Then take that amount of money, multiply it by every person here in the US, and tell me what the increases in tax revenue would be needed.
If it's anything like Australia, it would be a 5-10% tax hike. I seriously doubt you could push that through congress without a *lot* of screaming and having some pretty clear net gains for the average voter.
Klast Brell wrote:Socialized medicine has had a couple centuries of trial run in our armed forces. Did it work there, or should we abandon that to the free market?
Because clearly the military is a system based on free-market economics.
Moron.
Isn't it? You have bids for designing vehicles and weapons systems. You have more contractors than soldiers. Why not outsource the medical care as well?
"A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not." - Ronald Reagan 1987
They did. All they had to do to do it was underfund the VA.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
Klast Brell wrote:Socialized medicine has had a couple centuries of trial run in our armed forces. Did it work there, or should we abandon that to the free market?
Because clearly the military is a system based on free-market economics.
Moron.
Isn't it? You have bids for designing vehicles and weapons systems. You have more contractors than soldiers. Why not outsource the medical care as well?
No chucklehead, it isn't. Using your logic "and I use that term loosely here", we should open up Social Security to outside bids, simply because we use contractors in the administration of the program.
Quit posting drunk.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
People pulling their own teeth, and doing their own dental work, because of the health care system has failed so miserably over there.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because just by looking at the smiles of people in England, you can tell dentistry isn't a huge priority over there.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Overall, six percent of patients had resorted to self-treatment, according to the survey of 5,000 patients in England, which found that one in five had decided against dental work because of the cost.
Now, to make your point valid, what percent of patients in the US resort to self treatment, and what percent decide against dental work because of the cost in the US?
I'll wait here for you to drop out of THIS thread, too.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
The basic problem with the current British health care system is a lack of paying customers, it appears. Judging from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4656079.stm , they attempted to institute a system where dentists would be paid a fixed salary, and the government would collect the reciepts from the adults who are supposed to pay for it out of pocket. Poor budget projections means that the agencies set up for the collection / payment run out of money, and can't pay the dentists. So, the dentists go off to do their work in a manner that allows them to feed their families twelve months of the year instead of 8. Oops.
There's nothing inherently wrong with socialized medicine - It's socalized here anyway, it just has a big ass parasite bleeding it off in the name of capitalism. However, the British system is proof that you can't tell the doctors how to take care of people.
Overall, six percent of patients had resorted to self-treatment, according to the survey of 5,000 patients in England, which found that one in five had decided against dental work because of the cost.
Now, to make your point valid, what percent of patients in the US resort to self treatment, and what percent decide against dental work because of the cost in the US?
I'll wait here for you to drop out of THIS thread, too.
I have no idea. Do you?
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Well, since YOU'RE the one making the suggested claim that rate is SO terrible, we need a baseline. Since you don't know and can't be bothered to figure out, I can't be bothered to treat it as a rational argument.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
Partha wrote:Well, since YOU'RE the one making the suggested claim that rate is SO terrible, we need a baseline. Since you don't know and can't be bothered to figure out, I can't be bothered to treat it as a rational argument.
Are you seriously implying that there is an acceptable percentage of people who resort to self-treatment because of the type of inadequacies inherant in a socialized medicine system? You just got nailed to the wall, you have no valid argument against that type of abysmal failure, and you're trying to dodge the issue now.
Well done.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Sure, there's an argument to be made. But I won't make it because you're unwilling to look at the data ("I have no idea")
Of course, one could ask how many people here in America see a dentist vs. the number in Australia, how many are covered, etc. But it's too damn much work for you to do, isn't it? Wouldn't want you to interrupt your whinging about socialism with a quick Google search or two, would we?
Lazy ass. Here's a starter for you.
A federal survey shows that 27 percent of adults without insurance saw a dentist in 2004, down from 29 percent in 1996, when dental fees were significantly lower, even after adjusting for inflation.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
Embar wrote:Are you seriously implying that there is an acceptable percentage of people who resort to self-treatment because of the type of inadequacies inherant in a socialized medicine system?
No. He's saying that if less people resort to self-treatment under socialized medicine than they do under our system, it doesn't make much sense to condemn socialized medicine since it would be quantifiably better than our system.
Embar wrote:Are you seriously implying that there is an acceptable percentage of people who resort to self-treatment because of the type of inadequacies inherant in a socialized medicine system?
No. He's saying that if less people resort to self-treatment under socialized medicine than they do under our system, it doesn't make much sense to condemn socialized medicine since it would be quantifiably better than our system.
What?
So the more people bail-out of the health-care systme because they can't get care, the better that health care system is? You guys are turned upside down and inside out.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
I don't think Embar is saying the US system is better than the British system. He's just saying there has to be some better system than the British one. I do have to say that generalizing from the British system to all "socialized" systems is pretty daft though.
btw - I'll tell you in about 6 months what I think of whatever the Aussie system has evolved into over the last decade.
If your goal is to guarantee that everyone can afford to go to the doctor regularly, the British model is far and away superior to the US model. Everyone is insured in their system, and they spend less public money per person to do it - that's not opinion, that's hard numbers. Embar (and other 'anti-socialists') seem to have a different goal in mind, but they never get around to stating what that goal is. For myself based on the writings and speeches of the crowd Embar follows, I assume their goal is to make sure that medical companies and insurance companies have record profits - in which case the US model is superior to the British one.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
The typical complaint in the British (and Canadian) systems is that if you can afford your own health care then you shouldn't be prevented from spending that money privately or forced into some public queue or require government validation for the treatment. The government shouldn't be in the business of restricting care to those that want to take the private route, even if their treatment is completely superfluous.
Partha wrote:It all depends on what your idea of 'better' is.
If your goal is to guarantee that everyone can afford to go to the doctor regularly, the British model is far and away superior to the US model. .
They may be able to afford to go to the doctor, but can they afford to WAIT to go to the doctor. And by no stretch can you say a Brit can see a doctor "regularly". The healthcare over there is rationed, and its rationed by a beauracracy, which is even more inefficient than an insurance company. Our system ain't perfect, but it's better than that.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
We found important differences between countries in the proportion of the population reporting a visit to doctor. On average, more than 70% of the adult population of most countries visited a doctor within the previous 12 months (Fig. 2). The proportion was lower only in Greece (63%), the United States (68%) and, especially, Mexico (21%). The fraction visiting a GP was fairly stable at around 70%–80%, except in Greece and Switzerland, but the fraction consulting a specialist shows much more variation, from as low as 20% (Ireland) and 30% (Denmark and Norway) to as high as 60% (Austria and France). Similarly large cross-country differences in the mean annual consultation rates are shown in Fig. 3. In high-use countries like Germany, Hungary, France, Belgium and Austria, the visit frequency is around 7–8 doctor visits per year, which is twice the number in low-use countries like Finland, Switzerland, Denmark and the United States. Also noteworthy is the variation in the composition of total visits. For example, although the total number of doctor visits was the same in Greece and Ireland, the number of GP visits was only slightly higher than the number of specialist visits in Greece but was 7 times higher in Ireland. One might expect these cross-country differences in utilization frequencies to be largely determined by doctor availability, but neither the visit frequency nor the visit fraction appear correlated with available doctor–population ratios in OECD Health Data.2 Differences in remuneration types and cultural differences in seeking medical advice or care may play some role here.
Do you have anything else you'd like to share with us of equal veracity, Embar? Just not the Flat-Earth thing again, we went over that before.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
