This is the Government that You Want to Run Health-care?

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by jimbob
The NHS costs the UK taxpayer less than medicaid costs the US taxpayer.

SPAM costs less than roast beef. What is your point?

My point is below: I am not arguing that the NHS is perfect, but that:
a) It costs less than medicaid,
b) It is pretty universal, and
c) It provides far more effective coverage for someone relying on it than someone relying on medicaid.

I would have actually thought these would be pretty uncontroversial

Quote:
Does the poorest quartile in the US have better or worse healthcare provision than the poorest quartile in the UK? Does it cost the UK less?

I know that I would rather go to the doctor in America than in the UK.

That is not the question. Are you seriously suggesting that, if you were poor enough to have to rely on medicaid, you would prefer to that, rather than the health care system in virtually any country with a universal provision?

Quote:
So, if the father is neglectful, should a child, almost literally, "pay for the sins of the father"?

I'd disagree, that might be your view, but I consider it barbarous.

Ahh, it is barbarism to accept responsibility for ones family.

No, but it is barbarous for society to not attempt some protection of the most vulnerable members of that society.

You still haven't explained how one could force an absent parent to pay. You could of course withold medical treatment from the child, but what if the father doesn't care, why do you think it is right that the child should suffer?

Quote:
I am a father; my children have the right to an education, because the voting population insists on this right. Does the fact that I send my children to school mean that I take no responsibility for their education? No. It does however mean that if I neglected my children's education, the state would provide some protection for the children from the consequences of this neglect.

Ignoring the rights or wrongs of your view: how do you get it to work, when similar schemes have failed abysmally?

Your children do not have a right to education. If this is so than all children in the world also have a RIGHT to education.

Shall your country; by force, require that all children have an education. Who determines the proper amount of education for all the children of the world?

Didn't you notice I stated that my children have this right, "because the voting population insists on this right."

Rights, like morals and ethics can't be proved logically, in effect they are like aesthetic descisions, and depend ultimately on the values that people have.

I have the right of access to universal healthcare, and to have had an education because members of the British population campaigned for that right, and now there is a consensus that this is a right. I have the right to vote for the same reason.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

By the way, I was watching last week's Ashes to Ashes. In 1981 that macho cop (Hunt?) snapped to the time-travelling detective, "take off that seatbelt, you're a cop, not a vicar!" Was the seatbelt law not much earlier than 1981? Were macho cops still not obeying the law as late as that?

Rolfe.

There are quite a few exemptions to having to wear a seatbelt and the police are one of the ones with a blanket exemption:

(f) a person driving or riding in a vehicle while it is being used for fire brigade or police purposes or for carrying a person in lawful custody (a person who is being so carried being included in this exemption);

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Enron did not run any electrical power system. Please get your facts straight.

Really? So having direct control of a power plant doesn't move them from trading to running? How is that?

Tapes Show Enron Arranged Plant Shutdown

EVERETT, Wash - In the midst of the California energy troubles in early 2001, when power plants were under a federal order to deliver a full output of electricity, the Enron Corporation arranged to take a plant off-line on the same day that California was hit by rolling blackouts, according to audiotapes of company traders released here on Thursday.

The tapes and memorandums were made public by a small public utility north of Seattle that is fighting Enron over a power contract. They also showed that Enron, as early as 1998, was creating artificial energy shortages and running up prices in Canada in advance of California's larger experiment with deregulation.

The tapes provide new details of market manipulation during the California energy crisis that produced blackouts and billions of dollars of surcharges to homes and businesses on the West Coast in 2000 and 2001.

In one January 2001 telephone tape of an Enron trader the public utility identified as Bill Williams and a Las Vegas energy official identified only as Rich, an agreement was made to shut down a power plant providing energy to California. The shutdown was set for an afternoon of peak energy demand.

[snip]... both men laugh.

The next day, Jan. 17, 2001, as the plant was taken out of service, the State of California called a power emergency, and rolling blackouts hit up to a half-million consumers, according to daily logs of the western power grid.

Officials with the Snohomish County Public Utility District in Washington State, which released the tapes, said they believed Enron officials had taken similar measures with other power plants. This tape, they said, was proof of what was going on.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There are quite a few exemptions to having to wear a seatbelt and the police are one of the ones with a blanket exemption:

(f) a person driving or riding in a vehicle while it is being used for fire brigade or police purposes or for carrying a person in lawful custody (a person who is being so carried being included in this exemption);

Most of the seatbelt laws are by state. There was a national law introduced in 03. I haven't paid attention to whether or not it is now in effect because we have a state law here in WA anyway. But if there is a national law it wasn't in effect in the 80s.

 

[volatile]

Most of the seatbelt laws are by state. There was a national law introduced in 03. I haven't paid attention to whether or not it is now in effect because we have a state law here in WA anyway. But if there is a national law it wasn't in effect in the 80s.

He's talking about the UK.

 

[Rolfe]

There are quite a few exemptions to having to wear a seatbelt and the police are one of the ones with a blanket exemption:

(f) a person driving or riding in a vehicle while it is being used for fire brigade or police purposes or for carrying a person in lawful custody (a person who is being so carried being included in this exemption);

I thought about that afterwards. I suspect that these days the cops are directed to wear their seatbelts as SOP, unless there is a very good reason for not doing it. Certainly, almost all of them seem to wear them. I suspect the culture took a little time to turn around!

Rolfe.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

The link title was the article title. So, how exactly was I misleading?


ETA: Were smokers told to quit to receive their health-care or not?

No. They were told to go cold turkey before a operation. You know, because that makes sense?

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

The link title was the article title. So, how exactly was I misleading?


ETA: Were smokers told to quit to receive their health-care or not?

No. They were told to go cold turkey before a operation. You know, because that makes sense?

 

[Darat]

The link title was the article title. So, how exactly was I misleading?


ETA: Were smokers told to quit to receive their health-care or not?

No.

 

[Rolfe]

Your children do not have a right to education. If this is so than all children in the world also have a RIGHT to education.

No, gnome. We've been through all this. The rights you have are the rights granted to you by the society in which you live. Thus, I have a right to free health care, while you do not. Children in my country have the right to free education up to the end of secondary school. This does not apply in all other countries.

This fantasy you have of some sort of magical, numinous, inalienable, uiniversal "rights", aside from what society grants you, has been chewed over and spat out and revealed to be totally bogus.

Get over it.

Oh, and while we're at it....

Ahh, it is barbarism to accept responsibility for ones family.

No, it is barbarous to refuse any help to children whose parents have abandoned them. Do you have a problem with that?

Rolfe.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Here's what I want to know:

If the doctors told a patient not to eat or drink for X amount of time before surgery, would Jerome claim the government had banned eating and drinking?

 

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by jimbob
... but the government spending less yet supplying universal healthcare is such a bad idea.

Can you not see from whence your ideas are coming?

You are being promised more for less.



I child can see the fallacy.

What fallacy?

I am choosing to talk about the NHS because it costs the UK taxpayer less than medicaid costs the US taxpayer. I also would argue that it is fairly uncontroversial that the NHS provides better provision than medicaid.

The safety net is better, and cheaper. Were is the fallacy?

 

[jimbob]

You are attempting to example the inefficiency of a government regulated system and you seem to believe that it is the free market. Why is that?

So could you provide specifics as to how an unregulated system will be so much cheaper and not require large bureaucracies?

What salary can a hospital consultant command, and why would these be lower in an unregulated system?


What are the capital costs of equipment, and why would these be lower in an unregulated system?

What are the running costs of equipment, and why would these be lower in an unregulated system?

If a patient is referred to a specialist, who examines the patient for an hour, and then referrs the patient for MRI scans, and later the patient needs several hours of surgary, with an entire support team, how can that not be expensive? I am ignoring drugs costs.

I have a £20 note in front of me, and on the reverse there is a picture of Adam Smith, with an illustration of "The division of labour in pin manufacturing".

This alludes to the fact that economies of scale tend to reduce costs.

The trouble with economies of scale is that, with the possible exception of pin manufacture, they come attendant with bureaucracy.

In an unregulated system, how do you ensure the safety of patients, and the competence of doctors?

Your proposal is not only uncivilised, it is also impractical.

So, if the father is neglectful, should a child, almost literally, "pay for the sins of the father"?

I'd disagree, that might be your view, but I consider it barbarous.
Ahh, it is barbarism to accept responsibility for ones family.

No, but it is barbarous for society to not attempt some protection of the most vulnerable members of that society.

Actually Rolfe, you said it better, but the same sentiments:

Oh, and while we're at it....




No, it is barbarous to refuse any help to children whose parents have abandoned them. Do you have a problem with that?

Rolfe.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Why are people so afraid to work together through their government for a real solution?

Just because government is a necessary evil doesn't mean we have to trust it implicitly.

 

[Rolfe]

I prefer to look at the reality of government health-care and its poor quality of service.

NHS maternity units falling short

Older people receive 'poor' NHS care

Just a couple of selections on the poor quality of government care.

No Thanks!

Well, we seem to have missed this little fallacy.

Gnome, the stories you linked to were news. News is what is unusual, or scandalous, or in the public interest.

If I felt like it, I could find plenty stories of "substandard" care in the USA too. It would be news for just the same reason, so such a googlefight would be pointless.

You seem to assume you know better than we who live with the system, that our system is flawed, poor quality or otherwise insupportable. Where are you getting that information from, apart from your prejudices?

Yes, we reserve the right to bitch about the NHS for as long and as hard as we like. It's a British pastime, like complaining about the weather. But would anyone change the system? Would anyone want to move to the US for the system there? Believe it or not, it's a big disincentive to moving to the USA - it was for me.

You know, the reason there aren't lots of good news stories is that we don't have big enough newspapers. I did post a link to a particularly good news story about a little girl who needed a heart transplant, but the heart was a poor match and wouldn't do, so they kept her alive with a mechanical heart until a better match was available and then she had the transplant. Lots of emergency helicopter flights and so on. All standard of care in the NHS. And it was news because it was a world first.

But the other reason the routine good news stories don't get posted is that everybody knows a number of people who have had their backsides pulled out of the fire by the NHS, or it's happened to them. For me, it was acute pneumonia a few months after I'd moved to a new house in a new area. I was living alone. I had a temperature of 103F. I hadn't even registered with the doctor. I phoned, and within an hour she was at my house. I deteriorated despite treatment, and soon there was an ambulance to take me to hospital and the isolation ward. I was nursed, I was treated, I got better. A week in hospital, lots of tests and x-rays and drugs and so on. I was so broke that my house didn't have carpets on the floor at that point. But I never even had to think about money for my medical care.

My cousin had a hip transplant last year. She was pushed up the waiting list because of clinical need and got it within a few weeks of going on the list. Howling success.

My neighbour also had a hip transplant. She was taken to a former private hospital that went bust, and was taken over by the NHS to deal with elective surgery only. They even took over the adjacent hotel that was built to go with it, and patients' relatives can stay there FOC while their loved ones are hospitalised. Neighbour had the surgery, and then the hospital told her they knew she would need the other hip done, the assessments had all been done, so when she felt the time had come, just call them directly and cut out the middle-man. She's skipping around like a two-year-old.

I could go on but it's getting late. How dare you tell us this system is substandard! Stuff happens, sometimes, and someone drops the rifle. But again public pressure - such as newspaper articles and other high-profile griping, the things you see from your inverted telescope across the pond - helps see to it that stuff is fixed.

Our politicians know very well which side their bread is buttered on. Any suggestion of cutting back on the NHS by introducing more private medicine is a complete vote-loser, and any party that suggested it would be unelectable for a generation.

You say that you would rather access healthcare in the USA. Well, would you? I've not seen much to commend its quality apart from convenience. (And before you start, waiting lists are organised by clinical need, and journalists like to quote worst case scenarios, but trust me you do not have to wait three weeks if you need your appendix removed!) You are assuming in that assessment that you would be able to meet the costs.

What if it was your little girl who needed the heart transplant and the mechanical heart? What if you didn't have the wherewithal to pay for it?

Rolfe.

 

[INRM]

I honestly think this issue over healthcare in the media is meant as a diversion. Get everybody riled up over this while the administration does something while we're not looking.

There is a bill called S.1959 aka the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" which while designed to prevent radical ideologies and terrorism from spreading online seems to be outlawing beliefs rather than outlawing actions as in the past.

We have rules that restrict freedom of speech and expression. Ever heard of "Clear and Present Danger"? The government can intervene if a person poses a clear and present danger. You're not allowed to incite riots as well.

So why is this legislation needed if we already have provisions under the law to deal with it?

I honestly think it will be mis-used to regulate the internet, and to crack down on free-speech potentially as the loose wording, and the definition of force, which is not clearly defined enough (normally not a big deal with an administration like ours which has taken every opportunity to erode the constitution, big deal), which is open to interpretation (it might be considered forceful to repeatedly send messages to your senator or congressman, which is legal, a protest might be considered forceful... it doesn't really define it as physical violence or physical force.)

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

No, gnome. We've been through all this. The rights you have are the rights granted to you by the society in which you live. Thus, I have a right to free health care, while you do not. Children in my country have the right to free education up to the end of secondary school. This does not apply in all other countries.

One must understand that if one allows the majority to determine ones rights that society may take ones life as the majority can deem ones life a burden to society.


It is easy to agree with society when one thinks society is providing one with some benefit that one thinks is greater than one can achieve on ones own.

People tend to forget what happens when society changes its mind.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

No.

The article was not telling the truth?

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

I am choosing to talk about the NHS because it costs the UK taxpayer less than medicaid costs the US taxpayer. I also would argue that it is fairly uncontroversial that the NHS provides better provision than medicaid.

The safety net is better, and cheaper. Were is the fallacy?

Why do you keep attempting to compare a government system to another government system?

I am arguing against government systems.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

My cousin had a hip transplant last year. She was pushed up the waiting list because of clinical need and got it within a few weeks of going on the list. Howling success.

I do not have a waiting list where I live.

Are you getting it yet?