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I see nothing to suggest this isnt a result of the american people "getting what they asked for"
Who are you summing up again?
I see nothing to suggest this isnt a result of the american people "getting what they asked for"
Its true, not sure who sold the poor to middle class republican voting block in the southeast that jesus thinks its a bigger injustice for someone to unnecessarily get a few extra food stamps than its is for hundreds of thousands of people to go bankrupt because they get sick, so they insist on voting for politicians who assure them they won't allow the poor people to get a free ride. I guess I missed all those bible verses where jesus talks about how oppressive poor people are and that you need to protect the rich from their tyranny
I know it was a random tangent haha, but it just never made any sense to me. I understand the big city affluent types in the Northeast being conservative (Romney), its better for them financially and they can make decent arguments for it being better for the country economically.
But religious right down south just makes no sense to me in this regard b/c they are actually the ones who would benefit from a lot of the social programs (just look at schools in the SE) and the obsession with the military and making sure poor people don't freeride seems so contrary to the stuff they believe jesus said.
I know it was a random tangent haha, but it just never made any sense to me. I understand the big city affluent types in the Northeast being conservative (Romney), its better for them financially and they can make decent arguments for it being better for the country economically.
But religious right down south just makes no sense to me in this regard b/c they are actually the ones who would benefit from a lot of the social programs (just look at schools in the SE) and the obsession with the military and making sure poor people don't freeride seems so contrary to the stuff they believe jesus said.
I know it was a random tangent haha, but it just never made any sense to me. I understand the big city affluent types in the Northeast being conservative (Romney), its better for them financially and they can make decent arguments for it being better for the country economically.
But religious right down south just makes no sense to me in this regard b/c they are actually the ones who would benefit from a lot of the social programs (just look at schools in the SE) and the obsession with the military and making sure poor people don't freeride seems so contrary to the stuff they believe jesus said.
The belief is not anti-charity,but anti government. Its the belief that government programs, even those started with the best of intentions, ultimately become a burden and a roadblock to those they were trying to help, while enriching no one but the massive beurocracies that form around each new program. Its a belief that any job that a private citizen can do well for ten dollars the federal government will do poorly for no less than a hundred. Its a belief, a belief which is one of the founding principle of this nation, that everything possible should be left to the individual, that those duties which must be assumed by the government should be dealt with by the county or the state, and only those few services that must absolutely be performed at the national level should be the business of the Federal government.
But if we want to follow the spirit of the founders we should still have slaves and women shouldn't vote, things inherently change with time.
But you have places like Germany and Switzerland which pretty much invented capitalism having no trouble adapting to provide for their people who are in need while still keeping a better credit rating than the US.
I dont think this stands as an appropriate counterpoint to "people believe the gov'ment will screw up". If the cited countries are running in a purely capitalistic manner then this is evidence which supports john... er... perrotfish's claim
I also didnt see anything in his post which led me to believe that he was suggesting we go back to what the "founders" had.
But you have places like Germany and Switzerland which pretty much invented capitalism having no trouble adapting to provide for their people who are in need while still keeping a better credit rating than the US.
I wasn't claiming they were purely capitalistic, I was pointing out that Germany/Switzerland are able to maintain extremely powerful market based economies while still having "socialized" policies like making sure everyone has healthcare and protects people from medical bankruptcy.
The point is not that we can't provide for out people, the point is that our people provide for themselves. The federal government has nothing to offer its people that it didn't first take from them, and in the process of transforming it from something they took to something they gave they inevitably have managed to spend 90% of it on their own ever expanding bureaucracy. We have seen this time and time again. Germany has the same problem we do with health care: they're bankrupting themselves with it. They're spending one out of every seven dollars on healthcare, and the amount is increasing at several times the rate of inflation every year. They've staved off disaster until now with non-sustainable cuts to healthcare providers (they're famous for nation wide physician strikes) which is why they provide care for so little, but now they're hemhorraging providers and still can't control costs. Their system is like someone who has figured out he can save an enormous amount of money by just not paying his rent. It seems like a great strategy until he gets an eviction notice.
The way to save healthcare and stop all the bankruptcies is not more federal spending,but less. Right now everything in healthcare costs ten times what it should because the prices are set by federal programs that will pay for any type of care, no matter how ludicrously expensive or marginally effective. People need to be spending their own, limited money on health care. And they need to know, universally, when the money runs out that there is no more, just like any other industry. High costs goods will get driven out of the market entirely, and the healthcare industry will, with deregulation, see their prices collapse just like the airline industry did when we finally deregulated that.
This is a good article on the healthcare model in Singapore. They manage to get better results than the US, for one tenth the cost,by empowering individuals. On the one hand they have significantly deregulated the supply side of medicine: most drugs are OTC, the training for a medical license is short and cheap. On the other hand they have given every indivdual a healthcare savings account (wth the $ taken from their paychecks). The only other reform is that physicians need to post prices at the door like any other proider. They rely on individuals to managetheir own finances and their own care with doctors and drugs they buy with their own money. There is no catastrophic coverage unless you buy it with your own salary.
The result of empowering individuals is, as I said, a debt free, insanely cheap healthcare system with better results that Europe or the US. Our problem isn't that we need the government to save us from ourselves, its that we need to save ourselves from the government.
No one else in this country is precluded from making as much as they damn well can earn. When was the last time you were able to pay a repairman half of what he charged and got away with it? Next time I go to Best Buy I'm going to buy a TV and when they tell me its $300 bucks, I'll give them $100; lets see how far I get out the door. I, like everyone else in this country should be able to make as much money as I can earn, and I resent anyone telling me to "oh, don't be greedy", "you can still be comfortable." Who are you to tell me what I can be comfortable with?.
almost did it again! dude, your avatar looks just like JohnnyDrama's in periphery..... (but apparently your name is actually john? lol)
That clarifies the situation. Thanks.
I am now kicking myself for not playing this out
To be fair, they are the people who are guarenteeing your salary by making it illegal to practice without a medical license. There is no other job in this country where the government actually makes it a crime to sell your services without the appropriate 'union card' from a private organization. In fact in any other industry that would be described as collusion and would make your industry a target for trust busting. You can't artifically limit the number of medical positions in this country with government backed licensing and then act shocked that the public won't let you use your exclusive right to provide medical care to overcharge for your services.
Our problem isn't that we need the government to save us from ourselves, its that we need to save ourselves from the government.
The ironic thing is that the "socialized" countries do a better job of this than we do. Our goverment spends a greater amount of its tax revenue on healthcare than countries that have UHC.
US spends 18.5% of government revenue on healthcare, while Germany, Sweden, France, the UK, Australia, Canada, Japan all spend a lower percent of government revenue on healthcare.
Additionally our healthcare costs are 16% of our GDP while all those other countries are under 11%.
For the full comparative chart scroll to the bottom of this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada
There is no way the US political climate is going to let old folks go without healthcare if they haven't saved up, and as soon as we cover old people, its way more efficient to go for full UHC as demonstrated by those stats.
To be fair, they are the people who are guarenteeing your salary by making it illegal to practice without a medical license. There is no other job in this country where the government actually makes it a crime to sell your services without the appropriate 'union card' from a private organization. In fact in any other industry that would be described as collusion and would make your industry a target for trust busting. You can't artifically limit the number of medical positions in this country with government backed licensing and then act shocked that the public won't let you use your exclusive right to provide medical care to overcharge for your services.
Did your read the article I linked on Singapore?
FWIW I think that what the US has proven is that the worst possible system is to be half government insurance, half free market. When the government insures everyone then you cover everyone and healthcare costs way,way too much. In the free market some people don't get covered but the free market makes care affordable for most and sustainable in the long run. When half your population is covered by government insurance the half that is covered is enough to make healthcare cost way, way too much, which puts healthcare out of reach of a lot of the other half. We need less or more government. I vote for less.
Not yet, sorry if I find it hard to believe that a military police city-state where chewing gum will result in getting thrashed with a bamboo rod to be the greatest demonstrator of what free society should aspire to.
To be fair, they are the people who are guarenteeing your salary by making it illegal to practice without a medical license. There is no other job in this country where the government actually makes it a crime to sell your services without the appropriate 'union card' from a private organization. In fact in any other industry that would be described as collusion and would make your industry a target for trust busting. You can't artifically limit the number of medical positions in this country with government backed licensing and then act shocked that the public won't let you use your exclusive right to provide medical care to overcharge for your services.
Fair enough, when lawyers (who I believe also obtain their proverbial exclusive licence to practice) have their ability to charge as they please limited, then I'll allow for my own wages to be garnished. Until then, keep your hands off my ability to make as much as I please.
Fair enough, when lawyers (who I believe also obtain their proverbial exclusive licence to practice) have their ability to charge as they please limited, then I'll allow for my own wages to be garnished. Until then, keep your hands off my ability to make as much as I please.
Some other threads the OP has created:
Any luck with sleep aides?
What specialties can be least easily done by computers?
What specialties can least be done by mid-levels?
Moving toward two "classes" of healthcare?
Parents paying for school - animosity?
How about a screening for you for paranoid schizophrenia?
I'm new to this forum meme thing, but the OP has been trolling us on multiple threads:
Well obviously. The guy comes on to a forum of students and residents, many of whom are in tremendous debt and tells them their profession pays too much. It's not like he's going to provide a link to the trololo video as well.
Well obviously. The guy comes on to a forum of students and residents, many of whom are in tremendous debt and tells them their profession pays too much. It's not like he's going to provide a link to the trololo video as well.
It is reasonable to believe that salaries will decrease as part of the solution. Sure outcomes may get worse but all our extra money and education is not giving us any better outcomes than other countries in the first place.
We've been trolled.
[YOUTUBE]2Z4m4lnjxkY[/YOUTUBE]
On the other hand they have given every indivdual a healthcare savings account (wth the $ taken from their paychecks),but other than enforcing saving for healthcare they don't provide much in the way of healthcare. The only other major reform is that physicians need to post prices at the door like any other business, rather than generating a bill out of thin air after they provided a service. They rely on individuals to managetheir own finances and their own care with doctors and drugs they buy with their own money.
While there are hundreds of other government issued licenses, they're mostly just standardized tests. Anyone who can pass the bar is a lawyer. .
Only medicine, with its system of residency training, has a private organization decreeing 'this many doctors shall be made this year,and no more'. It's unique, and its the reason that physician salaries are so high when other professionals have salaries that are so low (see lawyers). You can't be in that system and then expect to have a completely unregulated salary.
, pass a test, maybe find someone to apprentice under, and get a license. There is no artifical limit on the supply.
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I agree that Singapore is the most consumer-driven system in the world, but you're underestimating the role of government a bit too much. You say they "don't provide much in the way of healthcare," but 80% of acute care is administered through public hospitals with government-imposed price caps.
In addition to Medisave (the HSA you mention above), their government also administers Medishield (catastrophic insurance), Medifund (for the poor), Eldershield (self explanatory), and it subsidizes disability and pharmaceuticals.
Their system is, as they say, both to the right and left of our own.
Medishield is a capped catastrophic insurance plan which you can buy from the government, but which competes with private catastrophic insurance plans. Medifund and Eldershield disperse a small payment to the individual who then use that money to pay for their health care and, in the case of Eldershield, their cost of living. This is unlike our systems of Medicaid and Medicare that pay providers directly. Basically its the difference between school vouchers and public schools. Acute care may be managed largely through Public hospitals, but long term management of chronic conditions is still largely privatized (unlike Europe). That doesn't seem to be to the left of us in any way.
perrotfish said:I'm not saying its a government or regulation free system, but I think its a lot closer to American ideals than the European system. Also it's just as effective as the European system while being way cheaper. If we can't accept a system of government free healthcare, it seems like the next best alternative.