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

[JEROME DA GNOME]

You do realise that what you're suggesting is that it's acceptable for you to pay more for a lesser service because you've got more cash, don't you? I mean, you really think that such a position would make sense?

Not at all, I am suggesting that the over taxation which provides socialism causes the income of the citizen to decrease. Shall we also factor tax into the per capita income of the two nations and see how much of each individuals labor is retained for their own use?

You've also failed to respond to the points regarding the sizeable proportion of your population who apparently slip through your safety net for whatever reason, a situation which just doesn't happen in Canada, Europe, Oz, and NZ. Why is this?

Because your proposition does not exist. Currently in America there is not a single person who, if they show up at a hospital, does not receive health-care.

And what's Her Maj got to do with it?

Sorry, just a snide remark about the differences in culture with regards to caring for oneself.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

Jerome, are you still claiming that if one allowed a full unfettered free-market, nobody would be unable to afford healthcare?

Plese explain why in detail, my calculations as to the costs of healthcare are anything other than gross underestimates.

ETA: for example in this post

ETA2: Anyone else's estimates that could be more realistic would be welcome...

Your numbers are based on the partly socialized system. This distorts the cost.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

Yet the USA if it adopted similar systems to Canada and some European countries could for the same amount of money it is spending now have a universal system that would actually be among the best medical systems in the world (if not the best).

No, America would not have produced the wealth it did over the last 60 years if it had taxed the citizens at the rate which would be needed to provide universal health-care.

This is not a matter that the USA can't afford to do what Canada and some European countries do because it is "protecting those countries" but that it choses to spend the its money less efficiently in regards to health-care than Canada and some European countries.

No, it is a matter that Canada and Europe could not afford to do what they are doing if not for the military protection provided to them by America.

 

[Rolfe]

Get over to the other thread with the derail, Gnome.

Britain is speding less per capita on a universal healthcare system than the USA is spending per capita on a poor-quality system that only 10% of its population can access.

That fact renders discussion of where anybody's money came from in the 18th century entirely irrelevant.

Now, you don't like anecdotes, you said. OK. Where are those statistics to show what percentage of the British population has ever had to wait six months or more for any item of healthcare?

You believe the NHS offers substandard care. Would you like to speculate as to why wealthy and influential people, who could easily afford private insurance, or even to pay privately, still use it?

Would you care to tell us what additional care Abigail Hall might have received if she'd been born in the USA, compared to what the "substandard" NHS did for her?

Would you care to tell us whether Abigail would have been assured of that standard of care, if she'd been born in the USA?

Currently in America there is not a single person who, if they show up at a hospital, does not receive health-care.

Would you care to tell us what the knock-on consequences would be after someone turned up at Casualty with a serious problem needing immediate, expensive treatment?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

No, America would not have produced the wealth it did over the last 60 years if it had taxed the citizens at the rate which would be needed to provide universal health-care.

It has been adequately and repeatedly pointed out that universal healthcare actually costs less than you guys are currently spending in taxes on Medicare/Medicaid.

So your population is already taxed at the rate which would be needed to provide universal healthcare.

Rolfe.

 

[volatile]

Your numbers are based on the partly socialized system. This distorts the cost.

As Architecht pointed out to you, this is irrelevant. The numbers are the numbers.

Your healthcare system costs you more and provides you less.

 

[Rolfe]

This is a delusion. How are those 6 month waits for surgery going?

You are as delusional as my Tennessee friend, who, even as she was struggling against dreadful odds to try to cope with her systemic lupus in the US system, was nevertheless convinced that she was lucky to live in the best healthcare system in the world.

She somehow believed she was getting treatment she wouldn't have got, say, in Britain. She was wrong.

Are you going to provide us with those statistics about what percentage of the British population has ever had to wait six months for surgery, even? (I note that you've now changed that accusation from the even more ludicrous "six months wait for healthcare" after many people pointed out that you get access to healthcare immediately in Britain. So you can read. Try reading some more.)

Rolfe.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

As Architecht pointed out to you, this is irrelevant. The numbers are the numbers.

Your healthcare system costs you more and provides you less.

 

[Architect]

No, America would not have produced the wealth it did over the last 60 years if it had taxed the citizens at the rate which would be needed to provide universal health-care.

That'll be why the UK, the Germans, the French, the Swedish (continue as appropriate) all have comparable standards of living? How peculiar....I must have missed you motoring ahead with all that wealth, in between you abandoning your sick and working everyone else to the bone.

No, it is a matter that Canada and Europe could not afford to do what they are doing if not for the military protection provided to them by America.

You do realise that (a) you've not actually stated a cogent case for that and (b) it would be a matter for another thread?

 

[Architect]

As Architecht pointed out to you, this is irrelevant. The numbers are the numbers.

Your healthcare system costs you more and provides you less.

Repeated for emphasis.

To be clear. We have universal healthcare, free at the point of delivery, and a world class health service. You pay more, and get less. How can this be a good thing?

 

[Darat]

Despite posting a Mod box regarding the derailing of this thread and even providing a link to the appropriate thread Jerome continued to attempt to derail this thread. His posts (and a few other Members' posts) were deleted. Any further such attempts to continue the derail will result in further Mod action which may include suspension.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Darat

 

[Rolfe]

You can bash your brains out all you like, Gnome. What volatile said is correct.

The NHS is funded from taxation, from the taxes of those who benefit from it. This burden, per person, is less than the burden of tax, per person, imposed on US citizens to fund Medicare/Medicaid, and in contrast to the British system, those who are paying that tax in the US can not access the benefits.

The USA is already paying more in healthcare tax than is necessary to fund a high-quality universal system. So spare us the "oh, we can't afford to do this because we've spent all our money on attacking foreign countries to secure our oil supply defending the rest of the world," malarkey.

Now, you don't like anecdotes. So how about the statistics showing what percentage of the British population has ever had to wait for six months or more for healthcare, or indeed for surgery.

Reports showing that in one part of the country, at one time, for one particular type of surgery, some people waited that long, don't cut it.

Nobody said the NHS was perfect. All systems break down from time to time, and that makes the news. The same can be said for the US system. For example, the story of the child with appendicitis. Cherrypicking disaster reports isn't statistics. You keep talking about "our" six-month waits for healthcare. To which we reply, correctly, that "we" are not waiting six months for healthcare.

To argue in your own style, don't you realise that nobody in Britain has to wait six months for any surgery or other healthcare?

Rolfe.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

You keep talking about "our" six-month waits for healthcare. To which we reply, correctly, that "we" are not waiting six months for healthcare.

To argue in your own style, don't you realise that nobody in Britain has to wait six months for any surgery or other healthcare?

Rolfe.

Should be careful about that generalisation, there may well be elective surgeries were the wait is that long. Also remember if you go back to the late 80s and most of the 90s because of consistent underinvestment (for idealogical reasons) and terrible mismanagement of the NHS (by the medical profession) some waiting times did indeed become unacceptably long and whilst people may not agree with exactly how the last few governments have tackled that problem, they can't argue that waiting times have not come down and very significantly in many areas.

Which goes to show when you have a population who consider good health-care a right they can ensure that it remains a right and remains good quality even though a particular political party may not support that right as strongly as another.

ETA: I understand that you are making the point that given the meaning Jerome uses since we have the choice to pay for health-care whenever we want to we don't "have" to wait - I was just addressing the sensible issue not the silly one!

 

[Architect]

To argue in your own style, don't you realise that nobody in Britain has to wait six months for any surgery or other healthcare?

Elective, non-urgent work.....removal of tatoos, cosmetic work, etc.

Cataracts can sit for a few months between each eye because of a general medical preference, but I don't think that's a waiting list problem per se.

ETA: Beaten to it by Darat!

ETA (again): Darat, check the statistics and you'll find that NHS Scotland never suffered the same waiting list problems in the late 80s due to different priorities. But I agree that underfunding led to a problem generally for a few years.

 

[Darat]

Elective, non-urgent work.....removal of tatoos, cosmetic work, etc.

See my ETA to my post above. None of us "have to" wait for any treatment at all given how JEROME uses the phrase "have to" since at anytime you and I can pay for any form of treatment we want no matter how trivial or not.

He seems to forget that we have a very good private medical system in the UK that we can all access whenever we want... if we have the means of course.....

 

[Darat]

...snip...

ETA (again): Darat, check the statistics and you'll find that NHS Scotland never suffered the same waiting list problems in the late 80s due to different priorities. But I agree that underfunding led to a problem generally for a few years.

Are you sure of this - I was politically active at that time and this was one of the big issues and I don't remember Scotland being significantly different from the rest of the UK?

 

[Architect]

He seems to forget that we have a very good private medical system in the UK that we can all access whenever we want... if we have the means of course.....

And, as Rolfe pointed out, medical insurance tends to be quite cheap as all the urgent and serious stuff is inevitably taken care of more or less immediately by the health service.

When my knee got done last year, the NHS was quicker than if we'd used my wife's work's insurance cover. And it would have been the same surgeon, in the same hospital. Only difference is that I'd have had a private room (hold me back).

Jerome, I suspect, will try to point to the existence of a private sector as evidence of......well.....something, but I'm not sure what.

 

[Architect]

Are you sure of this - I was politically active at that time and this was one of the big issues and I don't remember Scotland being significantly different from the rest of the UK?

I'm working from memory, not statistics, and hence may not be 100% on this. Rolfe might know.

 

[Darat]

And since I assume supporting evidence will not be forthcoming let me provide some:

48 patients wait longer than 6 months for their surgery in England!

I do wonder if such statistics are even possible to compile from the USA system of "no waiting lists". Indeed I just can't see how it would be possible to claim there are no waiting lists in the USA - after all theatres and staff and availability of resources still have to scheduled in USA hospitals. (Unless of course they are like that hotel with the infinite number of guest rooms! )

 

[Rolfe]

I understand that you are making the point that given the meaning Jerome uses since we have the choice to pay for health-care whenever we want to we don't "have" to wait - I was just addressing the sensible issue not the silly one!

This was exactly my point.

Remember, we are still paying less in tax for state-funded healthcare than the Merikans are. So we're up on that front.

And, we are entirely free to access that state-funded healthcare if we want to. We don't have to go bankrupt first. So we're up on that one too.

And, the quality of care is so high that most people don't even think of stepping outside the state-funded system (like Ming the Merciless and his lymphosarcoma, or indeed Gordon Brown and his younger son's cystic fibrosis, or Sam Galbraith and his heart-lung transplant, all of these senior members of parliament including the current PM, using the NHS). One up again.

But finally, if we do find ourselves in a position where we're not content with what the NHS offers, we can do exactly what the Merikans do. We can either decide in advance that we want the option to go private and pay for private insurance (which is cheaper than similar insurance in the US because it doesn't have to cover emergency care, so one up once more), or we can simply go private and write a cheque.

And since my mother did just that when she was caught with a wait for cataract surgery (caused by a ward closure in the NHS hospital due to an infection problem that was being investigated), and she was over 80 at the time, a clergyman's widow on just a state and a church pension, then perhaps that illustrates how affordable it can be. (And since she had both her bathroom and kitchen refitted the following year, again using savings, she clearly didn't scrape the bottom of the barrel either.)

Most of the waiting lists are genuine non-urgent matters, and I know that people with greater clinical need get shoved up to the top anyway (my cousin was treated very quickly for her hip replacement even though the list was theoretically three months long, because of her clinical condition). It's a simple fact that people who actually wait that long are either simply not bothered enough about it to want to shell out some of their own money, or are so badly off that if they were in the US they'd be on Medicaid anyway.

Rolfe.