patrick.net

DS -

I've made the same arguments here about the stupidity of the US healthcare system relative to systems in social democracies like Canada and Australia. It's pointless to argue with some of the neo-cons here. You and I both know the alternative is better, and cheaper, let the ignorant unwashed masses of neo-con apologists empty their bank accounts, or go around like Astrid with no coverage and a plan to declare bankruptcy if anything bad happens. That's more efficeient and better for the market, right. I'm sure the HMOs love it when customers declare bankruptcy. I'm sure those costs never get passed onm!!

I posted links to all kinds of stats on infant mortality etc, but the HMOs must collect their dough, and of course the US could never operate a set of fiefdoms inefficiently - why we all know monopolistic national health programs are just the first step to godless communism!!

Mind you, monopolistic military organizations are of course the most efficient and deserve unswerving support from that familiar dupe, the american taxpayer.

Yes, this is now the international bubble blog. This is a universal blog.

I declare the independence of this blog from the narrow minded or otherwise parochial points of view of all american posters, unless they are prepared to join the international blogosphere!

I will post the declaration of independence tomorrow.

Unless of course, since it isn't my blog, I'm not allowed to visit anymore... ;)

DS said:

deregulation, hmm. the american health industry is already one of the most deregulated in the world. however, it costs approximately twice as much to run it as most ’social-ised medicine’ countries which further provide a guarantee of affordable access to health care. i.e. the US healthcare system, left in the ‘free market’, is twice as inefficient as the public healthcare systems which guarantee a universal outcome of affordable quality healthcare.

You're joking, right? US healthcare deregulated?? Not quite. We have layers upon layers of bureaucratic sclerosis. Consumers have no idea what health care even costs because of the insurance industry, which acts as an intermediary. Health insurance is subsidized in a haphazard and inefficient way by permitting employers to deduct health care premiums, while denying the same benefit to the unemployed or self-employed. Medicare provides incomplete coverage to the old and the poor, but everyone else is left to fend for themselves.

I am not a free market purist, as I stated earlier. I believe in sensible regulation which allows consumers to make informed choices. Neither the US system, nor the social democratic systems, provide for such informed choices. I suppose my ideal scenario would involve a minimal healthcare social safety net for all citizens (for catastrophic care and preventive medicine), with consumers free to supplement this coverage through private insurance or self insurance.

As beneficiaries of the US security umbrella, Canada, Australia, etc., spend a tiny fraction of what the US spends on defense. The rest gets funneled into the public benefits you have cited.

Glen,

the benefits of US protection are seriously overrated. Our only large potential adversary in Canada is the american military- which, by the way has drawn up plans to invade Canada numerous times, or have you forgotten the War of 1812? If the Chinese were in Alaska and threatening to attack, we could easily mobilize if we had to. Go read some history on who was in the war first in WW1-WW2, who was in Korea, who was in Gulf War 1, who is in Haiti and Afghanistan now... yes that's right, the free-riding Canadians were dying when Woodrow Wilson and FDR were delaying...

Interesting fact -

most of the american nuclear arsenal is filled with fissionable material from - Canada. Imagine the world that would have existed if that hadn't been readily available for the taking...

I think I can hear keyboards tippy tappy typing all over California...

Tsusiat said:
I’ve made the same arguments here about the stupidity of the US healthcare system relative to systems in social democracies like Canada and Australia. It’s pointless to argue with some of the neo-cons here.I posted links to all kinds of stats on infant mortality etc, but the HMOs must collect their dough, and of course the US could never operate a set of fiefdoms inefficiently - why we all know monopolistic national health programs are just the first step to godless communism!!

Mind you, monopolistic military organizations are of course the most efficient and deserve unswerving support from that familiar dupe, the american taxpayer.

I'm not a fan of monopolistic national healthcare or monopolistic military organizations. There is no free lunch and there are no "free" doctor visits. Someone is paying for it. Just because the cost is hidden, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I am not necessarily opposed to a wealth redistribution system designed to provide universal care. I just think that such a system should be transparent, with costs and benefits made public to all and with the ability to opt out if a competitor offers a better deal.

Glen -

the cost isn't hidden - I pay higher income taxes than you, and so do the corporations here.

But not that much higher. Check out the CIA factbook.

And I don't worry about those nasty problems cancer, diabetes, cardiac arrest and all those other little problems that can punch a hole in your bank account, or cause bankruptcy.

Except as health problems.

Check this out:

the army can't pay the bills, courtesy Yahoo:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060706/ap_on_re_us/army_budget_crunch

tsusiat said:
the benefits of US protection are seriously overrated.

Good. Believe me, I am all for dismantling the US military industrial complex and replacing it with a balanced budget and a sustainable social safety net. I was trying to make the point that the US spends far too much on its MIC, not that Canada (or others) don't spend enough.

Glen -

thank you for your point on the MIC, it is rare to find agreement at this blog on such a point, maybe if it is voiced a little more often, it will become a little more acceptable...

...kind of like belief in the housing bubble, that we've all moved on and on from discussing... :)

For the socialists on the board:

Should everyone be given socialized medicine? Or only those lucky enough to be born in industrialized (ex-US) countries?

The problem with the welfare state is that it breeds dependency, entitlement and xenophobia. No one wants to let immigrants in, lest they take advantage of "our" welfare benefits (which were disproportionately paid for by "our" rich people). So the socialists, who claim to care about the poor, turn out to be just as jingoistic and exclusionary as the reactionaries they claim to oppose. And they only care about the poor who were born on the same soil as them. Not exactly humanitarians, are they?

I've been screened out again! Help?

Glen,

what are you talking about? Your comment on socialists being more jingoistic is nuts. Economic organization is not the determinant of these things, the well-being of the people is.

Canada lets in more immigrants than the US, and those immigrants are at least as well integrated here into the general population, maybe more...

Glen,

Any post with the word "socialist" or socialism in it gets automatically thrown into moderation. Is this because Patrick Kilelea hates socialists? No. It's because it contains the the string "cialis", a popular drug that tons of spam-bots are hawking. Try social-ist intead.

Moderation for any post with 2 or more links is also pretty much automatic.

Glen-

When you write "social ists" the board sees "cialis" and screens the post as spam. Another insiduous means of preventing geopolitical debate!

Glen -

are you calling the US a "welfare state"? If so, wouldn't it be better to be a "social democracy" instead?

The Arabs were phenominally advanced in math, astronomy, music, architecture, ceramics and anatomy

Astrology too. They could be the people who invented the whole stuff. Ever heard of Arabic Parts?

One very major application of astronomy is astrology. Why else did people need to know the positions of planets other than the sun and the moon?

are you calling the US a “welfare state”? If so, wouldn’t it be better to be a “social democracy” instead?

Perhaps. I confess that I don't know enough about the Canadian healthcare system to make an informed judgment about it. I know that the US healthcare "system" is highly dysfunctional and I suspect that the Canadian system would be preferable. But it is a mistake to characterize the US system as "deregulated." We have a bizarre over-regulated system which encourages overconsumption of healthcare services by the insured (due to the opacity and diffusion of costs) and underconsumption by the uninsured (for obvious reasons).

My original comment re social-ism was in response to DS's comment that "‘deregulation’ is another neoclassical rightwing thinktank weasel word which is code for ‘please let me make even more money for myself without scrutiny or oversight or a governing role to guarantee socially acceptable outcomes’."

I object to this comment because I think it mischaracterizes deregulation. I acknowledge that there is a role for government in policing the market and preventing fraud or abuse. However, I disagree with regulation which is intended to fix prices, "reward" favored groups or engage in social engineering.

I am fairly consistent in my belief that government should only intervene in the market when market forces are insufficient to provide an optimal allocation of resources. Since I have my doubts that a pure market-based healthcare system would provide an acceptable level of minimal care to the poor, I suspect that this may be one area in which the government can legitimately exercise its regulatory power. But DS's wholesale dismissal of deregulation lead me to believe that he believes government, as a general proposition, is better than the market at allocating resources. For the most part, I disagree with this analysis.

Another point I would like to make on healthcare:

Many of the examples cited of social-ized healthcare systems seem so wonderful because they transfer the costs of caring for the present generation onto future generations. I suspect that many of these systems will prove to unsustainable over the long haul. Especially in countries like Japan and many western european countries with shrinking populations. But no worries, they will just open the borders and load the costs onto the backs of the poor immigrants.

I disagree about 300 years ago. In the 17th-18th centuries the middle east was already way behind in all the fields that you mentioned as well as in other aspects of development.

Wow, seems like it is high time for these godless heathens to "face realty" and become another soulless shallow BA yuppie piece of shit.

You continually amaze me; your talents are diverse and astounding. Not only are you one of the leading BA real estate will never go down pundits, but aren't the one also responsible for such gems as work hard and you'll make a lot of money if not you're stupid and lazy?

Maybe you should "face reality" and go back to Craigslist.

Wow, seems like it is high time for these godless heathens to “face realty” and become another soulless shallow BA yuppie piece of shit.

LOL :lol:

On a separate note, HARM, your ignorant comments about me trying to inject race into the debate and being a “shudder” liberal are oh so indicative of your close minded point of view. The fact I mentioned some hillbillies and wetbacks and spics and japs was meant to illustrate these issues are not restricted to the target du jour. Hardly an attempt to inject race into a debate, rather, an obvious acknowledgement the elephant is already in the room.

Well, if I misinterpreted your comments at face value (as serious), then I am sorry. But you were the first one to "play the race card" so to speak --even if it was in jest. Though you may not agree with me, I encounter this type of knee-jerk "Liberal" reaction all the time here when trying to discuss immigration rationally. Sort of like automatically bringing up Hitler when discussing the Bush Administration.

Glen -

fair enough, good response. I personally believe some "social engineering" is necessary and preferable, but your points on the general opacity of the system make sense to me. My cousins married to a guy who used to work for an HMO, and I can tell you, don't even get him started on the benefits of one system versus the other.

The irony is that employment for people like him doesn't exist in Canada. He's not doing that kind of work anymore anyhow, thank god.

As to optimal use of resources, it is an easily proven point that many recent scientific advances resulted from the efficient application of resources by quasi-governmental organizations like the military or NASA.

Of course, these organizations on the grand scale cannot be considered "deregulated", even if elements are more or less so.

The same can be said of healthcare - it need not be "deregulated" to achieve optimal allocation of scarce resoures.

Remember - the interests of doctors are not the interests that should be driving the system - it should be those of feepayers and patients - however the fees are paid.

As to optimal use of resources, it is an easily proven point that many recent scientific advances resulted from the efficient application of resources by quasi-governmental organizations like the military or NASA.

Of course we don't know what sort of advances would have occurred if the hundreds of billions spent on NASA and the military had been available for R&D in the private sector. I suspect that all of those highly trained scientists and engineers would have come up with a thing or two in order to make a buck... And the mortality rate of passengers on NASA spacecraft (+/- 5%), for example, is ridiculous when compared to the mortality rate of passengers on private air transport (+/- .0001%).

Glen-

ouch, touche.

Tsusiat,
Besides...I thought you agreed with me that the MIC was out of control? Why try to rationalize it using ex-post justifications based on a few useful civilian byproducts of defense R&D?

Why is their always a caveat at the end of every news story about bad housing news? Why must journalists put a line in about some glimmer of hope, apologizing for the bad news? Are they required by law to do this? Why? Why? Why? It makes me sick how they manage to ruin a good, bad news story.

Journalists like to fancy themselves as “objective.” So the last paragraph is the attempt to show the “other side” of the story. I have a journalism degree, and I remember always being told to be “objective,” though I do not believe there is much objectivity in the mainstream press.

Yes...that is a very annoying tendency. I went to see the Al Gore movie last weekend. One of the interesting points he brought up is that in a survey of (some ridiculously large #--I think it was like 800+) peer-reviewed scientific articles on climate change, 0 expressed any doubt that CO2 contributes to global warming. But in a survey of (another large #) of articles in the mainstream media, 53% expressed at least some doubt that CO2 contributes to global warming. I suspect that the media felt obligated to give the "other side" of the story by giving equal time to the energy industry shills.

Or the coverage of Bush administration lies.... "Democrats say that Bush misled the US into war. On the other hand, Bush says he didn't." End of story. So aggravating!

How about showing the "other side" in the middle of the story, or is that too difficult.

How about exercising a little independent judgment and occasionally rejecting the BS touted by the advocates of the "other side."

There is a housing bubble. It will end badly. The industry says it will be a soft landing, but there is no historical precedent to support their view.

Since when is it wrong to be a liberal? What planet did you grow up on, where democracy consists of arguing that politics of left or right must be founded on absolute certainty and the other godless souls are corrupting the nation?

If you mean "liberal" in the classical sense, as in more like pro-limited government, pro-individual economic choice, pro-tolerance in race, religion, sexual preference, etc. (aka moderate Libertarianism), then I don't see anything wrong at all.

If you mean modern "Liberal", as in pro-government social re-engineering, picking marketplace "winners" & "losers", dictating preference to consumers, creating government quasi-monopolies, propping up inefficient and unprofitable industries with endless subsidies, promoting the interests of certain "preferred" racial/ethnic groups over others and engaging in racially divisive victimhood/reparations politics, then please count me out.

I have never accused all "liberals", leftists or whatever label you prefer as "godless souls" corrupting anyone, nor do I claim to have a monopoly on absolute Truth. I just see injecting race politics as counter-productive to debating what immigration policies will produce the most optimal results for U.S. citizens and society.

There isn’t a lot of space in a newspaper story to flip back and forth between two sides, so they generally follow one story so to speak; and throw in the last paragraph to appease the “objectivity” standard.

Not to mention that RE advertising pays for a lot of newsprint.

HARM:
Count me in the "classical liberal" camp.

Can we please have a party which promotes liberal politics and liberal economics?? Most Democrats would agree that government should not tell women whether or not to get an abortion, or whether gays should be allowed to marry, or whether they can do drugs, obtain assisted suicide, etc... Many Republicans would agree that the government should not be involved in doling out favors to industries, handing out subsidies, sponsoring GSEs, etc...

Seems to me that a good liberal should support freedom both in the context of personal morality and in the area of economic choice. But I guess my views are fairly unusual.

Can we please have a party which promotes liberal politics and liberal economics??

Here you go: http://www.lp.org/article_85.shtml

What is wrong with being in the middle, if being in the middle is where common sense resides. Mike/a.k.a.Sage

Hmm... maybe I should have said a viable political party...

From the Libertarian Party website:
"We call for the elimination of all restrictions on immigration, the abolition of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol, and a declaration of full amnesty for all people who have entered the country illegally."

HARM: Is this acceptable to you?

Glen Says:

[stuff]

that's all very touching, but you don't seem to be in the loop on what's really going on, how anyone else organises their medical system, and so on and so forth.

You’re joking, right? US healthcare deregulated?? Not quite. We have layers upon layers of bureaucratic sclerosis. Consumers have no idea what health care even costs because of the insurance industry, which acts as an intermediary.

well, how would you deregulate? this is getting crazy. deregulation is to put it in the private sector and not mandate parameters of operation.

Health insurance is subsidized in a haphazard and inefficient way by permitting employers to deduct health care premiums, while denying the same benefit to the unemployed or self-employed. Medicare provides incomplete coverage to the old and the poor, but everyone else is left to fend for themselves.

and...?

I am not a free market purist, as I stated earlier. I believe in sensible regulation which allows consumers to make informed choices.

that's just more market speak. over here, people who constantly talk about 'consumer choice' are always held up to be market goons. choice of what?

Neither the US system, nor the social democratic systems, provide for such informed choices. I suppose my ideal scenario would involve a minimal healthcare social safety net for all citizens (for catastrophic care and preventive medicine), with consumers free to supplement this coverage through private insurance or self insurance.

the irony is, that's exactly what you have now -- you've just summed up the US health care system. gaak!! and you say also that that is the 'ideal' as though it has not been realised.

i always find it hilarious when americans always say they are striving towards an 'ideal' which is both regressive and usually the system they already have, and usually punishing -- while the rest of the world is doing it different and better a totally different way... the insularity and parochialism and sheer stupidity is quite something to behold...

there's a website i found recently which i can't find again comparing the US to about 20 other countries and points out what a schemozzle the US system is. mainly due to overpaying doctors, and the whole health insurance/HMO disaster. if i can find it again i'll post in a link. plus the OECD ranking report...

health insurance comes up as an issue on this site over and over again. there's a lot less stress in my life knowing everything is free through the public system as a universal guarantee, nothing to pay, script costs are low, and knowing that it is twice as efficient (i.e. half the cost to operate) per capita as the US system to boot... effectively the govt is the insurer, as they know there is a finite demand on their services, so they may as well absorb the hassle...

the OECD report pointed out that one major hallmarks of the US system is its denial of access to care for those who need it on financial grounds, compared with other similar countries, which contributed to its overall world ranking of 37th in quality...

I suppose my ideal scenario would involve a minimal healthcare social safety net for all citizens (for catastrophic care and preventive medicine), with consumers free to supplement this coverage through private insurance or self insurance.

actually, on a re-reading, that's what most other countries have. except i see a GP for anything for free, get blood tests, X-rays and ultrasounds for free, etc. and scripts are only about $20 at most... so it's not just 'catastrophic' healthcare. are you saying many americans currently don't get treated even when something catastrophic occurs at present?