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My experiences of the New Zealand health system and the NHS in Britain have been nothing but positive. What's all this talk of crashing and burning? Really, t

by gdp 17y ago

My experiences of the New Zealand health system and the NHS in Britain have been nothing but positive. What's all this talk of crashing and burning? Really, the free market and the individual as the fundamental unit of society rarely act in the best interests of the society as a whole. That's why many governments provide centralised healthcare. They can essentially take all the money (as taxes) that would have been spent on health care or insurance in a given year, and use it to build hospitals and medical facilities that the public own. The public then gets to use these facilities that they paid for at no cost, or at a heavily subsidised rate. If more people need more health care, taxes go up, and more hospitals are built. It's a surprisingly efficient way of doing things. Much more so than having lots of private companies, each with shareholders demanding profits be returned on top of something as basic as healthcare.

CWuestefeld 17y ago
It's a surprisingly efficient way of doing things. Much more so than having lots of private companies, each with shareholders demanding profits be returned It's remarkable how our historical examples of this efficiency are so often ignored by all. I mean, consider how the soviets of the USSR succeeded in making that nation an economy to be reckoned with. And Chairman Mao's great leap forward was able to engineer a populace that succeeded in its grand goal of vaulting beyond the waste of the capitalist West. If only the industry of South Korea could prosper in the way that Kim Jong Il has guided his people into a paradise of plenty, then all Korean people could join hands in brotherhood.
- jives 17y ago
  Seriously, I would like to frame this post and put it on my wall :)
- olefoo 17y ago
  Strawman much? I'm pretty sure you're responding to someone who was thinking more of Denmark, Sweden or Canada. None of which are dystopian totalitarian societies that can't afford the political freedoms necessary to running a modern society. If that's the level of discourse you are sinking to, you are a sad example of what is happening to this country and this site. You should be ashamed of yourself. Right at the moment, the cost of health care and health care administration is crippling the American economy, it prevents many people from taking entrepreneurial risks because they can't afford to jeopardise their health coverage. The cost of health coverage and care and the financialization of the housing market are two of the factors most responsible for the disappearance of the middle class in this country. And if you're worried about the United States falling prey to disastrous political ideology the lack of a stable middle class is a far greater risk factor than socialized medicine.
  - kiba 17y ago
    The tensions are between centralized authorities(command economies) and individuals(free market) making decisions. The crux of the debate is whether the system should be centralized more or move toward individual human actors, whether these system could do better than the other, or whether it is something in between.(Ethical and political views are another story) I believe the pundit was arguing that the most extreme example clearly demonstrate the fallacy of using central planning to do resource allocation. Swedens, Denmark, and Canada are mixed economies which make it difficult to discern the effect of free market economies versus socialist system.
- gdp 17y ago
  Erm, yeah, about that. You understand the the US is atypical in the way that it treats health care? The implication that pretty much the rest of the western world is communist because they ensure that everyone has access to at least some kind of health care is completely insane. You're using the "labelling it" technique, which is essentially, "If I can give a name to the thing I'm arguing against, then it's wrong!" (see what I just did there?) A legitimately elected government providing services that its citizens may choose to use or not use is not communism. It's also not nazism or the boogeyman. See, I would consider healthcare a much more basic service than a huge standing military, but nobody seems to question that that should be government-operated. The USSR also had a 100% government-operated military! Wow, so does China! And North Korea! And Iran! My word, the USA must be the most terrible country on earth!
  - kiba 17y ago
    This is of course, assuming the pundit in question is not an anarcho-capitalist. To an anarcho-capitalist, the question of whether the production of security should be privatized is a perfectably reasonable discourse, in which they of course perscribe the creation of private defense agencies as well other insitutional design such as polycentric law and private courts, all of which have some basis in history.
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    A legitimately elected government providing services that its citizens may choose to use or not use is not communism. It's also not nazism or the boogeyman. You seem to have a strange definition of communism, as well as the history of nazism. Rather, you seem to be buying into the American propaganda that "democracy is the great good". A pure implementation of communism is necessarily democratic. Think about it. If all goods, and all production, are controlled by the body of people, then everything must be done by consensus. And you'll recall that in Germany, Hitler was democratically elected to power, and later assumed complete control again by election. You understand the the US is atypical in the way that it treats health care? You're just using the eight-year-old's "but johnny gets to stay up late" technique. And the answer is the same: just because one party does something really has not connection to whether it's the right thing for a different party to do. Anyway, the problem here politically is that the treatment of disease will immediately become politicized. In fact, it is already. People with mundane diseases will plod along, without any real progress made in cures. But diseases having real political constituencies -- AIDS/HIV is the big example -- will get enormous research, despite the fact that they account for a relatively small portion of the populace. Today, AIDS gets many times more funding per-sufferer than does, e.g., breast cancer. Today the government is the largest single funder of healthcare. But once they crowd out other actors, the entire medical profession will be political. That means that treatments will be put onto the approved list, and research dollars will be allocated, as a way of pandering for votes. This isn't an abstract fear: the government does this immediately upon getting involved. For example, look at the recent GM takeover. Despite Obama's claims (continuing to this day) that they don't want to micro-manage GM, Congress immediately set out preventing measures to make GM financially viable, such as closing dealerships. Local car dealerships are a surprisingly powerful constituency, and they get the bureaucrats working in their own interests in no time.
kiba 17y ago
Then explain to me the mechanism by which the universial health care allocate resource? It is one thing to have a guranteed source of revenue via taxation, it is quite another to manages the allocation of resources more efficently than a free agent in a free market. Even in a socialist system, scarcity still exists. The free market have an obvious mechanism and it is called profit and loss.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  Universal health care rations treatments based on medical need - the most serious medical needs get treatment first. Private health care rations treatments based on ability to pay. I know which rationing system I prefer - for both ethical and pragmatic reasons.
  - ksvs 17y ago
    "the most serious medical needs get treatment first" If that's the definition of universal health care, no country I know has it, because there is no country I know of that has successfully banned cosmetic surgery.
    - adw 17y ago
      Tell that to a burns victim or a kid with a harelip. Or a breast-cancer patient post mastectomy...
      - billswift 17y ago
        Reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery are not the same thing even though they use similar, and often the same, techniques.
        adw 17y ago
        I think that might be a usage thing: over here in the UK they're both plastic surgery, but you see it qualified as reconstructive plastic surgery or aesthetic plastic surgery. Still, take birthmark removal: it's purely cosmetic, in a sense, but it makes such a difference to peoples' quality of life psychologically that it totally should be on the NHS if you ask me.
philwelch 17y ago
You'd think so, but why is healthcare so different than everything else? Most human needs are cared for by markets, albeit with government assistance as needed. Why should the government centrally run a health care monopoly rather than simply giving financial assistance, as needed, to people to pay for health care on an open market? That's how we've accomplished "universal food".
- jimbokun 17y ago
  I believe the Netherlands does something like this.
  - billswift 17y ago
    I'm not sure how accurate it is, but the description I saw of the Dutch system is that everyone has exactly the same plan for exactly the same costs, but the gov't does it through the fig-leaf of "private" insurance companies.
- stanleydrew 17y ago
  First of all I don't think Obama is suggesting setting up a health care monopoly. I think he's suggesting supplementing the private market with a government-provided option. As for how health care is different from everything else, it's very expensive sometimes, and society has kind of decided that everyone deserves a basic level of care regardless of the ability to pay. By that I mean people will generally respond negatively to a statement such as "If you can't afford it, you can't expect to receive treatment when you break your arm." In contrast I think it's pretty reasonable to say "If you can't afford it, you can't have a car." I don't think the government should run a health care monopoly, but there are significant flaws in the market system that require government intervention in many cases, and health care is certainly one of them.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    People will respond negatively to "if you can't afford it, you can't eat". But the government doesn't run farms and groceries, not even by "supplementing the private market". They give you food stamps. Why can't the government give you healthcare vouchers? Why do they have to set up their own insurance plan?
jimbokun 17y ago
"The public then gets to use these facilities that they paid for at no cost" They paid for them, but there's no cost? I see what you mean, but you see what I mean, too, no?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

by gdp 17y ago

CWuestefeld 17y ago

It's a surprisingly efficient way of doing things. Much more so than having lots of private companies, each with shareholders demanding profits be returned It's remarkable how our historical examples of this efficiency are so often ignored by all. I mean, consider how the soviets of the USSR succeeded in making that nation an economy to be reckoned with. And Chairman Mao's great leap forward was able to engineer a populace that succeeded in its grand goal of vaulting beyond the waste of the capitalist West. If only the industry of South Korea could prosper in the way that Kim Jong Il has guided his people into a paradise of plenty, then all Korean people could join hands in brotherhood.

jives 17y ago
Seriously, I would like to frame this post and put it on my wall :)
olefoo 17y ago
Strawman much? I'm pretty sure you're responding to someone who was thinking more of Denmark, Sweden or Canada. None of which are dystopian totalitarian societies that can't afford the political freedoms necessary to running a modern society. If that's the level of discourse you are sinking to, you are a sad example of what is happening to this country and this site. You should be ashamed of yourself. Right at the moment, the cost of health care and health care administration is crippling the American economy, it prevents many people from taking entrepreneurial risks because they can't afford to jeopardise their health coverage. The cost of health coverage and care and the financialization of the housing market are two of the factors most responsible for the disappearance of the middle class in this country. And if you're worried about the United States falling prey to disastrous political ideology the lack of a stable middle class is a far greater risk factor than socialized medicine.
- kiba 17y ago
  The tensions are between centralized authorities(command economies) and individuals(free market) making decisions. The crux of the debate is whether the system should be centralized more or move toward individual human actors, whether these system could do better than the other, or whether it is something in between.(Ethical and political views are another story) I believe the pundit was arguing that the most extreme example clearly demonstrate the fallacy of using central planning to do resource allocation. Swedens, Denmark, and Canada are mixed economies which make it difficult to discern the effect of free market economies versus socialist system.
gdp 17y ago
Erm, yeah, about that. You understand the the US is atypical in the way that it treats health care? The implication that pretty much the rest of the western world is communist because they ensure that everyone has access to at least some kind of health care is completely insane. You're using the "labelling it" technique, which is essentially, "If I can give a name to the thing I'm arguing against, then it's wrong!" (see what I just did there?) A legitimately elected government providing services that its citizens may choose to use or not use is not communism. It's also not nazism or the boogeyman. See, I would consider healthcare a much more basic service than a huge standing military, but nobody seems to question that that should be government-operated. The USSR also had a 100% government-operated military! Wow, so does China! And North Korea! And Iran! My word, the USA must be the most terrible country on earth!
- kiba 17y ago
  This is of course, assuming the pundit in question is not an anarcho-capitalist. To an anarcho-capitalist, the question of whether the production of security should be privatized is a perfectably reasonable discourse, in which they of course perscribe the creation of private defense agencies as well other insitutional design such as polycentric law and private courts, all of which have some basis in history.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  A legitimately elected government providing services that its citizens may choose to use or not use is not communism. It's also not nazism or the boogeyman. You seem to have a strange definition of communism, as well as the history of nazism. Rather, you seem to be buying into the American propaganda that "democracy is the great good". A pure implementation of communism is necessarily democratic. Think about it. If all goods, and all production, are controlled by the body of people, then everything must be done by consensus. And you'll recall that in Germany, Hitler was democratically elected to power, and later assumed complete control again by election. You understand the the US is atypical in the way that it treats health care? You're just using the eight-year-old's "but johnny gets to stay up late" technique. And the answer is the same: just because one party does something really has not connection to whether it's the right thing for a different party to do. Anyway, the problem here politically is that the treatment of disease will immediately become politicized. In fact, it is already. People with mundane diseases will plod along, without any real progress made in cures. But diseases having real political constituencies -- AIDS/HIV is the big example -- will get enormous research, despite the fact that they account for a relatively small portion of the populace. Today, AIDS gets many times more funding per-sufferer than does, e.g., breast cancer. Today the government is the largest single funder of healthcare. But once they crowd out other actors, the entire medical profession will be political. That means that treatments will be put onto the approved list, and research dollars will be allocated, as a way of pandering for votes. This isn't an abstract fear: the government does this immediately upon getting involved. For example, look at the recent GM takeover. Despite Obama's claims (continuing to this day) that they don't want to micro-manage GM, Congress immediately set out preventing measures to make GM financially viable, such as closing dealerships. Local car dealerships are a surprisingly powerful constituency, and they get the bureaucrats working in their own interests in no time.

kiba 17y ago

Then explain to me the mechanism by which the universial health care allocate resource? It is one thing to have a guranteed source of revenue via taxation, it is quite another to manages the allocation of resources more efficently than a free agent in a free market. Even in a socialist system, scarcity still exists. The free market have an obvious mechanism and it is called profit and loss.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago
Universal health care rations treatments based on medical need - the most serious medical needs get treatment first. Private health care rations treatments based on ability to pay. I know which rationing system I prefer - for both ethical and pragmatic reasons.
- ksvs 17y ago
  "the most serious medical needs get treatment first" If that's the definition of universal health care, no country I know has it, because there is no country I know of that has successfully banned cosmetic surgery.
  - adw 17y ago
    Tell that to a burns victim or a kid with a harelip. Or a breast-cancer patient post mastectomy...
    - billswift 17y ago
      Reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery are not the same thing even though they use similar, and often the same, techniques.
      - adw 17y ago
        I think that might be a usage thing: over here in the UK they're both plastic surgery, but you see it qualified as reconstructive plastic surgery or aesthetic plastic surgery. Still, take birthmark removal: it's purely cosmetic, in a sense, but it makes such a difference to peoples' quality of life psychologically that it totally should be on the NHS if you ask me.

philwelch 17y ago

You'd think so, but why is healthcare so different than everything else? Most human needs are cared for by markets, albeit with government assistance as needed. Why should the government centrally run a health care monopoly rather than simply giving financial assistance, as needed, to people to pay for health care on an open market? That's how we've accomplished "universal food".

jimbokun 17y ago
I believe the Netherlands does something like this.
- billswift 17y ago
  I'm not sure how accurate it is, but the description I saw of the Dutch system is that everyone has exactly the same plan for exactly the same costs, but the gov't does it through the fig-leaf of "private" insurance companies.
stanleydrew 17y ago
First of all I don't think Obama is suggesting setting up a health care monopoly. I think he's suggesting supplementing the private market with a government-provided option. As for how health care is different from everything else, it's very expensive sometimes, and society has kind of decided that everyone deserves a basic level of care regardless of the ability to pay. By that I mean people will generally respond negatively to a statement such as "If you can't afford it, you can't expect to receive treatment when you break your arm." In contrast I think it's pretty reasonable to say "If you can't afford it, you can't have a car." I don't think the government should run a health care monopoly, but there are significant flaws in the market system that require government intervention in many cases, and health care is certainly one of them.
- philwelch 17y ago
  People will respond negatively to "if you can't afford it, you can't eat". But the government doesn't run farms and groceries, not even by "supplementing the private market". They give you food stamps. Why can't the government give you healthcare vouchers? Why do they have to set up their own insurance plan?

jimbokun 17y ago

"The public then gets to use these facilities that they paid for at no cost" They paid for them, but there's no cost? I see what you mean, but you see what I mean, too, no?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]