what's the only country in the free industrialized world to not guarantee health care to its citizens? oh, right....the us

profit over people

I think it has more to do with wanting your citizens to be responsible for themselves and not have the government do everything for them. But hey, if gov't run healthcare is what you like perhaps you can try to start up the USSR again. They had it pretty sweet over there...

why must the examples always be soooo extreme?? What part of EVERY OTHER FREE INDUSTRIALIZED NATION do you not understand that it must either be the US or the former USSR?? There are other countries besides those 2, Cuba and China, ya know? How's about you look at an atlas sometime? Canada, Sweden, UK, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland....do i really need to hold your hand for this?

Why do you think that guaranteed health care for all citizens means that people aren't responsible for themselves? What does that have to do with "the government doing everything for them?"

It's pretty ignorant to think that health care for everyone somehow equates to being un-American. The conservative mentality that views helping other people as contrary to "wanting your citizens to be responsible for themselves" is ludicrous. I find that people who say that have either live with their parents or have never been in a situation where they've faced significant medical problems. For many families, they're one car accident or diagnosis away from financial disaster. It's not about a lack of personal responsibility, it's about humanity.

I have no problems helping truly needy people out, but surely not everyone in this country needs government assistance when it comes to healthcare. Why should the already overburdened taxpayers be taxed more to guarantee healthcare to those people who could afford it themselves? Yeah, there's always the exceptions of longterm illnesses and people on the verge of homelessness, but I certainly wouldn't toss out my own hard-earned money for some lazy guy to have free gov't healthcare. If guaranteed healthcare is such a big issue for some people, what's stopping them from getting together and forming some sort of NGO like the Sierra Club, or the WWF, or the NRA? If people are willing to be taxed extra to provide healthcare then as an alternative they shouldn't mind willingly donating money to such an organization.

Of course, I probably shouldn't have said a word since it's always easier to talk about this stuff than to type about it.

Your argument doesn't make sense. You say you have no problem helping the truly needy, but you don't want your tax dollars going to pay for some lazy guy to have free healthcare. But he were merely lazy and not needy, wouldn't his tax dollars be paying for healthcare also? Or are you saying that he is just a bum and could work but chooses not to. Either way, he has health costs, and somebody has to pay for them, and if he can't everyone else will be one way or another. May as well put it into the centralized system rather than let an insurance company figure out the costs, spread it oout to all their legitimate paying customers, and round up to the nearest dollar for profit.

--PunkDavid

Truly needy, I would think, is pretty self explanatory. And as for Mr. Lazy, I meant someone that doesn't want to work. Not someone that can't work. And why should I pay for his basic health care costs if that's the case? Just because he needs someone to pay for him cause he'd rather not work and live off welfare and the like? If you're willing to pay for him then start up some healthcare organization for guys like him and donate your money. I think it's ridiculous to force everyone to pay for some nerd like that.

Have you ever actually met someone who could work but chooses not to because welfare is so sweet? And people who live with their parents don't count.

--PunkDavid

yeah...i hear it's pretty expensive to receive health care in the US...but just look at how bad Canada's health care system is, at the moment... there were so many cuts made in the healthcare budget over the last 10 years that now they're struggling to provide a barely acceptable service. so you gotta find an acceptable middle ground between a completely private, top notch but very expensive health care system...and a publicly managed, low quality health care system.

Yeah but most countries have a two tier system. If you can afford it and want the best treatment then you go private. If you have no money then you let the state take care of you. How is that so difficult??

It is sad how the US spends more on killing than caring...

Hmmmm. I thought a nice article which showed the UN rating the UK's healthcare system as 2nd worst in the industrialized world...ahead of only Hungary. But hey, everyone gets healthcare over there. Instead, in my catalog of articles showing how universal healthcare is an abject failure everywhere it is applied, I found this.

ONLY THE US DOESN'T PROVIDE HEALTHCARE! ONLY THE US!

Be careful what you wish for:

Free-lunch medicine
Thomas Sowell

November 13, 2003


It is always fascinating to see elementary economics make front-page news. It was front-page news in the Wall Street Journal of November 12th that there are long waiting times for seeing medical specialists in Canada and in other countries with government-controlled medical care systems -- but not in the United States, where some politicians are trying to get us to imitate these countries.

Shortages where the government sets prices have been common in countries around the world, for centuries on end, whether these shortages have taken the form of waiting lists, black markets, or other ways of coping with the fact that what people demand at an artificially low price exceeds what other people will supply at such prices.

This principle is not limited to medical care. There were waiting lines for food, undershirts, and all sorts of other things in the Communist bloc countries in Eastern Europe before the collapse of Communism in that region. You had to get on a waiting list to buy a poorly made car in India before they began to free up their economy from government controls.

You could go back literally thousands of years and find shortages under price controls in the Roman Empire or in ancient Babylon. But it is still front-page news today because elementary economics has not yet sunk in.

An OECD study shows that the percentage of patients waiting more than 4 months for elective surgery in English-speaking countries is in single digits only in the United States, where we "lack" the "benefits" of a government-run medical system. In Canada 27 percent of patients wait more than 4 months and in Britain 38 percent. Elective surgery includes some heart surgery.

Depending on what you are suffering from, and how much you are suffering, longer waits can be a cost that far outweighs monetary savings under price controls or government subsidies. Sometimes the wait can be fatal.

There is another kind of waiting -- waiting for new medicines to be developed for scourges like cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer's. Countries with price controls on pharmaceutical drugs have far fewer of such drugs created than the United States does.

Yet Americans, who produce a wholly disproportionate share of the world's new life-saving drugs, are being asked to imitate price control policies in countries where such policies have dried up the costly research behind such discoveries.

These countries have left the development of new drugs to the United States. But if we follow their example by killing the goose that lays the golden egg, who can we turn to for developing new medicines? This could be the most costly free lunch of all.

None of the various schemes for lowering the prices of medicines seems willing to face up to the simple fact that each new medicine developed costs hundreds of millions of dollars. This huge inescapable fact seems to just evaporate from the discussion as politicians vie with one another for the best way to make these medicines "affordable" at "reasonable" prices.

Politicians who claim to be able to "bring down the cost of health care" are talking about bringing down the prices charged. But prices are not costs. Prices are what pay for costs.

No matter how much lower the government sets the prices paid to doctors, hospitals, or pharmaceutical drug manufacturers, none of this reduces the costs in the slightest.

It still takes just as much time, equipment, and training to turn a medical school student into a doctor. It still takes just as many hospitals to care for the sick. It still takes just as many years of scientific research and clinical trials to create a new medicine.

Those who are dying to control the prices of pharmaceutical drugs are oblivious to the fact that other people may be literally dying unnecessarily if they succeed. There is no free lunch, even though politicians get elected by promising free lunches.

Government price controls on medicines and medical care simply mean that these costs do not all get covered. This works in the short run -- and the short run is what politicians are interested in, because elections are held in the short run. But the rest of us had better think ahead, if we value our health.

Still, it's better to wait four months than not get any treatment at all. I admit that the system over here is FAR from perfect but at least you can get treatment if you need it.

So LittleWing, rather than criticising what would you do to ensure the poorest members of society get treatment?

Well, considering I'm a part of the poorest in society. Well...I'm doing pretty damn fine for myself. I'm insured for everything but vision.

I'll answer that with a "Not a damned thing".

The quagmire of regulations to separate who is poor, who is rich, what is treated, what isn't treated, to what extent things are treated, with what quality things are to be treated..I could go on all day.

If you're going to argue for "treatment" or "health care" being provided by the government, you'd better be prepared to be able to answer about 10,000,000 very specific questions about how that care is to be applied.

The poorest.

--PunkDavid

I'm just curious here. In the perfect "universal health care" world, do you have to pay a fee to see the doctor and do you have to pay for prescription drugs?

I do recall reading about parent's insurance covering some things too.

What I'd like to see if we're being so anecdotal about this topic is a true breakdown of what LW pays for and who pays for other things that he benefits from. If it IS his parents, god bless him. It's great that his parents are able to do so. If my parents did that, it would be killer.

It doesn't change the fact that I shouldn't have to pay for LW's insurance, ever.

when you're going to school and covered by mom and dad you don't count as the poorest in society


again lol

again we have the "I don't mind for people who REALLY need it" argument. Well don't you think that's most people who don't have insurance! I get tired of this "I really do care...." lines of crap.

There just isn't this giant mass of people just waiting around to take advantage of the system. There aren't millions of people who can work but don't. Most people have pride in what they do and how they do it. They don't aks for help if they don't need it and they're more than willing to work. I don't know where you conservatives live but I sure as hell don't know anyone just loafing about waiting for their government cheese.

I also want to knock down this notion of the "already overburdened taxpayer" It's not as if all of a sudden your paycheck would be cut if half! Not only that but you are already paying for uninsured and underinsured people through the increase in costs of service and higher premiums.

If you really want to talk about reducing taxpayer burden then how about getting rid of some useless crap like national missle defense! That's something you're paying for you'll never use and probably will never even work! Yet somehow you're opposed to paying a couple of bucks more a month so that somebody can get health care. unbelievable.

Again, it's not as if LW is going to be taking a fat cut of your paycheck. We'd all pay in a little bit so that everyone could benefit. Sure some people would use it and others wouldn't but that's the nature of services in general. You may not drive but that doesn't mean our federal roads don't benefit you and society in general. A happy and healthy LittleWing benefits you because he can rejoin a work force and be a productive member of society. Everyday you don't get up and worry about your healthcare coverage would be a good day.

not only that, it just happens to be the right thing to do. I can work and make money, I am healthy. Other people aren't. The reason is irrelevant. I am just glad that I can work and that I am healthy and don't really mind the small tiny itsy bitsy amount it would take in order for someone less fortunate than myself to have an easier go of things.

but for the grace of god there go I

tomorrow it could be you or I that has some terrible illness. God forbid you're between jobs or aren't covered for that day, because that is all it would take, one really bad day and you're fucked