What we get to look forward to after 2014!

[BReilley]

This. I fully believe in charity and helping the poor and otherwise needy, but not at implied gunpoint.

What's implied?  The cops will be wearing guns when they arrest you for failing to pay your share at tax time.

No problem with what?

I believe he is going past your statement about unlimited care at public expense and asking whether you have a problem with rationed care.  Do you believe that healthcare will not be rationed?

[wquay]

With the issue of 'limited care'?

It must be limited somehow, either by the market or by policy. The US currently does neither, which is one reason why US health care spending as a % of GDP has almost doubled in the past 30 years. At that rate, the limit will be enforced when the system goes bankrupt.

[Monkeyleg]

What's implied?  The cops will be wearing guns when they arrest you for failing to pay your share at tax time.

If you keep saying "no" long enough, they will eventually break out the guns.

[Perd Hapley]

I fully believe in charity and helping the poor and otherwise needy, but not at implied gunpoint.

What's implied?  The cops will be wearing guns when they arrest you for failing to pay your share at tax time.

That's exactly what he meant.   

[De Selby]

Oh yeah, the US hospital system leaves no one out and denies no access to care, compared to those evil socialist systems that ration away time for premature babies.

Wait a second....last I checked, no one was seriously arguing that the US system is superior to others because it gives services to everybody.  It doesn't. 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

why do so many of my relatives come here for health care and so few go abroad from here? even more telling is why do my doctor relatives send their family here when the shtf health wise

[Monkeyleg]

Oh yeah, the US hospital system leaves no one out and denies no access to care, compared to those evil socialist systems that ration away time for premature babies.

Wait a second....last I checked, no one was seriously arguing that the US system is superior to others because it gives services to everybody.  It doesn't. 

Hospitals in the US may not turn away people who need urgent care because the people don't have insurance. Once the urgent care is given, though, the hospitals are not required to treat followups at no charge.

Despite your hyperbole about premature babies, the fact remains that using infant mortality rates as a measure of the quality of health care is near impossible to do empirically, as the US includes premature infants who die in infant mortality counts, while other countries use different ages. Some don't include infants under nine months in infant mortality counts.

Why are you such an ass?

[De Selby]

why do so many of my relatives come here for health care and so few go abroad from here? even more telling is why do my doctor relatives send their family here when the shtf health wise

Because those are anecdotes that you drudged up to make this point, but don't actually reflect a statistical trend or a hard measure.  Hard measures and statistics are available, and they definitively establish 1) Care is much, much more expensive across the board in America and 2) The results are not across the board better.

The reason Americans don't go routinely abroad to the UK or Australia for care is that they generally aren't allowed - most of the socialist medicine systems only accept patients from countries with reciprocal arrangements.  Lots of Americans do go abroad to third world countries for surgery, because they can't afford it in the states.

I could just as easily say "Why does everyone I meet in any other industrialised country scratch his head and wonder what the heck we accept the dismal US system for?" - which is true.  I haven't met a single person who envies the US medical system and wants in his or her country.  

Btw, the prices for entirely private care are lower in these countries too - it's not just the socialist medical system that is more efficient.  Of course, private care in Australia is less efficient than state care on price; it costs more to do the same procedures.  But the wait lists are shorter.

[De Selby]

Hospitals in the US may not turn away people who need urgent care because the people don't have insurance. Once the urgent care is given, though, the hospitals are not required to treat followups at no charge.

Despite your hyperbole about premature babies, the fact remains that using infant mortality rates as a measure of the quality of health care is near impossible to do empirically, as the US includes premature infants who die in infant mortality counts, while other countries use different ages. Some don't include infants under nine months in infant mortality counts.

Why are you such an ass?

Yeah chief, I was responding to that line about letting premature babies die if they can't get airlifted to America for treatment.  I would say that was a bit hyperbolic, as was the claim that the US private system somehow treats everyone where socialist systems don't bother?

Of course, if you review this thread, I'm mostly posting arguments and reports - but those don't square with your views, so that makes me an ass.  Perhaps if I spent all my time cheerleading the more popular lines you wouldn't be so rude to me. 

[Ron]

I'm mostly posting arguments and reports

talking points

[De Selby]

talking points

Whatever you want to call them, you won't find me in these threads doing things like "ah, it's the lawyer and his bs'ing skills" or otherwise trying to relate the subject to folks personalities. 

[Monkeyleg]

No, Shootinstudent/De Selby/Marcus Welby/whomever, I will grant that you post good information. The problem is that you also blend in slanted information presented as fact, which undermines your arguments.

You also have a way of presenting your arguments and posts that rubs people the wrong way, even though you probably don't mean to do so. I realize that you're arguing a minority point of view here, but that's all the more reason to be careful when debating. It's like going before an audience of moderately anti-gun people to explain the virtues of concealed carry.

[MicroBalrog]

I could just as easily say "Why does everyone I meet in any other industrialised country scratch his head and wonder what the heck we accept the dismal US system for?" - which is true.  I haven't met a single person who envies the US medical system and wants in his or her country. 

Got money for a couple of transcontinental tickets?

[makattak]

Btw, the prices for entirely private care are lower in these countries too - it's not just the socialist medical system that is more efficient.  Of course, private care in Australia is less efficient than state care on price; it costs more to do the same procedures.  But the wait lists are shorter.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Nitrogen]

Why would any of this apply to you if you have private insurance?  It wouldn't, just like it wouldnt in the UK or Canada.  This would apply to people with nothing.

[makattak]

Why would any of this apply to you if you have private insurance?  It wouldn't, just like it wouldnt in the UK or Canada.  This would apply to people with nothing.

It wouldn't.

Here's the problem, though. Once you steal from people in order to pay for their "free" health care, many more people will be unable to afford private insurance.

Kinda like the "free" public schools.

It's a lot harder to home-doctor than it is to home school, though.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Because those are anecdotes that you drudged up to make this point, but don't actually reflect a statistical trend or a hard measure.  Hard measures and statistics are available, and they definitively establish 1) Care is much, much more expensive across the board in America and 2) The results are not across the board better.

The reason Americans don't go routinely abroad to the UK or Australia for care is that they generally aren't allowed - most of the socialist medicine systems only accept patients from countries with reciprocal arrangements.  Lots of Americans do go abroad to third world countries for surgery, because they can't afford it in the states.

I could just as easily say "Why does everyone I meet in any other industrialised country scratch his head and wonder what the heck we accept the dismal US system for?" - which is true.  I haven't met a single person who envies the US medical system and wants in his or her country.  

Btw, the prices for entirely private care are lower in these countries too - it's not just the socialist medical system that is more efficient.  Of course, private care in Australia is less efficient than state care on price; it costs more to do the same procedures.  But the wait lists are shorter.

really  americans go abroad for surgery?  where?  how many? 

[Nitrogen]

really  americans go abroad for surgery?  where?  how many? 

Americans go to India and Thailand for surgery all the time, where surgery costs 1/4 to 1/10th the full cost here.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/27/india.medical.travel/index.html

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

we sent mom to japan  but it was for a drug unapproved for use here.

[Monkeyleg]

We sent my older brother to Canada, but that was just so he wouldn't show up drunk when relatives from Michigan were coming to visit.

[Jamisjockey]

Oh yeah, the US hospital system leaves no one out and denies no access to care, compared to those evil socialist systems that ration away time for premature babies.

Wait a second....last I checked, no one was seriously arguing that the US system is superior to others because it gives services to everybody.  It doesn't. 

Health Care isn't a right.  It is goods & service. 

[MicroBalrog]

Why would any of this apply to you if you have private insurance?  It wouldn't, just like it wouldnt in the UK or Canada.  This would apply to people with nothing.

You realize Canada ended up banning private health care at one point (only at court intervention was it legalized again, and then only partially), right?

[MechAg94]

Americans go to India and Thailand for surgery all the time, where surgery costs 1/4 to 1/10th the full cost here.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/27/india.medical.travel/index.html

What is the general cost of living in those countries?  I've some places in Mexico are a destination also. 

[MechAg94]

Btw, the prices for entirely private care are lower in these countries too - it's not just the socialist medical system that is more efficient.  Of course, private care in Australia is less efficient than state care on price; it costs more to do the same procedures.  But the wait lists are shorter.

Are the wait lists for the private care shorter due to the cost or because the doctors treat more people since they have more incentive to do so? 

How are you defining "efficiency" in this context?

[BReilley]

That's exactly what he meant.   

I'm not sure who you were addressing, but I meant that there is nothing implied about the threat of force against tax evasion.

I've some places in Mexico are a destination also.

This is true - many people here in Arizona go south, I understand it's predominantly for dental work.

I have to believe that one takes one's chances going to a foreign country - MEXICO, for crying out loud - for medical services of any kind.
I'd rather do business locally, thank you very much.

Also, can we not be snarky about De Selby's name?  Maybe he's shootinstudent, maybe he's not; I don't know and don't care.  An irritatingly large number of users here have changed their names at least once, and I don't see anybody bothering fistful(for instance) about it.