Oh fuck off. What do you think is more likely to come up on a search engine, the people complaining about waiting times, or the people who don't, who have no need to complain about it?

Our healthcare system is, as you should know, 100% "socialized", and we don't have "month-long waiting lists for simple screenings and procedures". Obviously we have a priority system in which a patient with a heart attack gets attention before your stubbed toe, regardless of the balance on your bank account.

I could call my doctor tomorrow and ask for a session, and chances are I would get one sometime tomorrow or the day after. Specialists have longer waiting times, but again, if you need the procedure you will get it. If you don't, you'll have to wait a while. The doctors decide if you need it, not you. You're not a doctor, so that kind of follows.

Yes, there are some exceptions, mostly when individual workers basically fuck up, fail to communicate, lose a test result, or just fucking wanks off instead of doing their jobs, but I'm pretty sure you'll find that in the "non-socialized" system too.

People like you are why your society fucking fails. Because you can't swallow having to pay taxes like normal people, you'll go to any stretch of your imagination to vilify "socialized medicine" and any other kind of public service you're missing (such as a livable minimum wage level and proper social services for the unemployed, oh, don't get me started on the prison system) due to problems with funding. Your beliefs, however, are wrong, as is your weak attempt at argumentation.

Good day.

Stonebro, can't you make a case without ad hominem arguments? They're seldom the sign of a winning position.

Well considering the Syrian government uses automatic weapons on their citizens protesting their policies I'm pretty sure we have nothing even close to that scale. The worst thing that happens to the GOP is the "Glitterati" shows up and shouts things at them as opposed to setting off an explosive belt or mowing them down with an AK-47.

I do have a feeling like the corporate middle class IS being squeezed between the corporations that don't want to pay taxes and consider human resources a disposable asset and some slices of the public sector that have overly powerful unions and an opaque administration which contributes to gross inefficiencies in the system and undermine the social safety net by misappropriating tax funds.

However, concerning welfare bashing, Judy Rebick wrote something very interesting in a book I'm currently reading (which is a decade old, but more relevant than ever imo)...

What's the reality of people on welfare? The highest level of welfare fraud I have ever quoted is 4 percent, and is usually less than 2 percent. There is more fraud going on in the Skydome on any given Saturday, when businessmen take their families to tax-deductible boxes that are supposed to be for business associates, than takes place in every welfare office across the country put together. Yet, we spend millions policing the poor.

...

Criminalization of the poor went hand in hand with cuts to social assistance in the U.S. No on is in prison simply for being poor, of course, but without income or access to decent jobs, more and more young people will try to escape through drugs or profit through crime. In fact, the United States has already imprisoned a significant percentage of its poor male population. In the past fifteen years, the prison population there has tripled. With it's 1997 rate of 645 people imprisoned for every 100,000 in the population, the U.S was incarcerating a higher percentage of its than South Africa did under apartheid. When you count the number of people on parole and probation, 5.4 millions Americans were in the prison system. That is 5 percent of the total male population and 20 percent of the black male population.

...

[i]Instead of direct income support based on simple need, the welfare state developed a complex bureaucracy to police recipients on one hand and to assist them on another. The complexity of funding welfare through federal-provincial cost-shared programs makes it difficult to judge how much of the money designated for welfare goes directly into the pockets of the poor and how much goes into funding the massive state bureaucracy and web of private non-profit agencies that anti-poverty groups call the poverty industry. For my purposes, I am most interested in the way in which the poverty industry helped foster dependence and passivity among the poor.

In her 1998 book No Car, No Radio, No Liquor Permit: The Moral Regulation of Single Mothers in Ontario, 1920-1997, the political scientist Margaret Little documents the patronizing, demeaning, and often humiliating policies that have long been imposed on single mothers receiving welfare payments. After making an exhaustive study of Ontario's mothers' allowance, Little interviewed single mothers on welfare today and concluded: "Current single mothers on welfare encounter both financial and moral regulation of their lives. Although the definition of worthiness has changed over time, perhaps what is most remarkable is the fact that social workers continue to expend considerable energy in this determination."

Such treatment undermines the very confidence and sense of self-worth of many welfare recipients. As a result, this oppression of the welfare system does produce a certain passivity among its recipients. If everyone from your premier to your own social worker is giving you the message that you are shiftless and worthless, it is not surprising that you are not motivated to sell yourself in the marketplace. Sadly, what Little calls "the moral regulation of single mothers" can be applied in general to our attitude towards the poor in the age of neo-liberalism.[/i]


@HereForTheBeer:

You operate under the assumption that society is in the service of our economic system.

The reverse is true.

For our well being, we are dependent on people finding a spouse and having children at a relatively young age (ideally, in their late thirties at the latest).

That the wealthiest countries in the world fail to provide such a security for most of its population (the ability to comfortably start a family) dues hint at serious deficiencies in the way we operate.

btw, if you want to look at a model to follow for public medicare, look at what France is doing.

Public medicare CAN work if it is properly administered.

Louis CK says it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtJ_sDRRVVI&feature=related

I'm not sure why they'd want to outlaw their own lifestyle.

Was I the only one who came into this thread thinking it had to do with the Gop from CDP?

Simple insult ≠ ad hominem fallacy

Well well well, look who’s backpedaling now. You claimed that your government never gunned down any citizens for protesting. This is just false. And I’m talking about stuff that happened only a couple of decades ago. Sure, it’s not as brutal (resulting in several dead nevertheless) but that’s just because it doesn’t have to.

I love you, too?

People complain (ie. news stories) about something like this precisely because it is a problem. In the case of health care, it can be a life-or-death problem. When trying to create a better health care system, ignoring those problems is a disservice to those who use it and pay for it, and will certainly cost lives and have some affect on the quality of life for some of the taxpayers. As our nation considers taking on a system like this, it would be a grave mistake to ignore the lessons learned from similar systems.

I could, too, and it doesn't take a hyper-expensive nationalized system to make that happen. Nor does it cost a lot for that type of visit.

A part of our national debate on the issue centers on what is called "preventative care", the notion that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that regular check-ups, screenings, counseling, etc, can nip in the bud ailments that would otherwise be much more difficult and costly to treat if left undetected or untreated during the early stages. What is the worth of preventative medicine if you can't actually get it because it's wait-listed? If we can't get this cornerstone of the program to work, then the rest of it is doomed to fail.

The domestic model for our national plan, coming from the state of Massachusetts, suffers from problems with... wait lists and emergency care. It's nice that you don't have those problems back home; here, with the plan that the feds want to copy-and-paste and expand, we do. So yeah, I question why we want that. I'd be foolish NOT to.
So what you're saying is that we don't need a national system in order to have the same problems you experience in Norway. Looks like we agree on something.

People like me are the ones trying to make sure the critical questions get asked and answered.

I have no problem paying taxes, when they're used well. It's useful to note that the "normal" people in the US, approaching roughly 50%, pay virtually no federal income tax. Our family is somewhere around 30% for federal and 40% combined, not counting sales tax. Where does 40% for a middle-class family fall in your scale of 'normal', in a nation where almost half pay nearly no federal tax? Hell, if I were in the non-paying group, I'd keep my mouth shut instead of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

So, if you want to continue to assume things about my tax situation, at least you now have a basic number to work with. I'm pretty sure 40% gives me reason to request our country spend wisely, and reason to question its multi-trillion dollar plans for health care.

I don't have to vilify social med or imagine why it won't work here, because we already have it and there are serious problems that we can't seem to fix. No excuse needed when facts tell the story. We can't fix what we have and adding to it won't make it better.

People like me are the ones supporting those who choose not to work, who choose not to take care of themselves, who choose not to do anything to improve their status in life. If you tried your best and can't make it work, then let me give you a boost so you can make another go at it. If you don't try, why should the rest of us try for you?

People like you are helping to grow the financially unsustainable entitlement systems throughout the "modernized" nations, which will cause societies to fail as governments crumble under their own weight.

But if you paid attention, you would notice that I've previously given some praise to one aspect of socialized med in the US, the VA (Veterans Administration) health system, based on anecdotal evidence of helping my dad deal with years of choosing not to take care of himself. While I suspect it's particularly hard to read with one's head so firmly planted inside one's nether regions, hopefully your medical system can help you with an extraction procedure. When you see your doctor tomorrow, ask him about getting that taken care of.
And to you, as well.

No, I don't, and the reverse is not true. Our society and our economy are inextricably intermingled, and they service each other.
Our particular society and economy both successfully evolved for a century and a half without massive entitlement spending, back when people took responsibility for themselves, saved before spending, and made themselves secure before assuming further familial responsibilities. The standards of living and of health were both increasing over that time. This, without a major federal social program. But times change, blah blah blah.

It was decided last century that the federal gov't could provide help to those who found themselves in situations beyond their control (ie. the wage-earning spouse died) and who critically needed the medical and financial help. Basically, it would lend a hand to those in need, and it was a good thing when that was the scope. Social Security, and later Medicare and Medicaid, were instituted to help in those cases. Then SS was expanded to include virtually everyone. Now these social programs have grown so large that no one dare propose the changes necessary to make them sustainable.

An off-the-top salary deduction of ~15% (FICA) is supposed to cover the fiscal needs of SS and Medicare (that deduction has increased to about six times where it started back in the 1930s). It doesn't, so we add more money from the General Fund to cover the shortfalls. And even that won't be enough in a few years. Technically, it's already not enough as eliminating all other federal spending outside of those three programs would have the budget in red ink each year. Now, with that much spending, which currently doesn't cover everyone for medical and whatever else we may come up with, further increasing the scope is going to be an ever greater fiscal problem. To reflect this, the insurance reform act uses 10 years of taxes to pay for its first 6 years of full implementation. What happens after that, when it's essentially 40% unfunded? And that's not even a fully-socialized system.

I guess I have that other 60% to give...

Too bad none of our current, or proposed, systems look anything like that.

Actually, that's not true. There is a current budget proposal that takes Medicare somewhat closer to France's plan, compared with what we have today, with insurance premium vouchers taking the place of the current Medicare setup. This is being poo-pooed by the left, saying it will abandon the elderly. So France has a system that appears to function decently (I haven't dug deeply), one party floats a plan that moves our current Medicare system in that direction, and the other party blasts it. Instead, they wish to model a system after one that a particular state tried and has found to have significant shortfalls.

In typical US gov't fashion, it looks at something that appears to be working elsewhere... and then instead expands the unsustainable thing we already have.

While I appreciate someone from Norway telling me that everything is great over there, let me point out that one must look at how things are currently done over here before saying that their solution is the one for us. Because it's not. It should be examined through the lenses of what we already have and what the pols want to turn it into. While France may have a great system, it's moot since that's not what our pols want to do here with single-payer universal coverage. Instead, we can look at the examples of other systems that are close to the US proposals (UK and Massachusetts, in particular), and understand the problems that exist before creating the same mistakes all over again, on a larger scale.

He's gone over it before and Norway is one of the countries that wins nearly all ratings on high standard of living. Note that arguments against socialized services focus on countries where conservative interests have worked hard for decades at de-funding and largely screwing them up. In places like Norway where that hasn't happened they still work great.

So when he says someone is full of shit he's largely speaking from experience, it does work, his life is the counter-example proof. If they wouldn't charge so much for a beer at the pub Norway would probably be the perfect country to live in:)

Now here's where we agree, you're absolutely correct if we're going to adopt a model that seems to be working we should adopt it instead of pandering to entrenched interests.

You seem to have a rather rosy picture of how things used to be. My grandma is 99, my folks are in their 70s, I know how stuff "used to be" for the average folks and it wasn't nearly so great. A large portion of the US didn't receive preventative care at all back then, it was out of reach.

I don't care how much you have saved, if you get sick with the wrong kind of thing, you're boned under our system. Have 200,000 in the bank, if you get cancer how long do you think it'll last? Have an autistic kid (current estimates on cost of raising and caring for an autistic child: 3.5-5 million dollars). Good insurance will cover 2-3 grand of extra therapy per year (that covers 1-2 months of therapy). Insurance like this costs 600 USD or more per month and you will get dropped unless you get it through an employer. Autism rates are 1 in 150 in the US, so it affects a large portion of the population (relative to many costly medical issues).

You cannot be 100% prepared, it's impossible, as you age the likelihood of running into serious issues climbs dramatically. The most efficient risk pool is 100% of the population, just like the most efficient risk pool for fire protection is the entire town/county. If we get it going you'll see Medicare and Medicaid disappear and overall, per person costs go way down.

Besides Christian beliefs against the interpretation of religious institution, I don't understand how gay marriage could possibly offend anyone. Of course, my religion is science, insofar as spiritual well-being is synonymous with mental health. An obvious philosophical divide exists between someone like myself and a devout Christian, one which I do not have the authority or necessary level of intelligence to comment upon in terms of right and wrong.

Well, I wouldn't call it rosy. But it certainly wasn't the Dark Ages, either.

For all I know, maybe we could come up with an equitable program that doesn't break the bank and doesn't overly tax those who work hardest to support it. That almost certainly requires starting from 0 and rebuilding it from the ground up, and I'm not sure there's the national willpower to do that. And if it ultimately takes away the ability for my family to make our own decisions on care with the advice of the medical pros of our choice, then I'll have a tough time supporting it.

For what it's worth, this was 1986-87. Not having direction in life, I was making $5 an hour working 40 hours at a grocery store (I was making less for the first couple months). IIRC, min wage was $3.35 at that time. Exciting stuff. After tax & FICA it was probably $7-8k per year, something like that. We got by, it was mostly paycheck-to-paycheck; we were able to do so by, well, by having roommates and being frugal, and it was really motivating in a "this sucks" kind of way. Being working poor did more for me than a welfare check would have.

So let's fix that. I don't think we do it by increasing the minimum wage so much as helping / encouraging them to move up in life. As poverty begets poverty, success begets success. Let's reinforce the latter instead of simply maintaining the former. If minimum wage increases were the answer, we would have seen a sharp decline in the poverty level with a year or two of each increase. We haven't.

Both are easier said than done. I see where you're coming from but I would rather we do something to fix it before it becomes a problem for the next generation, not react to the problem that already exists by simply giving them more for doing the same work. For myself, I like to think the solution begins with one's own efforts, and that's exactly how the three of us were able to move up and out to better things. If we make it comfortable to be poor, there's no impetus to improve one's situation through hard work and a modicum of common sense. For some. For others, they get sick of it and make things better for themselves and the family.

Two opposing views on minimum wage versus poverty:

right-leaning organization: http://epionline.org/study_detail.cfm?sid=31
left-leaning organization: http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/webfeatures_viewpoints_minwagetestimony/

And what looks to be more centrist: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MinimumWages.html

Medicare is the best part about paying taxes. <3 Medicare