William-

First, I hope we can cut out the anecdotes because they are meaningless. I have a success story of my mother in her 60's who is about 4 years cancer free because of the care she recieved, but going into her treatment plan doesn't reflect the overall system. I can also provide anecdotes where illegal aliens recieved comprable care that you recieved with no insurance. Conversely, reciting health care 'horror stories' doesn't reflect the reality of either public or private option plans so I won't go there either.

Second, more people come to the united states for treatment than any other place on the globe. That's because we provide the best and most cutting edge procedures available. How else would Americans have won 87 out of the 143 Nobel Prizes for Physiology and Medicine since 1945?

The UK has long waiting lists for hosts of medical procedures as do other government systems because of how much money is budgeted for healt care. Therefore it has to be GOVERNMENT rationed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...p-surgery.html

Survivability for various forms of cancer and heart diasease is greater in the U.S. than under your socialist system.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596#footnotes


Maybe you like your current system and that's great but your own Daniel Hannan member of the European Parliment has a much different take on socialized health care than you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI6uyhRcZLY

Third, your remarks to Chickryder were very condescending: "Chick - we are social animals. That's the way we evolved. Those of us who fail to realise that, and follow the path of self interest over the needs of the group may learn about Darwins ideas by becoming extinct themselves. Love your written English, by the way. It's very.........idiosyncratic."

Self intererest has made America the most prosperous nation on earth. God, Family, Country is the model. Your "needs of the group mentality" died with the Soviet Union. Forget Darwin, you are one generation away from learning Karl Marx's path to extinction.

M

 

Most of that is bollocks. Especially anything from the Daily Mail. The Mail's waiting lists, in particular, are unknown to the newspapers that most people read. Its figures are based on waiting lists during the Tory government era, and in fact not even the Mail could claim that those waiting times are true now - your link is to a three year old article. All of the targets listed in that article have long since been surpassed apart from 6 trusts which are 'failing'. Don't try to claim that you don't have some 'failing' hospitals due to poor management. Your cancer and heart disease survival rates are higher for some forms of those diseases - for those who get treatment - less for others. The right wing anti universal care think tank that your link points to is about as trustworthy as Wikipedia - and less accurate. There is a particular problem with European men and cancer, but it isn't the health care services. It's the reluctance to see a GP with the resultant delay in diagnosis. That's a well documented issue that your think tank conveniently forgot to mention.

The 18 week target it mentions has long since been surpassed, with a typical wait of 8 weeks, but again, the think tank article fails to point out that that target is for elective surgey for non-life threatening conditions. For suspected cancers the target is for the patient to see an oncologist within 48 hours of visiting the GP - a target that's usually met. There's quite a difference between 18 weeks and 48 hours. We can't do anything about the delay between the patient first noticing symptoms and his deciding to visit the GP though. Transplant patients still have long waits due to the shortage of donor organs. I'd guess that that's equally true in the States and elsewhere, but I'm happy to be corrected if someone can point me to accurate figures.

America isn't the most prosperous nation on Earth in per capita terms although it's near the top. The mark of a civilised society is how it shares its prosperity. You don't seem to want to share yours with those less prosperous in your society. Your society is massively interdependent. All technologically advanced societies are. If your society chooses not to share its wealth with all of its members, that is a clear indication that it is not a civilised society. It looks, in fact, as though your society sees that argument and has decided to share. That puts you on the fringe of your own society. A big fringe for the moment, but be very sure, if the USA is going to reclaim the moral high ground that it lost during the Bush years that fringe is going the way of the dinosaur.

Your medicine is not the most cutting edge in most fields. A lot of it is at the research phase, because you have more people, better funded, than smaller countries, but it takes longer to trickle down to ordinary patients than it does in a lot of other countries because of the intransigence of your insurers. That said, some of the most effective, if not most cutting edge medicine has actually been driven by lack of resources. The Russian approach to eye surgery is one example that comes to mind.

If you want some accurate figures, visit the office of national statistics, not some out of date rubbish from sources with an axe to grind.

Anyway - the invidualists amongst you who don't want to contribute to anyone else's health care are missing one very important point. Your healthcare is the most expensive in the world. You can provide good healthcare to the entire population at lower cost than you now provide it to part of the poulation. That would put money into the pockets of the people currently being ripped off by the sky high costs. If it doesn't, then elect some politicians who can make it work, and because politicians are only human be prepared to see - and correct - some mistakes while you're getting the system working.

'Nuff said.

Rob

 

Must agree that copying Canada's system doesn't seem a good idea.

There are a lot of good universal healthcare systems though. Why not copy one of those or develop your own model?

Rob

 

Williamr-

In typical Saul Alinsky fashion you try to malign those whose data doesn't match your views as right wing and out of the mainstream. Have you taken a look at the poll at the top of the screen? If I'm on the "fringe" then why do most people in America share my view that government run health care isn't the way to go?

Only 32% of Americans support a government run single payer system, while 57% oppose it.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...care_57_oppose

People who oppose Barack Obama now outnumber those who do. With 48% at least somewhat approving and 52% disapproving. Are thay all fringe right wing dinosaurs? The polling data also shows 31% strongly approve of Obama while 36% strongly dissaprove. The health care debate is driving those numbers.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._tracking_poll

So it appears that I'm not on the "fringe" in my society. But, if you lived here then it would be you on the fringe.

Almost 50% of Americans are already covered under a government health plan via Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and Veterans Affairs. Medicare and Medicaid are already hemorrhaging money. Couple that with all of the other socialist entitlements and government bailouts and we are massively in debt with no end in sight.

You country is broke as well do to the same socialist garbage. My kids cannot afford our walk down the road paved with good intentions.

I will go back to Daniel Hannan. You might have seen this clip unless you were to busy at the Soylent Green factory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs

M

 

I would be all for a government funded system that worked, and did not deteriorate the level of recieved health care. But it is impossible for the government to run any kind of program, and not just fock it all up. We elect our own worst enemies!
So therefore I am going to continue saving money for those Cuban hookers

 

One more thing... Simple reforms can be implemented to lower health care costs:

1) Tort reform- Cap punitive and compensatory damages from malpractice suits.

2) Remove mandates- States have numerous mandates that force insurance companies to cover certain procedures. Remove these mandates and let the consumer decide what coverage they want. Example: Twelve states mandate that insurance companies pay for artificial insemenation and other infertility treatments. This mandate makes insurance more expensive for a 20 year old single male who doesn't need that procedure. But, if an individual wants coverage for that procedure then they can pay to have it added.

http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/re...ndates2008.pdf

3) Enforce immigration law- Illegal immigrants have flooded emergency rooms in California and other states forcing hospitals to have to shut ER's down.

4) Expand health savings accounts- Allow an idividual to buy the level of coverage he or she wants with high deductables. That way a policy holder is covered for accidents and catastrophic illness and their health maintenance can be paid from their own personal health savings account. The policy holder makes weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly payments to the account until the deductable is met. At the end of the year the policy holder is mailed a check for the unused amount. This encourages policy holders to stay healthy and to shop around for the most affordable care.

M

 

And more funding for Cuban hookers to cheer you up when you are sick!

 

On top of that, the plan can cover treatment for any STD's you pick up from the hookers.

This is win-win stuff right here!
M

 

Hannan is a nutter on the extreme fringe of his own party. Look for the special interest.

I actually got interested enough to do a bit of digging on comparison data between systems. Not surprisingly, I couldn't find much that was acceptably unbiased, on both sides of the argument, but I did find that the World Health Organisation does a regular ranking of the effectiveness of health care provision by country.

Of course, the WHO is a pinko commie lefty liberal bunch of do-gooders, and it's ranking (seriously this time lol) weights factors such as ease of access to treatment, preventative and vaccination programs, infection rates and survival rates, and to some extent all weightings can be challenged. That said, it is unbiased and has the resources to make its data and conclusions authoritative within those caveats.

The last survey is dated year 2000, which is rather older data than I like to use, but it's probably the best and most authoritative available.

Since then the US system and real spend after inflation haven't changed much, so its current ranking will depend on advances/fall backs by other countries. The UK has had significant increases in real (after inflation) spend, increases in medical, nursing and medical technical staff and major decreases in waiting times and infection rates. It's probably not unreasonable to assume that UK ranking has improved a little, although probably still behind France and Germany, both of which countries have their own universal health care systems.

The USA ranked 35 world wide. Pretty good - a big country is never going to be top against some very small countries with very high per capita incomes - but perhaps not as good as 'the worlds most powerful nation' should be. The UK, with its rather despised NHS still recovering from a generation of Tory underfunding, ranked 18th.

If you believe your government to be too incompetent to manage a universal health care plan which should provide better treatment for everybody at reuced cost, that's a purely internal issue for Americans, but remember that GWB has gone. Accepting a second rate rate health care system becuse you elect second rate politicians seems a strange way to carry on. Elect some first rate politricians to get a first rate system. Msaybe you already have. Time will tell.

Rob

 

That really is the rub. The US government botches evrything it gets its hands into. Medicare, social security, and even the postal service are massively in debt, and we want to hand over health care to this bunch? With defecit spending at 1.2 trillion dollars and borrowing half of every dollar spent we are mortgaging our kids future and it's not right to saddle them with our mistakes.

According to polling data, the real support for a single payer system comes from individuals under 30 years of age at 67% approval.

Dick Morris who has actually read the House Bill (unlike most House members) reports and I quote: "Under the bill, for example, those making $30,000 a year would have to pay up to 7% of their income in health insurance premiums before they could get a government subsidy." But the under 30 crowd thinks everything is free and someone else will foot the bill. The best thing would be if they could put that money into an interest bearing health savings account where government couldn't get their hands on it. That would defeat the purpose though.

Insurance can be cheap if government butts out. I have an AFLAC accident policy that pays cash if I have an accident, cut my hand, crack a rib, need to get X-rays, etc... That policy costs me under $8 per week. I also have an AFLAC hospitilization policy which pays me cash for every day me or my wife spends the night at the hospital including child birth (which is why I took out the policy). That policy is $12 a week. People under 30 can afford that, that's not even half of one bar tab...

M

PS- I knew you'd crap on Daniel Hannan. He was on FOX news again last night. Maybe I can dig up the spot on youtube for you enjoyment Williamr