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i couldn't in any good conscience support single-payer or socialized medicine it's the same economic model that created breadlines
by skylan_q 10y ago
i couldn't in any good conscience support single-payer or socialized medicine
it's the same economic model that created breadlines
- vectorpush 10y agoCan you elaborate on this reasoning?
- skylan_q 10y agofree market systems are dynamic and adjustable to real-world inputs in a way that no planned system can match in terms of providing the most service/product to the most people. what people really want when they push for socialized medicine is equality over improvement. envy holds us back so much.
- vidarh 10y agoThat's great for the people with lots of money. Not great for the people who die or go bankrupt in the name of "improvement".
- skylan_q 10y agoLiberalize healthcare to allow anyone to provide it. Did you know that before the AMA was created that doctors had to do house calls or face living in abject poverty as a result of the market being flooded with healthcare professionals?
- bitwize 10y agoYou mean snake oil salesmen?
- vidarh 10y agoGiven the appalling amount of quacks already providing "alternative" therapies that have no medical value: No thanks. I'd rather live a long, healthy life. I find it almost comical that you want to opt for such an extreme measure rather than accept systems that have a proven track record of delivering much cheaper care. And as I've pointed out: Both in Canada where you live, and in the UK where I live (as well as in unlikely places like China, which doesn't have a proper socialised healthcare system) you can pay to go private if you for some reason don't get to see a doctor fast enough, or isn't happy with the service. But at least in these countries there is something in place for those who can't afford to.
- bitwize 10y agoEquality for all is much better than improvement for the 1% and misery for everyone else. Read your Wilkinson and Pickett. Aside from perhaps the environment, equality is the political and economic issue that will shape the 21st century.
- skylan_q 10y agoEquality for all is much better than improvement for the 1% and misery for everyone else. Don't be dense. You know there are happy mediums. * Read your Wilkinson and Pickett. Aside from perhaps the environment, equality is the political and economic issue that will shape the 21st century.* I've read Pickett. Equality is horrifying. Eastern Europe is the result. The handicapper general is terrifying. It's the end to any human greatness.
- vidarh 10y agoEastern Europe didn't have equality. It had less equality than Western Europe and the US - the party elite basically carved up their countries as fiefdoms. To blame equality for problems caused by systems that never implemented anything like equality is quite bizarre.
- skylan_q 10y agoIt wasn't real socialism canard. …the story about the two fellows in the Soviet Union who were walking down the street and one of them says: Have we really achieved full communism? Is this it? Is this now full communism? The other one said: Oh no, things are gonna get a lot worse.
- vidarh 10y agoLet us assume it was socialism for the sake of argument: It doesn't matter. There provably wasn't equality. So whether or not what they had was socialism (which, by the way, does not require equality in any case) is entirely irrelevant to the argument.
- lg 10y agoit's also the same economic system that saved american seniors from dying destitute before SS and medicare.
- skylan_q 10y agohelp 5 people, hurt 100 people. the idea that SS and medicare are great and have done wonders is what's causing the country to go broke and costs to skyrocket. it was never good in the first place. you see the benefits when the programs are implemented, but everyone fails to see the costs and lost future opportunities.
- vidarh 10y agoThe irony that you are blaming social security and medicare on the US costs while US healthcare is far more expensive than almost every socialised healthcare system in the world is astounding.
- skylan_q 10y agoSingle payer systems ration the amount and quality of care given. When you ration the amount and quality of care given, you can drive costs down.
- Frondo 10y agoPrivate insurers also ration the amount and quality of care given.
- skylan_q 10y agoEveryone rations. The difference between the US and the single-payers is that more care is given and better care is given vs. the rest of the world where gov't budgets are constrained so care is constrained. I'm in Ontario and I can't even get a general practitioner. This is worse than communism.
- serge2k 10y agoTell it to Australia, Canada, and the UK.
- skylan_q 10y agoI am in Canada. Animals have a MUCH higher quality of healthcare in Canada than humans do.
- X86BSD 10y agoActually they do here as well in the states. My wife and I just had to deal with the rapid loss of our dog to skin cancer. Her treatments were cheaper than paying a doctor here in cash. Normally I pay a doc $150 or less for a routine walk in with "I have the flu". Our dog got chemo pills, checkups, hell the vet even called us each week to check her status between treatments cheaper than that $150 I would pay for fifteen minutes of doctor time.
- vidarh 10y agoGee, I missed the bread lines when I grew up in Norway, and I must've managed to miss them in the UK too.
- skylan_q 10y agoI live in Canada so I get "free" healthcare as well. Norway's system of delivering food isn't a full socialist/single-payer model, so you wouldn't get breadlines there.
- vidarh 10y agoSo your earlier comment is entirely irrelevant then, seeing as we're not talking about bread delivery, but delivery of healthcare, where - irrespective of whether we'd agree on the feasibility of efficient delivery of "singlepayer bread" - it has been conclusively proven by example that efficient delivery in a single payer model is possible. In fact, not only is it possible, but almost every country in the world that has it does it cheaper than the US (depending on currency fluctuations, Norway is ironically one of the less than a handful of countries that is occasionally more expensive than the US - largely driven up by high salaries).
- skylan_q 10y agoAsk yourself what those studies measure and if you can honestly consider those measures fair measures of quality, quantity and equity in providing care. It usually boils down to $5,000 for surgery X in one country, $8,000 for same surgery in another. What an analysis like this always skips is the care that wasn't provided that should have been provided.
- vidarh 10y agoThe WHO ranking does not look at costs, but at overall health and treatment indicators.
- linkregister 10y agoA large proportion of developed countries use single-payer, single-provider, or insurance vouchers. Including... Canada where you live. Serious question: are you a refugee or emigrant from an oppressive communist country? Often this can color one's thinking to reject all aspects of those regimes, even including the few positive things. Edit: I don't think it's insulting to ask a question. Context helps us to understand each other and the world around us. Downvote, but also reply.