Newsweek’s headline this week read: "The Case for Killing Granny: Why curbing excessive end-of-life care is good for America."
…Huh? Bah???
Since when did it become anyone else’s business what an older person does with their money? Since when did we put "national interests" before private life?
The Good of the Many outweighs the Good of the One…isn’t that exactly what every Star Trek movie is against?
The answer, sadly, is: since we decided that private insurance companies deciding what they can and cannot cover isn’t good enough.
This is why I have always been frightened by the idea of National Healthcare…not because I don’t want everyone taken care of, I do! But because I don’t trust the government–the guys who don’t run a whole lot of others things correctly–to be the ones deciding who lives and who dies.
If we can decide not to support the medical needs of one group, why not another? Will we soon decide that people needing long-term medical care from their youth on also should not be supported? After all, they’ll cost even more in the end, and it’s the tax payers dollar.
What about Xtreme sports. People get hurt. Better not.
What about smoking. Leads to sickness, better outlaw it.
What about swimming pools. Children drown. Better have them all paved.
After all, it’s the tax payer’s dollar.
With a private system, there are cracks, but there isn’t genocide.
I must take a moment here to explain that I, personally, am not in favor of extensive end-of-life care. Both as a Christian Scientist and as someone who has worked as a hospice volunteer, it is not something that I feel is a good idea…but I also don’t think that gives me the right to tell other people what decisions they should make with their life.
Interestingly, the argument in the article is "We’re spending $66.8 billion dollars in Medicare on the last two years of people’s lives"…isn’t that an argument against medicare, rather than an argument for National Health Care?
Overall, it is a terribly difficult subject…all the harder for the kindhearted, like me, who really want everyone to do and be well…but when even before we have National Health Care, we’re already talking about killing elderly and unborn children…that is frightening.
Horrible.
And I believe the same philosophy holds that children born with conditions that will not let them be contributing members of the tax base should not be given extraordinary care to allow them to live.
Since when did we become Sparta?
You assume that the children who could become tax-payers would get it.
Listen to Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama’s Health Policy Adviser.
“When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”
“Strict youngest-first allocation directs scarce resources predominantly to infants. This approach seems incorrect. The death of a 20-year-old woman is intuitively worse than that of a 2-month-old girl, even though the baby has had less life. The 20-year-old has a much more developed personality than the infant, and has drawn upon the investment of others to begin as-yet-unfulfilled projects…. Adolescents have received substantial substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments. . . . It is terrible when an infant dies, but worse, most people think, when a three-year-old child dies, and worse still when an adolescent does.”
I’m sure that’s the road the policies would go down eventually, sure, but the first step would be to eliminate care to the least potentially useful.
Sometimes I really hate this century.
My husband teaches biology at a Culture of Life (specifically espouses a pro-life curriculum) Catholic school. The stem cell issue came up yesterday. As he explained to the young things, yes, if these were objects and not people, it would make more sense to maximize the good by using discarded bits of proto-humans to make other people live longer. But as they ARE NOT objects, and we are ordered to not practice evil ways, it should not be done.
Without even a tacit assumption of God in public school, there are few reasons why the next publicly-educated generations should think of themselves as anything more than cogs in a societal machine.
Sometimes I really hate this century.
For such a time as this, ma’am.
from a piece of paper that came home with my 12yo from school yesterday, as an example what one might put in the pramble of a “Kids’ Bill of Rights”:
“We believe that a successful society invests its best resources and hopes in the successes of its children. An unsuccessful society ignores or maltreats its children…The Children’s Bill of Rights proposes rights for children that all adults on Earth should honor, so that we may help create the very best future for ourselves and, in turn, our own children.”
Rights and resources allocated on the basis of successfulness and utility? Yup. Welcome to the future, if you make the cut.
“In the service of the child” — a Montessori school saying– takes on an eerie meaning here.
Do unborn children count?
>This approach seems incorrect. The death of a 20-year-old woman is intuitively worse than that of a 2-month-old girl, even though the baby has had less life.
Dear God!
We didn’t. We lack Sparta’s redeeming features these days, such as the guts to look threats in the eye and say, “Bring it.”
Give us time, Josh.
More than once during this ongoing healthcare debate, I’ve found myself thinking of Boxer, from Animal Farm – the loyal, hardworking horse who got sold off to the knackers yard as soon as he outlived his usefulness.
I’d assume the vast majority of people on medicare have (in some form or another) been paying into the system for upwards of forty years, why shouldn’t they get the benefits?
In the UK, there’s a lot of rationing. It’s not even considered newsworthy if someone has to wait a year for a hip replacement. The optimist in me doesn’t want to see it as a deliberate action, but there’s no denying that a long delay means that many older patients die on the waiting lists for operations, which therefore saves the NHS money it doesn’t have.
I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a shame there can’t be a sensible discussion about the whole thing. For example, just because I don’t want congress to pass the bill that’s currently being proposed, doesn’t mean I want poor people without health insurance to suffer.
That’s very nicely put.
It’s one of the things that bothers me, too. The assumption that if you don’t support this current idea it’s because you want people to suffer.
If a person foresees more suffering rather than less coming from this, shouldn’t they object?
More suffering?
But the liberals came up with it! How could it do anything but lessen suffering?
Me, personally, I’m a “Do not go gentle” type of guy, except in the case of brain death. Things can always change for the better. Heh, I guess we know where I stand in all of this.
See…why should my choice have to affect your choice?
When the government is not involved, none of these issues need to be raised.
There’s a lot of issues that don’t have to be raised when the government is not involved; I’m whole-heartedly with you. (It occurs to me that my last post was brief enough to be potentially misinterpreted. Sorry ;) )
No, no! I got it! I was agreeing with you. ;-)
Ah, but this is not the Good of Many vs. the Good of the One.
It’s the Wants of the Many vs. the Rights of the One.
The one’s bound to lose.
But Kirk and Spock would still be against it.
I just want that on record. ;-)
Lol :)
but not Next Generation
. . . which once featured a story in which a man fleeing his planet’s requirement of euthanasia at age 65 comes to the Enterprise seeking asylum but later decides that it is more ethical to submit to death and let the younger generation have the resources that he would have consumed. This is only one reason for disliking Star Trek: The Next Generation. Even that long ago, the culture of death was beating its drum.
Re: but not Next Generation
Sorry–“anonymous” was me! I forgot to sign in.
Re: but not Next Generation
And the alien was played by David Ogden Stiers. I had to go to imdb to look up his name.
Re: but not Next Generation
Gah! I didn’t see that one. That’s awful.
Maybe I should have specified Kirk, Spock, and Bones.
“This is why I have always been frightened by the idea of National Healthcare…not because I don’t want everyone taken care of, I do! But because I don’t trust the government–the guys who don’t run a whole lot of others things correctly–to be the ones deciding who lives and who dies.”
Huh?! I don’t get your argument. The British and other Nations who *do* have National Healthcare seem to fare quite well with it and – as far as I know – don’t kill their elderly and other cost-intensive risk groups.
Isn’t it so that at the moment in the US people who can’t afford to pay privately for health care and cannot afford health care insurance either have to rely on charity and/or die of their illnesses anyway? So, I thought it would be a good idea to give those uninsured people a minimum of security?
I have heard quite a few nightmarish reports from England…I would not want to live under a system like that!
Recently, however, I did hear some good things about the German system. Did you say you were in Germany? How do you like your system?
Well, as for the British I think it’s better to be on a list and have to wait than have no chance at a new hip at all because yoiu cannot pay for it.
Here in Germany you have to be insured by the so called “Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung” (which would be the equal to NHC, I suppose) when you are an employee who makes less than EUR 2,500,-/month (I think). 50% of that is taken from your wages before you even see them and 50% has to be put up by your employer. If you are on welfare you’re in the “Gestzliche” automatically. If you make more, own a business or are self employed, it’s up to you. You can stay within the “Gesetzliche” or you can insure yourself privately. Or you can mix, basics by the “Gesetzliche” and more luxury (teeth implants, single bed hospital room etc.) as a private add on. There are very few people like me who are not insured in any way or form. Most people think I’m insane, but I just don’t believe in health insurance for myself. I plan on being healthy and just die if I get seriously ill. But I do have an accident insurance which will cover me if I crash against a tree with my car.
>There are very few people like me who are not insured in any way or form.
One of the complaints here is that of the “uninsured” some want to be uninsured. I used to be uninsured before I had kids.
What I do not like is the idea that some blanket law or bureocrat willn decide who is worth saving. No one should ever make the decision “20 year olds are more important than infants.”
I should add that from what I have heard about the German system, from you and otherwise, I like it better than many other plans I’ve heard suggested.
These kinds of decisions should be made on case by case basises, with the particular doctors and families involved. Once you start devalueing human life, bad things happen.
Want to be uninsured? That only shows how foolish they are, and how fortunate they are to have wise liberals who will force them to spend their money the way the liberals want it spent.
“Well, as for the British I think it’s better to be on a list and have to wait than have no chance at a new hip at all because yoiu cannot pay for it.”
We pay for these things in installments after the work is done. Usually no-interest payments can be arranged…a little bit at a time over a long time.
And the elderly and poor are covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Most hip replacement surgeries would be done on the elderly who have Medicare coverage.
So those who have the potential to need a new hip and not have coverage would be minuscule. They could, as you say, set up payments.
It’s a fallacy to consider health care a scarce resource that must be rationed. It’s a fallacy to think that granny’s consumption of extra care in her last few months is going to deny anyone else health care. There is plenty to go around, as long as people are allowed to allocate their health dollars where THEY want them to go. The whole scarcity model is simply another scare tactic.
We also need the AMA to stop restricting doctors. For instance, persuading Congress to limit the number of residencies.
Really nicely put.
I put this on John’s LJ too, but here’s my answer to Newsweek:
It’s a fallacy that health care is a finite resource that must be rationed. Yes, the last months of an elderly person’s life may be more expensive, but so what? The cost is still finite. As a percentage of the whole, these expenses are still not that great. My father-in-law is 81. He just went through expensive chemotherapy for lung cancer. Before the treatments, he was near death, and we visited thinking it would be the last time. Today he was declared cancer-free, and he is planning a trip to see his fellow WWII Marines next month. If it had been up to the people who advocate palliative care for old folks who, in their estimation, don’t have long to live, he might be dead by now. Instead, we have every expectation he will continue to enjoy life well into his 90s, as most of his brothers and sisters did.
Health care isn’t like oil. It’s more like Doritos. Consume all you want, we’ll make more! If the free market is allowed to work properly, rising demand will result in a greater supply. If instead, governments continue to hamper the free market, rising demand will continue to result in rising prices. If an elderly person needs expensive care, that doesn’t mean there’s less available for me — at least it shouldn’t. Government has created artificial scarcity by a variety of means. True reform will remove these barriers.
Better to think before you post:
“This is why I have always been frightened by the idea of National Healthcare…not because I don’t want everyone taken care of, I do! But because I don’t trust the government–the guys who don’t run a whole lot of others things correctly–to be the ones deciding who lives and who dies.
If we can decide not to support the medical needs of one group, why not another? Will we soon decide that people needing long-term medical care from their youth on also should not be supported? After all, they’ll cost even more in the end, and it’s the tax payers dollar.
What about Xtreme sports. People get hurt. Better not.
What about smoking. Leads to sickness, better outlaw it.
What about swimming pools. Children drown. Better have them all paved.
After all, it’s the tax payer’s dollar.
With a private system, there are cracks, but there isn’t genocide. “
Yes, but before you posted all that paranoid nonsense, did you bother to take a look at any countries with Nationalised healthcare and see if they do any of that?
Well clearly not, because none of them do. In fact that’s all in your head.
Take the NHS for example, two members of my family have chronic conditions and have for most of their lives. They still get treatment.
I smoke. That’s still legal. I also surf, skate and play rugby… I don’t see my healthcare being taken away yet.
Frankly that part of your post is paranoid, provincial and ignorant.
Re: Better to think before you post:
I am looking at history back more than the last few years.
Re: Better to think before you post:
Anon is apparently a bit ignorant of even current events….several countries are already debating refusing treatment for “chosen risk” behaviors, like being over weight, smoking, drinking… some are even discussing not providing fertility treatments….
Re: Better to think before you post:
And if you go just a little farther back, the moment a previously protected group of humans became considered of less value than others, they began being slaughtered by the millions.
If it can happen to unborn children, it can happen to living children…it did in Sparta.
Re: Better to think before you post:
Shoot, Christianity is one of the few groups that frowns on exposing “unfit” children. Standard issue for most of human history.
Ditto for killing older folks– a large % of… I believe it was Dutch physicians?… said they had helped with “suicides” for older patients who were unwilling. (That would be AKA murder, for silly moralists like us.)
Re: Better to think before you post:
“Ditto for killing older folks– a large % of… I believe it was Dutch physicians?… said they had helped with “suicides” for older patients who were unwilling. (That would be AKA murder, for silly moralists like us.)
Yeah, that’s pretty convincing… wait, no it isn’t. How about some sort of cite? Are you sure you’re not mixing up ‘assisted suicides’ of patients who are willing but unable to do it themselves, and ‘murder’ of patients who are unwilling? Because it sure sounds like it.
And as a Christian I find it offensive that you claim provably incorrect things about us, like “Christianity is one of the few groups that frowns on exposing “unfit” children”
A) It’s a lot more than ‘frowning’
B) There’s hundreds of groups, religious, political and philosophical that “frown” on exposing babies, in fact, that little known religion Islam has a little to say about it:
“Infanticide is explicitly prohibited by the Qur’an. “And do not kill your children for fear of poverty; We give them sustenance and yourselves too; surely to kill them is a great wrong.”
The Qur’an rejected the practice of infanticide. Together with polytheism and homicide, infanticide was regarded as a grave sin (see 6:151 and 60:12). Infanticide is also implicitly denounced in the story of Pharaoh’s slaughter of the male children of Israelites (see 2:49; 7:127; 7:141; 14:6; 28:4 ;40:25).”
C) “Standard issue for most of human history” Is also laughably false, it has occurred in many places at many times, but you exaggerate vastly by saying ‘standard issue’ more like, ‘a relatively common practise, particularly among the Greeks’
Re: Better to think before you post:
*nod* Thank you for replying more concisely than I can generally manage.
I think we can rule out Anon being mislead, and must accept they’re flatly fanatical.
What a steaming pile of unsupported ego and demand!
I’ll give Anon his citations when he can cite a few fact-based sites.
Re: Better to think before you post:
“Anon is apparently a bit ignorant of even current events….several countries are already debating refusing treatment for “chosen risk” behaviours, like being over weight, smoking, drinking… some are even discussing not providing fertility treatments….
Any cites? Because nowhere I’ve heard of is considering that. There are some places that are considering not offering free healthcare for people in certain categories… but as far as I’m aware those people are not receiving free healthcare in America anyway? So what’s the difference?
Re: Better to think before you post:
Dissenting opinions are welcome…if they are polite.
If you want to just come and call people names, in the future you’ll have to log in.
Re: Better to think before you post:
Nope, it doesn’t sound like that; tha’s pure wishful thinking on your part.
According to the government of Netherlands’s own report, the Remmelink Report, the doctors admit to killing patients without their consent. Including conscious, competent patients.
Re: Better to think before you post:
So that’s the Remmelink Report that refers to 2001 and earlier, before they changed the law, as they did, in 2002?
And so that’s a “no” on the subject of a cite is it? That makes it hard to evaluate the accuracy of your claim about “Including conscious, competent patients”
Well, since you appear to be terminally incompetent I’ll do it myself:
Here is the Lancet link : http://image.thelancet.com/extras/03art3297web.pdf
And look! (I’ve only scan-read it but…) it doesn’t say anything about killing “conscious, competent patients” in fact, you were just ill informed or lying and hoping I wouldn’t check.
The report also says nothing about the murder of patients who were “unwilling” which I quote directly because that’s what I was replying to in the original comment. So your ‘defence’ of their position is rubbish.
p.s. for the slow of thinking: unwilling =/= without explicit request
Re: Better to think before you post:
ROFLOL.
They changed the law?
I wasn’t citing the law, I was citing what the doctors did.
Re: Better to think before you post:
Except you weren’t, you were citing things that were not in the report, (that I saw), “Including conscious, competent patients” specifically.
Do you think that the change in the law won’t have affected what doctors do?
Re: Better to think before you post:
Well look, we’ve cross posted… and look I’ve provided your cite for you, and it does not support your position… so I guess in actual fact I haven’t provided your cite for you, I’ve provided it for me. My bad. Perhaps you can do better?
Re: Better to think before you post:
p.s. “What a steaming pile of unsupported ego and demand!” = pointless ad hom
You might think it looks good and somehow supports your position, but in fact it betrays an unwillingness or inability to argue your position successfully. And the safe money is on both, IMO.
Re: Better to think before you post:
p.p.s Ditto for killing older folks– a large % of… I believe it was Dutch physicians?… said they had helped with “suicides” for older patients who were unwilling. (That would be AKA murder, for silly moralists like us.)
(Emphasis mine)
For starters, if you are referring to the Remmelink Report (which is impossible to know as you have not provided any cites, apparently you’re just too important to provide evidence for your statements. Bully for you) then your choice of the word unwilling is fallacious and not referred to even by another name in the report. You are thinking of ‘without explicit request’ which does not mean the same thing. I hope that doesn’t need any more explaining to you.
The figures stand at:
End-of-life practices (% [95% CI])
1990 1995 2001
Euthanasia 1·9% (1·6–2·2) 2·3% (1·9–2·7) 2·2% (1·8–2·5)
PAS* 0·3% (0·2–0·4) 0·4% (0·2–0·5) 0·1% (0·0–0·2)
EoL** — 0·7% (0·5–0·8) 0·6% (0·4–0·9)
* (Physician-assisted suicide)
** (Ending of life without patient’s explicit request)
No of Doctors:
Ending of life without a patient’s explicit request
1990 1995 2001
Performed it ever 27% 23% 13% <0·0001
Performed it in previous 24 months 10% 11% 5% 0·009
Never but* 32% 32% 16% <0·0001
Would never perform it 41% 45% 71% <0·0001
* (Never performed it but would be willing to do so under certain conditions)
So as you can see the proportion of doctors who have performed the procedure that you have incorrectly referred to (if that was indeed your intention) has dropped drastically. The proportion of doctors who have performed this procedure in the past two years (from 1999-2001) is 5%!!
So that’s very far from “a large %” as you initially claimed.
Perhaps you meant to cite a different report? I still don’t know because you won’t say.
“a large %” =/= 5%
hell, it doesn’t even = 27% which is the largest percentage of doctors mentioned in the report who have ever performed the procedure.
Re: Better to think before you post:
Sorry, I did format those figures more readably but the auto-format when I posted changed it all up.
Each of those % figures refer to the year listed above, so for 1990 1·9% of all deaths were via Euthanasia. Here they are, neater hopefully.
End-of-life practices (% [95% CI])
………….1990 1995 2001
Euthanasia …1·9% (1·6–2·2) 2·3% (1·9–2·7) 2·2% (1·8–2·5)
PAS* ………0·3% (0·2–0·4) 0·4% (0·2–0·5) 0·1% (0·0–0·2)
EoL** ……. No data……..0·7% (0·5–0·8) 0·6% (0·4–0·9)
* (Physician-assisted suicide)
** (Ending of life without patient’s explicit request)
No of Doctors:
Ending of life without a patient’s explicit request
Date………………………….1990 1995 2001
Performed it ever ……………..27% 23% 13% <0·0001
Performed it in previous 24 months .10% 11% 5% 0·009
Never but* …………………….32% 32% 16% <0·0001
Would never perform it…………. 41% 45% 71% <0·0001
* (Never performed it but would be willing to do so under certain conditions)
Re: Better to think before you post:
Posts about the subject are cool and can stay, Anon or not. ;-)
Re: Better to think before you post:
No, pointing out you’re a demanding, needy creature with the manners of a pig and the maturity of a five year old would be pointless ad hominem, were it used in an attempt to disprove what you’re arguing. (Apologies to more polite five year olds.)
The perspective that what you know is the end-and-be of what *is* can be described as “unsupported ego” and your rudeness to our host, coupled with the assumption we’ll snap to and do as you ask, while offering more gracefully treatment than you are willing to offer, is demanding and presumptive.
Here mentions the UK treatment problem.
That’s all the work I’ll do for some random, rude person who demands it– although I will suggest reading Mr. Smith’s work, as a bio-ethicist who disapproves of eugenics.
Re: Better to think before you post:
Lol, I’m terrible. Or have I got your position on the ropes, and are you lashing out?
I make no assumptions except that random assertions on the internet are about as trustworthy as Jeffery Archer, and that anyone who wants their statements taken seriously (especially controversial sounding ones like Dutch physicians murder patients) will be willing to provide a cite.
What I know is what I know. There is far more in this world than I know (I refer you to my above comment about Remmelink and Without Explicit Request) What I know is that if you give me some facts rather than insulting me I’ll change my position.
“while offering more gracefully treatment than you are willing to offer, is demanding and presumptive
Alas no, I wanted a cite, and I provided a cite. So clearly I’m willing to offer that courtesy, are you prepared to offer some facts or will you continue to insult me?
Also, I don’t believe I have directly insulted anyone here. I’ve called people’s arguments or assertions stupid, but never have I called anyone “a demanding, needy creature with the manners of a pig and the maturity of a five year old”
If you disagree perhaps you can quote me, because I’m not reading through all my posts to verify your paranoia about me being rude.
That’s all the work I’ll do for some random, rude person who demands it– although I will suggest reading Mr. Smith’s work, as a bio-ethicist who disapproves of eugenics.
No, that’s all you can do because there are no facts that support your position. You may or may not be deliberately trying to avoid actually examining your position and finding it unsupportable, but that is actually what you are doing.
You’ve hung your hat on the “you’re too rude to answer” pole and so after claiming “If anon provides cites so will I” you’ve backed down, run away, and provided nothing except outrage, and insults. You’re a credit to your argument.
Re: Better to think before you post:
p.p.s I think we can rule out Anon being mislead, and must accept they’re flatly fanatical.
Yes, because only a fanatic would disagree with you??
Frankly the fact that you find it unlikely that I could merely be mislead (were I even wrong) but in fact must be some sort of fanatic betrays the fact that you don’t understand how people have differing opinions. It’s not because everyone who disagrees with you is evil or a fanatic, but in fact because people (amazingly) have different experiences, and know different facts, and hold different beliefs.
My belief is that you are arguing like a muppet, but I don’t think you’re doing it because you are evil or fanatical, and though I suspect that you are mislead too, I suppose that this is largely an educational issue. You were never taught how to argue properly* and so attack the arguer rather than the argument.
*For example this paragraph is flatly irrelevant to our disagreement before, thus pointless unless I was just trying to point out some flaws I perceive that are irrelevant to the truth of your position. Which I was.
Re: Better to think before you post:
p.p.p.s
Just for the record, since it didn’t come up when I was pointing out how thoroughly wrong you are, I actually didn’t know about either the Remmelink report or the existence of euthanasia without explicit request. Which is why I was skeptical of headnoises initial comment about “High % of Dutch physicians killing unwilling patients”. I have now learned something new. However headnoises is still wrong.
I am also 100% against euthanasia and assisted suicide, I’m just also 100% against fail-arguments against it, because every time someone checks and finds out how wrong you are they become more skeptical about your position.
Also wrong facts are wrong facts, whoever is promulgating them.
Re: Better to think before you post:
I think it is perfectly fine for people to disagree on these things.
Health care is particulary emotional for many because we feel the health and wellbeing of our loved ones is on the line. As you put it, we all have different experiences and facts, and this brings us to see different things as dangerous.
In fact, in my careful talks with people of many political persuasions, I’ve noticed that their differences of opinon really come down to the fact that they are frightened of different things…the things they think are dangerous and likely to go wrong, or are worth risking vs. too horrifying to risk…are very different. And it is from these differences that political differences then unfold.
But it is possible to discuss these matters without drawing conclusions about the people you are debating with. (ie. paranoid, delusional, misled, fanatical.) The big advantage of discussing the subject without person attacks, on either side, is that we can actually discuss the subject without getting dragged off topic into the entirely different topic of trading insults.
As far as i know nobody but extreemists are trying to kill of grannies in my country which has socialised healthcare.
Also most states have stricter Abortion laws than America. where i live Abortion is still illegal if it isn’t for the physical or mental health of the mother. Most abortions are done in private clinics.
But we are discussing healthcare in America which is:
A) much larger than most countries with socialized heathcare and thus suffers from economies of scale.
B) Has America’s problems.
I have heard some very good reports about some foreign health care programs…and some really bad reports about others. So far as I can tell, each country is different. Some really feel their system is working for them. Some don’t. I feel each one has to be examined indipendantly.
My concern was about the particular line of reasoning of Americans involved with the debate. That is not a comment on other countries, especially countries who are not following this line of reasoning.
I have deleted some of the comments, as I felt they were more about name calling than about ideas. If Anon wants to repost them as a person with a profile, I’ll leave them.
I should add, I’m very happy to hear that there are places out there that have stronger Abortion laws!
Can you tell us anything about the good side of health care in your country? I love hearing about how such things are working out elsewhere.
Sorry forgot to log in
I know that America is different to other places but i am just sick of hearing Americans saying socialized Health care = Bad! And just write it off completely.
Its just my 2 cents that Hey!Its not all that bad!
The best i can say for Heathcare is that there is a blend of the public and a private system. The Private health insurers can’t just reject you because your sick etc.
My family doesn’t have and health insurance so most of the time we go to public hospitals and doctors that bulk bill. But when my brother needed an operation we could wait 8 months to get it done publicly or pay upfront and get it done privately.
Doctors that don’t bulk bill charge about $55 and if you take the recite to Medicare you get $32 back.
I have been going to a private doctor for a treatment i have to have. Since i have to make a lot of visits he is going to bulk bill(that is just get money from medicare and not me!) because otherwise it would be to expensive for me.
Also there is the pharmaceutical benefits scheme which means that if you have a pension or a heath care card (which you get if you don’t earn much or are on welfare) prescription medications are only $5.40 instead of the ridicules amounts drug companies charge. Also if you spend over a certain amount in a year your medication is free for the rest of the year.
The States and Territories pretty much make up their own laws regarding Abortion, IVF etc. Some are more strict than others.
Re: Sorry forgot to log in
Glad you like it.
The countries I’ve heard better reports from seem to be the ones that have a mix of public and private.
This both allows the public to act like a safety net around the private, and the private to allow freedom of choice for those who wish to take advantage of it.
Since when did it become anyone else’s business what an older person does with their money? Since when did we put “national interests” before private life?
Everything within the state; nothing outside the state; nothing against the state.
– Benito Mussolini
The Germans have a word for it: Gleichschaltung. It means first, bringing all aspects of life into conformity with a given political line. And second (as a prerequisite for realizing that goal) the obliteration or at least marginalization of all opposition.
This is easily seen in the moral smugness of the Anointed. How can anyone doubt our wonderful goodness? And if you question the competence of the people who propose to carry out the nationalization, then you must be in favor of babies not getting medical care.
+ + +
Some Europeans fail to understand the size problem. J.B.S. Haldane once wrote a nice essay on the square-cube law titled “On Being the Right Size.” He pointed out that ants could not be the size of elephants because weight scaled up with the cube of the size and the strength of the legs scaled up with the square of the size. At some point, the giant ant, taking a single step, would break its legs. A critter the size of an elephant would have to look a lot like an elephant in its proportions.
Just so: a system that works well in Sweden is working well in an insurance pool the size of New Jersey. That doesn’t mean it would scale up to a national pool that is thirty-seven times larger. That doesn’t even mean it would work well in New Jersey because a) it would be run by New Jersey politicians not Swedes and b) it would be dealing with a far more heterogeneous population.
Even Canada has no national system. It is run by each province. The national government sets certain standards and supplies equalizing money for the poorer provinces by taking it from the richer provinces. The largest system in Canada is Ontario, which is the size of Illinois. But it is run by nice Canadians and not by the Chicago Machine.
The WHO ranks France as having the best system, but the French system relies on private insurers and privately practicing doctors. (Even in Canada, the provincial governments hire private companies to run the programs.) A Dutchman living in France reports that Britons often come to France to avoid the rationing and waiting lines that are common in the UK. He also thinks the Dutch system is pretty good; but again, how big are the Netherlands?
The biggest systems are those of the big three: UK, France, and Germany. The first is said to work poorly, at least on non-routine matters; the second is said to work well, but is not socialized the way UK is; and of Germany at present I know nothing.
Each of these giants is about the size of the US Northeast, from Maine down to Virginia and adding (as needed) Ohio or West Virginia. Judging by the divergent results, this may be the point where a national, state-run system, with the doctors effectively employed by a NHS, begins to break its legs. Just as a Romanesque cathedral could grow no larger without being redesigned as Gothic cathedral, a system for the US would have to be redesigned from those that work tolerably well in small countries.
The US Constitution suggests an answer: federalism. Let the States do it. Let them run fifty concurrent experiments and find out what works, what doesn’t, and at what scale.
We could start by actually defining the problem clearly.
Interesting idea! I know Hawaii and Mass. have tried it. Hawaii went broke in 7 months…they had no idea so many people would join. Mass is having serious problems, according to the hospitals there.
I’d much rather see it at a state level…one could see how the various states did and it’s easier to change gears at the state level than at the country level.
And the damage is more contained.
Very well put.