Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Flipside on September 10, 2009, 02:59:00 pm
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I suppose the only thing that concerns me about the current healthcare plan is the banding system, where it only seems to apply to people below a certain wage, I can see that causing problems if it is kept.
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I've always kinda wondered why health insurance isn't done like car insurance.
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One thing that always makes me laugh is that one American paper claimed Stephen Hawking would have died under the NHS, without bothering to find out that Stephen Hawkings, despite the electronic American accent, was a student at Oxford and states emphatically that the NHS saved his life.
It's scaremongering like that which has led to much of this being farcical rather than factual, it's kind of depressing.
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No, it's extremely depressing. These people are ****ing with my future ability to get care outside of an ER. Ugh.
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No, it's extremely depressing. These people are ****ing with my future ability to get care outside of an ER. Ugh.
Of course they are--it's politics. Politicians are ****ing assholes like that.
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He didn't win by much last time around.
However, lots of people are calling the douchebag a hero and such nonsense. Why can't we just put all the morons on a big island together and forget about them? They'll be happy with their straight white christian only demographic, and the rest of us can work on improving civilization.
Wow. .... Just wow.
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It just doesn't make sense, a healthy populace is a productive populace, someone who cannot work because he has, for example, a dislocated kneecap, but is not 'at risk' because of it is screwed, he cannot be productive and earn income for the country he lives in, and because of that, he cannot get treatment for his knee, it's a Catch 22 situation. That's part of the reason the NHS was formed, because you can't earn the money to repair a problem if the problem prevents you from working.
It all just leads to people not reaching their potential because of a non-related problem, hardly the act of a country that allegedly supports bringing out the best in everyone.
Edit: I'm straight, white and Christened, though it'd be a stretch to say I match up to what many people would define as a 'Christian'.
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He didn't win by much last time around.
Sure. Only an eight-point margin. Barrack Obama only managed a seven-point margin over McCain in the Presidential election, and McCain literally got his primary and general election strategies reversed. Add to this the historical precedent of the President's party (whoever the President may be) losing seats in mid-term elections, the low voter turnout in mid-term elections, and the ridiculous 90+% incumbency rate in the House (especially in mid-term elections), and this whole event, in terms of electoral politics, is a nonevent.
I don't like Joe Wilson. I'm not defending his actions, but there's a reality here that you just need to deal with: This is not the act that will unseat him, full-frakking-stop.
Oh, and classy endorsement of internment camps. The Japanese-Americans of the '40's loved 'em, so why won't Whitey, right?
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It just doesn't make sense, a healthy populace is a productive populace, someone who cannot work because he has, for example, a dislocated kneecap, but is not 'at risk' because of it is screwed, he cannot be productive and earn income for the country he lives in, and because of that, he cannot get treatment for his knee, it's a Catch 22 situation. That's part of the reason the NHS was formed, because you can't earn the money to repair a problem if the problem prevents you from working.
Don't get too excited about our NHS. They put people of working age who are temporarily incapacitated on several-month waiting lists, so they can't work that whole time. They put people with a few months to live without surgery on waiting lists longer than their life expectancy. They made a young guy who suddenly went blind wait for hours just to get checked by a doctor. They took the extra money the taxpayer stumped up and gave themselves back-dated payrises.
I'm not grabbing that stuff from the news, by the way. That's just friends, family and personal experience.
Socialised healthcare isn't peachy. Don't get your hopes high.
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I guarantee it's still better than what we've got.
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Agreed, it isn't perfect, but then in my personal experience, my father was saved from a heart attack by the NHS (and, being retired, gets his blood thinning medication for free), my Uncle received a lot of treatment for Motor Neuron Disease before he died, and my partner had a damaged foetus aborted under the NHS. If there's a problem with the NHS it's not that it is too intrusive, it's that it is under-funded and under-staffed, and that's mainly bought about by bureaucracy. What is needed is more commitment and less waste, but that's not the fault of NHS alone.
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Statistically NHS works far better than the US system. Statistics>anecdotes!
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Exactly, it's like when someone is going in for an operation, there's always a horror story of one that went wrong, but people tend to focus on that one, and forget the tens of thousands of times the operation has been performed perfectly well.
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Agreed, it isn't perfect, but then in my personal experience, my father was saved from a heart attack by the NHS (and, being retired, gets his blood thinning medication for free), my Uncle received a lot of treatment for Motor Neuron Disease before he died, and my partner had a damaged foetus aborted under the NHS. If there's a problem with the NHS it's not that it is too intrusive, it's that it is under-funded and under-staffed, and that's mainly bought about by bureaucracy. What is needed is more commitment and less waste, but that's not the fault of NHS alone.
Under-funded and under-staffed? It's got a £100 billion budget and is the third largest employer in the world. It is pretty well resourced, unfortunately it is inefficient and the clients (us) take the piss. Actually, people really badly abuse the NHS, using ambulances as taxies, elective surgery, sueing, that kind of crap. It doesn't help.
As for anecdotes<stats... you can sit at the other side of the pond looking at numbers all you like; some of us have that little thing called experience. Beats the crap out of book-learning any day. Ask any honest statistician (that has left college).
One last point: the NHS isn't free. A chunk of the population gets their wages confiscated to pay for it. The rights and wrongs of that are another story, but please don't anyone pretend it's free.
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Consdering half of the US is complaining about having to pay for their own health system, I think it would be kind of hard to forget that it's paid for in the UK with taxes. And no, I don't think that's wrong, and I'm happy to pay.
Yes, people abuse the system, but as for the funding, I disagree, a LOT of that money goes into the wages of people who perform no medical function in the NHS whatsoever, the funding isn't going to medical causes to nearly the degree it should be, it's going in administration and management which is growing to the point of becoming excess baggage.
Anecdotes are the realm of the Daily Mirror, not proper analysis of the system.
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As for anecdotes<stats... you can sit at the other side of the pond looking at numbers all you like; some of us have that little thing called experience. Beats the crap out of book-learning any day. Ask any honest statistician (that has left college).
Hmm. So, my Grandmother, who has lived through some serious **** in her time and survived it with not so much as a scratch, and thus has some experience living, is a better source of medical advice (or advice on anything, really) just because of her experience?
Sorry, but facts (cold and hard ones, backed by statistics and studies and book learning and all that) beat personal experience any time.
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Basically I see it this way...and this is one of the few issues where I really cannot see the other side (so I do apologise to those who strongly feel the other way). The US system as is, from what I know and have seen of it, is basically immoral from the standpoint of preserving life and ensuring that everyone gets reasonable access to healthcare. They have made it into an industry that requires potentially huge sums of money from people who can scarcely afford it. On top of that, statistically, the system is no more efficient and in many cases spends far more money per capita than the systems in the UK and Canada. When the goal is to make money then every effort will be to make money and consequently its not nearly as much about the actual people involved.
A national health care system, such as the system in Canada or the system in the UK (both of which are different), largely ensures that people are taken care of which is the whole point. Neither are perfect and people slip through the cracks and believe me I know that there are major improvements still needed. But comparing the two...there is no question in my mind which is right and fair for people.
I still think its bizarre that people could possibly be upset with paying taxes but then are just as happy to shell out loads of cash for health insurance to a private corporation. Neither are optimal really...but I find the attitude to be difficult to comprehend. I can only assume that in the US the reaction to the word "taxes" is programmed in at an early age to cause instant revulsion.
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I still think its bizarre that people could possibly be upset with paying taxes but then are just as happy to shell out loads of cash for health insurance to a private corporation. Neither are optimal really...but I find the attitude to be difficult to comprehend. I can only assume that in the US the reaction to the word "taxes" is programmed in at an early age to cause instant revulsion.
Taxes = Socialism = Communism = the Devil Incarnate.
Or at least that's my take on the US mentality.
God knows what they're thinking.
I'll pay my 60 bucks a month for universal health care thankyou.
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I'm going to come out and say that the problems McCall described with NHS are problems all government programs tend to develop. The bureaucracy bloats, spending rises to meet the needs of the bureaucracy, and in hard times services are cut so administrators can keep their cushy jobs. My state, California, spends over $9,000 per pupil in school spending and almost none of it reaches the classroom. There is also little incentive to keep costs down since more money can always be had from the taxpayers.
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Agreed, it isn't perfect, but then in my personal experience, my father was saved from a heart attack by the NHS (and, being retired, gets his blood thinning medication for free), my Uncle received a lot of treatment for Motor Neuron Disease before he died, and my partner had a damaged foetus aborted under the NHS. If there's a problem with the NHS it's not that it is too intrusive, it's that it is under-funded and under-staffed, and that's mainly bought about by bureaucracy. What is needed is more commitment and less waste, but that's not the fault of NHS alone.
Under-funded and under-staffed? It's got a £100 billion budget and is the third largest employer in the world. It is pretty well resourced, unfortunately it is inefficient and the clients (us) take the piss. Actually, people really badly abuse the NHS, using ambulances as taxies, elective surgery, sueing, that kind of crap. It doesn't help.
As for anecdotes<stats... you can sit at the other side of the pond looking at numbers all you like; some of us have that little thing called experience. Beats the crap out of book-learning any day. Ask any honest statistician (that has left college).
Statistics are collections of lots of anecdotes, the precise opposite of book learning. Enough anecdotes to actually mean something.
Any honest statistician would agree.
I'm going to come out and say that the problems McCall described with NHS are problems all government programs tend to develop. The bureaucracy bloats, spending rises to meet the needs of the bureaucracy, and in hard times services are cut so administrators can keep their cushy jobs. My state, California, spends over $9,000 per pupil in school spending and almost none of it reaches the classroom. There is also little incentive to keep costs down since more money can always be had from the taxpayers.
And yet the European system is still demonstrably more effective.
Moreover the above described problems don't seem any different from the way corporations work.
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Taxes = Socialism = Communism = the Devil Incarnate.
Or at least that's my take on the US mentality.
God knows what they're thinking.
Methinks you'd do better to defer to someone from the society in question. :p
There is an ingrained anti-tax sentiment among Americans in general, one which I generally ascribe to at least to some degree myself, and it's something that can definitely be traced right back to the birth of the country. The Founding Fathers had a fundamental mistrust of a powerful central government, probably based on their interactions with Great Britain, and this was reflected in early US history. Our initial government setup, under the Articles of Confederation, didn't give Congress any real powers of enforcement over collecting taxes from the individual states...this worked out about as well as one might expect, and was one of the main factors that led to the creation of the US Constitution. Even after that, taxation wasn't exactly looked on in a favorable light; the US first implemented a federal income tax well after (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States) its founding; the modern income tax system as we know it didn't come into play until 1913. Looking beyond that particular aspect, there's been a long-running sentiment in American culture against a large federal government with broad powers; one of many reasons for this is the widely-held viewpoint that government by its nature will be markedly inefficient in many fields when compared to private enterprise. The sentiment following from that is that one does better by holding on to one's own money and choosing how to spend it oneself than having it taken by the government and wasted to some degree. I'm not commenting on the validity of sentiments like that, but they definitely exist in significant numbers.
I think the widespread opposition to the healthcare plan as it stands, opposition that does cross party lines to some degree, is from a combination of factors. You have the fiscal conservatives that don't want to see our already-record deficit balloon even more, the traditional small-government proponents who don't want to see the Fed sticking its fingers into even more pies, the anti-tax groups who'd rather keep as much of their money as possible in their own pockets and choose where and when to spend it, and those who are satisfied with the healthcare they currently have and worry that it might be taken away from them. As much as I agree that having over forty million uninsured Americans (counting out those who choose to be uninsured) is disgraceful, I see at least some merit in each of those counter-arguments, and I want those up top to be damn sure that whatever solution they do attempt to get passed is the best it can be given the resources on the table.
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It's not just the uninsured that are at risk. Millions of people with insurance get denied coverage or dropped as soon as they actually need it. And then there's things like lifetime or yearly caps, where if you require too much money, the insurance company pays to a point and then says "**** you."
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That's a very good point. I don't know if anyone in here follows the blog Marissa's Bunny (http://marissasbunny.com/Marissas_Bunny/Marissas_Bunny_-_Infantile_Spasms_and_Epilepsy_Awareness/Marissas_Bunny_-_Infantile_Spasms_and_Epilepsy_Awareness.html), but some of the run-ins its author has had with his insurance company over his daughter's care bring those issues to light all too well.
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Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.
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Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.
That doesn't justify them at all.
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In fact, it's somewhat sad that an insurance company can be so brazen as to include those in the first place, people will argue 'but it's a business, it has to make profit', to which my reply is 'and that is the entire problem'.
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Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.
...so if I don't like those parts of the contract then I can...
...not sign them and in the event of medical need be unable to pay.
...look for another insurance company with better terms...
...and not find one, so I need to sign it as is...
...and still die if I go "over budget".
...and God help you if you actually have a condition and are not one of the filthy rich.
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Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.
It is legal for you to modify a contract, provided that the insurance company agrees to any modifications. If they agree to your taking out that part, they are still legally bound by that contract, and cannot terminate treatment due to a cap. However, the key issue would be getting them to agree.
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:rolleyes:
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And why would they? They don't really need the very, very, very few people who would have the knowhow to change the contract, but nearly everybody needs them.
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Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.
A contract whose terms are dictated by the insurance company. So, is your signature a choice? I can choose to get insurance or I can choose not to, and be not covered.
I think I'll sign my name to not die.
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Guys check out (http://digg.com/health/Eye_Opening_Interview_With_Former_Health_Insurance_Insider), an interview with former Vice President of Corporate Communications for the CIGNA corporation about the shady BS insurance companies have been up to. Why people keep fighting for these guys is a mystery to me.......
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insurance is the biggest legal scam out there. they say if you have our policy youre protected, then they stab you in the back with the fine print legaleese that nobody but a lawyer can understand. then you wind up with 2 big ass bills to pay.
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Yep. Remember that insurance companies are the only ones still claiming that Shergar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shergar#Whereabouts_of_Shergar) is still alive.
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@Nightmare:
I'm going to try not to derail to the thread, despite the fact you're...well you're trying to dodge Fury's lock and doing so duplicitiously. (For the record, I PM'd a global mod and they didn't take action before now.) You say this, but it's unproveable, therefore irrevelant, but probably false anyways since you didn't try to improve your arguments against the supposedly predictable attack. Backwards does not work that way. Your definition of maturity is invalid in this context, and also demonstrably wrong.
You present publically available information as though it is some great secret (for the record, it's nearly all out of date. Yes, even the name. I don't answer to it these days.) and are pitiably self-congradulatory about it. You think I didn't know anyone who wanted could get at that stuff? You think being able to click a couple hyperlinks makes you smart?
I've seen multiple people try to play at being the same person, it doesn't work. You're too consistant. And Judge Floro is a known version of the Disassociated Press program.
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Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.
It's a Death Panel.
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I'm still wondering:
1. Why can't people buy insurance across state boundaries? Who is enforcing that? It sure doesn't help the problem: competition is greatly reduced, driving prices up and quality down.
2. What's wrong with letting the states do this themselves? I still haven't heard a convincing reason for doing this at the federal level instead of the state level.
3. How can we reduce the overall price of health care? IMHO this is the real problem.
4. Can we please keep personal flaming and bickering out of this?
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2. What's wrong with letting the states do this themselves? I still haven't heard a convincing reason for doing this at the federal level instead of the state level.
Because if there are cost overruns the states can't run deficits. Look at the crappy job they've done with education, this will just add another thing to the chopping block whenever someone *****es and moans about taxes.
1. Why can't people buy insurance across state boundaries? Who is enforcing that? It sure doesn't help the problem: competition is greatly reduced, driving prices up and quality down.
Good question
3. How can we reduce the overall price of health care? IMHO this is the real problem.
That would require government interference and price caps in "the market", which IIRC under the medicare prescription drug act the government isn't allowed to do. With all the lobbying money sloshing around Washington, I don't believe they will do anything about it.
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3. How can we reduce the overall price of health care? IMHO this is the real problem.
Because that would be regulating the market and that's socialism.
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As for anecdotes<stats... you can sit at the other side of the pond looking at numbers all you like; some of us have that little thing called experience. Beats the crap out of book-learning any day. Ask any honest statistician (that has left college).
Hmm. So, my Grandmother, who has lived through some serious **** in her time and survived it with not so much as a scratch, and thus has some experience living, is a better source of medical advice (or advice on anything, really) just because of her experience?
Sorry, but facts (cold and hard ones, backed by statistics and studies and book learning and all that) beat personal experience any time.
She'd be a good source of info on stuff she'd experienced. If she happens to be a doc, yep, I'd go with her medical advice over a bunch of video gamers quoting what they got off the internet. If she'd been in and out of hospital a lot as a patient, I'd surely want to talk to her about the experience - if I was looking to find out how good the service was.
Look at it this way: I commute each and every day, squeezed in a cattle truck of a train. It's crap, overcrowded, and damned unreliable. ****, I'm glad I got far enough up the chain to set my own working hours, because having to hit a definite start time was a *****. Wanna prebook a long-distance journey? Make sure you leave a train or two spare 'cos you cannot depend on them. But it doesn't matter, because every month they print a shiny new set of stats and figures telling me just how good the service is, and how the reliability is better than ever. Meanwhile, I sit back and think horse****.
I even have to produce KPIs. Trying to defend yourself with 99% uptime when things went to **** during peak time does not buy you many friends. So I don't rely on the figures. They're a nice-to-have for the senior management.
You won't sell me on stats over experience. I'm gonna marry a professional statistician. She knows more about how they get screwed around with than any of us put together.
As for book-learning, I could hire book-learned folks all day, but they wouldn't do me any good. That's why we stick them in the kiddie pool on dog**** wages to learn. Hell, I was book-learned once and thought I knew everything; then real life smacked me in the face. It happens to us all eventually... except maybe academics.
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Consdering half of the US is complaining about having to pay for their own health system, I think it would be kind of hard to forget that it's paid for in the UK with taxes. And no, I don't think that's wrong, and I'm happy to pay.
Yes, people abuse the system, but as for the funding, I disagree, a LOT of that money goes into the wages of people who perform no medical function in the NHS whatsoever, the funding isn't going to medical causes to nearly the degree it should be, it's going in administration and management which is growing to the point of becoming excess baggage.
Anecdotes are the realm of the Daily Mirror, not proper analysis of the system.
The Daily Mirror is the realm of sad old lefties.
The day I really stopped being happy to pay was the day I got income taxed £1,000 in a week. Call it an epiphany, but something told me I wasn't getting value for money any more... can't imagine what.
If a LOT (sic) of the money is going into non-medical crap, wouldn't that indicate that the first problem is cutting out said non-medical crap. Then you can start looking at whether you've got enough funding. I kinda suspect that - within a reasonable expectation, as total healthcare is a bottomless pit - they might just have enough dough.
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<quote>Statistics are collections of lots of anecdotes, the precise opposite of book learning. Enough anecdotes to actually mean something.
Any honest statistician would agree.</quote>
Nope, she didn't.
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So statistics isn't "the collection, organization, and interpretation of numerical data, especially the analysis of population characteristics by inference from sampling?"
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Sounds like something out of a text book. I'll check on that when she gets home. But a collection of anecdotes? Nah, she didn't buy that.
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Well when you collect anecdotes, you get data. And that's the definition I pulled from here. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/statistics)
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Sounds like something out of a text book. I'll check on that when she gets home. But a collection of anecdotes? Nah, she didn't buy that.
:rolleyes:
I trust you can read 'anecdote' as 'data point', which is the intent. One health care experience = one data point. Put a lot of data points together, and you get statistics.
Anecdotes cannot describe macro-scale systems; they're just employing the fallacy of vividity. You need statistics to pick out trends and assess effectiveness.
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Are you using fancy words to try to impress me? I'm already taken.
Now, I really was meant to be doing something before the missus gets home, so I guess I'll have to catch you folks later.
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What fancy words?
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Are you using fancy words to try to impress me? I'm already taken.
Now, I really was meant to be doing something before the missus gets home, so I guess I'll have to catch you folks later.
As long as you understand the fundamental point that an anecdote means nothing. One, ten, or fifty bad experiences with NHS cannot describe NHS as a whole, since no system is perfect and NHS. Now, if you had data to compare the number of good experiences to bad experiences, that would be telling.
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"the fallacy of vividity"
Beautifully poetic, but the FD would probably be laughing his ass off (as I got handed my P45) if I ever tried to use that in real life now. You guys aren't all in college/university are you?
Anecdotes, if you collect enough, mean a heck of a lot in my line of work. If I went around ignoring people and just referring to my last set of tractor production figures (common piss-take reference to Gordon Brown we use here), I wouldn't last very long. And I like my job; they pay me well.
Not really sure what I'm doing discussing the NHS with you guys though really, unless you too are tax-paying Brits. It's about as much your business as US healthcare is mine. We probably ought to butt out of each other's domestic business.
My only real point (at the beginning) was to warn you that it isn't anywhere near as rosy as some folks here make out. It's become something of a sacred cow, and we've had it so long I don't think anyone can really imagine life without it. Fear of the unknown and all that.
If a model like ours is definitely what you want though, go ahead. Just be prepared for it to fall a little short. That was really the only point I wanted to make.
All the best!
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Fallacy of vividity is a term for a specific logical fallacy. It's a proof by example, basically.
Anecdotes, if you collect enough, mean a heck of a lot...
That's what we said.
My only real point (at the beginning) was to warn you that it isn't anywhere near as rosy as some folks here make out.
We're well aware it's not perfect. We're arguing that a system in which everyone is guaranteed affordable health care is inherently better than one in which millions of people go broke with or without private insurance due to health care costs.
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"the fallacy of vividity"
Beautifully poetic, but the FD would probably be laughing his ass off (as I got handed my P45) if I ever tried to use that in real life now. You guys aren't all in college/university are you?
It's a term for a specific logical fallacy, as iamzack said. No poetry involved.
Anecdotes, if you collect enough, mean a heck of a lot in my line of work.
Precisely; that's when they become statistics, when you get a big enough N to have a high-probability representative sample.
If I went around ignoring people and just referring to my last set of tractor production figures (common piss-take reference to Gordon Brown we use here), I wouldn't last very long. And I like my job; they pay me well.
Naturally you've got to use the right statistic, one that actually describes the situation.
Not really sure what I'm doing discussing the NHS with you guys though really, unless you too are tax-paying Brits. It's about as much your business as US healthcare is mine. We probably ought to butt out of each other's domestic business.
My only real point (at the beginning) was to warn you that it isn't anywhere near as rosy as some folks here make out. It's become something of a sacred cow, and we've had it so long I don't think anyone can really imagine life without it. Fear of the unknown and all that.
If a model like ours is definitely what you want though, go ahead. Just be prepared for it to fall a little short. That was really the only point I wanted to make.
The whole point is that it would be a definite improvement over the US model. No one thought it would be flawless.
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I'm going to try not to derail to the thread, despite the fact you're...well you're trying to dodge Fury's lock and doing so duplicitiously. (For the record, I PM'd a global mod and they didn't take action before now.)
If I cared a lot or was that worried, I wouldn't have posted it publicly. I assumed something could happen and it is always possible, but life is full of risks. PM the mods to your heart's content. I consider it a run and hide action instead of dealing with it yourself. You have to call in reinforcements? What I do is I normally deal with it by myself without help or I argue and then try to let it go. I don't go running to authorities, especially over words. Never once have I reported anyone on this forum, and I won't.
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SHUT UP HIGH MAX AND
WHOEVER IS PROVOKING/ENCOURAGING HIM NGTM-1R
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Having just read what sounded like an editorial from the Daily Mail, I don't think I even need bother responding to McCall's statements....
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/me dives into the maggot container
The crux of the question is this:
Should human suffering be allowed to be exploited and turned into multi-billion dollar business, or should the government take care of reducing that suffering on a non-profit basis (ie. paid from public funds simply because it must be done, not because it's profitable)?
Personally, I think something like healthcare belongs firmly in the public domain of economy and should always be mainly funded with tax money.
On the topic of black and white capitalism versus socialism that is always dragged into this sort of conversation... in my opinion, private sector enterprises work perfectly fine in cases where the interests of the consumer and the interests of the business do not conflict as harshly as they do in the healthcare business of US of A. Like, say, buying a car or a computer. Hell, considering Microsoft's operating systems I shudder to think what an operating system designed by a governmental committee would be. So yes, in some cases I do think private sector can do a lot better job than public sector would.
However, this only works as long as you don't desperately need car or a computer. When a statistically significant portion of the populace desperately needs treatment, making them pay for it is tantamount to extortion, and to my view point that is exactly what the insurance companies try to do. From a business stand point, it's just numbers of course. Which is exactly why things like healthcare should not be about numbers and profit, but getting the job done.
Maybe the reason why so many people abhor taxes is because they don't like paying other people's expenses, as they think of it. However, this kind of thinking fails to take into account that statistically it's not entirely impossible for them to be in a bad situation. Like catching some illness or other, and the treatment being more costly than what their insurance covers under the small print... then they can't get the treatment, lose their health, lose their job, lose their life. Whereas if they had been paying for NHS in taxes while being at work (and not paying for a crappy health insurance, so its plus minus zero), they would be getting their treatment statistically much more likely than with a private sector, insurance-dependant system.
Note that public healthcare does not rule out private healthcare sector or additional health insurances. What it does rule out is people not getting treatment because of their inability to pay for it.
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@Herra
Exactly, there is a private option in the UK as well as the public option, the equipment is slightly better, you get an individual room instead of a ward, there's no waiting lists etc, the option is there for those that want it. There are certain operations the NHS will not perform, mostly cosmetic-type treatment, that can be got on private services, but not always on the NHS.
No-one claimed the NHS was perfect, but it provides a basic need of the populace, sometimes it could do better, but not having it at all would be a lot worse.
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I just want to point out that most americans haven't a goddamned clue what healthcare actually means, much less what they're voting for. All they hear is "SOCIALISTIC" and they go completely bonkers. It's like throwing meat to a bunch of crocodiles.
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I still feel that if people made better health choices in their life and had enough self respect to do so, healthcare would cost less since there would be less people in the hospital at the same time (not crouded) and thus, less doctors needed and working less hours.
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I still feel that if people made better health choices in their life and had enough self respect to do so, healthcare would cost less since there would be less people in the hospital at the same time (not crouded) and thus, less doctors needed and working less hours.
I believe there has been an article saying something about our health care costs skyrocketing mostly because of fat people.
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I probably shouldn't be
feeding the troll responding, but here goes:
Well, when you have people here who are blinded by patriotism (always follow uncle Sam and believe every false stereotype they hear about other countries and say stupid things like "the usa is the best") and seem to care about freedom moe than everything, which if too much freeedom is present and is not balanced, can affect safety, morals, health, and kindness of a culture, then their are problems.
Completely irrelevant, and also irrelevant to 95% of topics brought up in this forum.
Also, if a culture and the people in it don't want to make changes for the greater good and instead, only wants to buy unnecessary toys for themselves with a lot of their that money which makes them struggle even more in an economy crisis, then that's what happens, and someday it could be America's undoing, like Rome, perhaps.
So, Rome fell because all the people in Rome liked to spend money on toys. Wonderful logic. Perhaps the invading barbarians came for the toys?
Too much money to "the self" and not enough to things like healthcare and the infrastructure causes problems. To me, I can see severe problems with cultures who have an obsession with "the self" and money being embedded into it.
Healthcare, even without all this "self" condemnation, is pretty damn expensive. THAT is why people are uninsured, not because they are materialists. Part two of this has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this thread.
It's their weakness and they became drones since America can't accept that it is wrong in so many ways. Lifestyle, violent crime, health, lack of decent fresh food, pollution, self discipline, etc. Far from being right. I just wish more here would accept that. The first step to good change is accepting that there is a problem.
Okay, so here you say that America is full of drones because we're materialists? I think you need to examine what materialist means, or drone, for that matter. The two are not related in this context. Violent Crime is not a hallmark of the "average" American, so I don't see exactly what you mean here. "Decent" is a completely arbitrary term, which we could argue the standards of from now to the energy death of the universe. And you wish that more people would accept that they are "materialistic and unhealthy" (Capitalist PIGS!). The first step to good change is accepting there is a problem, not making one up out of thin air, especially one so distantly related to the problem being discussed that they might as well be from different planets.
I still feel that if people made better health choices in their life and had enough self respect to do so, healthcare would cost less since there would be less people in the hospital at the same time (not crouded) and thus, less doctors needed and working less hours.
Nevermind that people can get SICK. Nevermind that when doctors work less they MAKE LESS MONEY (and don't bring up any bull**** about doctors being greedy materialists. Money exists for trade, and trade exists because not everyone can grow crops in their backyard). Hospitals aren't "crowded." Unless you have REALLY ****ed yourself up or are there for surgery, you generally don't stay in a hospital overnight. Now, hospitals can be "busy," but busy != crowded.
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Just let him rant. He's an unintentional troll.
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Eh, long week, and I figured to go for the combo after Bajika.
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Just let him rant. He's an unintentional troll.
Then ban him. He's still a troll whether he means it or not. :P
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Think what you want.
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Point is, internal problems can be caused by selfishness and silly choices, like Rome had happened
But that is demonstrably false! Rome was sacked by barbarian tribes after a decline of SEVERAL decades of raiding from those self-same tribes. Rome was sacked an burned by the invading barbarians. The fall of Rome was decidedly NOT because its citizens got selfish. In case you missed it, the invading tribes conducted raiding as a WAY OF LIFE. The entire reasons of the Viking raids, a thousand years later, was so the Northmen could take what they couldn't make themselves. The materialism or selfishness of any of the invaded peoples didn't matter a single iota. Look up any of the great tribes: The Mongols, the Tartars, the Teutons, the Vikings. They ALL raided, and didn't really give a damn about what the people they attacked had to start with.
As for violent crime, that is a result of too much freedom. I didn't say taht is the hallmark of an average American. The problem is in existance, but Scotty and some others can't see it because they are too patriotic and thus, don't open their minds to other countries and cultures. I choose to think outside the box.
Bull****. Violent crime happens under any amount of freedom ANYWHERE. Else why would a totalitarian state such as, say, Soviet Russia, have issues with violent crime. In Russia, it was because of famine. But I can tell you it sure as hell wasn't because they had too much freedom! Pfssh, outside the box, more outside the realm of reason.
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To make long post short, the nationalized healthcare has these advantages:
1) People that don't have money at the moment do not become disease vectors.
2) Creates stability in the society as it is perceived justified that everybody gets treatment no matter their financial status.
The bad side is that everybody has to pay. What it doesn't prevent is doctors having their own private cliniques. Which sometimes creates a conflict of interest as the same doctor can have his own private clinique and work in nationalized healthcare clinique. I hope they would take a of note this in legalization.
Although it is typical that the management level in government organization tends to grow. Those management level positions are never considered to be targets in cut-offs. But this is not totally unfamiliar or unheard of in corporate world either. I reiterate my statement that cost reductions only tend to create more costs. What could work is internal competition inside the organization, this could keep the bureaucratic tendencies in check.
If I would need to pay for a medical insurance and there would be a risk of not getting it when it is really necessary, I wouldn't have second thoughts which type of health care system I would choose.
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As for violent crime, that is a result of too much freedom.
George Orwell is spinning in his grave........
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George Orwell is spinning in his grave........
I'm going to try and use the rapid spinning of every anarchist ever to generate free power.
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George Orwell is spinning in his grave........
I'm going to try and use the rapid spinning of every anarchist ever to generate free power.
Better yet we can connect them together to make a perpetual motion machine. :p
EDIT: But really "violent crime is a result of too much freedom", that is seriously something straight out of 1984.
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I would like to note that the countries with the worst records of violence against their own people tend to be the ones with the least freedom, as to whether that falls into 'violent crime'? Well, that just shows the inherent weakness of the argument, crime is a legal concept as much as a moral one, Saddam wasn't a criminal under his own law, for example.
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...
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I am aware that there is never one cause to things like this and that life is never that simple, but in my post above
Apparently not, because in every single thread about a real life topic, you come in here babbling about how America is too selfish or has too much freedom.
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I didn't even read all of the topic since I would get bored. I only read the post before mine, from blackhole, and some after the unrelated post I made earlier.
Call me a troll or otherwise. I am a troll in the sense that I don't want to read so many posts or be 100% on topic. I accept the responsibility of that. Goodnight.
And you wonder why everyone gets so irritated when you post. Geez.
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But I don't care. How does it hurt me? I know no one here personally. I take the ridicule and don't get too worried and that is at least worthy of some admiration?
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I wish there was an Internet restraining order...
I'd make sure you two could never go within 2 threads of each other :p
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Then don't post, simple as that.
Aaaand then you edit it. You honestly believe that Americans care too little about all others and all that jazz? STOP PROVING IT.
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I edit it to clean up spelling, grammar, and add more stuff. I do that a lot. I make an effort to have good spelling and grammar and look back at my posts and fix them up.
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Yeah, like the Mongols c. a long time ago. Or Japan c. 1930-40s. China for a long time.
You edited in:
"How does it hurt me? I know no one here personally."
and I just noticed:
"I take the ridicule and don't get too worried and that is at least worthy of some admiration?"
to the first, I refer you to my STOP PROVING IT message.
to the second, NO. That fact that you elicit such ridicule through idiotic and meaningless posting on a forum not even about the subject at hand should be hint enough to stop doing it.
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I edit it to clean up spelling, grammar, and add more stuff. I do that a lot. I make an effort to have good spelling and grammar and look back at my posts and fix them up.
Compared to friendly cultures like some countries in the orient, they do.
You mean the place where corruption is a way of life? Because, you know, that's pretty much how East Asia works except for Japan. And Japan has other issues.
Also, you have a habit of duplicitous editting, like the one you did in this very thread trying to call me out. (And failing.)
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I was posting to the others who were talking more about violent crimes. Plus, some of the best HLP topics are the ones that go off topic.
Also, you have a habit of duplicitous editting, like the one you did in this very thread trying to call me out. (And failing.)
So I don't post too many posts.
Alright, I said my peace here for now.
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Because, you know, that's pretty much how East Asia works except for Japan.
Japan also has serious structured corruption problems. So corrupt (http://www.iwanami.co.jp/jpworld/text/publicworks01.html)
Compared to friendly cultures like some countries in the orient, they do.
Friendly my ass (http://www.weirdasianews.com/2009/09/07/customer-beaten-death-walmart-employees/)
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Compared to friendly cultures like some countries in the orient, they do. Money here seems to take presidence over human life. Companies seem to do that a lot here. That is one example. Caring more about money than their customer's health, in many cases. Look at the food here. I watch the travel channel and wish I could spend a lot of time in some other places and eat their nice fresh food.
Huh? Try going there and seeing it for yourself. For some reason I used to have that kind of image of China, but boy was I surprised when the reality was just about the opposite. I think China is far more capitalistic or competitive than US is, and about the only thing you can rely on is your family and relatives. However, I do partially understand the reason why the it is like that, given that there have been lots of people around for thousands of years.
One giveaway is that guns are not available for general public at all in China. My understanding is that this is the case in Japan also. Chinese people say it is a good thing they are not since it most likely would result in lots of violence. But firearms are available in US. I don't think one could describe Oriental cultures as "enlightened".
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But I don't care. How does it hurt me?
Cause it gets you monkeyed for a month for being unable to restrain yourself.
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I think China is far more capitalistic or competitive than US is, and about the only thing you can rely on is your family and relatives. However, I do partially understand the reason why the it is like that, given that there have been lots of people around for thousands of years.
It's more because there are lots of people NOW who want good jobs and there aren't enough (yet) for everyone. Personally I believe that over time with greater economic development the pressure will lessen, but it will be a long time before it reaches that point.
I don't think one could describe Oriental cultures as "enlightened".
They aren't, most of them are stuck in our equivelent of the early 20th century, and frankly the only one seems to at least be trying to truely modernize (and actually make some progress) is China.
EDIT:
Cause it gets you monkeyed for a month for being unable to restrain yourself.
I was hoping you could have waited until after he made some rediculous responce to my post. :p
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*McCall wanders back in, wondering what kind of mess he inadvertently caused by mentioning the NHS*
Oh crikey. Poddle off into the Kent countryside for a quiet weekend to commune with nature, and what do I find when I get back? Another bloody argument. How on earth you lot started having at each other here I don't know.
Looking at this bloody mess I can't even be arsed to go back to where I left off and see what happened. Am I right in assuming there's several pages of impolite, ill-informed comments about people they don't know, all mixed up with some irrelevant, canned political dogma? Personal, political and pedantic all at once?
I really was rather unwise to pipe up here in the first place. I blame it on a leaving do at work and one glass of red too many when I got home.
*slaps hand*
I'm sure most of you are lovely people in real life, as the most pleasurable HLP London evenings I've attended have demonstrated. But you lot don't 'arf get arsey when thee gets on t'internet. Ah'll stick ta talking bollocks wi't' Colonel Dekker from now on.
Hick!
On the positive side, it was a really smashing weekend. It's such a shame we can't get some of you together in a nice, restful place like I've just been and see how all that politics nonsense just floats away on the gentle, fragrant breeze. We might just find it's urban living that stresses many of you out.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
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Very little of the discussion has anything to do with what you said, McCall, since a polite consensus was immediately reached: 'we all know NHS has problems, but it's a big step up from our current system.'
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Most of it has been unsuccessfully trying to repel Troll-ish boarders.
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*McCall wanders back in, wondering what kind of mess he inadvertently caused by mentioning the NHS*
Oh crikey. Poddle off into the Kent countryside for a quiet weekend to commune with nature, and what do I find when I get back? Another bloody argument. How on earth you lot started having at each other here I don't know.
Looking at this bloody mess I can't even be arsed to go back to where I left off and see what happened. Am I right in assuming there's several pages of impolite, ill-informed comments about people they don't know, all mixed up with some irrelevant, canned political dogma? Personal, political and pedantic all at once?
I really was rather unwise to pipe up here in the first place. I blame it on a leaving do at work and one glass of red too many when I got home.
*slaps hand*
I'm sure most of you are lovely people in real life, as the most pleasurable HLP London evenings I've attended have demonstrated. But you lot don't 'arf get arsey when thee gets on t'internet. Ah'll stick ta talking bollocks wi't' Colonel Dekker from now on.
Hick!
On the positive side, it was a really smashing weekend. It's such a shame we can't get some of you together in a nice, restful place like I've just been and see how all that politics nonsense just floats away on the gentle, fragrant breeze. We might just find it's urban living that stresses many of you out.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
You sound very cartoonish. Like a Brit right out of cheesey American fiction.
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And you sound very young. Enjoy it, and don't let this nonsense of politics trouble you too much - ultimately, it is all a load of dogmatic bollocks!
As for my manner of writing, it's what English people with old-fashioned manners sound like - especially when we wax lyrical. We're not all oafs, you know. That said, I was feeling particularly whimsical last night; I'd being staying at the country home of my cousin and his boyfriend, and there just seems to be a really relaxing, cultured ambience about the area. If you ignore the books about willies. Add a dose of red wine (as tonight) and away I float.
I sincerely hope you do find an American NHS to be a better service, assuming your country does choose that route. I have understandably strong doubts, having sampled both forms of healthcare. Likewise, my location and lifestyle have brought me into contact with many people from overseas (mostly from much poorer countries than yours and mine) from whom the overwhelming consensus is directly opposed to yours, far preferring the privatised healthcare of their homeland to the socialised of mine.
As someone who has great affection for our American cousins, I do hope you've taken my concerns and good wishes in the manner they are intended.
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Very little of the discussion has anything to do with what you said, McCall, since a polite consensus was immediately reached: 'we all know NHS has problems, but it's a big step up from our current system.'
Not if it bankrupts us and no body gets healthcare. What a pickle that would be, eh? :p
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Very little of the discussion has anything to do with what you said, McCall, since a polite consensus was immediately reached: 'we all know NHS has problems, but it's a big step up from our current system.'
Not if it bankrupts us and no body gets healthcare. What a pickle that would be, eh? :p
Maybe we could spend a bit less on defense (keeping our people safe from nebulous threats that can be countered cheaply) and a bit more on health care (keeping people safe from things that actually kill them.)
And some driver safety courses, too!
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Very little of the discussion has anything to do with what you said, McCall, since a polite consensus was immediately reached: 'we all know NHS has problems, but it's a big step up from our current system.'
Not if it bankrupts us and no body gets healthcare. What a pickle that would be, eh? :p
Maybe we could spend a bit less on defense (keeping our people safe from nebulous threats that can be countered cheaply) and a bit more on health care (keeping people safe from things that actually kill them.)
And some driver safety courses, too!
Why do that when we can take that money and train every child to be a doctor! Thus totally eliminating the healthcare industry!
In all seriousness, that could work only if the government was smart enough to do exactly that, instead of finding some other place to waste the money. Sure enough though, they would find a way to waste it.
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Glad I'm not the only one who thinks the government are a bunch of numbnuts when it comes to money.
I wonder... has anyone here looked at the correlation between health spending and life expectancy? I seem to remember reading an small article comparing the spending between the UK and US (US spending being something like twice British) and several areas of medical performance, such as cancer treatment and infant mortality.
In among the comments was very interesting observation: that despite American spending being much higher than British, the life expectancy was roughly the same - thus indicating that health spending did not appear to have a significant affect across a population! What followed from that was that most good health was a result of sanitation, diet, and working conditions.
Not very scientific and far too general, as it compared but two nations at a high level, but an interesting way of looking at things. I wonder if the same comparisons can be made with other countries?
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Glad I'm not the only one who thinks the government are a bunch of numbnuts when it comes to money.
I wonder... has anyone here looked at the correlation between health spending and life expectancy? I seem to remember reading an small article comparing the spending between the UK and US (US spending being something like twice British) and several areas of medical performance, such as cancer treatment and infant mortality.
In among the comments was very interesting observation: that despite American spending being much higher than British, the life expectancy was roughly the same - thus indicating that health spending did not appear to have a significant affect across a population! What followed from that was that most good health was a result of sanitation, diet, and working conditions.
Not very scientific and far too general, as it compared but two nations at a high level, but an interesting way of looking at things. I wonder if the same comparisons can be made with other countries?
Or it could be because the British health care system is better, so the money is used more effectively.
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I wonder... has anyone here looked at the correlation between health spending and life expectancy? I seem to remember reading an small article comparing the spending between the UK and US (US spending being something like twice British) and several areas of medical performance, such as cancer treatment and infant mortality.
...
I wonder if the same comparisons can be made with other countries?
The US spends twice or more on healthcare than most or all other Western states, though it is the only one without universal healthcare coverage of one shape or another. Moreover, the evidence indicates that it hasn't done us a damn bit of good. US outcomes are about the same to substantially poorer than those of other western states.
But I already said quite a bit about this (and provided supporting links) in another one of these threads (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=64910.msg1281969#msg1281969).
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The Number One Problem? LAWYERS.
Had America's founding fathers been just a titch smarter, they'd have banned lawyers from being elected to public office. Lawyers work in the Judicial branch of government, they ought to have no place in the Legislative or Presidential branches of government.
What our government has forgotten is they are SERVANTS *not* MASTERS. Elected office is supposed to be a position of servitude. The government is supposed to be subservient to the citizens.
But what they really think is exemplified by a rant by Frank Laughtenberg during the Democrats effort to illegally replace their dud candidate Torricelli on the New Jersey ballot. (It was well past the cutoff date for replacing a candidate for any other reason other than physical incapacity or death.)
I used to know the date his rant was on live TV, broadcast only once and never repeated because he slipped up and told the truth.
"IT'S ABOUT CONTROL!" was his first line. He got the most dumbfounded, smacked with a frying pan look on his face... I could tell he was thinking something like "Oh crap! I told the truth! Gotta ad-lib fast!", which he did, poorly.
I've been searching for a video of that for quite a while but the Democrat friendly news media has done a good job of ensuring it went down the memory hole, same as they've done with most every other time a Democrat has let the truth slip on live TV or radio. I haven't even been able to find a transcript of his rant.
Another one, which hasn't been swept under the rug, is a speech Hillary Clinton gave a while back which contained this line "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." Such a perfectly self-inflicted shot to her own foot, yet the GOP of New York wouldn't slam her with it when she first ran for Senator.
Here's another, google for "democrats caught plotting". Find the complete transcript. Around when California was having the recall election to boot out Governor Grey Davis, a bunch of Democrats had a meeting in Sacramento. The room had a microphone which transmitted to newsrooms all over the State. Someone had left it turned on. What were they plotting? Doing whatever they could to trash the California economy if the people got rid of Davis. The reaction when they discovered the microphone was on tells much about their guilt. Judging from the state of the State's economy, looks like they've had a "great success". (Just making a note, here.) ;) There were some initial, very brief news articles about this, buried in the back pages of newspapers. After that, total media blackout on the story.
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According to ofaust (http://www.ofaust.com/Default.aspx), you sound like Frank Baum.
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The Number One Problem? LAWYERS.
Had America's founding fathers been just a titch smarter, they'd have banned lawyers from being elected to public office. Lawyers work in the Judicial branch of government, they ought to have no place in the Legislative or Presidential branches of government.
What our government has forgotten is they are SERVANTS *not* MASTERS. Elected office is supposed to be a position of servitude. The government is supposed to be subservient to the citizens.
But what they really think is exemplified by a rant by Frank Laughtenberg during the Democrats effort to illegally replace their dud candidate Torricelli on the New Jersey ballot. (It was well past the cutoff date for replacing a candidate for any other reason other than physical incapacity or death.)
I used to know the date his rant was on live TV, broadcast only once and never repeated because he slipped up and told the truth.
"IT'S ABOUT CONTROL!" was his first line. He got the most dumbfounded, smacked with a frying pan look on his face... I could tell he was thinking something like "Oh crap! I told the truth! Gotta ad-lib fast!", which he did, poorly.
I've been searching for a video of that for quite a while but the Democrat friendly news media has done a good job of ensuring it went down the memory hole, same as they've done with most every other time a Democrat has let the truth slip on live TV or radio. I haven't even been able to find a transcript of his rant.
Another one, which hasn't been swept under the rug, is a speech Hillary Clinton gave a while back which contained this line "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." Such a perfectly self-inflicted shot to her own foot, yet the GOP of New York wouldn't slam her with it when she first ran for Senator.
Here's another, google for "democrats caught plotting". Find the complete transcript. Around when California was having the recall election to boot out Governor Grey Davis, a bunch of Democrats had a meeting in Sacramento. The room had a microphone which transmitted to newsrooms all over the State. Someone had left it turned on. What were they plotting? Doing whatever they could to trash the California economy if the people got rid of Davis. The reaction when they discovered the microphone was on tells much about their guilt. Judging from the state of the State's economy, looks like they've had a "great success". (Just making a note, here.) ;) There were some initial, very brief news articles about this, buried in the back pages of newspapers. After that, total media blackout on the story.
You are like an affective death spiral personified.
The funny thing about people on either extreme of the political spectrum is that they apparently do not realize that 95% of America is a bunch of quiet moderates (that stat may be a bit high, but I'm happy to cite sources.)
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You know what the difference is between people who vote Democrat and people who vote Republican? All the people who vote Democrat know that their candidate is a wanker. :p
With the Republicans, yeah, some of them do know it too but then you get people who post stuff like bizzybody who seem to honestly believe that you wouldn't see or hear exactly the same **** from Republicans too.
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I've met very few moderates. None of them were actually moderate, just apathetic. My selection sample is small.
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Or it could be because the British health care system is better, so the money is used more effectively.
Maybe, but I did find the "it doesn't seem to make much difference" analysis an intriguing point of view.
When I get time, I'll check that other guy's thread to see what was put there about comparitive effectiveness.
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I figured that A. private insurance costing more than government insurance because of the profiteering and B. people waiting until the last second and going to the ER instead of getting preventative care were big factors in cost differences between the US and other western countries.