#865796 - 06/07/08 12:56 AM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Doc Lightning]
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nut.
Registered: 05/01/06
Loc: Bouncing off the walls.
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Written by :Doc Lightning
Written by :hamamelis
However.. My mum has had a really bad experience- with suspected Carpal Tunnel syndrome, where I think it took a year from first complaint to getting a final diagnosis- not even treatment..(it's a nerve trapped in her neck, apparently, and inoperable.. so they can just put her on anti-inflammatories, and hope it doesn't get worse).
But that's not just the NHS. It took me a year to get diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, during which time I was in horrible back pain.
I don't claim the NHS has a monopoly on messing around, but they can be pretty impressive at it on occasion. That was not a difficult condition to diagnose, or an unusual one- she was told it should have been a few months to get the test, the delay was wholly due to them messing around.
But yes, I love the fact that here we don't have people who can't afford to get problems looked at or treated, I love the fact we don't have to phone the bank before we phone an ambulance. The NHS has issues, but we only complain so much about it 'cos we're so used to it working that we only notice the problems.
_________________________
THE MEEK WILL INHERIT THE EARTH!
If that's okay with you?
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#865797 - 06/07/08 01:27 AM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Old-User--25357]
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Carpal \'Tunnel
Registered: 13/06/01
Loc: Melbourne
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Written by Lightning
Providing people with a service is not equal to forcing them to use it. I fail to follow your logic, still.
Lightning, it’s not about logic, it’s about consistency. Mandatory health care, like mandatory seat belts, is a threat to personal liberties.
Written by wiki
Opponents of government programs for universal health care argue that people should be free to opt out of health insurance and that government programs would require higher taxes, increase bureaucratic inefficiencies, increase utilization, and reduce health care quality. Opponents also claim that the current level of government involvement in US health care contributes to higher costs, and point to free-market solutions to increase efficiency, stimulate innovation, and make consumers rather than third parties more responsible for cost decisions.
You make a big case about loosing perceived personal freedoms in regard to mandatory seat belts, but then turn around and make a case for mandatory health care.
Written by Lightning helmet thread
The idea is that we have to let people look out for their own best interests and make decisions for themselves as competent adults. But we should let them make their own decisions. You can make arguments about costs to society and money and blah blah, but there is no price tag for liberty.
Yes it’s a silly argument, but not as silly as the argument that that values the perceived personal freedom of adults above the cost to society.
So, I suppose the question to ask is why the USA is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system? Especially, as current estimates put US health care spending at approximately 15% of GDP, the highest in the world (wiki).
Is that not one of the price tags for “perceived” personal liberty?
_________________________
The ingredients of health and long life are
Great temperance, open air,
Indian Clubs, little care.
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#865798 - 06/07/08 03:36 AM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Stone]
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HOP Mad Doctor
Registered: 28/05/01
Loc: Adelaide
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Written by :Stone
Lightning, it’s not about logic, it’s about consistency. Mandatory health care, like mandatory seat belts, is a threat to personal liberties.
I reject the logic as illogical. Healthcare is a right. Nobody is forcing anyone to use it. Just to pay for it. It's no different than taxing people for roads.
Furthermore, many people don't have healthcare not because they choose not to, but because they don't have jobs that provide it and such jobs are not available.
Comparing healthcare to bike helmets is utter non-sequitur.
Written by
Yes it’s a silly argument, but not as silly as the argument that that values the perceived personal freedom of adults above the cost to society.
I'm glad you aren't calling the shots, then. Your philosophy alarms me. You would force me to engage in activities that have no bearing on anyone else, yet deny healthcare to those who need it.
_________________________
-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella
"The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about Heaven when I go there." -Billy Graham
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#865799 - 06/07/08 03:37 AM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: jeff(fake)]
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currently mending
Registered: 15/07/03
Loc: Bristol
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#865801 - 06/07/08 02:38 PM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Doc Lightning]
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Carpal \'Tunnel
Registered: 13/06/01
Loc: Melbourne
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Written by Lightning
Comparing healthcare to bike helmets is utter non-sequitur.
Lightning, I agree the whole libertarian argument is farcical. But it’s only non-sequitur when people only look at one side of the issue. Wearing seat belts is just another aspect of health care. Protecting people from themselves, whether through buckling up or having health cover, is really the same thing. In both situations, you are protecting me for me.
The only difference, I can see, is that mandatory seat belts affect people directly on a day to day basis. Where as a mandatory health care system is indirect. But in both situations, people loose their freedom to choose. And, isn’t that what the whole helmet argument was about - the freedom to choose regardless of the cost to society. Or to put it another way, the personal freedoms argument only comes up when it is expedient.
Written by Lightning helmet thread
The idea is that we have to let people look out for their own best interests and make decisions for themselves as competent adults. But we should let them make their own decisions. You can make arguments about costs to society and money and blah blah, but there is no price tag for liberty.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a great that you are prepared to change your point of view, and put the costs to society argument above the personal freedoms argument.
Written by Lightning
You would force me to engage in activities that have no bearing on anyone else, yet deny healthcare to those who need it.
I’m not forcing you to do anything, and I’m not denying anyone health care. I’m just pointing out how your system works. Having an accident while not wearing a seat belt does have a bearing on other people. But that was a cost that you were prepared to overlook in the helmet thread. Not wearing a seat belt or not having health cover both put burdens on society.
Don’t take this the wrong way, I am for health care. I'm just saying the argument against seat belts is just a silly as the argument against a Nationalized health care system. There is a price for liberty, and overlooking that price is the fatal flaw that comes up in all the selfish personal freedom arguments.
_________________________
The ingredients of health and long life are
Great temperance, open air,
Indian Clubs, little care.
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#865802 - 06/07/08 11:26 PM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Stone]
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Carpal \'Tunnel
Registered: 28/08/02
Loc: sheffield
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Stone- perhaps it would help if you'd clarify how you think a national health service limits choice- exactly what choices are limited?
Lightning is talking about a nationalised health service- presumably optional in all ways- in the UK the NHS runs alongside privatised health i.e. those who have money and prefer to pay for health care can choose the private option.
_________________________
"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."
--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32
Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!
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#865803 - 07/07/08 01:24 AM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: onewheeldave]
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Carpal \'Tunnel
Registered: 13/06/01
Loc: Melbourne
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Written by OWD
Lightning is talking about a nationalised health service- presumably optional in all ways- in the UK the NHS runs alongside privatised health i.e. those who have money and prefer to pay for health care can choose the private option.
So, you are saying health care is free in the UK for those who don’t choose the private option. And people don’t have to pay a levy or tax to use the health care system if they don’t want to.
I suggest Lightning has already answered your question.
Written by Fine Rabid Dog
Other than greed and fear of a "communist-style" medical care system... what is the real reason that America doesn't have a NHS-like system?
Written by Lightning
You already got it. A fanatical/religious fear of anything socialized.
I take a fanatical/religious fear of anything socialized to be similar to the nanny state argument.
I not against national heath care. I just don’t understand the logic when people use the nanny state argument when it threatens their perceived personal liberties like having to buckle up, then turn around and support the nanny sate when it starts to cost them.
And, I posted this earlier:
Written by wiki on the health care debate in the USA
Opponents of government programs for universal health care argue that people should be free to opt out of health insurance and that government programs would require higher taxes, increase bureaucratic inefficiencies, increase utilization, and reduce health care quality. Opponents also claim that the current level of government involvement in US health care contributes to higher costs, and point to free-market solutions to increase efficiency, stimulate innovation, and make consumers rather than third parties more responsible for cost decisions.
Edited by Stone (07/07/08 01:34 AM)
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#865804 - 07/07/08 05:26 PM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Stone]
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HOP Mad Doctor
Registered: 28/05/01
Loc: Adelaide
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Stone,
I've read your post.
I'm sorry. You are making no sense. Requiring people to pay for a nationalized healthcare is no more a threat to their individual liberties or choice than making them pay for the military, public schools or roads. That's called taxes. It's a fact of life. Right up there with death.
Providing a service is in no way related to, comparable to, or even remotely in resemblance to requiring a behavior.
_________________________
-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella
"The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about Heaven when I go there." -Billy Graham
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#865805 - 07/07/08 11:38 PM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Doc Lightning]
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nut.
Registered: 05/01/06
Loc: Bouncing off the walls.
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If we didn't have the right to refuse medical treatment then possibly you'd have a point, Stone, but we do-
unless we're unconscious, in which case that goes to the next of kin. It is also possible to leave instructions to refuse treament in a situation where you would be unable to at the time, for example in cases of terminal illness, you can request to not be resuscitated.
I'd see it as much more of a threat to my liberty to be refused medical treatment because of my personal situation than to be offered it regardless.. I really don't get your logic.
_________________________
THE MEEK WILL INHERIT THE EARTH!
If that's okay with you?
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#865806 - 08/07/08 01:27 AM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Old-User--25357]
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Carpal \'Tunnel
Registered: 13/06/01
Loc: Melbourne
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Lightning, if I’m making no sense then what is the current AMA stand on universal health care? The have opposed it in the past. Do they support Obama’s universal health care policy?
Since you bring up the military, I’m wondering what the reaction would be like in the US if conscription was introduced in response to the continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
hamamelis, I never suggested that people should refuse medical treatment. The point was about the nanny state argument (socialized health care). And, regardless of whether people think this is a myth, the loss of freedom it is a real issue in the "USA" universal health care debate.
For example, “Contrary to claims that government-imposed “universal health care” would solve America’s health care problems, it would in fact destroy American medicine and countless lives along with it. The goal of “universal health care” (a euphemism for socialized medicine) is both immoral and impractical; it violates the rights of businessmen, doctors, and patients to act on their own judgment—which, in turn, throttles their ability to produce, administer, or purchase the goods and services in question.”
Edited by Stone (08/07/08 01:39 AM)
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#865807 - 08/07/08 02:30 AM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Stone]
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HOP Mad Doctor
Registered: 28/05/01
Loc: Adelaide
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OK, Stone. I give up. You're not listening to me. You aren't reading my posts. You're just arguing for the heck of it.
_________________________
-Mike )'(
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella
"The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about Heaven when I go there." -Billy Graham
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#865808 - 08/07/08 02:45 AM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Doc Lightning]
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Carpal \'Tunnel
Registered: 19/12/01
Loc: Travelling
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OK, Stone, if you're quoting then please give the source as quotes give only a small part of an argument and with the full article we know more where you're coming from. The source is this article in The Objective Standard magazine by Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh. As somebody who has worked in publicly funded research units within public funded hospitals in a publicly funded universal heathcare system I read that quote and laughed at the blinkered, pro-insurance, anti-liberal, knee jerk statement it leapt out as being. It's a long article but the editor of the magazine sums up the argument in an interview thus: Written by
...a recent article titled "Moral Health Care vs. 'Universal Health Care'" shows that so-called "universal health care" is factually immoral, that health care providers have a moral right to use and dispose of their products as they see fit, that the government has no moral right to coerce them in any way, and that the recognition of these facts is good for everyone.
The article first slams the current US system and works on then works on the basis that a universal health solution dictates the miniature of management from central government, finally concluding that a fully free market through health insurance is the only answer. The article looks a lot at Canada's seemingly strict system, and only pays passing attention to Sweden and the UK, quoting only one Swedish case and a one BMA statement, leaving out many of the salient points of the statement. Which is a shame. It also refers to these systems as "allegedly ideal", which anyone in the UK knows not to be the case.
In the UK there's been a campaign against the centralised control until recently enforced on NHS hospital, with the doctor and patient led movement leading to the more localised control systems we used to have. Centralised control is one of the main premises of Zinser & Hsieh's arguments against universal healthcare but it needn't be a deciding factor. The health minister shouldn't be deciding what colour the plasters are.
The article does touch on what Stone's referring to on health care being on the slippery slope to the limitation of rights, but I don't get it:
Written by
A final (and often unacknowledged) consequence of government interference in medicine is that it leads to violations of individual rights in other areas of life, such as violations of the right to free speech and mandates regarding what people may and may not eat.
I don't get it, there's no direct and proven link. Interestingly the US has some of the tightest controls of food produce in the world, from unpasteurized cheese to artificial trans fats.
I think Lighning's original post was frustration at the current US system of insurance controlled access to healthcare, not a call for a particular universal health care plan. But as a doctor he's probably best qualified of all of us to outline what such a system should allow.
On the topic of the US health system, just looking at the numbers there does seem to be something wonky. The US healthcare system takes up 15.3% of GDP, but leaves 47 million people uncovered (source). Nobody else spends that much, the UK covers the entire population on 8.4%, which is a $6714/$2760 per capita difference. At the same time that the government is spending so much money and millions can't afford to get treatment the insurance companies are making vast profits (surely the presence of the medical insurance layer to almost the entire US system soaks up a lot of cash). The pharmaceutical companies can probably afford to buy countries with their profits. I'm sure most people see this imbalance as fundamentally injust and in need of balancing.
Figures from 2006: source
Me, I'm a fan of the public/private hybrid system we have in the UK today. I've used both systems and both worked well for me and people I know for conditions both minor and chronic.
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#865809 - 08/07/08 10:03 PM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Dom]
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Carpal \'Tunnel
Registered: 13/06/01
Loc: Melbourne
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OK Dom, for a start I’m not arguing against mandatory health care. I agree with nationalized health care, and I’ve said that a number of times. Perhaps you need to read the whole thread. And the helmet thread, where it was stated (not by Lightning, but in the same nanny sate argument) that any legislation that could increase the general health of the population, was one of the scariest statements ever uttered on this forum. Then you might see where I’m coming from. Written by Dom
I think Lighning's original post was frustration at the current US system of insurance controlled access to healthcare, not a call for a particular universal health care plan. But as a doctor he's probably best qualified of all of us to outline what such a system should allow.
The title of the thread is “Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare”. Nationalized healthcare is also referred to as universal health care in many sectors. Perhaps that was misleading.
My point is if people use the nanny state argument, the slippery slope to the limitation of people’s rights argument, the pro-choice’s argument if you like. Then it seems rather incongruous to me, to then turn around and suggest that it’s a good idea to start nationalizing things. And I agree nationalized healthcare it is a good idea, no problem. However, I’d suggest you are either pro-choice or not; not pro-choice when it suits. Furthermore, I’d suggest that it’s the whole “nanny state” argument that is the cause of the problem in the first place. So, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Not part of the problem one day, and then part of the solution the next.
_________________________
The ingredients of health and long life are
Great temperance, open air,
Indian Clubs, little care.
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#865812 - 09/07/08 04:30 AM
Re: Why we need NATIONALIZED healthcare.
[Re: Dom]
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currently mending
Registered: 15/07/03
Loc: Bristol
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While my sentiments are entirely behind Dom and Lightning here... I think you're technically wrong.
When the NHS was announced by labour politicians it created extreme hostility amongst doctors. They were livid that were going to lose their freedom not to treat poor people. Their individual freedoms were being restricted so as to grant collective freedom to millions of people who previously could not afford medical care. So I guess nationalized heath care comes down to which set of rights you feel are more important.
1. The right of everyone in the country to receive medical treatment - the principle behind this being that all citizens should be treated equally.
2. The right of doctors to only treat those who can pay them handsomely
3. The right of rich people not to pay taxes which are spent on treating the poor
If you were to abolish all private medical practice in favour of socialized healthcare then you could add
4. The right of rich members of the community to receive a superior service to poor people.
Both 2 and 3 clearly violate the principle behind point 1. If you believe in inequality of opportunity then you don't also believe in equality... If you believe that everyone should have equal opportunities in life, then you'll struggle to maintain ideological consistency within capitalist models such as privatized health care...
For me making sure that everyone is looked after, in terms of health care, education, public transport systems, social security and access to art, culture, and public spaces are way way more important than making sure that a select few people are able to continue to live at ridiculously high and ecologically unsustainable standards.
...and there's my answer to Lightning's question from earlier... If we want universal (rather than national) health care it could be achieved; although it would be a massive undertaking which would encounter stubborn resistance - much like the founding of the NHS 60 years ago... However it would have to be predicated on a system whereby many of the extravagant luxuries enjoyed by the global rich; private yachts, numerous homes spread across the globe, sports cars, jet set lifestyles and other things, in order for everyone to have access to free health care.
Personally I feel it is morally wrong that we live in a world where treatable diseases like malaria and tb kill over a million people a year each while the wealth that could be spent eradicating these maladies is frittered away on luxury consumer goods and (my old friend) the international arms trade.
Medication not Bombs
In the UK we about to spend 75 billion pounds (about $150billion) replacing our nuclear weapons capability. This breaks down as 25 billion for the design and build and then 50 billion maintenance and disposal over the next 50 odd years. Given that the only apparent purpose of these weapons is to threaten other countries with annihilation I would gladly scrap the project and see all that money poured into international (or national) health care.
If the US followed suit then maybe the rest of world would stop hating us both... Instead of being seen as imperialist bullies who're responsible for murdering millions across the globe in order to maintain our economic dominance we could be states which provide life and good health to hundreds of millions.
The chances of this happening while the US refuses even to treat all of its own citizens however seems slim.
_________________________
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Nietzsche
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