Government-subsidised health care
- Thread starter Asguard
- Start date
I changed it. Because the original title gave no clue as to what the thread is about. Please use meaningful thread titles in future.
My apologies. Next time, I'm sure you'll take more care in titling your threads, so I don't have to guess at what they are about. It also makes my job that much easier if I don't have to retitle your threads.
Wow, sucky weekend. My condolences on the miscarriage.
When I had the spectacular car wreck, I was in the ER for...hmm...a while. Long enough for my mom to get called, get combobulated, and drive half an hour to get to the ER to note she could pretty much see my skull where my eyebrow was supposed to be. Not stylish, that.
Nah, they weren't busy.
This was back when I was insured.
The county ER...if I have to go there, I should expect to be there at least 12 hours...and if I get to where I don't think I can keep from offing myself on my own, I have to go there and get babysat until I'm not or get admitted...that's the plan.
I can't help but think going to go sit in the county ER for 12 hours would make anyone want to off themselves.
Is Wendy's actually more healthy than McDonald's, at all? This isn't at all clear to me on the face of it. Wouldn't shock me to learn that the average meal sold at Wendy's was less healthy than the average meal sold at McDonald's.
Yeah, restaurant food in general is super unhealthy (and delicious). The thing with McDonald's is that it's cheap and fast. To be honest, I've long thought that there was something of a classist aspect to the McDonald's criticism. That's visible in the lack of criticism of places farther up the expense continuum, but especially salient, I think, in the absence of criticism of "hip" street food, taco shops, etc. Maybe it's just the region I live in, but I can think of a dozen cheap places to eat that are vastly less healthy and closer to me than the nearest McDonald's, just offhand.
There is, but McDonald's is not particularly the problem in that area. McDonald's is far, far more responsive to the periodic demands for healthier fast food options. They go through a routine cycle every 5-10 years where people start complaining about obesity and ripping on the biggest visible target - McDonald's - and so, being incredibly averse to negative publicity, they launch a new menu of healthy foods in response. And sure enough, nobody buys them and they disappear after a while. This cycle has been repeating since at least the 1980's (the McLean sandwich), and by now McDonald's is well aware of it and does not expect these products to succeed as such. They fund them simply as a marketting/PR exercise - it gets the media off of their back, and makes people feel better about going to McDonald's (where they proceed to overlook the healthy items and order the burger and fries that they came for).
Meanwhile, the other fast food chains have noticed this cyclical trend, and capitalize on it by breaking the opposite way. Every time McDonald's goes into an eat-healthy PR phase, competitors like Jack in the Box, Carl's Junior, etc. respond by advertizing even bigger, unhealthier burgers (as McDonald's did away with the Supersize Meal, Carl's Junior came out with a line of ever-more-ridiculous "6 dollar burgers" - things like a burger with 2 1/3 lb. patties topped with an entire serving of gyros - and hired Paris Hilton to appear in the ads in skimpy clothing). So the result of the crusades against McDonald's, is actually that customers are diverted to McDonald's competitors who provide even less healthy food, and obesity actually gets worse.
True enough, but McDonald's is not the problem when it comes to setting those parameters. If anything, the opposite. McDonald's isn't interested in anything other than making money, and they've tried to push healthier foods many times, so if there were money to be made there we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Which is to say that your analysis makes sense, but not as a criticism of McDonald's - or even, any other restaurant in particular. It's a criticism of the marketplace as a collective. One of the mechanisms that causes McDonald's' repeated attempts to market healthy food to reliably fail, is that their competitors double down on unhealthy food whenever they do so. There is no single player in the fast food marketplace - not even the mightly McDonald's - that is powerful enough to move the parameters on its own. It takes a collective action which, in the context of a free market, means regulation. The recent requirements to clearly post calorie totals being exactly such a step.
HFCS isn't a marketplace thing. It's a subsidy/tarriff thing. This isn't the free market, but statist intervention. We had a free market in soda pop for a long time without HFCS becoming predominant. It was only after the programs of explicit government subsidy for corn, and tarriff on sugar, that the current situation arose. It's a policy question, not a market issue.
The trouble with socialism is people don't want to pay for it. They have an attitude that they shouldn't give up *their* money, but you should give up yours. It's the "get as much as you can for as little as possible" mentality that makes capitalism great.
The trouble with socialism is people don't want to pay for it. They have an attitude that they shouldn't give up *their* money, but you should give up yours. It's the "get as much as you can for as little as possible" mentality that makes capitalism great.
maybe in the US, there was a wide scale poll done before the last election motivated by a new political party running here originating in NZ. It was a Libertarian Party. The question was asked would you prefer to pay less tax or receive increased services. The result was that a majority of people would rather have more money put into hospitals and schools
The trouble with socialism is people don't want to pay for it. They have an attitude that they shouldn't give up *their* money, but you should give up yours. It's the "get as much as you can for as little as possible" mentality that makes capitalism great.
Yeah, I would not mind coughing up another 15-20% of my income if it meant I never had to worry again about dying from lack of asthma meds, or going insane from lack of happy pills.
I do wish they'd put single-payer to a referendum...although considering how easily a lot of people here are misled by slick ad copy...maybe it would not matter anyway.
It really depends on the society.
AU has tons of natural resources which they're busily mining and selling to China and America and Japan. This money is then used to off set things like healthcare costs. Add to this AU has a massive drive towards immigration. This keeps labor costs in check. Note that one in four AU citizens was a citizen of somewhere else. This will greatly effect the long term culture of Australia. Which is already rapidly changing (I'd suggest for the worse). Lastly, AU citizens are deeply in debt - highest household debt to income in the world (mainly due to the housing bubble).
It's now completely common in Australia to see families of 4 or 5 SHARING house well into their 40s and 50s to make rent or mortgages.
Luckily they get "free" medical care. Although, I wonder, what if medical care was cheap, say $150 a month AND they had affordable housing (lots of people pay $400-650 per week to rent a house for a 5 people family)? Would they rather the "cheap" medical care over the present "free" medical care? I think they probably would.
Anyway, healthcare together with all other government services are not free. They're all paid for one way or another. Taxes, fees, inflation, debt....
Think about this, AU ran a deficit of what? $50 billion this year? Well, when they sell the bonds needed to purchase the debt (suppose Japan bough some AU bonds) what exactly IS the collateral? What is it the government ultimately has to sell? Is it the paper AUD? No. Paper is just paper. Underwriting that paper debt is a fattened up docile dumb mass of Australian citizens. It's their labor that's promised. That's what's ultimately being lent via-a-vie "bonds". How does the government guarantee those bonds? Only through violence. Just try not paying your tax bill some day. It's a hell of a lot different that deciding not to buy an iPhone and instead buy an Android. YET, according to many, things would be oooo such much better if we all had "free" government phones. Who really thinks that?
Just some things to think about the next time you use your "free" healthcare.
AU has tons of natural resources which they're busily mining and selling to China and America and Japan. This money is then used to off set things like healthcare costs. Add to this AU has a massive drive towards immigration. This keeps labor costs in check. Note that one in four AU citizens was a citizen of somewhere else. This will greatly effect the long term culture of Australia. Which is already rapidly changing (I'd suggest for the worse). Lastly, AU citizens are deeply in debt - highest household debt to income in the world (mainly due to the housing bubble).
It's now completely common in Australia to see families of 4 or 5 SHARING house well into their 40s and 50s to make rent or mortgages.
Luckily they get "free" medical care. Although, I wonder, what if medical care was cheap, say $150 a month AND they had affordable housing (lots of people pay $400-650 per week to rent a house for a 5 people family)? Would they rather the "cheap" medical care over the present "free" medical care? I think they probably would.
Anyway, healthcare together with all other government services are not free. They're all paid for one way or another. Taxes, fees, inflation, debt....
Think about this, AU ran a deficit of what? $50 billion this year? Well, when they sell the bonds needed to purchase the debt (suppose Japan bough some AU bonds) what exactly IS the collateral? What is it the government ultimately has to sell? Is it the paper AUD? No. Paper is just paper. Underwriting that paper debt is a fattened up docile dumb mass of Australian citizens. It's their labor that's promised. That's what's ultimately being lent via-a-vie "bonds". How does the government guarantee those bonds? Only through violence. Just try not paying your tax bill some day. It's a hell of a lot different that deciding not to buy an iPhone and instead buy an Android. YET, according to many, things would be oooo such much better if we all had "free" government phones. Who really thinks that?
Just some things to think about the next time you use your "free" healthcare.
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That's because most people don't understand the way things really work and it sounds so good and seems so easy when you say: Do you want more investment in schools and hospitals?
Who wouldn't? Just stop thinking so hard and let big brother take care of everything.
I can promise you if people really understood the scale of the waste and utter disregards in both schools and hospitals - they'd be appalled. What they don't get is the reason why MORE money is needed is because these institutions are horribly run, wasteful with what they do have, bloated bureaucracies of self diluted idiots with a heavy dose of self-importance. That isn't to say a lot of really great talent is being squeezed out of these institutions. Only that this is what the public is really getting for MORE investment.
God you are full of it, first you claim
To which which you respond with this garbage. Look at the opening post, not the stupid title James picked. You think that father working every hour to provide BASIC CARE, not heroic measures, BASIC CARE for a cancer patient (chemo) would say that your system is so fantastic. God sake, EVERY developed country and most developing have some form of universal health care, we all recognise that health care is a human right, not a luxury. Why do you think I guessed straight out that this case was from the US? I mean seriously the US treats health care the way we treat cars, as a fringe benefit for a job what a joke.
You think this guy cares if the hospital is wasteful? He cares that he wasn't there for his DYING DAUGHTER. Instead of being there to care for her and comfort her he was slaving away 80 hours a week
you think the US ones aren't wasteful? You think that sucking up to the rich is efficient while leaving chronic and deteriorating conditions until its to late to do anything but manage them is efficient?
I hope that this girl isn't dead because she couldn't get tested early enough for the cancer to be treatable, but the truth is that many many people in the US (including those who actually do have insurance) die every year from treatable conditions which were left to long before initial treatment.
Asguard, who knows, if it weren't for waste, that daughter may not have to have chemotherapy - she may not even have to be sick.
Of course the father wants what's best for his daughter, but, that's not really the point. The point is what system provides the best treatments.
You complain about the USA system, however seem happy enough to utilize the medicine that system makes available to you.
That seems a bit backwards doesn't it?
Of course the father wants what's best for his daughter, but, that's not really the point. The point is what system provides the best treatments.
You complain about the USA system, however seem happy enough to utilize the medicine that system makes available to you.
That seems a bit backwards doesn't it?
Apparently you didn't get his point.
It was actually quite simple so I would have thought you might have picked up on it.
Asguard said:
A) Singles out ONE company out of the MANY fast food establishments as "almost singlehandedly responsible"
So let's see if that has ANY rational:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fast_food_restaurants
NOPE
B) Ignores the huge number of HFCS drinks and candy available to kids via vending machines (you know unlike McDonald's, which is primarily drive up, at locations where they don't have to be taken to) and what their parents serve them at home and stock the pantry with.
C) Ignores the fact that parents not kids, make the majority of the food choices for their kids and the media has been making a constant drumbeat about calories, fast food and things like "eat this, not that" for decades.
As to actual facts:
Here are the Market Shares for Fast Food in the UK, which are illustrative:
Code:
Sandwiches 36.50%
Burgers 22.50%
Fish & chips 11.20%
Pizza 10.60%
Chicken 6.30%
Other 13.20%http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/06/06/2005/300739/Market-snapshot-Fast-food-and-take-away.htm
Now they don't give the exact numbers of all burger restaurants, but show that McDonald's has 1,235 and Burger King with 700, so a reasonable estimate is about 3,000 total for all brands.
Giving McDonalds less than a 10% share of the Fast Food market.
(In the US McDonalds has about 13% market share)
So EVEN if fast food was single handedly responsible for Obesity (it isn't), McDonalds is hardly responsible for the other ~90% of the Fast Food market.
Why did this even come up?
Because Asguard hates the US so much (about all he posts is attacks on the US and Americans) that he HAD to find something (even if he had to make it up) to deal with the cognitive dissonance created by this statement:
Which is why he used that BOGUS charge to deflect the obvious help that RM houses provide to parents of sick children (even in Australia)
Asguard said:
Arthur
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I know from personal experience that our "system" doesn't prevent this.
In fact we have a very large Hospice industry just for this.
The problem is you know NOTHING about the facts behind this case so you are just making shit up.
He may have had insurance, but he might have wanted a chemo treatment that wasn't covered.
We just don't know.
(Insert Title Here)
Arthur, you really do need to understand that not everybody keeps their perceptions penned in as you do. For instance, when someone advises that you should "reconsider your bizarre sense of literalism, and look beyond the most absolutely superficial interpretations of rhetoric", and provides a perspective on that deeper consideration, it seems really strange that you should simply insist that there is only one way to view an issue, statement, or idea. Your behavior is of the sort that keeps the median IQ of this community somewhere just south of the gutter.
For instance, at least consider Quadraphonics' take on the larger issue. It's what we call an intelligent consideration.
You know, as in not insistently simplistic to the point of embarrassing someone who would depict himself as being so intellectually limited.
Adoucette said:
Arthur, you really do need to understand that not everybody keeps their perceptions penned in as you do. For instance, when someone advises that you should "reconsider your bizarre sense of literalism, and look beyond the most absolutely superficial interpretations of rhetoric", and provides a perspective on that deeper consideration, it seems really strange that you should simply insist that there is only one way to view an issue, statement, or idea. Your behavior is of the sort that keeps the median IQ of this community somewhere just south of the gutter.
For instance, at least consider Quadraphonics' take on the larger issue. It's what we call an intelligent consideration.
You know, as in not insistently simplistic to the point of embarrassing someone who would depict himself as being so intellectually limited.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Apparently you haven't seen any of the TV specials showing what American children are fed in their school cafeterias.
You have become as big an America-basher as Sam.
The problem with universal government-subsidized health care is that in the prosperous western nations the fertility rate is dropping below replacement level. There are more and more of us old people retiring and fewer and fewer of you young people to support us. At some point we're going to have to start making some very difficult decisions about which illnesses we can afford to treat. I realize that in this example we're talking about a child rather than a senior, but the issue is the same. If the father doesn't take a second job, increasing the quantity of goods and services in the national economy, where are the resources going to come from to pay for these shockingly expensive medical treatments--treatments which have a far lower than 100% likelihood of being successful? Sure we can all give up our SUVs and drive Fiats, live twelve to an apartment like in Soviet Moscow, and scrimp and save so we can divert an ever-larger portion of our shrinking GDP to health care, but we will still eventually run into a brick wall.
I appreciate your love for your fellow humans, but you should take a couple of courses in economics before you start pontificating about the impossible. In a few decades the entire developed world will be bankrupt due to medical care, and we will have no choice but to ration it.
Tiassa, debate is all about dealing with each issue in turn.
You don't like how I discuss subjects then don't read my posts.
Umm, If you cant see the irony and stupidity in defending McDonalds by pointing out what is fed in schools then good luck to you
This is a silly argument, universal health care becomes MORE important with an aging population, not less. You want people to go on working longer because there are less young people to sponge off of, then you need to keep your work force healthy, that means early intervention when health is a) cheapest and b) most effective. Look at chimpkin as an example, I'm sure you have seen some of her posts about her version of health care, ordering out of date medications from Australia and India because that's all she can afford, chronic health issues because she cant afford the early interventions. Hell the argument is constantly made by people like adoucette that if something is life threatening then the poor can access a hospital, ASSUMING that's accurate (and from my own studies of the US health care system as part of my degree I'm not sure it is in anything but theory), you don't think the expenses of a waiting till its a hospital visit are greater. There are 100s of examples where early intervention through GP management prevent massive expenditure and futility. As I have said throughout this thread I hope that this girl didn't die because her father couldn't afford to have her seen early enough by a GP or because he couldn't afford the screening tests early on.
As for the expenses of treatment I might agree with you if you were talking about an extravagant new treatment which had little science behind it and was just a pray, sure then we could argue about expense vs reward. However that's not what we are talking about, we are talking about CHEMO, BASIC management for cancer in the same way penicillin is basic management for a bacterial infection and glucose is basic management for a hypo.
As for where the money is going to come from, look across your borders once in a while, either way it doesn't particularly matter because both Canada and Mexico have universal systems.
I hope this map comes out because it shows just how wrong the economic argument against UHC actually is.
Edit to add: just found this http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/are_patients_in_universal_heal.php fascinating when you look at the actual evidence isn't it
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You don't know that.
When my wife was being treated she went through three different Chemo therapy treatments.
The first one (6 months) was Temodar and not that expensive and if you can't afford it in the States the drug companies WILL give it to you for little to no cost (as they will do with almost all life saving drugs).
The second set (6 months) was in a Clinical Trial and the drug costs and doctor's fees were paid for by the drug company.
The third one (4 weeks) was essentially a "Hail Mary" treatment and cost $10,000 an infusion, once every week.
I had the money so why not?
None of them worked.
But no one would expect the last Chemo treatment to be paid for by a UHC system though since it had an incredibly small chance of working.