EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 2223
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23237 Posts
On April 01 2020 02:43 Amui wrote: I mean it's not like he has a choice. A few hundred people are keeling over every day, and thousands more testing positive in his state. Given the federal government response(basically none), he's trying to be accountable for every death that happens. As much as he might be a prick sometimes, he's not Trump who can write off 100k deaths as a success. Every death probably eats away at him and he's trying his best to keep people alive. It is just that lots of people were dying before this from a variety of illnesses because they lacked healthcare, the weird part is how covid-19 made people realize that wasn't acceptable. As if it not just being poor people dying changes their rationale. Though some people still want to maintain the employer based insurance/private healthcare system that simply can't handle this crisis (or future ones we know will come) at all. I guess I don't trust that when the emergency passes, and they don't feel personally at risk of a dilapidated medical system failing people like them, people like Cuomo won't go back to accommodating the profit seeking that is exacerbating this crisis and drove healthcare before this. Anyone not supporting nationalized healthcare (both Biden and Trump) are helping to set the country up to fail the next time this happens from my perspective. | ||
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mierin
United States4943 Posts
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ZerOCoolSC2
8983 Posts
I think people are slowly realizing that we need to change shit up if we're to remain competitive in the world (a healthy nation is a wealthy nation). We'll see how it unfolds in the coming months and years. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23237 Posts
On April 01 2020 04:18 mierin wrote: Absolutely. So many of the problems caused by this virus would be better handled with more progressive policies. I guess the majority of folks will pat themselves on the back over "incremental change" when this virus has run its course, seemingly oblivious to the fact that if it happens again we'll be facing the same problems. It's remarkable how many people are watching the policies Bernie's been campaigning on since 2016 be called on to be implemented to deal with this crisis, how ineffective it is not to have them in place ahead of time, but then think Clinton and Biden aren't part of the opposing forces to those clearly needed changes. Especially when they both campaigned on the implausibility of exactly what we need right now. Folks have a chance (despite the DNC penalizing states doing the responsible thing and delaying their primary) to demonstrate Democrats aren't also unacceptably oblivious to what reality and science says we need to do to fight both pandemics like this and the challenges we know we'll face in the future. Simply can't have FEMA, states, and private hospitals bidding against each other for supplies because the healthcare lobby makes more money that way. | ||
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dankobanana
Croatia238 Posts
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Mohdoo
United States15689 Posts
On April 01 2020 06:53 dankobanana wrote: It will all end the same way. Americans dont want more taxes. You'd rather take a body count. Thats why the USA will never again be #1. I'm sad to say it. Nah, life is just so good for Americans that they had a hard time understanding we weren't living in a simulation. People don't appreciate the government when they can't even imagine something they would need a government more. Now people see why it is weird to ask people to cover the costs of random illnesses. Basically no one thinks people should be expected to cover Corona costs. People will start to wonder why cancer isn't free but Corona is. Its the same situation. In short, life was too easy. Our country will learn a lot. | ||
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Logo
United States7542 Posts
On April 01 2020 06:59 Mohdoo wrote: Now people see why it is weird to ask people to cover the costs of random illnesses. Basically no one thinks people should be expected to cover Corona costs. People will start to wonder why cancer isn't free but Corona is. Its the same situation. You can't say that it's incredibly rude, people have died from cancer. + Show Spoiler + Discourse like this makes me feel so far from getting any actual meaningful change even in the middle of the pandemic that shows we need the change. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25372 Posts
On April 01 2020 07:58 Logo wrote: You can't say that it's incredibly rude, people have died from cancer. + Show Spoiler + Ah yes, the real lack of civility is from pointed Tweets and not people dying etc! Fuck sake haha | ||
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
On April 01 2020 06:59 Mohdoo wrote: Nah, life is just so good for Americans that they had a hard time understanding we weren't living in a simulation. People don't appreciate the government when they can't even imagine something they would need a government more. Now people see why it is weird to ask people to cover the costs of random illnesses. Basically no one thinks people should be expected to cover Corona costs. People will start to wonder why cancer isn't free but Corona is. Its the same situation. In short, life was too easy. Our country will learn a lot. People ain't gonna learn shit from this. Sorry. I have zero faith in the American public. | ||
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RenSC2
United States1058 Posts
The problem with "Universal Healthcare would have solved this problem", is that it doesn't. It only solves shifting the burden of paying for the problem to the government, which I believe the US government is doing anyways. Universal healthcare does not create more hospital beds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds Sometimes old data, but the US is at 2.7 hospital beds per thousand people. The UK is at 2.5, Denmark at 2.6, Canada at 2.5, Sweden at 2.2. Italy and Spain are slightly better here, at 3.2 and 3.0, but not majorly better. Germany and France do significantly better with 6.0 and 8.0. South Korea does even better at 12.3. The numbers with universal healthcare are all over the board, with a significant number of them being in the same ballpark as the US. Only in a few cases are the numbers significantly better. Almost as if Universal Healthcare itself is not the key factor. Universal healthcare does not create more respirators. Harder to find the data here, but like hospital beds, Univeral Healthcare itself is not a key factor. Universal healthcare does not create more masks. Does it suck that California and New York are bidding against each other for a limited supply of masks? Yes. The problem is a lack of masks. Universal healthcare does not solve that problem. Instead, it shifts the burden onto some entity (Medicare, I guess), to determine who gets that limited supply of masks. It doesn't magic more masks into existence. However, a bidding war for masks could entice other manufacturers to temporarily get involved (there is a cost to re-purposing manufacturing that they wouldn't take on without inflated prices). Universal healthcare solves the problem of how to pay for medical issues in normal times. For that reason, it's a good thing. However, it doesn't do any better in the face of something like a pandemic. It doesn't solve those problems. Unfortunately, in a country like the US where it would constantly be underfunded (like the UK), Universal Healthcare could quite possibly lead to even less hospital beds, less ventilators, and less masks when hospitals can't gouge patients anymore. Do you really think they're going to cut back on administrator salaries? Just something to think about in the hysteria. Universal Healthcare does solve some problems, just not the problems that people are currently freaking out about. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12192 Posts
Universal healthcare matters more when you think you're sick and you're getting charged a bunch of money for being responsible and getting tested. Or if you go bankrupt because of the treatment (don't know if that's going to be a thing? Probably, right?) Or if you lose your job because of the economic downturn and suddenly you don't have insurance. Those are significant enough in my opinion. But of course if a bunch of people get sick and hospitals get overrun, you're still gonna get a lot of people dying, that makes sense. Of course if you're in a social democracy there are probably more hospital beds per inhabitant than in a neoliberal country, but not necessarily more respirators as you point out. | ||
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Slaughter
United States20254 Posts
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Belisarius
Australia6230 Posts
On April 01 2020 09:53 Nebuchad wrote: Well the answer to your argument is in what you said. It is expected to get significantly worse. But it's not a race either way, if you guys don't end up getting hit that hard, sweet. Universal healthcare matters more when you think you're sick and you're getting charged a bunch of money for being responsible and getting tested. Or if you go bankrupt because of the treatment (don't know if that's going to be a thing? Probably, right?) Or if you lose your job because of the economic downturn and suddenly you don't have insurance. Those are significant enough in my opinion. But of course if a bunch of people get sick and hospitals get overrun, you're still gonna get a lot of people dying, that makes sense. Of course if you're in a social democracy there are probably more hospital beds per inhabitant than in a neoliberal country, but not necessarily more respirators as you point out. It's kind of a strange situation. The US has less beds per capita than most social democracies, but it actually has more ICU beds per capita by a fairly large margin. There's obviously a lot more demand for ICUs when people can't afford preventative care. I'm not sure which is better in a pandemic, but you might be able to argue both ways. | ||
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farvacola
United States18828 Posts
Whether or not a universal health program would solve supply problems is besides the point really, the habits of Americans are pushing the spread more than a lack of equipment ever could. | ||
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JohnDelaney
Ireland73 Posts
On April 01 2020 09:34 RenSC2 wrote: Universal Healthcare could quite possibly lead to even less hospital beds, less ventilators, and less masks when hospitals can't gouge patients anymore. Is there any study with past documented cases from other countries with universal healthcare that supports this speculation? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25372 Posts
On April 01 2020 10:37 farvacola wrote: The tendency to avoid seeking medical care, one of many consequences of US marketplace health systems, is directly at play every time a US resident starts feeling ill and goes about their day while treating symptoms using over the counter drugs instead of seeking an actual diagnosis. The general belief that any kind of protracted medical event necessarily brings about financial ruin is a strong deterrent to the casual seeking of care encouraged by socialized medicine programs and important to the success of testing-based contact tracing and spread control. One can be certain that hundreds if not thousands of people in this country are watching themselves show signs of the disease while trying to do essential errands instead of go to a hospital or stay home and seek help/telemedicine. Whether or not a universal health program would solve supply problems is besides the point really, the habits of Americans are pushing the spread more than a lack of equipment ever could. Indeed, I don’t think anyone has claimed universal healthcare would fix this, merely that it brings into starker focus already existing problems as you outlined so well. Not just healthcare either but tenuous employment, low wages lack of day one sick pay and all sorts of other associated facets of the environment combine to see people dragging themselves in to work while ill, never desirable but especially not now obviously. I’ll need to get back to speed on the current state of affairs in the US, quite tricky as it seems to vary a lot from state to state etc. It seems that things are less locked down than over in much of Europe and Asia thus far? It could be that systemic factors, or what lockdown measures were in place, or indeed cultural practices etc which are discussed a lot are neglecting simple geography and travel patterns. I don’t know it seems based on responses that the US should be harder hit than it has been thus far. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28670 Posts
A), countries are at different stages of outbreak, the US has been like 3 weeks behind italy and two weeks behind spain, there is a case to be made that americans simply have not had time to really start dying yet, as the disease is significantly more deadly in week 3 after infection. B), you're citing CFR (case fatality ratio), which is vastly different from real mortality rate, one that really depends on the amount of testing done. C), makeup of the populations is different, where age is one of the primary determining factors, and in Italy, nearly 7% of the population is above 80 years old (figure for the US is less than 4%). Here you can definitely argue that the american population is likely to have a whole lot of comorbidities due to being more overweight though, so this might balance itself out. D- The US is actually significantly wealthier than both Italy and Spain, with an average gdp/capita about 50% higher than either country - it should be equipped to handle this better than either of these countries. That said, universal health care does not solve a pandemic. An underfunded public health care system is still underfunded, and the american health care system does have a lot of money put into it. But there are several elements of a market-based health care system that are woefully inadequate - if testing is prohibitively expensive, then that makes it more likely that more people don't get tested - and in this case, widespread testing is essential to hinder the spread. From what I read, at least some states made testing free - so basically, you implemented an element of universal health care because you realized the necessity of it.. | ||
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RenSC2
United States1058 Posts
On April 01 2020 10:40 JohnDelaney wrote: Is there any study with past documented cases from other countries with universal healthcare that supports this speculation? It was just speculation when I made it. I can't find anything conclusive; however, we can look at universal healthcare in Italy beginning in 1978. We then go to this page that has historical data of Italian hospital beds: https://tradingeconomics.com/italy/hospital-beds Make sure to get the max range on the data. Then look at where the hospital bed decline begins, strangely enough, right around the mid-late 1970s. Before universal healthcare, they were over 10 hospital beds per 1000 people. Now they're at about 3. Spain begins universal care in 1986 which fulfilled a 1978 mandate. https://tradingeconomics.com/spain/hospital-beds Again, get max data on the chart. Data is a bit spotty, but clearly decreases once universal healthcare is enacted even though it increased from 1971-1980. Perhaps it's just a worldwide effect of changing medicine. The US also decreased it's number of hospital beds pretty precipitously, so we didn't escape that fate either. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/hospital-beds Is there any other major country without universal healthcare that we could look at? Germany does a little better and has a public/private partnership on healthcare, but would certainly still be universal. https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/hospital-beds So I'd say my initial assertion is still sensible and logical, but not proven. On April 01 2020 10:37 farvacola wrote: Whether or not a universal health program would solve supply problems is besides the point really, the habits of Americans are pushing the spread more than a lack of equipment ever could. Do you think that mildly sick people should self-quarantine or immediately go to the hospital? It seems that in Italy, a lot of those people went to the hospital where they were exposed to lots of other diseases and created worse outcomes. According to this video by Kurzgesagt (usually trustworthy) + Show Spoiler + Having said that, you do need people to self-quarantine and that's not exactly the American way either. We usually go to work sick and that's a really bad idea right now. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25372 Posts
On April 01 2020 11:22 RenSC2 wrote: It was just speculation when I made it. I can't find anything conclusive; however, we can look at universal healthcare in Italy beginning in 1978. We then go to this page that has historical data of Italian hospital beds: https://tradingeconomics.com/italy/hospital-beds Make sure to get the max range on the data. Then look at where the hospital bed decline begins, strangely enough, right around the mid-late 1970s. Before universal healthcare, they were over 10 hospital beds per 1000 people. Now they're at about 3. Spain begins universal care in 1986 which fulfilled a 1978 mandate. https://tradingeconomics.com/spain/hospital-beds Again, get max data on the chart. Data is a bit spotty, but clearly decreases once universal healthcare is enacted even though it increased from 1971-1980. Perhaps it's just a worldwide effect of changing medicine. The US also decreased it's number of hospital beds pretty precipitously, so we didn't escape that fate either. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/hospital-beds Is there any other major country without universal healthcare that we could look at? Germany does a little better and has a public/private partnership on healthcare, but would certainly still be universal. https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/hospital-beds So I'd say my initial assertion is still sensible and logical, but not proven. Do you think that mildly sick people should self-quarantine or immediately go to the hospital? It seems that in Italy, a lot of those people went to the hospital where they were exposed to lots of other diseases and created worse outcomes. According to this video by Kurzgesagt (usually trustworthy) + Show Spoiler + the reason why people die from the corona virus is that it knocks the immune system out and opens up a path for pneumonia to kill people off, rather than directly killing people. Exposure, by going to the hospital when you've got something minor, may actually be making things worse in this case. Having said that, you do need people to self-quarantine and that's not exactly the American way either. We usually go to work sick and that's a really bad idea right now. Self-isolate/quarantine and call emergency services if you start having severe complications seems to have been the order of the day in terms of advice over here, from as early as I can recall really. Things will doubtless flip as I doubt we’ve peaked yet, at least doors this has worked well here thus far, indeed emergency rooms were much quieter than they have been. A combination of less alcohol-related nightlife incidences and people being scared of getting infected have initially kept our emergency rooms quieter than usual. As per hospital bed decline, it’s interesting. I would presume that medicine itself has also improved over these decades, so presumably the throughput of patients would increase. Although there will also be more prospective patients due to population increase. Preventative healthcare, or at least treating early before requiring hospitalisation is something that has been focused on to varying degrees too. So many variables, fun to compare eh? :p Bed availability is one metric of interest, waiting times too. Then there’s rates of prescription medication addiction and bankruptcy from medical expenses and the US doesn’t so much lead the way in those as have a borderline monopoly. | ||
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