39 replies to this topic

[juhakoo]

Probably a Rolling Stone article, retyped into a PDF - download here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?knzmwzziujy

Don't have time to host it elsewhere right now, but it's very good, if a bit long. Probably makes Shamus happy and pisses off Redqueen

[mooskies]

wtf, no board poll?


fuck off

[juhakoo]

Okay, okay, I'll just post the ending.

All that's left of health care reform is a collection of piece-of-shit, weakling
proposals that are preposterously expensive and contain almost nothing
meaningful - and that set of proposals, meanwhile, is being negotiated down
even further by the endlessly negating Group of Six. It is a fight to the finish now
between Really Bad and Even Worse. And it's virtually guaranteed to sour the
public on reform efforts for years to come.

"They'll pass some weak, mediocre plan that breaks the bank and even in the
best analysis leaves 37 million people uninsured," says Mokhiber, one of the
single-payer activists arrested by Baucus." It's going to give universal health care
a bad name."

It's a joke, the whole thing, a parody of Solomonic governance. By the time all
the various bills are combined, health care will be a baby not split in half but in
fourths and eighths and fractions of eighths. It's what happens when a
government accustomed to dealing on the level of perception tries to take on a
profound emergency that exists in reality. No matter how hard Congress may try,
though, it simply is not possible to paper over a crisis this vast.
Then again, some of the blame has to go to all of us. It's more than a little
conspicuous that the same electorate that poured its heart out last year for the
Hallmark card line of the Obama campaign has not been seen much in this health
care debate. The handful of legislators - the Weiners, Kuciniches, Wydens and
Sanderses - who are fighting for something real should be doing so with armies
at their back. Instead, all the noise is being made on the other side. not so stupid
after all - they, at least, understand that politics is a fight that does not end with
the wearing of a T-Shirt in November.

[token]

That whole issue has gotten so mangled it's really depressing. I can't read the retarded "discussions" on the subject anymore.

Here's one view of the situation:

Johann Hari: Republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason


Here's the truth.

[fifiroxy]

That whole issue has gotten so mangled it's really depressing. I can't read the retarded "discussions" on the subject anymore.

Here's one view of the situation:

Johann Hari: Republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason


Here's the truth.

Its criminal
Apparently you need these examples of failure (the sick and undeserving poor)
In order to motivate the general population through fear of failure
Very Christian, Im sure

[KingShamus]

I've read enough Matt Taibbi and Johan Hari to last me several lifetimes.  Knee-jerk leftists that have no idea of the consequences of their ideology.

All I know is that the government option they keep talking about will kill private insurance dead.  The CBO said it and a bunch of others have confirmed it.  President Teleprompter Jesus and the Democrats endlessly harp on 'choice' and 'competition'.  How can there be true competition when the feds make private insurance impossible?  What should be clear is that all that happy-talk about competition is a smoke-screen to fool the rubes.  The Donkey-Punchers know their health care reforms will morph into single-payer, which the vast majority of Americans do not want.

Something like 80 something percent of Americans are happy with their health care.  Think about that.  You can't get 80% of a socially, ethnically and religiously diverse continental nation of 300 million people to agree on anything else, but on the issue of their health insurance, the citizenry are fairly sure they like it.  They may have had issues dealing with insurance agency buereaucrats, they may want portability and they may be concerned with some people who don't have health care because of pre-existing conditions, but that doesn't mean they want to blow up the entire system.

Here's another issue:  One of the pro-choicers’ more popular slogans is “Keep your laws off of my body”.  Go to a NARAL grip-n-grin and you will hear that phrase quite a bit.  Having the legal option of abortion is roughly equivalent to whether a gal can get a tattoo, an appendectomy or an unflattering haircut.  ‘My body, my choice’ and all that.

Let’s look at government-run health care.  That’s going to involve the rationing of services, denial of care and government bureaucrats deciding when people receive treatment and what treatments they receive.  How is socialized medicine any different from governments making abortion illegal?  Supposing the Democrat health care deform plan goes through; laws will never be off our bodies.  You want to know the future if Obama gets his wish?  It’s a government-mandated endoscope rammed up a human asshole-forever.

Another thought:  When the government gets to deny you medical services because you smoke, you're too old, you're overweight or some other random issue...well, you're not truly free to live your life as a sovereign citizen.  You're closer to a child and the government is a nanny, gently and not-so-gently scolding you for your lifestyle choices by saying no to you when you make a 'mistake'.  I find this notion hilarious:  "The government should not limit my choices when it comes to porno.  The right to keep and bear Brazillian fart fetish films, furry suits and a youporn bookmark shall not be infringed.  Now point me in the direction of the government-run health clinic where I'll have to wait six hours to see a doctor because I have a cough, I'll wait six months for a knee replacement and I'll be denied a pacemaker because I've already exceeded my government-determined expiration date."  Sure, you're free to jack off but that's about it.  That's not real liberty.

Fuck all that fucking stupid patronizing freedom-hating bullshit.  As a person who lived years without insurance and had to face down the costs of getting banged up a few times, I know what it's like to have to pay for doctors and emergency rooms out of my own pocket.  It's brutal, but it's not everybody's experience.  And trust me when I say the alternative, which the leftists keep pushing, is far worse than anything anybody in America is going through right now.

[juhakoo]

I've read enough Matt Taibbi and Johan Hari to last me several lifetimes.

Maybe you could've added this article, as you obviously didn't read it before replying. Just sayin'.

[TheHorseMaster]

So shamus's argument is that government run care will do exactly all the same things as insurance companies. But that it's somewhow worse, and will destroy the insurance companies, without actually forcing anyone to give up their current healthcare plan.

Rationing of care, needless bureaucracy, and denial of coverage for any reason they find convenient already exists. The only difference is that an insurance company charges more.

[KingShamus]

The government has a monopoly on force.  It's the only entity that can create and enforce laws.  It can put you in jail.        

Contrast that with the private sector.  Obviously, companies can't imprison you.  But even more importantly, under free-market circumstances, you have far more choices than under a government run system.  If you have a problem with the price of a TV at Best Buy, you can shop around and go to Sears, Wal-Mart or some other large or small outfit and buy the TV you want at the lowest price you can find.  The ability to shop for the best price drives down costs and is a net win for the consumer.  This is one reason why, for almost every aspect of your life, the private economy is far more effective in delivering goods and services than any mechanism the government can create.    

Let's look at health care.  The Horsemaster is worried about the insurance companies.  He should be, but not for the reasons he thinks.  In nearly every state in the Union, the consumer has to buy health care from a government-created near-monopoly within his state.  The consumer can't shop around for a better rate within the state because there are only a small number of health insurance companies; for example Blue Cross Blue Shield controls 83% of the health care market in Alabama.  And of course, the consumer can't shop out of state for a better price because that's not allowed under our current laws.  The health insurance buyer is given nearly no choices, thus the big monoploies have no incentive to lower costs and every incentive to lord power over their customers.

The US health care system is not a free market economy by any stretch of the imagination.  Instead, it's a corporatist's wet dream.  Big companies are given very favorable treatment by idiot lawmakers and pencil-pushing beureacrats.  The large firms then use their government-created market positions to wring as much profit as they can out of their customers.  Again, this is not anything that resembles a free market, but many people are under the mistaken impression that it is, which leads them to think...poorly.

So under the current system, the big firms have a near-stanglehold on health care markets; a lack of competition has created very unfavorable conditions for the buyer.  The liberal solution to this is to...create a public option that would completely kill the private sector and give the consumer only one choice when it comes to their health care.  Does this make any sense?

No, it doesn't.  The solution is instead more consumer choices, more private sector competition and an end of the perverse government-corporate relationships that deny people the opportunity to shop around and get the best prices they can for the most range of services they can get.  Anything else is freedom-killing socialist pablum to get the suckers to buy into the feds having massive power over the way you live your life.

[TheHorseMaster]

No has so much talent at putting words into other people's mouths, and their foot in their mouth as a conservative.

I'm worried because when I turn 25, I lose my healthcare, and with my current condition, no one trying to turn a profit would insure me. My medication costs just shy of 5,000 USD per month, not to mention the cost of specialists, and lab tests so on and so on. I'm constantly told how terrible the care in a socialized system is,and yet when I log on to a canadian pharmacy the same medication cost 1/10th. In short I'm worried that your supposedly wonderful health care system, is charging me several times more than the supposedly inferior public option.

But I'm sure you already knew that since you've done all the research, and then promptly ignored it. Why don't you just admit, that you don't actually have an iota of understanding about this.

Free market companies might not be able to imprison you, but they can stand and watch you die, in ways more inhumane than what cattle have to go through. They can also drive you into destitution through the sheer cost of care.

Your not concerned one bit with the quality of care, just some antiquated idea of a capitalism that died decades before you were born, which no one mourned the passing of.

[fifiroxy]

My sisters stepmum died of cancer in the US
Her dad is still paying for it
Its just too fucking sad
And people profiteering from others pain and misery has got to be the ultimate in moral hypocricy
Especially when they sell you some bullshit "God's Will" or punishment hokum

[KingShamus]

First of all, fuck right off Fifi.  Nobody is talking about 'god's will' except you, you useless twat-gash.  You bring nothing to any conversation besides your overwhelming hatred of religion and every America-Last cliche you heard your dipshit professor mumble before he skull-fucked you in his office cubicle.  You are an intellectually incurious leftist xerox copy of every other mindless liberal drone.  Also, your parents dress you funny, you have bad teeth, you need a shower and you dumped a good guy because he made too much money which put him outside your narrow little social class ideals.  What a dumbass.      

As for the HorseMaster...I know this is difficult, so let me repeat myself.

The problems with the US health care system-and there are problems-couldn't be caused by a capitalist system because the modern US health care system is not based around capitalism.  

State governments basically create a framework where only one or two insurers get to handle that states' market.  By definition this is not a free market.  Why?  Because the government-yes, the goverment-has rigged the rules of the game in favor of a small number of firms.  Next, look at Medicare and Medicaid.  These are government-run programs.  They are on the verge of insolvency.  So, the things that the government has meddled in, the measures they've enacted have done two things.  They've created monopolies that have driven up costs.  Or they've created vast taxpayer-funded disasters that will go broke very soon.  What an inspiring track record.

Let's talk about Canada-care.  You love the low costs of prescription drugs there.  How did they do it?  Ahhhh, taxpayer subsidies of course.  And wouldn't you know it, the Canadian system is rapidly going...you guessed it...broke.  So you can talk all you want about the glories of Canadian health care, but it will probably shit the bed in our lifetime if they don't move to rapidly privatize.

It's a free country.  You're free to vote with your feet and get your ass to Canada in order to get in on what you think is a great health care system.  You'd be the one dude that bucks the trend, as far more Canucks come to America to utilize the supposedly horrible American health care programs.  

Since you're all in favor of having your countrymen pay for your health care, how's about we just nationalize and subsidize everything?  I mean, aren't private food stores preying on people's need to feed themselves by jacking up costs?  Isn't it true that the electric companies are preying on consumer's need to power their homes and businesses?  What about Big Electronics?  Aren't Dell, IBM, Apple and other firms preying on computer users' need to run sixty gazillion gig graphics cards for their WOW touraments?          

As I said before, I lived for several years without health care insurance.  I have watched loved ones rot in hospitals from brutal diseases.  I am very concerned about the quality and costs of care.  But whatever.  Think whatever you want.  Even though you haven't actually addressed my points, you've done a bang-up kicking the shit out of the strawman you built.

Talk about putting words into other people's mouths.

[fifiroxy]

First of all, fuck right off Fifi.  Nobody is talking about 'god's will' except you, you useless twat-gash.  You bring nothing to any conversation besides your overwhelming hatred of religion and every America-Last cliche you heard your dipshit professor mumble before he skull-fucked you in his office cubicle.  You are an intellectually incurious leftist xerox copy of every other mindless liberal drone.  Also, your parents dress you funny, you have bad teeth, you need a shower and you dumped a good guy because he made too much money which put him outside your narrow little social class ideals.  What a dumbass.      

As for the HorseMaster...I know this is difficult, so let me repeat myself.

The problems with the US health care system-and there are problems-couldn't be caused by a capitalist system because the modern US health care system is not based around capitalism.  

State governments basically create a framework where only one or two insurers get to handle that states' market.  By definition this is not a free market.  Why?  Because the government-yes, the goverment-has rigged the rules of the game in favor of a small number of firms.  Next, look at Medicare and Medicaid.  These are government-run programs.  They are on the verge of insolvency.  So, the things that the government has meddled in, the measures they've enacted have done two things.  They've created monopolies that have driven up costs.  Or they've created vast taxpayer-funded disasters that will go broke very soon.  What an inspiring track record.

Let's talk about Canada-care.  You love the low costs of prescription drugs there.  How did they do it?  Ahhhh, taxpayer subsidies of course.  And wouldn't you know it, the Canadian system is rapidly going...you guessed it...broke.  So you can talk all you want about the glories of Canadian health care, but it will probably shit the bed in our lifetime if they don't move to rapidly privatize.

It's a free country.  You're free to vote with your feet and get your ass to Canada in order to get in on what you think is a great health care system.  You'd be the one dude that bucks the trend, as far more Canucks come to America to utilize the supposedly horrible American health care programs.  

Since you're all in favor of having your countrymen pay for your health care, how's about we just nationalize and subsidize everything?  I mean, aren't private food stores preying on people's need to feed themselves by jacking up costs?  Isn't it true that the electric companies are preying on consumer's need to power their homes and businesses?  What about Big Electronics?  Aren't Dell, IBM, Apple and other firms preying on computer users' need to run sixty gazillion gig graphics cards for their WOW touraments?          

As I said before, I lived for several years without health care insurance.  I have watched loved ones rot in hospitals from brutal diseases.  I am very concerned about the quality and costs of care.  But whatever.  Think whatever you want.  Even though you haven't actually addressed my points, you've done a bang-up kicking the shit out of the strawman you built.

Talk about putting words into other people's mouths.

your paranoid

[KingShamus]

First of all, fuck right off Fifi.  Nobody is talking about 'god's will' except you, you useless twat-gash.  You bring nothing to any conversation besides your overwhelming hatred of religion and every America-Last cliche you heard your dipshit professor mumble before he skull-fucked you in his office cubicle.  You are an intellectually incurious leftist xerox copy of every other mindless liberal drone.  Also, your parents dress you funny, you have bad teeth, you need a shower and you dumped a good guy because he made too much money which put him outside your narrow little social class ideals.  What a dumbass.      

As for the HorseMaster...I know this is difficult, so let me repeat myself.

The problems with the US health care system-and there are problems-couldn't be caused by a capitalist system because the modern US health care system is not based around capitalism.  

State governments basically create a framework where only one or two insurers get to handle that states' market.  By definition this is not a free market.  Why?  Because the government-yes, the goverment-has rigged the rules of the game in favor of a small number of firms.  Next, look at Medicare and Medicaid.  These are government-run programs.  They are on the verge of insolvency.  So, the things that the government has meddled in, the measures they've enacted have done two things.  They've created monopolies that have driven up costs.  Or they've created vast taxpayer-funded disasters that will go broke very soon.  What an inspiring track record.

Let's talk about Canada-care.  You love the low costs of prescription drugs there.  How did they do it?  Ahhhh, taxpayer subsidies of course.  And wouldn't you know it, the Canadian system is rapidly going...you guessed it...broke.  So you can talk all you want about the glories of Canadian health care, but it will probably shit the bed in our lifetime if they don't move to rapidly privatize.

It's a free country.  You're free to vote with your feet and get your ass to Canada in order to get in on what you think is a great health care system.  You'd be the one dude that bucks the trend, as far more Canucks come to America to utilize the supposedly horrible American health care programs.  

Since you're all in favor of having your countrymen pay for your health care, how's about we just nationalize and subsidize everything?  I mean, aren't private food stores preying on people's need to feed themselves by jacking up costs?  Isn't it true that the electric companies are preying on consumer's need to power their homes and businesses?  What about Big Electronics?  Aren't Dell, IBM, Apple and other firms preying on computer users' need to run sixty gazillion gig graphics cards for their WOW touraments?          

As I said before, I lived for several years without health care insurance.  I have watched loved ones rot in hospitals from brutal diseases.  I am very concerned about the quality and costs of care.  But whatever.  Think whatever you want.  Even though you haven't actually addressed my points, you've done a bang-up kicking the shit out of the strawman you built.

Talk about putting words into other people's mouths.

your paranoid

You're an idiot.

[Kickstand27]

Since you're all in favor of having your countrymen pay for your health care, how's about we just nationalize and subsidize everything?  I mean, aren't private food stores preying on people's need to feed themselves by jacking up costs?  Isn't it true that the electric companies are preying on consumer's need to power their homes and businesses?  What about Big Electronics?  Aren't Dell, IBM, Apple and other firms preying on computer users' need to run sixty gazillion gig graphics cards for their WOW touraments?

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK NO!
lets back up this logic train and get it back on track..  
Private food stores COMPETE with each other by lowering prices on certain items to draw customers in.  it is very easy for people to be frugal about shopping by pricing around...    i cant tell you the last time i went to the hospital and was able to use a rewards card, or coupon to get 10% off my medical bill-mostly cause its never happened. there has never been a labor day appendectomy sale.  

IMB, DELL, Apple and so on....  Preying on the need?  the need?  people dont need to upgrade their computers everytime a new card comes out..  Thats a luxury and a luxury that gets cheaper as newer sutff comes out...  HEALTH CARE isnt a luxury.  its something that everyone will NEED at some point in their lives.  and when you really need to go to the doctor, you cant wait a couple months and have the price drop.  

electricity..  yes the electric companies do prey on people..  especially here, its mostly a monopoly. although with all of the solar and green technologies coming down the pipeline, you could say that people agree and are trying to change it, just like heath care.  

[funkypunk]

Can I just say don't go down the path that the NHS here has whereby it's a part-backdoor privatised behemoth that's concerned only with beaurocrats meeting artifical govt imposed targets, political correctness and private companies creaming off taxpayers money.

That's not knocking state healthcare - it works brilliantly in many countries, and used to work brilliantly here (I'm old enough to remeber when!). But then the Thatcherite ideologues got involved, starting with the sinister as fuck Keith Joseph, and started fucking it up with half-baked notions of an 'internal market' with bean-counters put in charge. Blair added the targets and quotas and put apparatchiks in charge. Npw it tries to be both state healthcare and free-market healthcare and fails to be either - or to be as good as either.

From what little I know of it, it sounds like the plans for state healthcare in America are even more puggled.

Basically, be one or the other. If you're gonna have a state healthcare system then have a state healthcare system and chuck out any ideas of farming parts out to the private sector (let alone creating some psuedo-private organsiation). If you're gonna have a private enterprise healthcare system then keep govt interference down to it's lawmaking job of protecting the consumer, just as with any other sector of the economy. Trying to mix them seems to just encourage the worst of both worlds.

[fifiroxy]

First of all, fuck right off Fifi.  Nobody is talking about 'god's will' except you, you useless twat-gash.  You bring nothing to any conversation besides your overwhelming hatred of religion and every America-Last cliche you heard your dipshit professor mumble before he skull-fucked you in his office cubicle.  You are an intellectually incurious leftist xerox copy of every other mindless liberal drone.  Also, your parents dress you funny, you have bad teeth, you need a shower and you dumped a good guy because he made too much money which put him outside your narrow little social class ideals.  What a dumbass.      

As for the HorseMaster...I know this is difficult, so let me repeat myself.

The problems with the US health care system-and there are problems-couldn't be caused by a capitalist system because the modern US health care system is not based around capitalism.  

State governments basically create a framework where only one or two insurers get to handle that states' market.  By definition this is not a free market.  Why?  Because the government-yes, the goverment-has rigged the rules of the game in favor of a small number of firms.  Next, look at Medicare and Medicaid.  These are government-run programs.  They are on the verge of insolvency.  So, the things that the government has meddled in, the measures they've enacted have done two things.  They've created monopolies that have driven up costs.  Or they've created vast taxpayer-funded disasters that will go broke very soon.  What an inspiring track record.

Let's talk about Canada-care.  You love the low costs of prescription drugs there.  How did they do it?  Ahhhh, taxpayer subsidies of course.  And wouldn't you know it, the Canadian system is rapidly going...you guessed it...broke.  So you can talk all you want about the glories of Canadian health care, but it will probably shit the bed in our lifetime if they don't move to rapidly privatize.

It's a free country.  You're free to vote with your feet and get your ass to Canada in order to get in on what you think is a great health care system.  You'd be the one dude that bucks the trend, as far more Canucks come to America to utilize the supposedly horrible American health care programs.  

Since you're all in favor of having your countrymen pay for your health care, how's about we just nationalize and subsidize everything?  I mean, aren't private food stores preying on people's need to feed themselves by jacking up costs?  Isn't it true that the electric companies are preying on consumer's need to power their homes and businesses?  What about Big Electronics?  Aren't Dell, IBM, Apple and other firms preying on computer users' need to run sixty gazillion gig graphics cards for their WOW touraments?          

As I said before, I lived for several years without health care insurance.  I have watched loved ones rot in hospitals from brutal diseases.  I am very concerned about the quality and costs of care.  But whatever.  Think whatever you want.  Even though you haven't actually addressed my points, you've done a bang-up kicking the shit out of the strawman you built.

Talk about putting words into other people's mouths.

your paranoid

You're an idiot.

God Loves You
Despite your treason

[fifiroxy]

Jesus was a communist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huem1uCVNkw...feature=related

[nurse_kagome]

I've read enough Matt Taibbi and Johan Hari to last me several lifetimes.  Knee-jerk leftists that have no idea of the consequences of their ideology.

All I know is that the government option they keep talking about will kill private insurance dead.  The CBO said it and a bunch of others have confirmed it.  President Teleprompter Jesus and the Democrats endlessly harp on 'choice' and 'competition'.  How can there be true competition when the feds make private insurance impossible?  What should be clear is that all that happy-talk about competition is a smoke-screen to fool the rubes.  The Donkey-Punchers know their health care reforms will morph into single-payer, which the vast majority of Americans do not want.

Something like 80 something percent of Americans are happy with their health care.  Think about that.  You can't get 80% of a socially, ethnically and religiously diverse continental nation of 300 million people to agree on anything else, but on the issue of their health insurance, the citizenry are fairly sure they like it.  They may have had issues dealing with insurance agency buereaucrats, they may want portability and they may be concerned with some people who don't have health care because of pre-existing conditions, but that doesn't mean they want to blow up the entire system.

Here's another issue:  One of the pro-choicers’ more popular slogans is “Keep your laws off of my body”.  Go to a NARAL grip-n-grin and you will hear that phrase quite a bit.  Having the legal option of abortion is roughly equivalent to whether a gal can get a tattoo, an appendectomy or an unflattering haircut.  ‘My body, my choice’ and all that.

Let’s look at government-run health care.  That’s going to involve the rationing of services, denial of care and government bureaucrats deciding when people receive treatment and what treatments they receive.  How is socialized medicine any different from governments making abortion illegal?  Supposing the Democrat health care deform plan goes through; laws will never be off our bodies.  You want to know the future if Obama gets his wish?  It’s a government-mandated endoscope rammed up a human asshole-forever.

Another thought:  When the government gets to deny you medical services because you smoke, you're too old, you're overweight or some other random issue...well, you're not truly free to live your life as a sovereign citizen.  You're closer to a child and the government is a nanny, gently and not-so-gently scolding you for your lifestyle choices by saying no to you when you make a 'mistake'.  I find this notion hilarious:  "The government should not limit my choices when it comes to porno.  The right to keep and bear Brazillian fart fetish films, furry suits and a youporn bookmark shall not be infringed.  Now point me in the direction of the government-run health clinic where I'll have to wait six hours to see a doctor because I have a cough, I'll wait six months for a knee replacement and I'll be denied a pacemaker because I've already exceeded my government-determined expiration date."  Sure, you're free to jack off but that's about it.  That's not real liberty.

Fuck all that fucking stupid patronizing freedom-hating bullshit.  As a person who lived years without insurance and had to face down the costs of getting banged up a few times, I know what it's like to have to pay for doctors and emergency rooms out of my own pocket.  It's brutal, but it's not everybody's experience.  And trust me when I say the alternative, which the leftists keep pushing, is far worse than anything anybody in America is going through right now.

Agreed.  I see no way of socializing medicine without huge downfalls.  I mean look at the VA's medical system Tri-care.  It is terrible, beyond terrible, I have to deal with it all the time at work.  If we all had that kind of healthcare...god I don't want to even go there.  It would be bad, very bad.

[juhakoo]

Did anyone actually read the article?  

Anyway, some points:

Thanks to the bureaucracy involved, the US is spending more on healthcare than countries with single-payer systems. Doesn't that sort of invalidate the cost arguments? Or, it would, if the whole thing wasn't turning into a clusterfuck (see article.)

I don't know what makes you think that countries with free public health care don't give you the option of seeing a private doctor. I'm insured through my workplace, so I can go to a private hospital on short notice. My latest two dentist visits were at a private clinic because I wanted to get the treatment faster. But if I got seriously ill, I'm happy to know that whatever happens, it won't cause decades of debt.

[fifiroxy]

Ive got private insurance
And I use the NHS
If I have a nervous breakdown
It will be luxurious
Meanwhile my GP can deal with the everyday stuff
And with stuff like Swine Flu and TB
You have to treat the whole population, not just those who can pay
Its fucking logical
Jezzus, they fucking debated this in Victorian times
Grow up America and take some fucking responsibility to go with that overreaching sense of entitlement

[dio_333]

this was interesting...
i don't know though why shamus can't debate without throwing shit at everyone...

[fifiroxy]

this was interesting...
i don't know though why shamus can't debate without throwing shit at everyone...

Hes a frothing at the mouth self-hating Republican
Hes got that thing where hes invested so much psychic energy in his Right Wing persona
He has to cling to it like a drowning man to a razorblade
Even when he knows hes wrong
It would be psychological meltdown to concede a millimetre

[KingShamus]

Did anyone actually read the article?  

Anyway, some points:

Thanks to the bureaucracy involved, the US is spending more on healthcare than countries with single-payer systems. Doesn't that sort of invalidate the cost arguments? Or, it would, if the whole thing wasn't turning into a clusterfuck (see article.)

I don't know what makes you think that countries with free public health care don't give you the option of seeing a private doctor. I'm insured through my workplace, so I can go to a private hospital on short notice. My latest two dentist visits were at a private clinic because I wanted to get the treatment faster. But if I got seriously ill, I'm happy to know that whatever happens, it won't cause decades of debt.

Like I said, Taibbi is just another leftist who uses a snarky tone as a substitute for brains.  When he cites Bernie freakin' Sanders as a legitimate source, I'm off the train.  Bernie Sanders is a joke.

See, I know that you still have the option of going to a private doctor.  But doesn't that pretty much negate many of the arguments for a single-payer system?  "Our government-run health care is so slow and cumbersome, you'll go to a private doctor anyway."

Anyway, about those rising costs-as I said before, a big part of the price going up so dramatically is due to government-created monopolies.  Deregulate so that smaller firms can compete with the big boys and let people shop out of state for health care, and costs would drop nicely.  The idea that government will somehow make costs magically go down is laughable.  Their health care track record vis-a-vis spending is the exact opposite of what you want if your goal is to control costs.  Medicare and Medicaid are on the verge of insolvency, so lets expand that model to everybody-does that make sense?

Unfortunately, costs for health care will never go down as much as people seem to want them to.  Why?  Because while health insurance is properly looked at as a consumer good, medical treatment is a very special type of good.  When you buy the lastest and greatest computer, you're actually buying technology that is several years old.  If you wanted the best home computer IBM could make at the moment they came up with it, you'd be spending tens of thousands of dollars on a one of a kind prototype.  

Nobody except a very select group of ultra-rich computer hobbyists could actually do that.  Normal people wait for IBM to make a mass-produced consumer-priced model.  The average consumer is happy to buy 'old' technology because having the absolute top of the line computer is not that important to 99% of the people.  They're willing to settle with 'outdated' tech in order to save a great deal of money.

Medical care is unlike any other good or service.  People want the latest and greatest treatments because your health and well-being is something you're just not going to go cheap on.  Let's say you get your index finger cut off.  The old way to treat that would be, "Sorry, you lost your finger.  Here's a bandage, dressing and some painkillers.  Tough luck, lefty."  Now, that's pretty inexpensive, but it doesn't get your finger back.

The latest treatments would involve a series of microsurgeries, a hospital stay and rehabilitation.  That costs money, but at least you can still jerk off effectively.  Why don't people choose the older, less expensive methods of treatment?  Because your health is worth more to you than anything else, so you're going to demand the best (and usually the most expensive) treatments available.

This is why health care costs are never going to go precipitously downward as long as people are given options.  Being that I think individuals and their decision-making capacity are really important parts of human sovereignty, I will remain dead-set against any government-run health care system.  

And IggyZiggy...I throw shit at nobody except Fifi because she's absurd.  She is such a ridiculously shallow thinker that believes she's a genius.  That and the pop psychological profiling nonsense is just too much to put up with.

[funkypunk]

Medical care is unlike any other good or service.  People want the latest and greatest treatments because your health and well-being is something you're just not going to go cheap on.  Let's say you get your index finger cut off.  The old way to treat that would be, "Sorry, you lost your finger.  Here's a bandage, dressing and some painkillers.  Tough luck, lefty."  Now, that's pretty inexpensive, but it doesn't get your finger back.

My brother lost part of a finger back in about 1978. It was sewed back on by an NHS surgeon in an NHS hospital on the NHS. You can barely see the scar now. Hardly "tough luck, lefty."

[Kickstand27]

cannot wait to see what happens when social security runs out completely, they finally take all of the medicare away from seniors, and high cost health care thats only provided to those in ship-shape is the norm.  

the death squad comments will be quite ironic

[KingShamus]

Medical care is unlike any other good or service.  People want the latest and greatest treatments because your health and well-being is something you're just not going to go cheap on.  Let's say you get your index finger cut off.  The old way to treat that would be, "Sorry, you lost your finger.  Here's a bandage, dressing and some painkillers.  Tough luck, lefty."  Now, that's pretty inexpensive, but it doesn't get your finger back.

My brother lost part of a finger back in about 1978. It was sewed back on by an NHS surgeon in an NHS hospital on the NHS. You can barely see the scar now. Hardly "tough luck, lefty."

Congrats to him.

But my larger point remains true.  Medical care is going to cost more because people aren't willing to settle for older, less expensive but less effective forms of treatment, especially when compared to other consumer goods and services.

[Kickstand27]

stop comparing health care to other "goods"  they arent the same as all the commercial bulllshit that people buy into.  

[KingShamus]

No.  

[Kickstand27]

apples and oranges