by Max Barry

Latest Forum Topics

Advertisement

Search

Search

[+] Advanced...

Author:

Region:

Sort:

«12. . .2,1812,1822,1832,1842,1852,1862,187. . .2,5072,508»

Washingtonian republic wrote:America has a bureaucratic agglomeration known as the Department of Veteran's Affairs which by description, is suppose to aid our former servicemen in providing medical care. As with all socialized medicine, you have everyone covered, but the care and efficiency of providing those services is severely strained. You had veterans, men who I respect more than anything, perishing while waiting in line to be seen and dismissed by doctors even if they had serve health problems.

The issue was the providing of a monolithic service, not offering other options to retired servicemen, which was changed recently, permitting to seek private alternatives if they wish to do so.

The VA is a perfect example of socialised medicine. Dirty hospitals, rationed care, wait lists, etc. Do you really want ALL your healthcare like that?

Phydios and Washingtonian republic

Papal knights wrote:The VA is a perfect example of socialised medicine. Dirty hospitals, rationed care, wait lists, etc. Do you really want ALL your healthcare like that?

My family is split between America and a country with socialized medicine. The ONLY major drawback we've experienced is waitlists. No debt, no gouging, and better care. Lol the hospitals aren't "dirty"

Horatius Cocles, United massachusetts, and Washingtonian republic

Quebecshire wrote:My family is split between America and a country with socialized medicine. The ONLY major drawback we've experienced is waitlists. No debt, no gouging, and better care. Lol the hospitals aren't "dirty"

Canada healthcare is administered by the provinces, it’s more geographic, but same inefficiency as would be expected with socialized medicine.

Washingtonian republic wrote:Canada healthcare is administered by the provinces, it’s more geographic, but same inefficiency as would be expected with socialized medicine.

It's literally not inefficient. It's that more people go because they won't be forced into medical debt for going.

United massachusetts

Hmmm. I have to weigh the options here. One the one hand, I support single-payer. On the other hand, if I go and respond to y'all, Roborian will write me five essays by tomorrow.

Pass.

I think this conversation is swinging between two extremes, single-payer on the one hand and full for-profit on the other. There are other options in the middle, which can still give universal health coverage without being "socialized medicine." There are many countries that operate in this middle while delivering vastly better outcomes than the current American system.

For example, I have a family member on a certain Medicaid program, which in this case is a government funded, privately delivered healthcare system. So there's an insurance card, she's not personally billed for her care, and there's no wait time or anything different from normal private care aside from her not footing the bill.

Culture of Life, Spode Humbled Minions, Washingtonian republic, and Lagrodia

The Gallant Old Republic wrote:Glad that the Colorado rejected an extremist on climate change for a former governor who has some ethics problems. Why? This was his first commercial, which even the most excessive climate scientist would surely see as a ridiculous depiction of a future effected by climate change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=4eyJevf-Blg&feature=emb_logo

Sure, the video is meant to be an emotion pull (with the girl narrating and the baby brother etc.). Yeah, this goes over the top with the emotional appeal. But the policies articulated by Romanoff were very good on the environmental level/climate change. By comparison to standard Republicans, Hickenlooper is far and away better. By comparison to Romanoff, his policies were good just not as good. Romanoff losing the election meant that progressives lost a chance at real political power.

Going off on a table comparing Hickenlooper and Romanoff:

Ban oil and gas drilling on public lands: H: Ban future drilling only R: Yes

Ban on use of hydraulic fracturing H: No R: Yes

Both candidates agree that the United States must reduce its carbon emissions to zero in the coming decades. Romanoff named a 2040 goal for zero emissions, while Hickenlooper said 2050, though he suggested an earlier date as possible. Both say the U.S. needs to invest in research, train people for climate mitigation jobs and strengthen environmental regulations. And both support a tax on carbon emissions.

However, Romanoff has called for more immediate action to slow fossil fuel production and has criticized Hickenlooper as moving too slowly.

Green New Deal

Romanoff supports the Green New Deal, a potentially $1 trillion plan that calls for a top-to-bottom overhaul of the United States. “We could put millions of Americans back to work building a clean energy infrastructure, transforming our electrical grid, our building codes, our transportation system,” he told CPR News.

Hickenlooper supports the “concept” of the Green New Deal but wrote in 2019 that the government needed to work with private industry and cushion the financial impact. He has billed himself as a pragmatist and told The Washington Post that “big, massive government expansions are not going to be as successful” for addressing health care and climate change.

Hydraulic fracturing and drilling

Romanoff calls for an immediate ban on oil and gas drilling on public lands, and for a total ban on fracking. He has made climate a central theme of his campaign.

Hickenlooper does not support a ban on fracking, nor an immediate ban on public lands drilling. He does want to prohibit future expansions of public lands drilling.

Quebecshire wrote:Lol the hospitals aren't "dirty"

Unfortunately, they are here, https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/dirty-hospital-rooms-a-top-concern-for-canadians-1.1321668

The question is what's to blame? The article mentions privatization of the cleaning services within the hospitals, but it was a problem before than too. The hospital where my mom grew up, long before privatized cleaning, had infection rates so high the university of western Ontario revoked its teaching licence for nurses, so not even nurses could be trained there. Top it off with the fact that the hospital got to the point where you more likely to die of a disease picked up from the hospital, than from any complication due to childbirth and I think you can call this a reoccuring problem. Heck, even in my own life I had a friend get minor knee surgery at a local health centre close to my university and he picked up a staph infection that plagued him worse than his previous knee injury. He mentioned to me later that he had been warned to get his surgery at a bigger hospital, like in the city where I live now, but he didn't want the extra wait times so took his chances, he would live to regret it. But, he did recover thank God.

I will also say that there are serious overcrowding issues in our system here in New Brunswick, that are worse than other provinces. For example just three years ago, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/georges-dumont-hospital-overcrowding-doctor-1.4188340

This sounds cavalier, "if they're safe to go home." But I can tell you these measures have forced out people who really need to be in hospital, but are deemed just safe enough that they won't die at home. For example, my old Sunday School teacher's cardiologist nearly strangled a non-specialized doctor when they sent her home after delicate heart surgery. The doctor figured she had been in the hospital the normal amount of time, and her numbers were good, so leave. What he didn't realize (probably because he didn't read her whole chart, hence the cardiologist nearly killing him) was that her heart was weak and if she moved the wrong way, overexerted herself, or something fell on her, she could die very quickly. So, the cardiologist had to call her and give her a very strict set of guidelines that left her bedridden at home for weeks, which while similar to the hospital guidelines brought significant risk as failure to do so meant inviting a potentially fatal cardiac emergency.

Now all that being said, I support public healthcare and I wouldn't vote to privatize it. However, the discussion I find too often turns into utopia vs. distopia. "public healthcare is terrible, and will introduce dystopian health care scenarios." vs. "Public healthcare provides better care to all cheaper!"

Neither is true, there are pros and cons to both, and quality of care suffers in different ways under both. I prefer our public system, but it's not perfect and its constraints mean it will probably, in some ways, never be able to compete with private healthcare. However, the positives easily overwhelm the negatives for me, and I'm happy we have our public healthcare, I wouldn't privatize it for the world, but I do hope it gets better in the future.

New sequoyah, Papal knights, and Priest vallon

I have been reading this discussion, and all I can say is this is a very difficult topic for me to give an opinion on because so much of it is built on anecdotes or people's personal experiences. When I try to find objective data, I tend to find very little differences between systems, so I feel like there are a lot of misconceptions. Most "socialized medicine" states actually have a hybrid system of both public and private insurance, public and private hospitals. This includes the United States. The only real difference between the US and other countries seems to be it has more stringent access rules for its public health insurance. It certainly is not "universal", but neither is it "only the rich can afford it".

The real question, in my opinion, should not be who pays or how, but how much are they paying? Some countries aggressively tackle costs of healthcare, reducing the amount everyone has to pay, while others let the costs spiral out of control. Part of this comes from the private sector, but a lot of it also comes from people. In Japan, where the obesity rate is only 3.6%, you're going to have a much smaller number of cardiac patients than in the US, where the rate is 32% and cardiac disease is the number one cause of death.

Ultimately, what I hear people debating in America, is to ban private insurance and have one provider for everyone. And this is not how most countries do it. In the United Kingdom, for example, there are long waiting times for surgeries, but people resort to medical tourism or private insurance to get around that. The private healthcare industry is growing because of an inefficient system. So I think competition is important, both between private firms, but also between government and private industry. But, like so much else, for some reason Americans are very good about polarizing between the most extreme of positions, so that the conversation has become "mostly (or all) private" or "all public", which doesn't make much sense to me. If you ban private insurance, and don't have a good product, you will just see people going abroad to get treated. But many who cannot afford that will get stuck with bad service, if it is bad.

Canadians go to America to get surgery, Americans go to Canada to get insulin. Neither country should brag about its healthcare system. It has more to do, in my eyes, with who runs the system and how, than what system is used. If you have incompetent people running it on both ends, it doesn't matter what system you use, it will still be crappy.

New sequoyah and Horatius Cocles

In other news, SCOTUS rulings have made it so that it's extremely unlikely that the Keystone pipeline will be built to completion. While other pipelines will still be built, this is a huge win. Add in the shutting down of the DAPL and cancellation of the Atlantic pipeline, this is great news for activists.

United massachusetts

Quebecshire wrote:The ONLY major drawback we've experienced is waitlists. No debt, no gouging, and better care.

That depends how you define "better." The average Canadian spends five months waiting for a medical appointment -- a length of time that the vast majority of Americans would consider unacceptable.

https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/braun-how-much-patience-do-patients-need

Americans pay a premium for immediate healthcare -- about 50% more than Canadians pay.

Also, the debt argument is overblown. Insurance companies pay for health services; and, despite misinformation to the contrary, Americans rarely go into bankruptcy because of medical debt. In the United States, there are about 800,000 bankruptcies per year. About 4% of these people declare bankruptcy because of medical bills -- about 32,000 people per year (about 1 in 10,000 people).

https://www.uscourts.gov/news/2019/04/22/bankruptcy-filings-continue-decline
http://economics.mit.edu/files/14892

After a decade, a bankruptcy is removed from a person's record.

Horatius Cocles wrote:I think this conversation is swinging between two extremes, single-payer on the one hand and full for-profit on the other. There are other options in the middle, which can still give universal health coverage without being "socialized medicine." There are many countries that operate in this middle while delivering vastly better outcomes than the current American system.

For example, I have a family member on a certain Medicaid program, which in this case is a government funded, privately delivered healthcare system. So there's an insurance card, she's not personally billed for her care, and there's no wait time or anything different from normal private care aside from her not footing the bill.

The foolish thing about the American system is that health insurance is usually tied to one's employer. A better system would give Americans the power to choose their own insurance plans, like any other form of insurance that people purchase.

New sequoyah, Papal knights, Horatius Cocles, Phydios, and 2 othersPriest vallon, and Washingtonian republic

Culture of Life wrote:That depends how you define "better." The average Canadian spends five months waiting for a medical appointment -- a length of time that the vast majority of Americans would consider unacceptable.

https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/braun-how-much-patience-do-patients-need

Americans pay a premium for immediate healthcare -- about 50% more than Canadians pay.

Also, the debt argument is overblown. Insurance companies pay for health services; and, despite misinformation to the contrary, Americans rarely go into bankruptcy because of medical debt. In the United States, there are about 800,000 bankruptcies per year. About 4% of these people declare bankruptcy because of medical bills -- about 32,000 people per year (about 1 in 10,000 people).

https://www.uscourts.gov/news/2019/04/22/bankruptcy-filings-continue-decline
http://economics.mit.edu/files/14892

After a decade, a bankruptcy is removed from a person's record.

The foolish thing about the American system is that health insurance is usually tied to one's employer. A better system would give Americans the power to choose their own insurance plans, like any other form of insurance that people purchase.

32,000 people declaring bankruptcy over something that is a human right is a problem, regardless of how much you try to make it seem small in scale by going "1 in 10,000," because to each of them it means everything.

Horatius Cocles, Washingtonian republic, and Lagrodia

Quebecshire wrote:32,000 people declaring bankruptcy over something that is a human right is a problem, regardless of how much you try to make it seem small in scale by going "1 in 10,000," because to each of them it means everything.

You could make that argument about almost any bankruptcy. The average bankrupt is a person who's lost his job and who can no longer afford to pay for his mortgage, utilities, and groceries. Work, housing, utilities, and food are also "rights" (in the sense you're using the term). Bankruptcy is always problematic, but it's also humanitarian. The purpose of bankruptcy -- its raison d'être -- is to protect people who have fallen on hard times, to discharge their debts so that they can start with a "clean slate" and not be driven into destitution.

Bankruptcy is a safeguard for poor people -- a legal protection that developed 500 years ago to replace peonage. If anything, it should be more widely available (e.g., to jobless adults who cannot pay their education loans).

The Gallant Old Republic, New sequoyah, Phydios, Priest vallon, and 2 othersWashingtonian republic, and La france bonapartiste

Culture of Life wrote:That depends how you define "better." The average Canadian spends five months waiting for a medical appointment -- a length of time that the vast majority of Americans would consider unacceptable.

https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/braun-how-much-patience-do-patients-need

Americans pay a premium for immediate healthcare -- about 50% more than Canadians pay.

Also, the debt argument is overblown. Insurance companies pay for health services; and, despite misinformation to the contrary, Americans rarely go into bankruptcy because of medical debt. In the United States, there are about 800,000 bankruptcies per year. About 4% of these people declare bankruptcy because of medical bills -- about 32,000 people per year (about 1 in 10,000 people).

https://www.uscourts.gov/news/2019/04/22/bankruptcy-filings-continue-decline
http://economics.mit.edu/files/14892

After a decade, a bankruptcy is removed from a person's record.

The foolish thing about the American system is that health insurance is usually tied to one's employer. A better system would give Americans the power to choose their own insurance plans, like any other form of insurance that people purchase.

Definitely agree with the wrong-headedness of tying insurance to employment. Here's one take on it:

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/9/21210353/coronavirus-health-insurance-biden-sanders-medicare-for-all

La france bonapartiste

Culture of Life wrote:[. . .]its raison d'être[. . .]

[French air de la culture intensifies]

Thank you for wielding the glorious sword of the French language, on this, le jour le plus français de l'année. Although the French Revolution was a horrible, sordid affair, without it we would not have been given the gift of Napoleon. And without Napoleon I, there would be no Napoleon III! And so, for opening the door for the Bonapartes, today, we tip our glasses and dip our cheese low in salute to la fête nationale.

Vive la France! Vive les Français! Vive la fromage!

P.S. If you type in "Bastille Day" on Google, and it's still July 14 in your time zone, you'll get a little fireworks show on your screen. Santé!

Culture of Life, New sequoyah, Phydios, and United massachusetts

La france bonapartiste wrote:P.S. If you type in "Bastille Day" on Google, and it's still July 14 in your time zone, you'll get a little fireworks show on your screen. Santé!

I just tried this. Fantastic!

New sequoyah, Phydios, United massachusetts, and La france bonapartiste

Quebecshire wrote:My family is split between America and a country with socialized medicine. The ONLY major drawback we've experienced is waitlists. No debt, no gouging, and better care. Lol the hospitals aren't "dirty"

You obviously have very limited experience.

No debt? BS. A lot of drugs are not covered. I have a friend battling cancer and the drug costs are crippling.

Canadian healthcare is so good Canadians go abroad to get vital surgeries.
Bring up healthcare on the radio, and a bajillion canucks phone crying sbout their "excellent" healthcare. What a joke.

Maybe K-bec should try paying their own healthcare instead of relying on Alberta oil money, yeah lol

Phydios and Priest vallon

Culture of Life wrote:You could make that argument about almost any bankruptcy. The average bankrupt is a person who's lost his job and who can no longer afford to pay for his mortgage, utilities, and groceries. Work, housing, utilities, and food are also "rights" (in the sense you're using the term). Bankruptcy is always problematic, but it's also humanitarian. The purpose of bankruptcy -- its raison d'être -- is to protect people who have fallen on hard times, to discharge their debts so that they can start with a "clean slate" and not be driven into destitution.

Bankruptcy is a safeguard for poor people -- a legal protection that developed 500 years ago to replace peonage. If anything, it should be more widely available (e.g., to jobless adults who cannot pay their education loans).

The original model of American health insurance had the consumer pay-out-pocket for a simple checkups with insurance covering emergencies or surgical operations.

Papal knights wrote:You obviously have very limited experience.

No debt? BS. A lot of drugs are not covered. I have a friend battling cancer and the drug costs are crippling.

Canadian healthcare is so good Canadians go abroad to get vital surgeries.
Bring up healthcare on the radio, and a bajillion canucks phone crying sbout their "excellent" healthcare. What a joke.

Maybe K-bec should try paying their own healthcare instead of relying on Alberta oil money, yeah lol

LOL the alberta oil argument

ok buddy

alberta is a backwards province and is the alabama of canada

La france bonapartiste

Quebecshire wrote:LOL the alberta oil argument

ok buddy

alberta is a backwards province and is the alabama of canada

To be fair, Alabama isn't even the Alabama of America! The state you are probably looking for is [REDACTED].

Also, Vive le Québec libre!

La france bonapartiste wrote:To be fair, Alabama isn't even the Alabama of America! The state you are probably looking for is [REDACTED].

Also, Vive le Québec libre!

Ok, you're based

La france bonapartiste

La france bonapartiste wrote:P.S. If you type in "Bastille Day" on Google, and it's still July 14 in your time zone, you'll get a little fireworks show on your screen. Santé!

I just tested this, and it still works, even after midnight. Not sure how long it will last, though! Get it while supplies last!

La france bonapartiste wrote:I just tested this, and it still works, even after midnight. Not sure how long it will last, though! Get it while supplies last!

40 past midnight here and it works

Culture of Life and La france bonapartiste

The seafield islands

Papal knights wrote:You obviously have very limited experience.

No debt? BS. A lot of drugs are not covered. I have a friend battling cancer and the drug costs are crippling.

Canadian healthcare is so good Canadians go abroad to get vital surgeries.
Bring up healthcare on the radio, and a bajillion canucks phone crying sbout their "excellent" healthcare. What a joke.

Maybe K-bec should try paying their own healthcare instead of relying on Alberta oil money, yeah lol

4.5% of all oil revenue is for the Albertan government under the royalties program.
Only 1.5% is collected towards what is described as “all taxes and fees”.

According to data provided by the Albertan government, they got 4.9 billion dollars related to oil and gas extraction in 2019. Based on the ratio between the Albertan government’s royalties collections and “all taxes and fees”, we can determine that the federal Canadian government made around 1.63 billion from Alberta’s oil fields.

How much does Canada spend on healthcare out of its budget?
In 2018, Canada's health federal transfers accounted for about 50.9 billion, or 15.3% of the government budget, which (according to Wikipedia, great source, I know) is $355.6 billion.

So Alberta oil field revenue to the Federal government of Canada is around 1.63 billion dollars, or enough to account for about 0.0046% of government spending. Of those 1.63 billion dollars, if 15.3% of them go towards healthcare, that’s 249,390,000 dollars, dwarfed in every regard by the income taxes paid by Canadian citizens.

So no, there isn’t some conspiracy to use the vast sums of oil money from Alberta to fund inefficient healthcare for the other provinces, in large part because Alberta is the Alabama of Canada.

Sources
https://www.alberta.ca/historical-royalty-revenue-data.aspx
https://thenarwhal.ca/are-albertans-collecting-a-fair-share-of-oilsands-wealth/

...Which is why Canada is looking into creating a new system for pricing drugs to bring this issue under control.

Speaking as a Wisconsinite here- A not insignificant amount of people cross the Canadian border for cheaper prescription medicine. And on health tourism? Well, insert spiderman pointing at himself meme, because hundreds of thousands of Americans seek treatment abroad.
https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/executive_briefings/chambers_health-related_travel_final.pdf

«12. . .2,1812,1822,1832,1842,1852,1862,187. . .2,5072,508»

Advertisement