What are we doing!? (Little Upsilon)

As an ordinary citizen of the U.S., I'd suggest you STFU before criticizing something of which you know nothing. This is one of the most ignorant posts I've ever seen in these forums.

What is the saying? "Best to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are stupid than to open your mouth and prove them correct"?

I don't know BC But I think Kali sort of has a point. Not that I know much about Aussie healthcare.

U.S. Health care is the best in the world. That is why everyone all over the world comes here when they have a problem that is difficult to solve. Who ever heard of anyone going to the UK or Canada to have an operation? No thanks, keep your broken socialist system. And yes, Odumbo's plan is socialism. Of course, Europeans are so weak minded they are ok with the government running things, which is why the sheeple of Europe will eventually be overrun by Islam. This time America won't be coming to your rescue like we did twice in the last century.

Here in the US, we kicked out the stupid Europeans and their stupid governments (back then it was a King instead of Big Brother).

Here in the US we still have our guns and our freedom, unlike in the UK where they have BB watching over them 24/7. What a pathetic country the UK has become. Unfortunately, the Brits didn't understand that '1984' was a warning, not a blueprint. Brits, and most Western Europeans, are so brainwashed these days that they really do believe that "Slavery is Freedom".

Proud to be an American, even if we have a Bobo for president.

OK, for us non americans.... If a person with no medical insurance was to walk into an American hospital with problem x. what level of attention would they get? Would they get the full works...diagnosis, treatment, follow up? or would they just get given an asprin?

Xenu you dont have a clue! Our 'socialist' system called the NHS gives poor people like myself access to some of the best treatment available in the world for free. Fine if you are rich and can afford the best you may well hop on a plane to the us, still I hear luxumbourg is pretty damn good and a lot closer.
You have your guns and your freedom ay! Well I have no gun but I am sure I am as free as any american.
If big brother wants to spy on me, then let them waste their time. They will find 60million brits living normal uneventfull lives and a few thousand criminals.
In a century I expect the US will be a quiet little has been backwater. Left behind by china, india and the euroasian islamic empire. If you are lucky you may survive with your gun and your freedom. But the smile shall be long gone from your face.

Okay, non-Americans: it depends. When I was young and had no insurance, I had to pay for my wife's hospital visit. It was the same care as I've seen later, with insurance. When you leave they give you a bill. It took a while to pay it. Some people end up with medical bills they can't pay. Eventually it will go to a collections agency, and they have to decide how far to pursue it, based on how large the bill is and their estimate of your ability to pay it. Eventually it gets resolved. Many bills end up unpaid, and the hospital eats the cost. Some hospitals are for-profit, some are non-profit, but they all have to deal with the same realities.

Some hospitals are better than others. Better hospitals tend to be in better neighborhoods. Even the worst hospitals will give competent treatment, similar to your NHS. In general, hospitals will tend to try to move through more quickly those patients who they suspect won't be able to pay. Some won't, but for some it's a matter of institutional survival.

Non-emergency conditions they won't treat at hospitals--you have to go to a general practitioner, or a specialist. Doctor's offices expect to be paid. Also, most insurance plans won't pay for everything. Medical bills are a fact of life. Car repairs, house repairs, medical bills. If you're barely getting by you tend to postpone or forgo optional treatment--that sore shoulder, or dental checkups. Most of the horror stories you hear are about people who are irresponsible in taking care of small things that can grow into big things (not paying a couple hundred dollars to take care of some cavities, now you face a few thousand dollars to get half your teeth replaced) or from people not being able to afford very expensive life-saving treatments that just aren't available in the first place from free health care in other countries.

There are a lot of decisions that we make as individuals--such as how expensive an insurance plan to buy, which chronic ailments we want to pay to treat and which we'll live with, whether to get a cheap bridge or expensive tooth implants, whether to see a cheaper doctor or one with more experience and a better bedside manner but more expensive. We don't like it when our insurance companies say they'll pay for this and this but not that. We really won't like it when the government says you can get this and this done but not that. If you're not used to having these options it may not seem like such a big deal, but we are used to it and it is a big deal--it's what we're talking about when we say we're concerned with losing freedoms.

The trouble America faces is that its highly conservative and very resistant to progress.

The resentment towards the national health services of the rest of the developed world stems from an acknowledgement that whilst they believe they have the best healthcare in the world, they know that it is ineffective for all except the ones who can afford it - leaving what is essentially the population of a moderately sized country without a means to access healthcare. It is a strange yet intriguing jealousy of sorts.

But then the American national psyche has always been based around insecurity and self-delusion.

Xenu has kindly provided numerous excellent examples of this inferiority complex.

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Who ever heard of anyone going to the UK or Canada to have an operation?<!-/Quote-!>

Here we see an example of an argument from ignorance. The assumption that a centralised healthcare system is inferior to a disorganised one stems simply from the Ignoratio Elenchi fallacy, in so far as there is no logical correlation between established fact and the conclusion drawn.

Example 1
Example 2

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No thanks, keep your broken socialist system. And yes, Odumbo's plan is socialism. Of course, Europeans are so weak minded they are ok with the government running things, which is why the sheeple of Europe will eventually be overrun by Islam.<!-/Quote-!>

Here we see a bitter resentment of what Xenu clearly sees to be a better system than his own. This demonstrates the deep-seeded mistrust of his own government, and an intense jealousy of the fact that most Europeans enjoy a far wider range of services for their tax money. Argumentum ad Logicam will no doubt be rife from here-on in.

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This time America won't be coming to your rescue like we did twice in the last century.<!-/Quote-!>

An ignorance of history is also common-place in such arguments. This is not because Xenu actually believes this to be true. Rather, it leads quite neatly back into the insecure national identity issue. It is more than likely that this individual is moderately - though not fully - aware of actual history, and simply joins in the willfull propogation of fallacy and myth in order to try and validate his own nationalisic beliefs. Statistical facts can generally be used to disarm such an argument. As most people reading this will be generally aware of actual historical events it would be a waste of time to single out a source unless actually prompted to do so.

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Here in the US, we kicked out the stupid Europeans and their stupid governments (back then it was a King instead of Big Brother).<!-/Quote-!>

Here we see another deliberate disregard for his own national history. As Xenu is no doubt aware the American Revolution was a success in no small part due to vast degrees of French naval support. However, this fact can be wholly overlooked in order to (yet again) bolster his insecure world view, and any argument derivative of such as a matter of simple convenience.

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Here in the US we still have our guns and our freedom, unlike in the UK where they have BB watching over them 24/7.<!-/Quote-!>

Noteworthy here is the acknowledgement of governmental failure. Xenu willingly states that the US justice system is a pale shadow of what it once was, in effect agreeing that the only way to protect himself would be with the use of a firearm. Freedom is quite effectively used as a synonym for ineffective policing, emphasising the initial point with vigour. But with one in every hundred Americans being a convicted criminal currently serving a prison sentence, one cannot really blame him for feeling unsafe.

Also you will note here the acknowledgement of a comparatively effective policing system in the UK. "BB" in this sense can be quite clearly interpreted as the ability of the British people to rely more heavily upon their police force to serve and protect, especially when taken in comparison to his nation's own. Couple this with a more effective democratic process and a system with a wider array of viable political options and it is no mean feat to understand why he felt he had to voice this jealousy openly and air his dissatisfaction with his homeland.

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What a pathetic country the UK has become. Unfortunately, the Brits didn't understand that '1984' was a warning, not a blueprint. Brits, and most Western Europeans, are so brainwashed these days that they really do believe that "Slavery is Freedom".<!-/Quote-!>

Here we see an excellent example of both the "Argumentum ad Novitatem" and "Argumentum ad Ignorantiam" fallacies at work. Linking in to the last point made, the deliberate restatement of perpetual non-truth is used to create something of an empty argument. The common belief that, for example, CCTV cameras fall under the control of governmental rather than private ownership and as such an oppressive state exists is deliberately repeated in order to try and back up an empty arguments.

Another commonly cited point can be attributed to the "Who will police the police?" argument, or the "Governments make all the laws" point. Yet again this is a reflection of the perception that democratic process has failed within his home nation, as sweeping generalisations effectively cast all factual basis aside in the name of making the point. He realises, of course, that democratic process can be effected in order to alter the legal situation, and one can quite easily forgive him for falling into the trap regarding the ignorance of English Common Law pracices in forming legal precedents

Inconsistancies often follow the above fallacies and arguments, with "evidence" altered in order to better serve and support the point - erroneous bifurcation is all but inevitable at this point.

Once again, most of the above can be linked quite neatly into a nationalistic sense of inadequacy and insecurity. Generally stemming from the percieved failure of their own national entity, the often empty and logically questionable arguments such as those Xenu kindly provided for this brief document will invariably rear their head. Ultimately it is used as a means of attempting to improve one's own sense of nationalism by trying to pick holes in that of others, specifically in those whom the commentator (Xenu) percieves to be better or more successful in some way than his own.

In this rather splendid case it falls down to two basic insecurities.
1. The acknowledgement that other countries are better than his in some way.
2. The likelihood that the occupants of this country are aware of this fact.

i live in Houston, tx, which supposedly has one of the best medical centers in the world. we have people from all over the world coming here every day to get help. but here are a few things that aren't said about Houston healthcare.

Houston has over 30% of its citizens with no healthcare. and no, most of them aren't illegal immigrants. there is only one major trauma center in Houston. it's easier to get free treatment at MD Anderson cancer hospital (a nonprofit hospital) if you're from out of state or out of country status, than if you're an indigent Houstonian. two of the other non-profit hospitals don't have trauma centers and take very few indigent care patients. when questioned about this, and i have as i work with an organization that advocates for the poor, their answer is that they're primarily a teaching and research hospital.
if you're indigent and on medicaid or medicare and have to go to the county hospital it may take six months to get a ct or mri. too bad if you've got something that can't wait that long.

here are few other facts about US healthcare in general. medical schools have not expanded their enrollments in over forty years resulting in a shortage of docs by 125,000 and 250,000 nurses. we have to import docs/nurses from foreign countries to help keep up with the shortage. wonder why your doc doesn't speak too gooda da english?
drug companies spend much more on drug research for maintaining chronic illnesses rather than finding cures for illnesses. there's more money in maintenance of illnesses than curing illnesses.
a majority of the people yelling at the recent town meetings are older people who already have medicare and are afraid of it being cut. yet they scream that they don't want socialized medicine, rationing, or cuts in coverage. young people either don't worry about it cuz they're well or they are not organized. i'm amazed at how many who have posted here are for healthcare reform. maybe it's because you're young. if you're from the US and are for healthcare reform, call your senator and rep and tell them what you want.
nothing will come out of Washington that will fix the problem but at least let's get things moving in the right direction.
and while we're at it, my Lipator comes from Canada and i pay a third of what i would pay at Walgreen's. go figure.

recently, i was in a conference with the ceo of the Houston medical center and he said that healthcare cost could be dramatically reduced if people would observe the following:
1. eat less and lose weight, if obese
2. drink less
3. stop smoking
4. observe safe sex
5. be less violent
6. not use illicit drugs

obesity alone costs the US about 150b a year. add it up the rest and you can see that the Obama plan probably wouldn't have a deficit.

everybody STFU.....

Parsifal.....the whole eat less, lose wieght, stop smoking thing is BS....u see in the U.S we have the FREEDOM to do things that don't hurt other people but the flip side is we get to pay for it ourselves.

I don't want the fucking government telling me what to fucking do all the time. If I wanna smoke & die from cancer or eat McDonalds 3 meals a day that's on me. I get to pay for it myself and pay the doctor bills.

That's the American fucking way.

Kali..you dumb son of a bitch....Jimmy Carter was the worst fucking president in my lifetime. If he said anything was good it was probably the most God awful shit pile ever thought of.

"Xenu you dont have a clue! Our 'socialist' system called the NHS gives poor people like myself access to some of the best treatment available in the world for free."

I don't want to read the rest of the partisan, ignorant, or just plain anti-American BS that people are throwing out there (not all of you, just some). The important thing to ME as an American is that this is NOT free. The foundations of our country were built on the principles of limited government and expanded personal freedom (and responsibility). Socialized Medicine is a step away from that. We lose a little more of our own freedom, and yes, MOST of us will have to pay for those who don't pay for it. There's nothing free about it.

Yes, we need to fix the problems with our system, but to say it's any worse than the British, Canadian, Australian, or Dominican Republic, is just away to mindlessly follow the direction that a bunch of media clowns and partisans want you to believe. But nobody here can say they are any worse than any other countries problems.

We have plenty to reform in the U.S. but......

damn it, I need another drink.

Dougie . . . you should settle down.


Parsifal . . . 'drug companies spend much more on drug research for maintaining chronic illnesses rather than finding cures for illnesses. there's more money in maintenance of illnesses than curing illnesses.' . . . so true. Now if i were to place a wager (and I am a bettin lady) I'd put the house on the line, that if Healthcare was socialized in america, and the tab was on them, we would have alot of the diseases in the US stamped out immediately. Becuase it would be cheaper to cure rather than maintaining.

Well Said.

Now the younger people were very organized. They showed that during the primaries and pre election. But with town hall meetings, Im sure most were scheduled for work or class at the time. It is unfortunate that that is proly a fact. I'd have to check, but all town halls I heard of were on weekdays during work or school hours.

Yes Doug...no reason to get all crazy on us. BC...our system is worse than UK, Canada, Australia and 34 others...including the Dominican Republic. These rankings come from the World Health Organization, they are the respected authority in this matter. Look them up.

People keep saying the US health care system is great, but only if you can pay for it. They don't realize that most Americans can pay for it. If only "the rich" can afford it, then we are very rich indeed, because well over 90% of Americans can afford it, and most of the other 10% get by. Parsifal describes how poor people in Houston have to wait 6 months to get an MRI. To most Americans that sounds horrendous...but it's about in line with the wait for the average Canadian or Briton, isn't it?

Pars, Wendy, you have a problem with US pharma companies, why don't you just buy those drugs, the ones that will cure instead of just treat conditions, buy them from foreign companies? Or stand up to the man and stop buying Lipitor, just get open heart surgery and cure that condition, that'll show them.

US corps spend far more than any other country, and far more per capita, on drug research. Canada, which doesn't spend much at all, threatens to not enforce Pfizer's patents unless they sell it cheap. So Americans pay full price, while Canadians pay for it like it's a generic...then sell it back here at a profit. We are supporting their third-world health care system.

Young healthy people don't want Obamacare. They're better off now, just paying out of pocket, than being forced to purchase overpriced health insurance that is required by law to cover every condition in the book.

Okay whiteboy, I did some research on that ranking system by the WHO (not the won't get fooled again Who). First off, they didn't rank the DR above the US. Look it up.

But more important--it's a ranking system. If anyone is familiar with the ins and outs of country ranking systems, it's we here at SC. How do they rank the countries?

Health Level, basically life expectancy: 25%
Responsiveness, respect for patients, including amenities, choice of doctors, and speed of service: 12.5%

Financial Fairness, % of household income spent on health care: 25%
Health Distribution, how wide a distribution of health care there is in the population: 25%
Responsiveness Distribution, how wide a range of "responsiveness" in services: 12.5%

They place a huge emphasis on fairness and equity. A country could have no hospitals and no doctors at all, but if it's no doctors for everyone they'll score #1 on 62.5% of the ranking weight.

The US doesn't do great on the fairness and equity parts--not bad, just not near the top. Our problem is that we have a range of good to excellent, and that hurts us in the distribution rankings...countries that are just uniformly good, or even just uniformly lousy, do better there. And we pay more.

The US does well on responsiveness. #1.

The life expectancy stuff is interesting. They use Disability-adjusted life expectancy. The US ranks #24. That's better than if they used straightforward life expectancy...look it up on wikipedia, US is #50.

Wow, #50, how could that be? Embarassingly, it's because we have a very high homicide rate, and a very high accident fatality rate, especially car accidents. Both rates are like 5 to 10 x higher than for other industrial countries. Maybe we're a little hotheaded and like to drive fast. Whatever, those things have nothing to do with our health care system. If they are factored out, the US has about the highest life expectancy in the world, and is #1 in disability-adjusted life exp.

So, hey, if you can avoid being shot or hit by a car, and you're not racked with jealousy or guilt because it's not all even-steven, you can enjoy the #1 health care system in the world. We pay more, that's for sure. But it's reassuring to see that at least we're getting something for it, and that's with all the problems we have.

As a Briton I've never had to wait for medical treatment much beyond the natural requirement of doctors to organise patients by appointment. This includes corrective dental treatment, appendicectomy as a means of treatment for appendicitis and the removal of a potentially cancerous mole. From diagnosis to treatment for all of the above the wait was decidedly negligable - though the orthodontist did require me to wait until all of my baby teeth fell out.

When I was very young I also had to undergo various forms of assessment in relation to speech therapy, with the eventual aims of treatment in one form or another. By the end of it the treatment turned out to be teaching my mother and father BSL. It ended up being a medically funded college course in order that they could become fluent and in turn support my needs as I grew up.

Waiting lists are not a reflection of the quality of service, but rather a result of the number of people who use the system. Its the same with any service, private or public. My eye tests are privately arranged, and I've had to wait longer to get an appointment at Vision Expresss or Specsavers than I ever have for basic or even advanced medical care. I doubt I'd be able to walk into a US hospital and not have to make an appointment to see the doctor.

Needless to say, all of this treatment would be highly expensive. For my eyes alone I expect to pay in excess of £200 whenever I need to renew my glasses prescription. I also find it highly doubtful that an insurance company would have footed the bill for most of the above treatment - especially the speech therapist. Nor would we have been able to afford it. And our household income has always been fairly modest.

These treatments would have cost as much as a house, if not more, and had we not had the benefits of the NHS behind us we would either be bankrupt, we would have struggled to deal with a primary birth defect, or I would simply have died.

The argument of "its about freedom" is argumentum ad logicam. You call it your personal freedom.

Well, I have the right to free medical care with the freedom to avoid bankruptsy or huge personal debts. As an American you do not. You are obliged to pay for your treatment. Millions of you are clapped in fiscal irons. I have an excellent example for this, but I doubt he would appreciate it.

Either way, I'd rather have the right to free healthcare than the freedom to pursue bankruptsy. Alright, its not actually free. But I pay far less in National Insurance than I would for private treatment.

Truth be told, you do not have freedom at all in this regard. Not in the same way we do.

And there is clearly a desire in the US for healtcare to be provided freely. Obama has never really shied away from the issue. And he would not have been elected on his policies were there not some popular support behind it.

I suppose we shall see.

I wake up in the morning feeling ill and call the Dr. If I am very ill I will see the Dr that day. If I am not so ill maybe 3 days later. I go see the Dr, I get my treatment. I am free from worrying if I can afford to go to the drs. I am free from the worry of can I afford the treatment. I am free from the worry of any debt collector knocking on my door. Americans have freedomn from government. Brits have freedom from worry. Our state controlled health service is more than good enough to deal with the day to day and even not so day to day illnesses. Only if you have some rare disease or problem are you likely to run into some trouble.
I have the choice to go to the Drs or not. I have the choice to except the treatment or not. I have the choice to request an alternative treatment. I have the choice of a second opinion. In my opionion this is freedom enough.

Seems like many of you need to be quiet until you know what value medical care really has.
Cuts and sprains, sniffles and bruises really mean sweet f*ck all, wait until really important conditions effect your young, fresh, care-free lives, then come bleating about costs and injustices.
I have experiences of both the US and the UK systems and so feel marginally more qualified to comment than most of you. The UK NHS wastes fortunes of tax payers money on useless management and needs to be repaired pronto, the UK people don't have a choice, this is tax. This would be the road the current US president would have The States go down. Or the US could stay as is and the populace pay fortunes individually to corporate share holders. Either way the available funds are not being used to the optimum. So take your choice, your government squandering billions or your city financiers doing the same...
From my experiences the UK has an unsurpassed level of care, which is basically what you want when you REALLY ARE ILL. The US state system was good to me too, but if money is your master then you're not going to be quite as caring as you might be, are you?

Crafty

@ DougieBear well, yes I must have sounded dumb -I was half asleep when I posted that. Jimmy Carter indeed - was Bill Clinton I ment (I would tend to agree re Jimmy Carter). But nice to know that you know all about courteous civilized discourse. Of course insults & trash talk make you sound tough & intelligent. I was really impressed & if ever any jobs for clowns come up, I will let you know - get you off the dole queue.

Still, nothing I heard here that makes me want to change my opinion. The US has a very good health system - if you are rich. A pathetic system if you arn't.

And of course Socialism is so evil, & unbridled unfettered capitalism is so good. That evil Obama, forcing socialism on US citizens, he will be taking away their right to bear arms next

Dougie Bear,
yes you have the right to do with your life whatever you want, but don't ask us to pay for it. many areas in the country are now charging people for recuing them when they take unnecessary risks, like base jumping etc. why should we pay for healthcare for people blantantly abuse themselves?

the whole issue of entitlements is not just a US issue. developed nations are getting older and this is effecting social security and healthcare. unfortunately, no one is willing to belly up and see that dramatic changes are going to take place. when ss in US was passed after wwii, life expectancy was about 60. no problem, the gov't won't have to pay that long for ss. now it's different. we're living to be close to 80 and people spend an average of 10 days in icu in the last year of their life. can you guess what a day in icu costs. hard choices are going to have to be made. and if we don't take responsibility for at least living a healthy life, then the gov't will decide who/how/and what will be prescribed. why should we all have to pay for people's healthcare who are grossly obese? whether you are on a private plan or a gov't plan, we all pay for that. as said before the same goes for the other five catagories of self help. i have seen numerous friends and relatives either bankrupted or nearly bankrupted due to medical bills. my son who has had cancer and two heart valve replacements now pays nearly $1000. a month for meds. he's 47 and has led a healthy life style as best he can. fortunately he has some health insurance. but it will break him in the future if cost continue to escallate.

in the future there will be hard questions for us all to answer wheather we are US, Brit, German, etc.

the world is getting older. much older.

OMG, most of you are a bunch of socialists, lol.

History has shown and will show again that because of the competiveness of human nature some amount of Capitalism forming a base, in combination with a lesser amount of Socialism ,desired because of the compassion in that same human nature, must be the best system. Period.

All other forms are merely pipe dreams, doomed for failure(many have failed in just recent times), at this point in human evolution, at least until the aggressive/competitive gene in us is bred out.

It appears here in U.S. we are well on our way to do just that.

Scary stuff.

Wow, I have to give it to the propaganda masters on this one. We'll never be on the same page, they have us all thinking we live in different worlds.

They sure did learn a lot by studying the evil men and systems their fathers put down in the last century. They are friggin masters at it. So subtle, so effective.

Can evil eugenicists offer your children another fluoride rinse, since the vast majority of you are still asleep?

Watch this to prevent brain decay.

Well said JoJo.

[Solomon turns the spot light he's holding 45 degrees. The spot becomes a larger and larger circle as it shines into the darkness allowing those willing to look to see this.]

There really are monsters, they just don't live under my bed.