People who steal threads suck !!! (Socialism: Is it dead yet ?)

[Michael]

cxim - it is not illegal to keep medical databases and there are laws that require doctors to disclose when there are specific types of infectous diseases. Also, insurance companies share their databases with each other. There is much more medical information out there than you imagine and it is all legal.

If a Canadian goes to the US for care, it tends to be a search for a specialist. The US has over 10 times the people that Canada does so it is easier to find a specialist in the US. That and proximity makes the choice easier.

I'm working on a post discussing "availability" of health care. Eventually I'll work on the other three I mentioned.

BoberFett - I moved (from Canada) for more money and less taxes. As a well paid professional, healthcare wasn't an issue and I've barely been to any doctors since I moved to the US. Tons others flee to the US to escape oppression. Just because there are many, many good things about the US does not mean that there isn't room for improvement, so I'm not sure what you point is with that line of argument.

Michael

 

[jaydee]

<< jaydee - BTW - your Harry Browne quotes are fairly worthless in and of themselves. I know of no evidence nor do I know of the support he has to claim the health care cost was that much lower 30 years ago. He is just a politician like all the others. >>


Ok then, so just to even things out, I'm going to assume all your quotes are fairly worthless since my source is acording to you. Now that neither one of us are taking the others' posts seriously, I can stop reading what ever else &quot;worthlessness&quot; is underneath. Thanks for clearing that up, so I no longer have to waste time with you.


<< The growth of medical technology is one of the largest reasons for increasing insurance prices. My father (25 years in the health insurance industry) stated that rates rise about 10 percent a year due to technology. People seem to have trouble with the idea that more tests and more equipment costs more money. >>


Ouch. That must mean every socialist country's citizens pay 10% more per year every year in taxes.
DEBANSHEE, what are the approximate increases of health care taxes you have encountered in the past 10 years or so?


<< Yup, Napalm's point shoots down that Browne guys idea by themselves. This Browne guy seems to think that medicine has remained stagnant. Doctors and medicine used to be a lot cheaper for sure, but that was when a Doctor could hold his equipment in a black bag! New fangled diagnostic machines cost millions of dollars, even simpler heart rate monitors etc cost thousands, if not more. I don't know this Browne guy from shinola, but he knows less about healthcare costs than I do, and that, is truly sad. >>


Look idiot, he asked for an example for when in time, such a idea was implemented. I give you one, and all I get is you whining to the hills, that its out-of-date, and that the guy pointing it out you have came to the forgone conclusion that he is stupid. Who was talking to you anyways? Allright, you have proven your ignorance as well, so I see no point in discussing anything with you either.
Thank you DEBANSHEE!, finally a supporter of social health insurance that has a clue on what he's talking about! I'll check out the world's health plans, tomarrow when I rent out the world almanac, and then I'll respond. I'm sure your right about those numbers, but I believe there are other factors involved that you are avoiding. We'll see.


<< The simple fact is Jaydee, that market forces don't work to control costs in healthcare very well. Because demand is relatively static compared with supply &amp; thus price. This is because people don't get less sick just because healthcare providers have raised prices, &amp; (except for that very small percentage of the population that are hypochondriacs) people don't start seeing the doctor more because prices go down (to be more accurate they do increase there rate of seeing doctors if prices fall, but the increase in consultations is very slight relative to price drops). Thus doctors are virtually free to charge whart they want &amp; there are buggerall incentives for healthcare providers to lower prices in a market driven health system, too. >>


No. Market forces are the same in health care as they are in all the other fields you wish to consider. Doctors, and hospitals provide a service for customers. When there is a demand for a service, it is up to the market to create a supply for it. With the hundreds of millions of people, who require this service, there are many, many business's that are willing to venture into this market, to fulfill the demand, and make money. Now, business would not make too much money if they overcharge, and lose all their customers. So, obviously, they will attempt to make offers to beat competetors, and to get a profit. In conclusion, business's have very much incentive, to give the public, their best deals possible. This however is unattainable by the idiotic government regulations, that are currently instilled upon the U.S. If these were repealled and the U.S. was open to business's only, then we would be much better off.


<< Wait till the babyboomers reach the age of mass retirements &amp; hospitalisations (1945 plus 65 year equal 2010) in about about 15 years all so, the US phantum surplus will go up in smoke as healthcare costs start to sky rocket. It's the 'babyboomer healthcare timebomb' that was the initial catalyst for Hillary's health plan that the private hospitals &amp; insurance companies spent millions killing off (it would have meant less of those budget deficit billions for them). >>


There's another thing thats wrong with American society. They think that its thier duty to work into their 50's (if your a teacher) or 60's, and then you leech off the government the rest of your lives. Again read Iacocca, for details how Japan is in much better economical shape than America as a country as a whole. And yes there is no surplus, its just a projected figure. Thats why we need Harry Browne to stop this government spending spree, cause our economy will be screwed royally at the current pace, not even mentioning Social Security being bankrupt in 20-30 years.


<< Really national healthcare is just another thing that makes life nice &amp; easy &amp; its cheaper too, just the way us Aussie like it. It really makes things easy knowing I can just go to most doctors here (some opt out of the public system, but even then the govt payes the scheduled fee &amp; one is left to pay the gap themselves) &amp; fling them my plastic medicare card &amp; the govt just pays the bill.

Its also makes life easy knowing that all prescription drugs on the PBS list cost a maximum of about just $15 &amp; if you are on a pension or the dole they cost a maximum of $3 something. Yet Australia spends only about 9% of GNP on healthcare while the US spends about 14% of their GNP on healthcare. >>


Failed to be mentioned here is the processing of these drugs would be that cheap or less, if we were in a true capitalist economy, and drugs could be grown freely by anyone. Not to mention, income tax being abolished, so you'd paying the same approximately up front, and not have any regular taxes to pay, except for existing tariffs, and excise taxes, which are far from unbearable.

Goog point Bober.

 

[BoberFett]

Our medical system, the capitalist kind, is the direct result of the way this country works. To institute socialist medicine in the US would be contrary to the way things are done, and the results could be disastrous. What works in one country may not necessarily work in another.

Let's look at an area that government in the US practically monoplizes. Education. This is a system that much of the civilized world views as an area that the US is severely behind in. But how could that be? The government already controls it, which is how you're saying we could improve our health care. So why should I assume that if we let the government control an institution that it will improve? The history of bureaucrat control in this country does not give them much credibility.

I agree that their could be improvements in US health care, but socializing medicine is not the answer IMHO. I've read some papers about how the HMO came about (one of the biggest problem in health care) as a result of government intervention. I'll try to track them down and they should demonstrate how the government in this situation could make a bad situation worse.

 

[Michael]

jaydee - Please continue. If the Libertarians wonder why they can't get their ideas across (which, in many ways I agree with), they just have to look at people like you.

My request is reasonable. You're proposing a massive change in the way we currently deliver health care. A system that Boberfett (and others) feels is the best in the world.

Since you still admit to a fair amount of ignorance on what goes on outside the US, have only been able to parrot the words of a politician, and are now resorting to insults when respondsing to others, I could safely ignore you as well.

Dabanshee is quoting from one of the many, many studies that compare the US to other countries. Canada usually ends up on top in standard of living, and the accessability and quality of the health care is usually the main.

If you really want, I'll try and quote more directly from books and studies. My wife has almost completed a Masters in Public Health, so I do hav efairly easy access to the documentation. I lived in Rochester, NY for a while, and that was one of the first places where a community (&quot;socialized&quot medical plan cropped up in the US. It really started during the depression when so many Americans had little to now money to care for their families.

BoberFett - Your point about the schools in America doing poorly because they're government run would have more weight if they were not being compared against government run schools in other countries. Almost every developed country has a system like the US - mainly public with some private schools. If your point is that the government of this country is poor at running schools rather than governments are poor at running schools, well, I agree with you then <grin>.

Michael

 

[sandorski]

Wow Jaydee, I didn't mean to offend God. I hope He can forgive me.

One mistake I've seen repeated ad nauseam(sp)is the assumption that Government will always be innefficient and private enterprise efficient. One of the problems is that keeping communities healthy and free enterprise profitism are diametrically opposed. Perhaps if private medical service providers were paid when people were healthy rather then when they get sick they'd produce a great health care system. As it stands though, it is not in their best interest to provide the best care for everybody, only those who can afford it. Perhaps the military should be privatized as well.

 

[jaydee]

Wow, thats pretty ironic. My mom happenes to be an RN at Strong Memorial Hospital, and I live about 30 minutes south of the city. I like your sig too. Regardless, I can't debate with anyone who refuses to acknowledge my source of information, without looking at it.

My gosh, sandorski, can you make yourself any bigger of an idiot in this thread? Yeah, my company is going to pay you for being a normal healthy human being. There's a winning proposition. That will bring in mass profits.

 

[Michael]

jaydee - My wife went to Med School at U of R. Rochester is a perfect example of what an activist, liberal government (Democrats) coupled with and supported by unions can do to a city. The industrial base has been destroyed and Rochester now has all the big city problems with no real big city benefits. No wonder you're Libertarian.

Do you deny that you're asking for a big change and that the burden of proof of the benefit rests on your shoulders?

Michael

 

[jaydee]

Oh, man don't get me started on workers unions. They hurt workers more than they help, so many times. But I've gone OT on the business sector plenty enough in this thread as it stands. For more of my opinions on that, read (yes again) Lee Iacocca's autobiography. It is rather a splendid, book by one of the most prominent businessmen in American history. He is a Democrat, by the way, but many of his views, contradict those. A great read nonetheless. You should see the city now. I don't know if you've kept up with stocks of Rochester's business, but Xerox has pretty much crashed, with mass layoffs pending all the time. Bausch &amp; Lomb, and Kodak, are doing poorly as of late too. Frontier is really the only sucess, as of late (helped mightilty with the merger with GlobalCrossing of course). Again, I'm a county south of the city, but none to far to observe of whats happening. And technically, being 17, I have a year yet to wait before registering as a Libertarian.

It's not really that big of a change considering, that we had such a system in place a few decades ago. If the burden of proof was not on my shoulders, then why else would I be here?

 

[Fife]

jaydee: Your obviously a young, but still a clueless moron.

So many people have selective historical knowledge. People need to understand what this country was like when capitalism was at it's highest point. Read up on your history.

Extreme capitalism (like in the early part of the 20th century) breeds corruption among the rich and corporations...who aspired to prevent the middle class from gaining ground (as it eventually did starting in the 1930's).

Extreme socialism is also corrupt as evidenced by the Soviet Union and Communist China where the government gets too much control and power and is not democratically elected by the people.

A moderate balance between:

1)worker's rights
2)corporation regulation (or lack thereof)
3)government type, size, and accountability.

is what made the USA so so awesome of a country the last 70 years of the 20th century. A moderate balance between these three entities is what made the middle class (essentially a modern American phenomenon) in America the envy of the world and what made America what it is today.

 

[Michael]

jaydee - we did not have such a system in place a few decades ago. It was 1970 30 years ago, and things have not changed all that much from then. You would have to go back to the 30's (before the Depression) to find something like what you are talking about.

Michael

 

[jaydee]

<< jaydee: Your obviously a young, but still a clueless moron. >>


And obviously you are a pathetic loser.



<< Extreme capitalism (like in the early part of the 20th century) breeds corruption among the rich and corporations...who aspired to prevent the middle class from gaining ground (as it eventually did starting in the 1930's). >>


Yeah, and where would corporations be without middle class? Gee, not very far, now would they? Corporations need middle class, as much as middle class need work. Now that it's understood that their relationship is mutual to each other, then there is no excuse for unhappy workers. They agree to a job, and they do it. If they don't like it, they find work elsewhere, and if many of them don't like it, then the business, figures out what's wrong and fixes the problem (or find new laborers(sp?)). They depend on each other though. You seem not to grasp this concept. You seem to think that a business goes around and enslaves people, gives them no money, and makes the working conditions so horrible, that everyone dies before the age of 40. You would like to think that wouldn't you? This is its own case of free-enterprise as business leaders need a service, and workers need money. They will find a way to work. You can come up with all the stories of poor folks, in the 20's, but you know what, it was them who decided to go to work, and it was them who agreed upon a contract, and it was them who are responsible for consenquences, not the people supplying the job oppertunities (unless of a rare-case if the company lied about previously agreed upon wages/conditions, which the government interferes on the sole basis of fraud).
Michael, the health-care sysyem was changed to a socialist compromise in the 60's and 70's. The government regulations on jobs, and such was developed under FDR in the 30's as part of &quot;New Deal&quot;

 

[Michael]

jaydee - I hate unions today. Unions were needed back when they were created. Please spend some time researching what the US was like in the era of the Robber/Railroad Barrons. Please read what the early industrialists really were like.

If all men were good and just, then I would trust any form of economic activity. I agree that over time, unchecked greed will destroy your markets and communities and be self-correcting. Unfortunately, that correction period will be a period of collapse and chaos, and the misery before the correction will never be repaired.

Please spend some more time studying exactly what was changed in health care and health care funding and when it happened. Also please consider that demand for basic care does not go down when prices up. Finally, consider that an increase in quality and innovation of medical care leads to greater demand over the life of the patient, much caused by the patient living longer.

I will toss in that Amricans pay more for some items because others pay less. The profits made on drug sales in many countries with socialized systems where the patent protection is weak would not pay for the research needed to come up with new drugs.

Michael

 

[jaydee]

<< jaydee - I hate unions today. Unions were needed back when they were created. >>


Tell me about it. It's absolutely ridiculous, what there trying to pull. It makes no sense. People agree to do a job, and then they refuse to do it, because they are not happy with pre-negotiated deals they made. How absurd. I'll see what the library has tomarrow, and if they have something good, I'll take a look. Not sure about selection on railroad industry in the 1800's though.

If you saw the Communism thread a day ago, you'd see, how I firmly think that any government would work under the right people, but that can't be guaranteed, so we have to come up with the most idiot-proof government available. The same applies to economics.

I find it highly unlikely that the library contains health care changes, but I will look, and it is even more unlikey that my parents will let me go to Borders or Daulton's to buy myself more stuff before Christmas. I'll check the internet and the World Almanac though.


<< The profits made on drug sales in many countries with socialized systems where the patent protection is weak would not pay for the research needed to come up with new drugs. >>


Huh?

 

[Michael]

jaydee - Try the medical school library and try calling the local Blue Cross/Blue Shield and ask them what they have on the history of public health in Rochester. I hope you use this for something more constructive than arguing here. You should get 2-3 good term papers out of the research.

The comment about drug cost was to point out a distortion in the charge that costs are too high for health care in the US. The US is subsidizing Dabanshee's care.

Here's something to show you that health insurance has been around for a long time:

A Short History of Medicine, Ackerknecht, ISBN 0-8018-2726-4, P. 77:

&quot;While this short survey has had to concentrate on the clinical knowledge and theories of Greek medicine in Rome, some social aspects of medicine in Rome should at least be mentioned. There were sickness insurance associations and medical societies in Rome; there was an increasing tendency toward specialization and the state employment of physicians; and , towards the end, mythical healing cults grew increasingly popular. All these phenomena of the increasingly complex and decadent Roman society have a rather modern ring.&quot;

This is not a new issue.

There is a little bit on page 216 discussing the rise of health insurance in Europe in the mid-to-late 1800's and that the US resisted almost all of it until Medicare in 1965.

Michael

 

[jacobnero6918]

My thread has been stolen, someone call Gore's Lawyers or Bush's Lawyer or Johnnie Cockran.


Johnnie Cockran says: If the thread doesn't FIT, start your own !!!!

 

[unxpurg8d]

Actually your thread stayed ON topic for quite a bit longer than most threads seem to in &quot;Off Topic&quot;.

(You know, of course, that YOUR last post just diverted it not back onto track but off in a whole other direction??? )



:: hiding typing fingers behind back and wondering how one sizes a keyboard ::

 

[Michael]

jacobnero6918 - thanks! Funny answer! Even more funny title!

Michael

ps - Since a Socialist counry would have socialized medicine, we are still on topic.

 

[sandorski]

Yes, but does &quot;Socialized&quot; medicine make one a &quot;Socialist&quot; country? No, if it did all countries, including the US, would be Socialist. That's because any country with any kind of wealth has some kind of Social programs.

Jaydee: Dag nabbit man, chill out. You're too wound up.

 

[Michael]

sandorski - I hate to break the news to you, but the US is &quot;socialist&quot;. Welfare, Medicare, Social Security, etc. It isn't as Socialist as many other countries, but it is socialist.

Michael

 

[jaydee]

Library was closed during my only free period today, and I was busy after school. I have 2 study hall tomarrow though, so I'll see what I can do.


<< &quot;While this short survey has had to concentrate on the clinical knowledge and theories of Greek medicine in Rome, some social aspects of medicine in Rome should at least be mentioned. There were sickness insurance associations and medical societies in Rome; there was an increasing tendency toward specialization and the state employment of physicians; and , towards the end, mythical healing cults grew increasingly popular. All these phenomena of the increasingly complex and decadent Roman society have a rather modern ring.&quot; >>


I find it quite humerous, how you reject my example of 30 years ago, and you state something from the Roman Empire more than 1500 years ago.

jacobnero6918,
I am appealing Cochrans decision to the Supreme Court, so it will be tied up for so long, that this thread will be over by the time it is looked upon by a Chief Justice.

 

[Michael]

jaydee - You haven't provided your example yet. My example shows that socialized medicine has been around for a long time. It disappeared in the Dark Ages and returned in the 1800's in Germany.

Michael

 

[sandorski]

Michael: Well I have to disagree. Having Social programs doesn't make a country &quot;Socialist&quot;, on the flipside, having a &quot;Free Market&quot; doesn't make a country &quot;Capitalist&quot;. Socialist and Capitalist are terms used to name 2 somewhat(only somewhat because they both attempt to acheive an idyllic state) diametrically opposed societal systems(re: idealisms). Every wealthy nation uses ideas from both of these systems, so they can't possibly be only one and not the other.

The logic of concluding that a nation is &quot;Socialist/Capitalist&quot; based upon whether it contains certain elements of a system, is akin to the bad old days of determining &quot;race&quot;. If a person had one &quot;drop&quot; of non-white(caucasian) blood, then they were not white(caucasian). It takes only a little consideration, before one has to conclude that that's crap. Please note that I don't equate these 2 issues on morality grounds(ie, equating a nation as socialist is not immoral. Although many feel that Socialism is immoral, but that's another issue), it's just that the logic is equally flawed.

When it comes down to it, Socialist/Capitalist nations were mostly the figment of the Cold War's imagination(re: political rhetoric/propoganda used to motivate the &quot;masses&quot; on both sides). The &quot;Socialists&quot; were certainly Socialist in the USSR, but there were no &quot;Capitalists&quot;, only Capitalist leaning countries. Now that the Cold War is over, there are no &quot;Socialist&quot; countries, with the possible exception of North Korea(simply because I don't know). China, Cuba, and other former &quot;Socialist&quot; nations have adopted &quot;Capitalist&quot; economic policies to varying degrees, making them merely Socialist leaning, but not outright Socialists anymore.

That's just all my opinion though.