I love the way observations of its socialist nature are tossed aside as mere pejorative criticism. Even if your thinking isnt sophisticated enough to discern the various reasons for socialisms cataclysmic failure in practice I take it you are not so ignorant as be unaware of the historical record of its cataclysmic failure. With this in mind to point out it is an idea founded upon socialist misconceptions is a damning indictment worthy of consideration.
I have to laugh at the description of profits as waste. Profits are infact the most powerful safeguards against waste. Its the fact that someone is going to be making money out of the venture which causes the costs of providing a service to be continuously driven down. One of the prime reasons government departments squander untold billions is because it is not their money. No-one stands to gain whether something is provided at a cost of $10 or $1000. Infact the incentives in a government department are generally to increase costs and inefficiency. If you get paid the same whether you see one or ten patients in a given time then to what end of that scale are you going to tend to? People in general want to lighten their workload as much as possible. In private enterprise this sentiment is moderated by the personal cost of doing so. In a government department this force of moderation is removed and hence we see the massive size, waste and inefficiency of nearly all government departments no matter how minor or insignificant their actual duties.
Another chucklesome point is the tacit assumption that the installation of government provided healthcare entails the replacement of healthcare decisions based on economic criteria with healthcare decisions based upon 'humane' criteria. No, what you are doing is replacing healthcare decisions based upon economic criteria with healthcare decisions based upon political criteria. Unless you consider the politcal class intrinsically superior to those who ply their trade in the private sector then this warrants some cause for concern. The resources are always going to be employed in whatever fashion the present governing party decides best suits their interests. I cant be bothered to type anymore
Gov't does not equal socialist. I quite deliberately used the terms national or more germaine here, universal. The defense of this nation is provided wholly by a gov't entity. Its called the Dept of Defense. Like all national systems in "socialist" countries, it works with the private sector to provide this service.
I do not have any problem trusting the political class to make healthcare (or for that matter defense) decisions since I know that compared with the corporate stance which is that its self-interest supercedes the common good is not one I could stomach. You want a specific example of how economic criteria costs lives? My wife worked for several years with a group of fortune 500 companies, think tanks, and others to institute several fundamental reforms that would improve healthcare quality in the US. This was a corporate funded group not public. One of the steps that they were pushing for was that corporations use their purchasing power to promote an electronic prescription ordering system, since human error kills thousands every year and costs corporations millions.
When Jack Welch stepped down at GE the project came to a halt. Why because the new head of GE came from the medical division. He decided that hospitals might not like the recommendations and would stop buying medical equipment from GE. His calculation was that profits were more important than he own employees lives (or even the savings in medical costs). But that's the "invisible hand" at work creating health, wealth and prosperity at "every" turn.
What this episode demonstrates so clearly is that almost all decisions are political including how GE spends its dollars on healthcare. One minute they are down, the next they are not. Why, new sheriff in town.
Sadly, moral government cannot simply be reduced to a P&L line on a spreadsheet, least of all in the spheres of healthcare, education and the military.
Profit is not the nemesis of waste, that's just some inane maxim from a second rate self-help business tome.
Socialism is not the nemesis of the free market economy and nor are they mutually exclusive unless you are so anachronistic or naive as to think of the world in red or dead terms. You missed your time - you should have been on McCarthy's staff.
Most people in responsible jobs do not want to lighten their workload as much as possible, they want to do the best job they can. In healthcare, this is even more true.
People in private enterprise do not necessarily work harder or smarter. I suspect you may be living proof of this.
Of course socialism and free markets are mutually exclusive. Dont use terms you dont understand.
see the lawsuit against McDonalds for 'making people fat'
I actually don't have a problem with a lawsuit against a multi-billion dollar company with millions of dollars of advertising towards young children for serving sub-standard food. That's sub-decent-humanity standard, not sub-FDA standard, of course. I'm not educated on the lawsuit in question, but anything that publicly questions the practices of an institution like Mickey D's is ok with me.
I see what you're saying, but parents do not have to buy their children that food, and adults should know better. And the argument that fast food is cheaper is not legit, because a can of soup costs $1.99, eat that with a wheat pita and it's just as filling as a $6 supersized combo meal.
Wow. Dolo has said stuff in this post I agree with factually. Frightening. Alright, here's the deal. The drug companies of America who are coming up with new medicines continually put forth that socializing medicine would put a "capital crunch" on their ability to come up with innovative medicines that save lives. Financially, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies have no interest in socializing health care, in fact they are obviously opposed to the idea. Three solutions:
1) Somehow make it in their financial best interests to believe free healthcare would benefit them somehow (guaranteed profits, enormous grants for conducting research, etc) OR 2) Protest and march til somehow they get scared to the point they either do something insanely greedy or irresponsible (see Bull Connor dogs and fire hoses) or scare them to the point they think the US's government will crumble. Anything else would not work. 3) Make people put money into a pot that actually pays for the health care that is matched by corporate entities. Whether that would work on not is a different story, but is not impossible.
One of the most prosperous businesses in America is pharmaceuticals. Make it in their best interest to follow and they will.
It can be done and it should be done, but I think a lot of USA citizens won't tolerate spending more tax money to cover those with self-inflicted (in their opinion or not) injuries and health problems. That said, in terms of priority and coverage based on risk factors, how will this system differentiate between a guy who shattered his leg from a dangerous 'extreme sport' from a lifelong smoker or someone with an overeating disorder with a heart condition who needs medication from a person who normally is a safe driver that got into a life threatening car accident?
amir, you gotta move to cali. if you need medical assistance and have no coverage you can walk into u.c.l.a. medical center and get free treatment. peace, stein. . .
wow. LA here I come.
or maybe toronto
la is doomed actually.
the amount of money you will spend on gas and the amount of time you will spend in traffic will make up for any amount you save in insurance.
that is a whole nother issue though. although in a way they are interelated.
i saw a show on sweden and how there is this strong lobby group trying to end the "welfare state" programs they have had for 80 years like free health care, day care, etc. saying it is draining the economy. there are always going to be people unhappy with where you are and there will always be arguments against some policies or forms of gov't.
as it is now in the us it's basically every man for himself...if you can't afford it, fuck you! it's your fault your poor anyway.
Gov't does not equal socialist. I quite deliberately used the terms national or more germaine here, universal. The defense of this nation is provided wholly by a gov't entity. Its called the Dept of Defense. Like all national systems in "socialist" countries, it works with the private sector to provide this service.
I do not have any problem trusting the political class to make healthcare (or for that matter defense) decisions since I know that compared with the corporate stance which is that its self-interest supercedes the common good is not one I could stomach. You want a specific example of how economic criteria costs lives? My wife worked for several years with a group of fortune 500 companies, think tanks, and others to institute several fundamental reforms that would improve healthcare quality in the US. This was a corporate funded group not public. One of the steps that they were pushing for was that corporations use their purchasing power to promote an electronic prescription ordering system, since human error kills thousands every year and costs corporations millions.
When Jack Welch stepped down at GE the project came to a halt. Why because the new head of GE came from the medical division. He decided that hospitals might not like the recommendations and would stop buying medical equipment from GE. His calculation was that profits were more important than he own employees lives (or even the savings in medical costs). But that's the "invisible hand" at work creating health, wealth and prosperity at "every" turn.
What this episode demonstrates so clearly is that almost all decisions are political including how GE spends its dollars on healthcare. One minute they are down, the next they are not. Why, new sheriff in town.
1. Its strange youd mention the dept of defense whilt talking about your trust for the political class to make healthcare decisions for you. Its not like you leftists are thrilled by the present defense decisions being made on your behalf.
2. 10g's says youve never read the wealth of nations and as such id suggest you do not mention the invisible hand metaphor. Especially citing it to imply that capitalism doesnt aid the general welfare. To imply such a thing is the denial of history.
Profits are infact the most powerful safeguards against waste.
Then why has the price of insurance gone up while the quality of care has gone down? Talk to anyone that actually works in the medical profession ... insurance companies are less and less willing to pay for anything. Yet, profits are through the roof. No pattern there? When you see the same pattern from one insurance company to the next, its not like the consumer can just choose the "good" insurance company over the "bad" following the simplistic rules of capitalism. If you work for a company, you get the insurance that they are willing to pay for or you purchase your own (at a huge personal cost). So where is the "profit motive" for insurance companies? They can give out whatever the hell they'd like and people are stuck with them.
My argument is that money spent on advertising, a huge amount of money in this country, would be unnecessary with socialized care. Private insurance companies, with the huge marketing costs and CEO payouts, are hugely inefficient. I would take a somewhat corrupt government system over private care any day. Government officials would have to burn bushels of cash to match the excess spending of private insurance companies.
And as for the history of socialism ... well, you just haven't seen the "cataclysmic failure" of capitalism yet.
It should not be infered from my opposition to 'free' healthcare that I support the status quo. There are a multitude of problems with the system as it currently stands, principally government in origin.
There are a multitude of problems with the system as it currently stands, principally government in origin.
See New York Times, Dec. 10, 2003:
"Judge Sides With Doctors Over Insurers", by Milt Freudenheim
A quick sample:
"Lawyers for 700,000 doctors claimed a victory yesterday in a long-running lawsuit against six big managed-care companies after a federal judge upheld the doctors' right to seek damages under the federal antiracketeering law."
Its only available in non-searchable PDF format ... you can look it up if interested but its just a quick example of how problems are not "principally government in origin." I don't remember a union of 700,000 doctors suing the federal government in recent history. Correct me if I'm wrong ... or at least offer some counter-examples.
Gov't does not equal socialist. I quite deliberately used the terms national or more germaine here, universal. The defense of this nation is provided wholly by a gov't entity. Its called the Dept of Defense. Like all national systems in "socialist" countries, it works with the private sector to provide this service.
I do not have any problem trusting the political class to make healthcare (or for that matter defense) decisions since I know that compared with the corporate stance which is that its self-interest supercedes the common good is not one I could stomach. You want a specific example of how economic criteria costs lives? My wife worked for several years with a group of fortune 500 companies, think tanks, and others to institute several fundamental reforms that would improve healthcare quality in the US. This was a corporate funded group not public. One of the steps that they were pushing for was that corporations use their purchasing power to promote an electronic prescription ordering system, since human error kills thousands every year and costs corporations millions.
When Jack Welch stepped down at GE the project came to a halt. Why because the new head of GE came from the medical division. He decided that hospitals might not like the recommendations and would stop buying medical equipment from GE. His calculation was that profits were more important than he own employees lives (or even the savings in medical costs). But that's the "invisible hand" at work creating health, wealth and prosperity at "every" turn.
What this episode demonstrates so clearly is that almost all decisions are political including how GE spends its dollars on healthcare. One minute they are down, the next they are not. Why, new sheriff in town.
1. Its strange youd mention the dept of defense whilt talking about your trust for the political class to make healthcare decisions for you. Its not like you leftists are thrilled by the present defense decisions being made on your behalf.
2. 10g's says youve never read the wealth of nations and as such id suggest you do not mention the invisible hand metaphor. Especially citing it to imply that capitalism doesnt aid the general welfare. To imply such a thing is the denial of history.
I have little qualms about politicos running the defense dept. If I don't like them I can vote them out.
A cool g says you can barely read. Clearly you unable to comprehend even a little of what I previously wrote. I never implied that the capitalist system doesn't build wealth. It does a very good job at that. Unfortunately, it also creates situations like abovementioned fiasco at GE which you have assiduously (that means persistently) avoided commenting on because it is disturbing and problematic to your world view.
BTW we are all waiting with baited breathe for you to post pictures of your castle and complete Blue Note collection.
PS I am capitalist through and through. I invest in real estate for a living. So save your Adam Smith high horse crap for the rest of your friends at the coffee shop. Perhaps I will post pictures of the many properties I own and we can get into a personal wealth dick measuring contest. I look forward to it.
PPS Haven't read 'wealth of nations' (I'm too busy making money foolio) but I read Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" on the crapper last year.
yo dude you are such a comedian...your condescending tone is sooo over the top. I started this post not to have people like you make a joke out of it, but to spark some serious debate about the state of healthcare in this country. In alot of areas of this country people don't find it particularly funny when others like yourself make light of their situation.
I am not a socialist or want to be one..otherwise I would have move to europe a long time ago. I also will admit that free healthcare is maybe not the way to go..maybe some sort of system that Mass. has would be good. Whatever, we must come up with a way to help our citizens in this country. Saying we can't or that's a socialist way of thinking is not helping only hurting. I do believe in equality not inequality! I don't believe that makes me a communist pinko! I am capitalist too...I wanna get paid what I am worth for the hardwork I have invested to whatever I am doing. However, I believe in the 'one hand washes the other' theory.
I just don't wanna see this thread turn into your personal "I know more than all of you" sideshow. Whether you agree or disagree with what I say, I just ask that people think about the next man instead of only yourself sometimes.
I think this would be a good time remind everyone:
HEY, IT'S DOLO!
Getting mad at him is precisely the point - he's a deliberate asshole. The less you respond to him, the more the rest of us can move on to actual dialog.
Stop barking at dude, his views and his punctuation-less typing skills.
we are in agreement on that....so I have backed off of the free healthcare, but what do you think would be the best way to help. I mean for a single healthy male in NYC it cost (on the cheap end) $500 a month for health insurance. In addition, if you cannot afford insurance at all you can apply for "free" healtcare. However, you must make a max. of $845 per month as a salary to take advantage of this program. I wanna know who can survive off of $845 in NYC?????? So people like me are stuck in the middle...I cannot afford $500 a month and I make too much according to NY State law to get "free" healthcare in NYC!!!
2 quick things about the high cost of all of this:
1) Isn't a big reason medical cost are so high is the sheer amount of bureaucracy that exists in thr private medical sector? Everyone has a different plan with different insurers, with different coverage levels, etc.... gov't aid programs that would allow poorer citizens to buy into private insurance plans wouldn't do much of anything to alleviate these costs would it? Only a sort of "standard" plan for all would eliminate such waste.
2) Even if, by one method or another, American's were all granted access to affordable, quality health care, that wouldn't solve the problem that most people in this country stuff their bodies full of toxic shit and that's the main reason why we're all so sick in the first place. Its a revolving door that plays straight into the pockets of the people who profit off of keeping us sick.
2) Even if, by one method or another, American's were all granted access to affordable, quality health care, that wouldn't solve the problem that most people in this country stuff their bodies full of toxic shit and that's the main reason why we're all so sick in the first place. Its a revolving door that plays straight into the pockets of the people who profit off of keeping us sick.
the obesity crisis is mindblowing. 1 in 3 mississippians are at high risk of diabetes,high blood pressure and heart problems(among other things). I clearly see a whole governmental/pharma/corporate food system that benefits cradle to grave from raising people as cash cows
I would rather see an honest attempt to reign in costs before opening up the Pandora box of a government run health care system. What does the US government touch that does not involve massive corruption, plunder and waste again?
Canadian Health Care In Crisis
TORONTO, March 20, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (AP)
Quote
"If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies." A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(AP) A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."
The patient wasn't dead, according to the doctor who showed the letter to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. But there are many Canadians who claim the long wait for the test and the frigid formality of the letter are indicative of a health system badly in need of emergency care.
Americans who flock to Canada for cheap flu shots often come away impressed at the free and first-class medical care available to Canadians, rich or poor. But tell that to hospital administrators constantly having to cut staff for lack of funds, or to the mother whose teenager was advised she would have to wait up to three years for surgery to repair a torn knee ligament.
"It's like somebody's telling you that you can buy this car, and you've paid for the car, but you can't have it right now," said Jane Pelton. Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government.
"Every day we're paying for health care, yet when we go to access it, it's just not there," said Pelton.
The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, partly to fund the health care system. Rates vary from province to province, but Ontario, the most populous, spends roughly 40 percent of every tax dollar on health care, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The system is going broke, says the federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in health care.
It calculates that at present rates, Ontario will be spending 85 percent of its budget on health care by 2035. "We can't afford a state monopoly on health care anymore," says Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario director of the federation. "We have to examine private alternatives as well."
The federal government and virtually every province acknowledge there's a crisis: a lack of physicians and nurses, state-of-the-art equipment and funding. In Ontario, more than 10,000 nurses and hospital workers are facing layoffs over the next two years unless the provincial government boosts funding, says the Ontario Hospital Association, which represents health care providers in the province.
In 1984 Parliament passed the Canada Health Act, which affirmed the federal government's commitment to provide mostly free health care to all, including the 200,000 immigrants arriving each year. The system is called Medicare (no relation to Medicare in the United States).
Despite the financial burden, Canadians value their Medicare as a marker of egalitarianism and independent identity that sets their country apart from the United States, where some 45 million Americans lack health insurance.
Raisa Deber, a professor of health policy at the University of Toronto, believes Canada's system is one of the world's fairest.
"Canadians are very proud of the fact that if they need care, they will get care," she said. Of the United States, she said: "I don't understand how they got to this worship of markets, to the extent that they're perfectly happy that some people don't get the health care that they need."
Canada does not have fully nationalized health care; its doctors are in private practice and send their bills to the government for reimbursement.
"That doctor doesn't have to worry about how you're going to pay the bill," said Deber. "He knows that his bill will be paid, so there's absolutely nothing to stop any doctor from treating anyone."
Deber acknowledges problems in the system, but believes most Canadians get the care they need. She said the federal government should attach more strings to its annual lump-sum allocations to the provinces so that tax dollars are better spent on preventive care and improvements in working conditions for health-care professionals.
In Alberta, a conservative province where pressure for private clinics and insurance is strong, a nonprofit organization called Friends of Medicare has sprung to the system's defense. It points up the inequities in U.S. health care and calls the Canada's "the most moral and the most cost-effective health care system there is in the world." "Is your sick grandchild more deserving of help than your neighbor's grandchild?" It asks.
Yes, says Dr. Brian Day, if that grandchild needs urgent care and can't get it at a government-funded hospital.
Day, an English-born arthroscopic surgeon, founded Cambie Surgery Center in Vancouver, British Columbia ??? another province where private surgeries are making inroads. He is also former president of the Arthroscopy Association of North America in Orlando, Fla.
He says he got so frustrated at the long delays to book surgeries at the public hospitals in Vancouver that he built his own private clinic. A leading advocate for reform, he testified last June before the Supreme Court in a landmark appeal against a Quebec ruling upholding limits on private care and insurance.
George Zeliotis told the court he suffered pain and became addicted to painkillers during a yearlong wait for hip replacement surgery, and should have been allowed to pay for faster service. His physician, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli, said his patient's constitutional rights were violated because Quebec couldn't provide the care he needed, but didn't offer him the option of getting it privately.
A ruling on the case is expected any time.
If Zeliotis had been from the United States, China or neighboring Ontario anywhere, in fact, except Quebec ??? he could have bought treatment in a private Quebec clinic. That's one way the system discourages the spread of private medicine ??? by limiting it to nonresidents. But it can have curious results, says Day.
He tells of a patient who was informed by Ontario officials that since Ontario couldn't help him, they would spend $35,000 to send him to the United States for surgery.
Day said his Vancouver clinic could have done it for $12,000 but the Ontario officials "do not philosophically support sending an individual to a nongovernment clinic in Canada."
Canadians can buy insurance for dental and eye care, physical and chiropractic therapy, long-term nursing and prescriptions, among other services. But according to experts on both sides of the debate, Canada and North Korea are the only countries with laws banning the purchase of insurance for hospitalization or surgery.
Meanwhile, the average wait for surgical or specialist treatment is nearly 18 weeks, up from 9.3 weeks in 1993, according to the Fraser Institute, a right-wing public policy think tank in Vancouver. A Fraser study last year said the average wait for an orthopedic surgeon was more than nine months.
Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal government has pledged $33.3 billion in new funding to improve health in all provinces and territories over the next 10 years. But critics aren't impr
essed.
"It won't make a difference," said Sally C. Pipes, a Canadian who heads the conservative Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. "They need to break the system down, or open the system up to competition."
Pipes is a big supporter of the Bush administration proposal to allow Americans to divert some of their payroll taxes into medical savings accounts. She claims the two-tiered system feared by Canadian liberals already exists because those with connections jump to the head of the medical queue and those who can afford it can get treated in the United States.
"These are not wealthy people; these are people who are in pain," said Pipes.
Another watershed lawsuit was filed last year against 12 Quebec hospitals on behalf of 10,000 breast-cancer patients in Quebec who had to wait more than eight weeks for radiation therapy during a period dating to October 1997.
One woman went to Turkey for treatment. Another, Johanne Lavoie, was among several sent to the United States. Diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 1999, she traveled every week with her 5-year-old son to Vermont, a four-hour bus ride.
"It was an inhuman thing to live through," Lavoie told Toronto's Globe and Mail.
"This is the first time someone has decided to attack the source of problems ??? the waiting list," said Montreal attorney Michel Savonitto, who is representing the cancer victims. "We're lucky to have the system we do in Canada," he told the court. "But if we want to supply proper care and commit to doing it, then we can't do it halfway."
An estimated 4 million of Canada's 33 million people don't have family physicians and more than 1 million are on waiting lists for treatment, according to the Canadian Medical Association. Meanwhile, some 200 physicians head to the United States each year, attracted by lower taxes and better working conditions. Canada has 2.1 physicians per 1,000 people, while Belgium has 3.9, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The World Health Organization in 2000 ranked France's health system as the best, followed by Italy, Spain, Oman and Australia. Canada came in 30th and the United States 37th.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein is pushing what he calls "the third way" ??? a fusion of Canadian Medicare and the system in France and many other nations, where residents can supplement their government-funded health care with private insurance and services.
But some Canadians worry even partial privatization would be damaging.
"My concern is that the private clinics would only serve to further drain the scarce physician resources that we already have," said Dr. Saralaine Johnstone, a 31-year-old family physician in Geraldton, a papermill hamlet in northern Ontario.
"We first need to guarantee that everybody has access to quality health care," she said, "and we just don't have that."
the obesity crisis is mindblowing. 1 in 3 mississippians are at high risk of diabetes,high blood pressure and heart problems(among other things). I clearly see a whole governmental/pharma/corporate food system that benefits cradle to grave from raising people as cash cows
fuck all that
I noticed when I was in Mississippi that the Grocery Stores hide all the vegetables, soups and other affordable, healthy foods.
And the McDonald's and Burger King's were on wheels and would actually chase folks down the street.
The Wendy's even had a gun toting window cashier that forced you to buy the most fattening things on the menus.
Comments
Gov't does not equal socialist. I quite deliberately used the terms national or more germaine here, universal. The defense of this nation is provided wholly by a gov't entity. Its called the Dept of Defense. Like all national systems in "socialist" countries, it works with the private sector to provide this service.
I do not have any problem trusting the political class to make healthcare (or for that matter defense) decisions since I know that compared with the corporate stance which is that its self-interest supercedes the common good is not one I could stomach. You want a specific example of how economic criteria costs lives? My wife worked for several years with a group of fortune 500 companies, think tanks, and others to institute several fundamental reforms that would improve healthcare quality in the US. This was a corporate funded group not public. One of the steps that they were pushing for was that corporations use their purchasing power to promote an electronic prescription ordering system, since human error kills thousands every year and costs corporations millions.
When Jack Welch stepped down at GE the project came to a halt. Why because the new head of GE came from the medical division. He decided that hospitals might not like the recommendations and would stop buying medical equipment from GE. His calculation was that profits were more important than he own employees lives (or even the savings in medical costs). But that's the "invisible hand" at work creating health, wealth and prosperity at "every" turn.
What this episode demonstrates so clearly is that almost all decisions are political including how GE spends its dollars on healthcare. One minute they are down, the next they are not. Why, new sheriff in town.
Of course socialism and free markets are mutually exclusive. Dont use terms you dont understand.
I see what you're saying, but parents do not have to buy their children that food, and adults should know better. And the argument that fast food is cheaper is not legit, because a can of soup costs $1.99, eat that with a wheat pita and it's just as filling as a $6 supersized combo meal.
Alright, here's the deal. The drug companies of America who are coming up with new medicines continually put forth that socializing medicine would put a "capital crunch" on their ability to come up with innovative medicines that save lives. Financially, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies have no interest in socializing health care, in fact they are obviously opposed to the idea. Three solutions:
1) Somehow make it in their financial best interests to believe free healthcare would benefit them somehow (guaranteed profits, enormous grants for conducting research, etc) OR
2) Protest and march til somehow they get scared to the point they either do something insanely greedy or irresponsible (see Bull Connor dogs and fire hoses) or scare them to the point they think the US's government will crumble. Anything else would not work.
3) Make people put money into a pot that actually pays for the health care that is matched by corporate entities. Whether that would work on not is a different story, but is not impossible.
One of the most prosperous businesses in America is pharmaceuticals. Make it in their best interest to follow and they will.
la is doomed actually.
the amount of money you will spend on gas and the amount of time you will spend in traffic will make up for any amount you save in insurance.
that is a whole nother issue though. although in a way they are interelated.
i saw a show on sweden and how there is this strong lobby group trying to end the "welfare state" programs they have had for 80 years like free health care, day care, etc. saying it is draining the economy. there are always going to be people unhappy with where you are and there will always be arguments against some policies or forms of gov't.
as it is now in the us it's basically every man for himself...if you can't afford it, fuck you! it's your fault your poor anyway.
1. Its strange youd mention the dept of defense whilt talking about your trust for the political class to make healthcare decisions for you. Its not like you leftists are thrilled by the present defense decisions being made on your behalf.
2. 10g's says youve never read the wealth of nations and as such id suggest you do not mention the invisible hand metaphor. Especially citing it to imply that capitalism doesnt aid the general welfare. To imply such a thing is the denial of history.
It should not be infered from my opposition to 'free' healthcare that I support the status quo. There are a multitude of problems with the system as it currently stands, principally government in origin.
See New York Times, Dec. 10, 2003:
"Judge Sides With Doctors Over Insurers", by Milt Freudenheim
A quick sample:
"Lawyers for 700,000 doctors claimed a victory yesterday in a long-running lawsuit against six big managed-care companies after a federal judge upheld the doctors' right to seek damages under the federal antiracketeering law."
Its only available in non-searchable PDF format ... you can look it up if interested but its just a quick example of how problems are not "principally government in origin." I don't remember a union of 700,000 doctors suing the federal government in recent history. Correct me if I'm wrong ... or at least offer some counter-examples.
I have little qualms about politicos running the defense dept. If I don't like them I can vote them out.
A cool g says you can barely read. Clearly you unable to comprehend even a little of what I previously wrote. I never implied that the capitalist system doesn't build wealth. It does a very good job at that. Unfortunately, it also creates situations like abovementioned fiasco at GE which you have assiduously (that means persistently) avoided commenting on because it is disturbing and problematic to your world view.
BTW we are all waiting with baited breathe for you to post pictures of your castle and complete Blue Note collection.
PS I am capitalist through and through. I invest in real estate for a living. So save your Adam Smith high horse crap for the rest of your friends at the coffee shop. Perhaps I will post pictures of the many properties I own and we can get into a personal wealth dick measuring contest. I look forward to it.
PPS Haven't read 'wealth of nations' (I'm too busy making money foolio) but I read Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" on the crapper last year.
I am not a socialist or want to be one..otherwise I would have move to europe a long time ago. I also will admit that free healthcare is maybe not the way to go..maybe some sort of system that Mass. has would be good. Whatever, we must come up with a way to help our citizens in this country. Saying we can't or that's a socialist way of thinking is not helping only hurting. I do believe in equality not inequality! I don't believe that makes me a communist pinko! I am capitalist too...I wanna get paid what I am worth for the hardwork I have invested to whatever I am doing. However, I believe in the 'one hand washes the other' theory.
I just don't wanna see this thread turn into your personal "I know more than all of you" sideshow. Whether you agree or disagree with what I say, I just ask that people think about the next man instead of only yourself sometimes.
Amir
HEY, IT'S DOLO!
Getting mad at him is precisely the point - he's a deliberate asshole. The less you respond to him, the more the rest of us can move on to actual dialog.
Stop barking at dude, his views and his punctuation-less typing skills.
Back on topic...
1) Isn't a big reason medical cost are so high is the sheer amount of bureaucracy that exists in thr private medical sector? Everyone has a different plan with different insurers, with different coverage levels, etc.... gov't aid programs that would allow poorer citizens to buy into private insurance plans wouldn't do much of anything to alleviate these costs would it? Only a sort of "standard" plan for all would eliminate such waste.
2) Even if, by one method or another, American's were all granted access to affordable, quality health care, that wouldn't solve the problem that most people in this country stuff their bodies full of toxic shit and that's the main reason why we're all so sick in the first place. Its a revolving door that plays straight into the pockets of the people who profit off of keeping us sick.
the obesity crisis is mindblowing. 1 in 3 mississippians are at high risk of diabetes,high blood pressure and heart problems(among other things). I clearly see a whole governmental/pharma/corporate food system that benefits cradle to grave from raising people as cash cows
fuck all that
Canadian Health Care In Crisis
TORONTO, March 20, 2005
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(AP)
Quote
"If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."
A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient
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(AP) A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."
The patient wasn't dead, according to the doctor who showed the letter to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. But there are many Canadians who claim the long wait for the test and the frigid formality of the letter are indicative of a health system badly in need of emergency care.
Americans who flock to Canada for cheap flu shots often come away impressed at the free and first-class medical care available to Canadians, rich or poor. But tell that to hospital administrators constantly having to cut staff for lack of funds, or to the mother whose teenager was advised she would have to wait up to three years for surgery to repair a torn knee ligament.
"It's like somebody's telling you that you can buy this car, and you've paid for the car, but you can't have it right now," said Jane Pelton. Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government.
"Every day we're paying for health care, yet when we go to access it, it's just not there," said Pelton.
The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, partly to fund the health care system. Rates vary from province to province, but Ontario, the most populous, spends roughly 40 percent of every tax dollar on health care, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The system is going broke, says the federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in health care.
It calculates that at present rates, Ontario will be spending 85 percent of its budget on health care by 2035. "We can't afford a state monopoly on health care anymore," says Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario director of the federation. "We have to examine private alternatives as well."
The federal government and virtually every province acknowledge there's a crisis: a lack of physicians and nurses, state-of-the-art equipment and funding. In Ontario, more than 10,000 nurses and hospital workers are facing layoffs over the next two years unless the provincial government boosts funding, says the Ontario Hospital Association, which represents health care providers in the province.
In 1984 Parliament passed the Canada Health Act, which affirmed the federal government's commitment to provide mostly free health care to all, including the 200,000 immigrants arriving each year. The system is called Medicare (no relation to Medicare in the United States).
Despite the financial burden, Canadians value their Medicare as a marker of egalitarianism and independent identity that sets their country apart from the United States, where some 45 million Americans lack health insurance.
Raisa Deber, a professor of health policy at the University of Toronto, believes Canada's system is one of the world's fairest.
"Canadians are very proud of the fact that if they need care, they will get care," she said. Of the United States, she said: "I don't understand how they got to this worship of markets, to the extent that they're perfectly happy that some people don't get the health care that they need."
Canada does not have fully nationalized health care; its doctors are in private practice and send their bills to the government for reimbursement.
"That doctor doesn't have to worry about how you're going to pay the bill," said Deber. "He knows that his bill will be paid, so there's absolutely nothing to stop any doctor from treating anyone."
Deber acknowledges problems in the system, but believes most Canadians get the care they need. She said the federal government should attach more strings to its annual lump-sum allocations to the provinces so that tax dollars are better spent on preventive care and improvements in working conditions for health-care professionals.
In Alberta, a conservative province where pressure for private clinics and insurance is strong, a nonprofit organization called Friends of Medicare has sprung to the system's defense. It points up the inequities in U.S. health care and calls the Canada's "the most moral and the most cost-effective health care system there is in the world." "Is your sick grandchild more deserving of help than your neighbor's grandchild?" It asks.
Yes, says Dr. Brian Day, if that grandchild needs urgent care and can't get it at a government-funded hospital.
Day, an English-born arthroscopic surgeon, founded Cambie Surgery Center in Vancouver, British Columbia ??? another province where private surgeries are making inroads. He is also former president of the Arthroscopy Association of North America in Orlando, Fla.
He says he got so frustrated at the long delays to book surgeries at the public hospitals in Vancouver that he built his own private clinic. A leading advocate for reform, he testified last June before the Supreme Court in a landmark appeal against a Quebec ruling upholding limits on private care and insurance.
George Zeliotis told the court he suffered pain and became addicted to painkillers during a yearlong wait for hip replacement surgery, and should have been allowed to pay for faster service. His physician, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli, said his patient's constitutional rights were violated because Quebec couldn't provide the care he needed, but didn't offer him the option of getting it privately.
A ruling on the case is expected any time.
If Zeliotis had been from the United States, China or neighboring Ontario anywhere, in fact, except Quebec ??? he could have bought treatment in a private Quebec clinic. That's one way the system discourages the spread of private medicine ??? by limiting it to nonresidents. But it can have curious results, says Day.
He tells of a patient who was informed by Ontario officials that since Ontario couldn't help him, they would spend $35,000 to send him to the United States for surgery.
Day said his Vancouver clinic could have done it for $12,000 but the Ontario officials "do not philosophically support sending an individual to a nongovernment clinic in Canada."
Canadians can buy insurance for dental and eye care, physical and chiropractic therapy, long-term nursing and prescriptions, among other services. But according to experts on both sides of the debate, Canada and North Korea are the only countries with laws banning the purchase of insurance for hospitalization or surgery.
Meanwhile, the average wait for surgical or specialist treatment is nearly 18 weeks, up from 9.3 weeks in 1993, according to the Fraser Institute, a right-wing public policy think tank in Vancouver. A Fraser study last year said the average wait for an orthopedic surgeon was more than nine months.
Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal government has pledged $33.3 billion in new funding to improve health in all provinces and territories over the next 10 years. But critics aren't impr essed.
"It won't make a difference," said Sally C. Pipes, a Canadian who heads the conservative Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. "They need to break the system down, or open the system up to competition."
Pipes is a big supporter of the Bush administration proposal to allow Americans to divert some of their payroll taxes into medical savings accounts. She claims the two-tiered system feared by Canadian liberals already exists because those with connections jump to the head of the medical queue and those who can afford it can get treated in the United States.
"These are not wealthy people; these are people who are in pain," said Pipes.
Another watershed lawsuit was filed last year against 12 Quebec hospitals on behalf of 10,000 breast-cancer patients in Quebec who had to wait more than eight weeks for radiation therapy during a period dating to October 1997.
One woman went to Turkey for treatment. Another, Johanne Lavoie, was among several sent to the United States. Diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 1999, she traveled every week with her 5-year-old son to Vermont, a four-hour bus ride.
"It was an inhuman thing to live through," Lavoie told Toronto's Globe and Mail.
"This is the first time someone has decided to attack the source of problems ??? the waiting list," said Montreal attorney Michel Savonitto, who is representing the cancer victims. "We're lucky to have the system we do in Canada," he told the court. "But if we want to supply proper care and commit to doing it, then we can't do it halfway."
An estimated 4 million of Canada's 33 million people don't have family physicians and more than 1 million are on waiting lists for treatment, according to the Canadian Medical Association. Meanwhile, some 200 physicians head to the United States each year, attracted by lower taxes and better working conditions. Canada has 2.1 physicians per 1,000 people, while Belgium has 3.9, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The World Health Organization in 2000 ranked France's health system as the best, followed by Italy, Spain, Oman and Australia. Canada came in 30th and the United States 37th.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein is pushing what he calls "the third way" ??? a fusion of Canadian Medicare and the system in France and many other nations, where residents can supplement their government-funded health care with private insurance and services.
But some Canadians worry even partial privatization would be damaging.
"My concern is that the private clinics would only serve to further drain the scarce physician resources that we already have," said Dr. Saralaine Johnstone, a 31-year-old family physician in Geraldton, a papermill hamlet in northern Ontario.
"We first need to guarantee that everybody has access to quality health care," she said, "and we just don't have that."
I noticed when I was in Mississippi that the Grocery Stores hide all the vegetables, soups and other affordable, healthy foods.
And the McDonald's and Burger King's were on wheels and would actually chase folks down the street.
The Wendy's even had a gun toting window cashier that forced you to buy the most fattening things on the menus.
How does our Government allow this to happen???