2017

PeterZ wrote:
Really? Do you pay for the doctor visit? No? Who does?
If the doctor prescribes a treatment, does whoever pays your doctor get a chance to reject treatment if deemed unnecessary?

If you participate in socialized medicine, then your government DOES get between you and the services your docotr may prescibe to you. Glad you guys are a small enough nation to allow your socialized health system to be responsive.

While I'm sure there is some oversight of medical spending, I don't think there's anyone vetting each and every treatment prescribed by a doctor. Like gcomeau, I've never dealt with anyone but my doctor. If a doctor says X will be an effective treatment, X will be provided if covered under the provincial plan or I'll be able to pay for it if not. No bureaucrat is waiting to say X isn't really covered because form 813X wasn't filled out when I applied for insurance.

I beg to differ. Our system of direct payment worked very well. People were uninsured, yes. They could pay for the services they needed and had help in circumstances when they could not pay. That worked well.

Requiring insurance made the system very inefficient regardless if the provider of the insurance was government or private insurwers.

As for absolute size of government, it does facilitate corruption. The larger the size the easier it is to redirect expenditures to benefit angent in government. That's just a fact. Our current system of inneficiencies with private insurers will carry over to a governemnt run programs. We have seen it in current, much smaller programs today. I don't believe a government run insurer will be better.

PeterZ wrote:I beg to differ. Our system of direct payment worked very well. People were uninsured, yes. They could pay for the services they needed and had help in circumstances when they could not pay. That worked well.

What fantasy land historical fiction are you referring to and what metrics are you evaluating it by to claim it worked "very well"?

We've got a government-run socialized medical program right here in the U.S. It's called the Veterans Administration, and ex-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was in charge of it for over a decade. It has all but collapsed in corruption and scandal over the last two years.

I think Peter Z has got the beginnings of an idea. If you get sick or injured, YOU get money to take care of it. Spend it how and where YOU want. If you want a more expensive doctor, YOU pay the difference.

And stop expecting insurance to pay for EVERYTHING. Insurance doesn't work that way. Insurance ONLY works properly when used to pay for large but unusual expenses, NOT for expenses that everybody is expected to incur. 'Every-scratch-and-sniffle' insurance just adds overhead and invites corruption.
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If a business tries something and it doesn't work, they have to stop doing it or they will go bankrupt. If the government tries something that doesn't work, they will keep shoveling our money into it forever.

Imaginos1892 wrote:And stop expecting insurance to pay for EVERYTHING. Insurance doesn't work that way. Insurance ONLY works properly when used to pay for large but unusual expenses, NOT for expenses that everybody is expected to incur. 'Every-scratch-and-sniffle' insurance just adds overhead and invites corruption.

Except it doesn't. Except in Health Care, covering preventative measures and the little stuff ensures that small problems don't turn into large problems. If a worker has no problem taking their kids to the doc to get infections and injuries looked at before they become critical, kids are healthier. If said worker gets ill themselves but has the ability to just get a quick prescription to fight things off early, the total time lost due to illness is reduced.

This is basic stuff public healthcare does. Removing sources of economic uncertainty (and that's what health care costs are) is never a bad thing.

If a business tries something and it doesn't work, they have to stop doing it or they will go bankrupt. If the government tries something that doesn't work, they will keep shoveling our money into it forever.

So given that public health care does work, what does that say?

The E wrote:So given that public health care does work, what does that say?

This is the part they never can wrap their heads around. They will write entire treatises on why "obviously public health care can't work for all these hypothetical theoretical reasons that I will explain in detail!"


In the meantime it's up and running all across the world. For decades. While they squeeze their eyes shut and clamp hands firmly over ears and continue their diatribes.


They're like people standing on the tarmac of a major international airport delivering obnoxious lectures about how obviously heavier than air flight is impossible and clearly the only workable way to set up any kind of air travel infrastructure is with the majestic Zeppelin and let them explain why blah blah blah.... and shouting their lecture really loudly so they can be heard over the sound of the jet planes flying over their head.

gcomeau wrote:This is the part they never can wrap their heads around. They will write entire treatises on why "obviously public health care can't work for all these hypothetical theoretical reasons that I will explain in detail!"


In the meantime it's up and running all across the world. For decades. While they squeeze their eyes shut and clamp hands firmly over ears and continue their diatribes.


They're like people standing on the tarmac of a major international airport delivering obnoxious lectures about how obviously heavier than air flight is impossible and clearly the only workable way to set up any kind of air travel infrastructure is with the majestic Zeppelin and let them explain why blah blah blah.... and shouting their lecture really loudly so they can be heard over the sound of the jet planes flying over their head.

What hypotheticals? Socialized healthcare works for your smaller countries. Our attempt at socialized healthcare ended in Obamacare. Did not work at all. Our very large government with its tendency to corrupt our representiives pushed the legislature in that direction. A larger program will be even more heavily influnced by monied interests to F-up the program.

We see it in all service delivery programs.We see it in Medicare, Medicaid, the V.A., Social Security-Disability and a host of others. These failures aren't theoretical. That similar programs work for smaller, less wealthy nations whose government expenditures don't tempt the agents in government nearly as much as ours do doesn't mean they MUST work for the US. Too often they don't.

So stop standing on the tarmac arguing about your theoretical reasons why your social program SHOULD work here. Americans are either too corrupt or the system too easily corrupts our agents.

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:This is the part they never can wrap their heads around. They will write entire treatises on why "obviously public health care can't work for all these hypothetical theoretical reasons that I will explain in detail!"


In the meantime it's up and running all across the world. For decades. While they squeeze their eyes shut and clamp hands firmly over ears and continue their diatribes.


They're like people standing on the tarmac of a major international airport delivering obnoxious lectures about how obviously heavier than air flight is impossible and clearly the only workable way to set up any kind of air travel infrastructure is with the majestic Zeppelin and let them explain why blah blah blah.... and shouting their lecture really loudly so they can be heard over the sound of the jet planes flying over their head.

What hypotheticals? Socialized healthcare works for your smaller countries. Our attempt at socialized healthcare ended in Obamacare. Did not work at all. Our very large government with its tendency to corrupt our representiives pushed the legislature in that direction. A larger program will be even more heavily influnced by monied interests to F-up the program.

We see it in all service delivery programs.We see it in Medicare, Medicaid, the V.A., Social Security-Disability and a host of others. These failures aren't theoretical. That similar programs work for smaller, less wealthy nations whose government expenditures don't tempt the agents in government nearly as much as ours do doesn't mean they MUST work for the US. Too often they don't.

So stop standing on the tarmac arguing about your theoretical reasons why your social program SHOULD work here. Americans are either too corrupt or the system too easily corrupts our agents.

You know what I like best about American conservatives? Their unwavering faith in the excellence and sterling character of the American people. It's heartening how they always see the best in America and get bogged down in all its failure and missteps. [/sarc]

PeterZ wrote:

gcomeau wrote:This is the part they never can wrap their heads around. They will write entire treatises on why "obviously public health care can't work for all these hypothetical theoretical reasons that I will explain in detail!"


In the meantime it's up and running all across the world. For decades. While they squeeze their eyes shut and clamp hands firmly over ears and continue their diatribes.


They're like people standing on the tarmac of a major international airport delivering obnoxious lectures about how obviously heavier than air flight is impossible and clearly the only workable way to set up any kind of air travel infrastructure is with the majestic Zeppelin and let them explain why blah blah blah.... and shouting their lecture really loudly so they can be heard over the sound of the jet planes flying over their head.

What hypotheticals?

Every single statement you have ever made about what *would* happen *if* America tried doing the exact same damn thing every other developed nation on earth already does successfully.

Those hypotheticals.

Socialized healthcare works for your smaller countries.

It works in *every developed country*.

Our attempt at socialized healthcare ended in Obamacare.

Is that some kind of joke?

1. Obamacare worked basically as intended. As in, it marginally improved a bad system to a slightly less bad system.

2. Obamacare wasn't even something that vaguely resembles socialized healthcare or health insurance. WTF are you even talking about? It was just Romneycare re-scaled to a national application. It was effectively the GOP's "this is how we're going to keep Healthcare in the private sector! YAY CAPITALISM!!!!!" proposal to counter Hillary's healthcare reform efforts in the 90s. It's straight out of the Heritage Foundation for the love of whatever it is you find holy, do you know *nothing* about what is going on in health care in this country? Like, literally nothing at all?

We see it in all service delivery programs.We see it in Medicare, Medicaid, the V.A., Social Security-Disability and a host of others. These failures aren't theoretical.

No, they're partly imaginary and partly the work of deliberate GOP sabotage.

That similar programs work for smaller, less wealthy nations whose government expenditures don't tempt the agents in government nearly as much as ours do doesn't mean they MUST work for the US. Too often they don't.

Again.... WTF are you talking about? What "failures" caused by all that money "tempting government agents" are you referring to here???

Americans are either too corrupt or the system too easily corrupts our agents.

You do realize that your argument here just boiled down to "Americans are the most corrupt least capable people in any developed nation on earth"? You get that that is the argument you just made right?

Said it before, and I'll say it again.

The only way to fix the American healthcare system is to literally buy the entire industry, rewrite the rules and restructure, then sell the appropriate bits back.

Obama care was an attempt to do socialized healthcare that was sabotaged by the US healthcare industry via the GOP.

The VA is a true abortion. It's not socialized healthcare, it's a government owned and run private healthcare system that follows the same ideology as the private system.

But then the US stopped giving a fuck about their soldiers years ago.
After all, it's about the only modern army where basic soldiers need welfare to live.