the facts.

Brilliant. Well done.

[hkmb]

Originally Posted by S55inPA

50 million uninsured. BS.

Really? It's what I heard on a BBC radio report last week.

Originally Posted by S55inPA

it is more like 10 million.

OK. 10 million don't have health insurance. That would be 3% of the population.

Originally Posted by S55inPA

90%of population has health insurance.

OK. So 10% of the population doesn't have health insurance. That would be 30 million.

Where exactly did you get the 10 million / 3% / 10% / 30 million vagaries from? It's obviously a more authoritative (but perhaps less strong on numbers) source than the BBC.

But it sounds like one of those sets of numbers that we so often hear from the people who want to protect private healthcare.

[hkmb]

So, after reading this thread, I can see that those who object to any sort of socialised healthcare fall into a few broad categories.

The gullible and innumerate

These people are convinced that private healthcare is cheaper that socialised healthcare because they've been told that it is by the healthcare industry and its lobbyists and publicists.

They seem genuinely to believe that 17% of GDP (private healthcare in the US) is cheaper than 9.5% of GDP (socialised healthcare in France). 17 is less than 9.5. Yep.

The dogmatic

These people are convinced that private healthcare is cheaper that socialised healthcare because nothing provided by the government can ever offer better value than their God, the invisible hand of the market.

They'll see the evidence (that for 17% of GDP, you'll have coverage of a limited proportion of the population, or for 9.5% you can cover everyone), but it won't sink in. It's an issue of faith.

It's a bit like Catholics and Protestants on transubstantiation (and I say this as a former Catholic). Protestants recognise that the bread of communion represents the body of Christ. But they realise it's actually bread. Devout Catholics do not. They are convinced that, after the blessing, the communion bread actually is the body of Christ. You can show them a chemical analysis, demonstrating that it is actually bread (or rice paper or wafer biscuit or whatever your church happens to buy). But they have faith, and the facts don't matter.

The faith that the dogmatists have in the private sector is, like the faith of these people in transubstantiation, touching. But kind of divorced from reality.

The ones who I'm not going to name as it would be pejorative

These are the people who see all the facts, and still don't care.

They don't care that a private healthcare system costs them more (and it does: if you're the rich people who are paying the taxes, and you're paying health insurance that helps carry the emergency rooms for the uninsured, you're paying more than you would under a socialised healthcare system. The nation as a whole is paying more; you pay the taxes; you're paying more. And you're paying for private insurance; you're paying more. And you pay more for the products you buy, because the corporations you buy from have to provide private health insurance to their staff; you're paying more.)

What's important to them is the inequality. They might be paying more for a similar, or even inferior, service. But what's important is that poor people get a service that's even worse.

After all, it would be horrible if other people - some of whom aren't even white! - got the same level of service as them. Perish the thought!

(The "some of whom aren't even white" fear is based on quotes from this thread like those below. Clearly racial inequality in healthcare is something we should all aspire to.)

Originally Posted by S55inPA

i heard this tonight on the Mark Levin show.
does government run health care/insurance = reparations?

Originally Posted by Kaz

a lot of s--t has been said about government run healthcare. However the only people to bring up race is again the race hustlers:
"Obama and Biden will "challenge the medical system to eliminate inequities in health care by requiring hospitals and health plans to collect, analyze and report health care quality for disparity populations and holding them accountable for any differences found."

Originally Posted by MG

I completely agree, Hopefully that racist will be a one termer and we can put this sordid administration behind us in three years.

Originally Posted by Kaz

nope, people from the Obama camp who will be discriminating based on race:

"Obama and Biden will challenge the medical system to eliminate inequities in health care by requiring hospitals and health plans to collect, analyze and report health care quality for disparity populations and holding them accountable for any differences found."

Have I missed anyone out?

[Kaz]

What's important to them is the inequality. They might be paying more for a similar, or even inferior, service. But what's important is that poor people get a service that's even worse.

I lol'd so much. You can't even read my own mind and people like you or bureaucrats think that can make policies for others on what they think is for "their own good"

They seem genuinely to believe that 17% of GDP (private healthcare in the US) is cheaper than 9.5% of GDP (socialised healthcare in France). 17 is less than 9.5. Yep.

lol yes lets be more like France, what a great idea. Quality costs more. The best medical innovations come from the US. Socialized countries save a lot of money by rationing, denying, and restricting care. And if you do get it, as I remember it when I lived in Canada was that you are rushed, your medical history skimmed through and then just prescribed a drug. This was after waiting weeks for the appointment.

Human compassion does solve a lot of things. But for big problems especially as something as complex and challenging like biochemistry or taking care of the elderly, you need big incentive. The side effect of incentive is gone in compensation for health care workers when its capped by government.

These people are convinced that private healthcare is cheaper that socialised healthcare because nothing provided by the government can ever offer better value than their God, the invisible hand of the market.

Very true, as one real life example only 4% of newly manufactured drugs come from government. 96% of the drugs we need to extend life and prevent excruciating pain comes from the market. As per the video in this thread:

John Stossel on government healthcare

After all, it would be horrible if other people - some of whom aren't even white! - got the same level of service as them. Perish the thought!

I'm not white, I'm from the UAE. Time to retake those mind reading/projecting your visions onto other people classes.

[hkmb]

Originally Posted by Kaz

I lol'd so much. You can't even read my own mind and people like you or bureaucrats think that can make policies for others on what they think is for "their own good"

Ummm.... what?

Originally Posted by Kaz

lol yes lets be more like France, what a great idea. Quality costs more.

Have you been to hospital in France? Has anyone else you know?

Originally Posted by Kaz

The best medical innovations come from the US.

Some do. Some don't.

The medicine is manufactured by private companies. I don't have a problem with that. And it's not what we're discussing. Do you think the large pharmaceutical firms in France, Britain, Germany, Japan and Switzerland are State-owned? You seem to have got a little confused about what we're discussing here.

Originally Posted by Kaz

Socialized countries save a lot of money by rationing, denying, and restricting care.

And insurance companies, motivated by profit, don't? I'll refer you to my earlier post.

Originally Posted by Kaz

And if you do get it, as I remember it when I lived in Canada was that you are rushed, your medical history skimmed through and then just prescribed a drug. This was after waiting weeks for the appointment.

That's odd. Last time I went to a private clinic (because it's always an option....), the doctor was in a terrible hurry. At US$ 200 per appointment, it was in his interest to get people into and out of the door as quickly as possible.

Last time I went to a State clinic (yesterday, for my daughter's immunisations), our 15-minute appointment lasted 45 minutes, while he ran some extra health checks, checked whether I was fully immunised, and gave me an extra shot.

Originally Posted by Kaz

Human compassion does solve a lot of things.

No! Surely the free market is the answer to everything? See that old lady who's been run over in the road? Let the free market sort her out!

Originally Posted by Kaz

But for big problems especially as something as complex and challenging like biochemistry

See my comments on the pharma sector above. You're missing the point.

Originally Posted by Kaz

or taking care of the elderly, you need big incentive. The side effect of incentive is gone in compensation for health care workers when its capped by government.

I just don't see where you're coming from here at all. Do you think health care workers in the State sector aren't paid? Do you think people who work in private geriatric care facilities are well paid? Where did you get that idea from?

Originally Posted by Kaz

Very true, as one real life example only 4% of newly manufactured drugs come from government. 96% of the drugs we need to extend life and prevent excruciating pain comes from the market. As per the video in this thread:

John Stossel on government healthcare

Once again, see my comments on the pharma sector above. You're missing the point.

Originally Posted by Kaz

I'm not white, I'm from the UAE. Time to retake those mind reading/projecting your visions onto other people classes.

Sorry, I should have said "some of whom are not even members of the limited group of races that we feel deserve to be treated as well as us". My mistake.

[S55inPA]

Originally Posted by hkmb

Really? It's what I heard on a BBC radio report last week.



OK. 10 million don't have health insurance. That would be 3% of the population.



OK. So 10% of the population doesn't have health insurance. That would be 30 million.

Where exactly did you get the 10 million / 3% / 10% / 30 million vagaries from? It's obviously a more authoritative (but perhaps less strong on numbers) source than the BBC.

But it sounds like one of those sets of numbers that we so often hear from the people who want to protect private healthcare.

yes i want to protect MY private health care. i've earned it.
the people providing iit deserve the money i pay.
MY family should not have some beaurocratic a$$hole
being indifferent to their needs. i work. i pay. i choose.


The Myth of the 46 Million
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/0...the-46-million

and another essay
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/conten...x?RsrcID=51443