Was such a rambling post by me lol, I'm more trying to say that Europe 15 years ago was as bad as America is today, whereas Britain has had universal health care for 58 (?) years (I think it was 1951 but I'm not going to wiki it ) So it's not something I've ever needed to think about.
However, there is one reason why I really really want a capitalist system: innovation. There are some medical innovations on the horizon that I would really like to see in my lifetime, and I think government, with all of its regulations, is holding that back, and thus killing people (if not directly).
People want to live longer and healthier, and free-market capitalism provides what people want, if it is allowed to.
On August 16 2009 03:10 Piy wrote: Just like to throw this in here...
Having lived very close to the poverty line in France and The UK I can tell you which is better...There's absolutely no comparison between nationalised health care and private (or the shocking "state" hospitals run in America and many other European countries).
Healthcare was bad as a foreigner in France ? ( just curiosity ).
France has changed it's laws since then. In 1997 when my dad tore half his finger off with a piece of rusty wire he was refused treatment at three hospitals before lieing in order to get a tetnus injection, something that has changed in most European countries now - most are generally excellent these days.
Was such a rambling post by me lol, I'm more trying to say that Europe 15 years ago was as bad as America is today, whereas Britain has had universal health care for 58 (?) years (I think it was 1951 but I'm not going to wiki it ) So it's not something I've ever needed to think about.
Ok thanks for the information but i think it is weird that he wasn't admitted to "urgences" ( you can always go here if you have no other options and just wait if there are more urgent cases ) Actually i think that the CMU was created for this exact kind of situation because foreigners and poor people were flooding urgences for basic treatments. Before the healthcare was only "universal" for citizens ( or you had to pay lot of money in private clinics :< )
However i guess he got trouble because as a foreigner it is always harder to explain properly your problems ( and he probably met idiots blindly applying the "règlements" like good old bureaucrats ). It is amazing what you can get in a public hospital if you know how it works. I remember when i was like 16 ? i broke my nose at rugby and although it wasn't really deformed i just wanted to know if it was really broken and how much time i would have to stop rugby. Then i went with my mom to the hospital where she works and i got a free radioscopy in like 20 minutes because she knew where was located the radioscopy service and argued a bit ( And they did not even ask my name lol ). This wasn't really useful because they only told me to stop sport for like a month and to got to a private clinic if i wanted some esthetic surgery ( which wasn't needed anyway ) but well i think it is quite interesting because even in countries where healthcare is supposed to be free, you can always get better or faster treaments if you know how it works ( And where to go because most of the hospitals are huge and have lot of different services ) and argue.
Also lot of things could be said about the bad hospitals and doctors that you should avoid. Each year there are several rankings about public hospitals AND private clinics and i think that people should know that even if healthcare is free it doesn't mean that it is the same everywhere.
Why would innovation in medicine stop just because more people are covered by insurance? New treatments will still make pharmaceuticals money, possibly even more money since more people will be getting their drugs.
The US being the source of many inventions isn't because of private health care, it's because they have so many good universities and companies investing into R&D. Those companies make tons of money selling their new drugs to socialized health care programs around the world.
I love how Colbert and Stewart both recently bashed the hell out of the conservatives who are all babbling like a bunch of morons about the "evils" of universal healthcare. Seriously if your going to just scream at town hall meetings no one is going to respect your opinion. Or like Glenn Beck who magically changed his mind about our healthcare system. God the talking heads on TV just should be summarily executed -_-
On August 16 2009 05:24 shmay wrote: I appreciate that the current system blows. Hard.
However, there is one reason why I really really want a capitalist system: innovation. There are some medical innovations on the horizon that I would really like to see in my lifetime, and I think government, with all of its regulations, is holding that back, and thus killing people (if not directly).
People want to live longer and healthier, and free-market capitalism provides what people want, if it is allowed to.
Most innovation comes from publicly funded universities or directly from the government. Confer: Internets, computers, pretty much everything else. This is especially true for biotechnology and biomedicine.
Not only does Obama's plan not remove capitalism from US healthcare, but I think it's a horrible misunderstanding of reality that innovation comes from the private sector. It's a very common belief, but imo, it's a belief that owes 95% of its popularity to successful propaganda.
If you want a car that looks great and has all the current amenities, capitalism is fantastic for that sort of "innovation" but the majority of real, fundamental innovations come out of the public sector. Technology, medical improvements, modern-life as we know it, comes primarily out of military research, government contracts (government hires a private company to develop something), and big public Universities or private Universities w/ public grants for research. Even pharma companies and other innovating industries get most of their research money from grants, or development reimbursement deals etc, from the government. Research and development is fucking expensive and competition between two or three major corporations (that could actually afford it, the smaller companies can't afford fundamental innovations on that scale) is a smaller incentive for innovation than you might assume. Especially when you can externalize the costs by requesting a grant from the government (i.e. get the tax payers to cover it).
Hell, even the development of Tang was funded by NASA before it was privatized for profit. It depresses me how much credit capitalism receives for products that're developed on the public dime. Credit where credit is due. Competition in capitalism is great for lowering prices and fine-tuning products to most people's tastes, but big changes? Fundamental innovation? I don't think so.
On August 16 2009 05:48 Tadzio wrote: Not only does Obama's plan not remove capitalism from US healthcare, but I think it's a horrible misunderstanding of reality that innovation comes from the private sector. It's a very common belief, but imo, it's a belief that owes 95% of its popularity to successful propaganda.
If you want a car that looks great and has all the current amenities, capitalism is fantastic for that sort of "innovation" but the majority of real, fundamental innovations come out of the public sector. Technology, medical improvements, modern-life as we know it, comes primarily out of military research, government contracts (government hires a private company to develop something), and big public Universities or private Universities w/ public grants for research. Even pharma companies and other innovating industries get most of their research money from grants, or development reimbursement deals etc, from the government. Research and development is fucking expensive and competition between two or three major corporations (that could actually afford it, the smaller companies can't afford fundamental innovations on that scale) is a smaller incentive for innovation than you might assume. Especially when you can externalize the costs by requesting a grant from the government (i.e. get the tax payers to cover it).
Hell, even the development of Tang was funded by NASA before it was privatized for profit. It depresses me how much credit capitalism receives for products that're developed on the public dime. Credit where credit is due. Competition in capitalism is great for lowering prices and fine-tuning products to most people's tastes, but big changes? Fundamental innovation? I don't think so.
But isn't "public" money really private money taxed from citizens or borrowed abroad to be payed back by more unfortunate generations after us? That or just printed like they are currently doing.
On August 16 2009 06:00 imabossdude wrote: But isn't "public" money really private money taxed from citizens or borrowed abroad to be payed back by more unfortunate generations after us? That or just printed like they are currently doing.
The argument is whether private or public investments do better to encourage innovation. Sure, public money is taken from private individuals, but it is spent by the government on programs as opposed to by private individuals to better themselves. Tadzio and I agree that the public allocation of money to research leads to more innovation than what comes from the private sector.
On August 16 2009 06:00 imabossdude wrote: But isn't "public" money really private money taxed from citizens or borrowed abroad to be payed back by more unfortunate generations after us? That or just printed like they are currently doing.
wtf? @.@
That's like saying plastics and synthetic fibers are "natural" because they're ultimately derived from natural sources (although they're manipulated by humans to such an extent that they no longer resemble anything that occurs in nature). You're technically correct in the same way you'd be correct if you said I was an ape, but you're destroying any nuance in the meaning the words you're using.
Yeah, public money used to be private money until it was taxed. And you're REEEEEEAAAALLLY stretching to disagree with me about something.
I didn't read through the whole thread, but I'm pretty sure this point hasn't been brought up.
One of the major reasons why I'm against government intervention in the heatlh care system is because the US government is notoriously bad at forecasting and/or shortsighted. The US government didn't even start planning for the future based on financials until the last 5-10 years; hell, the US didn't even have audited financials until 1994. Before that, decisions were made in Congress by how the individual representatives and senators felt about a topic...not based on actual research or numbers forecasting. Most people don't realize it, but most governments in the US only budget for 60 days at a time (the federal government is a little better about this than local governments). For the US to assume such a big role in health care without the experience and skills needed to analyze the budgetary requirements is definitely jumping the gun.
A lot of people tout the systems that Canada and many EU countries have, but historically, in these countries, the government has had been much more involved with the needs of society than it has in the US. One of the reasons why the system has somewhat worked in the universal health care system countries is because you guys actually planned for it...and had the know-how to do so. I have yet to be convinced that the Obama administration really know what it is doing aside from talking.
question: there's a lot of mention of a 'bureaucrat' coming between you and your doctor under the public option, but since all insurance plans have that i was wondering who exactly would be covering the bureaucratic duties. would it just be H&HS?
also, wasn't there a woman a few years ago who testified to congress (maybe) about how her role as an insurance claims adjuster was specifically to DENY healthcare coverage for people wherever possible? not sure why people are so quick to defend that kind of health insurance.
On August 16 2009 07:06 benjammin wrote: also, wasn't there a woman a few years ago who testified to congress (maybe) about how her role as an insurance claims adjuster was specifically to DENY healthcare coverage for people wherever possible?
Yeah, that story was featured in the Moore documentary, Sicko, which you can watch for free here.
On August 16 2009 07:37 imabossdude wrote: Yea, we all know that Moore is very unbiased. Just kidding. He hates America and everyone who doesn't believe what he believes.
On August 16 2009 01:27 imabossdude wrote: I understand that most young people tend to be liberal, since they haven't had a chance to make it in the real world or understand how everything works. Since most Starcraft players are young here, there is a good chance they are liberal, which the poll shows.
Not really. The most conservative people I've met (outside of the handful of wealthy old men I've met) have been young narcissists-- and that's a growing demographic in the US. "Why should I give more in taxes to benefit a stranger I'd gladly shoot with my constitutionally-protected firearm should they threaten to take my property or get too close to a family member?" is a sentiment I've heard pretty often from younger people.
I consider myself socially fairly moderate and fiscally conservative (promoter of globalization, promoter of a strong competitive market with limited government involvement targeted specifically at anti-competitive behavior such as fraud, cough, cough), on the whole making me a conservative. It's nice to know that I'm a narcissist who would love to shoot people with my gun (...wait, I own a gun? This is news to me.)
I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was talking about you. I'd apologize for what I said, except I don't think my statement was insulting, even if it did apply to you directly (which it didn't). What is a narcissist except a person that values himself over others and how would you expect such a person's political ideology to manifest itself? I don't think it'd be unreasonable to expect them to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal (leaning toward libertarianism). A narcissist wouldn't want to spend money on other people, and he'd certainly not want his personal freedoms stepped upon. It makes sense that a narcissist would be libertarian. It makes much less sense for a narcissist to be a socialist or a communist, a fascist or a peasant in a authoritarian system as those ideologies conflict with the base motivations of a dedicated narcissist.
It is my opinion that narcissists are necessarily fiscally conservative and socially liberal. It is my observation that US culture is producing narcissists at a growing rate because they make fabulous consumers that demand very little in the way of wide-sweeping public reforms (less likely to join unions, advocacy groups, etc) and this is a capitalist nation that benefits by developing such people. It follows, then, that I believe a growing proportion of this nation's youth are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. It is not my contention that all conservatives/republicans are narcissists. It is also not my contention that all young people are conservative. What I am proposing is that "young narcissist" is a growing demographic and that these people are likely to be fiscally conservative. I.e. I think it's a bullshit oversimplification to assume every young person you run into wants the government to do everything for them... which was obviously imabossdude's opening (strawman) statement.
Throw a bigger tantrum but I wasn't talking about you... if you still think I was, you may want to take a closer look at yourself and the definitions of the labels I'm using and decide whether it's really worth it to draw more attention to yourself and any of the niddling-pick differences you have from the young narcissists I know personally. I'm sure you'll convince me you're not a narcissist if you talk about yourself more.
It is my observation that your observation has no support other than your opinions, which frankly, I disagree with entirely.
A narcissist is not limited to being a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. The name Barrack Obama is coming to mind here... I am somewhat joking, though I do peg him as narcissistic. Regardless, while that statement will no doubt offend your good liberal sensibilities, surely you cannot deny how many famous actors and actresses are narcissits regadless of political affiliation.
Furthermore, you seem to equating fiscal conservatism with "I only think for myself." I equate it with supporting a competitive market in which I expect the best man to win. That man need not by necessity be me. In fact, if anything, I think that my belief in fiscal conservatism is the most fair system because it gives people the closest thing to an unbiased shot at success. I view socialized government policy as only being worthwhile when it contributes to the strength of the market as a whole (i.e. public education, although I do have a lot of complaints about the American educational system, but not the existence of the system itself). Based on how the health care plan has been written, and what I have gathered from skimming over it, I do not think it is beneficial (either from a fiscal or a social perspective -- Obama only makes it sound that way in his bleeding heart speeches, which I am quickly growing tired of since I care about results, not words).
And, to be quite frank, addressing your comment which I replied to, the implication was that "this is what modern conservatism is all about." I do not at all believe that to be the case and this is what I took offense to since I have grow tired of people criticizing my conservative lean by calling me heartless and things of that nature. What's more, if these "young narcissists" really are, as you insist, fiscal conservatives and social liberals, then that shouldn't be viewed as a conservative trend, but as a societal trend since these people are no more in line with conservative beliefs than they are with liberal ones.
For the record, my issues with the health care reform are actually more socially oriented than fiscally oriented. Certain benefits I have now I am going to lose, some of which are needed. Illegal immigrants should have to become a part of the system (rather than existing on a labor black market) before getting treatment comparable to citizens. This labor black market has got to stop because in the long run it is not beneficial. And finally, having worked for the government, I simply do not trust it with the level of power the bill carries as proposed. I fear this level of legally given government power far more than I fear the threat of illegal wire taps.
EPT
) So it's not something I've ever needed to think about.![[image loading]](http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/images/20thc/Bismark.jpg)
