IAP Political Forum

Luv the new look and feel to the site. I didn't see any topics in here so let's start something. I saw a preview for the Breaking Point special on discovery on Oct. 7. Also saw that Michael Moore will be on Oprah again today. So...

1. Should the three strikes you're out law be thrown out the window? I think Connecticut is considering it yet its seen troubling consequences in California.

2. You either love or hate Michael Moore, but don't you think our health care system needs changed in some way? 

1) No
2) To a certain extent. But universal health care isn't the answer.

Of course it isn't. Universal health care only works in places like Europe. In the USA, it would be a disaster. A nation has to know its handicaps. ;D

It would be unfortunate if we implemented universal healthcare and became a 2nd world nation like Spain but hopefully we will do it right.  I think we can and should try for it sometime soon.

Moore is still a lying fool though.

I have no opinion on the 3 strikes rule.  Criminals definetely know about it though, so I guess it might be a deterrent.

Thanks for your empathy. We hardly can overcome the shame of being the 11th largest eocnomy in the world, grow at an appalling 3% yearly for over a decade and of course the fact that 98% of our population (illegal aliens included) haves access to universal health care is too shameful to comment.

We would be moving to the USA by millions if we weren't so unwilling to burden you with our presence.

I see no reason why it shouldn't work in U.S. It works pretty well in Canada, not perfect, but is Ok.
The only thing americans have to do to get universal health care is to agree to pay a little more taxes.

Canadians are paying people to find them doctors in America.... How is that system working well?

Well, rich people are trying to find doctors in America. People who aren't rich use the universal system.

They are trying to come to Amercia because they don't feel like waiting 2 months to get an appointment with a doctor.... Has nothing to do with wealth.

Well, poor people aren't paying people to find them doctors.

I just don't understand this idea that some people are more qualified to get better health than others.

Rofl. It has nothing to do with eing qualified. It has to do with EARNING what you get.

People who go on and on about "It's not fair some people get healthcare and I don't. They are no better than I am". Well they may not be "better" than you, as everyone is equal as people. But they EARNED it. Again, this is why I like America. You earn what you get (to a certain extent. Democrats don't seem to like that idea).

I get that. But I don't think health is something that should be earned, at a certain level. Just like you don't have to earn money for the right to not be murdered. You might want to earn money to afford a security system, but that's your choice.

Last time I checked the constitution guranteed the right to life. Also, look up the social contract wigs.

Not to mention that was a terrible analogy.

Why shouldn't healthcare have to be earned? That isn't a human right. It's simply a want.

You really feel that way? Damn, that sucks.

Handsouts don't solve anything. They never have and never will. You can disagree if you'd like. But it has always been my position that it isn't the governments job to wipe your behind. It's called taking responsibility...

Handouts? Give me a break.

I don't like the government getting involved in things as much as the next guy, but when we're talking about the physical well being of the country, it's a different thing. The cures and vaccines and treatments and so forth were invented for the good of everybody, not the highest bidder. These things, which keep our society alive and thriving, shouldn't have a price tag on it.

Rofl. The highest bidder? Cures have NOTHING to do with who gets healthcare. Want the government to fund those types of deals? I'm ALL FOR IT...

This is about universal healthcare. Want healthcare? Be smart. Go to school. Get a job that provides healthcare. Get a job that offers healthcare. I'm a 19 year old kid who has a job that offers healthcare with a HS degree. Gimmie a break wigs.

Universal healthcare. Welfare. It's all handouts. They don't solve anything. You have generations of people who have been living off welfare. It's ridiculous.

And further more you need your head checked if you want the GOVERNMENT taking care of your healthcare.

Wow. I mean, WOW.

1. Compromise. Make it four strikes. Or is the issue married to the whole baseball motif? I have no idea.


2. One of the major challenges to universal health care in North America is population dispersal. If everyone has a right to the same level of access to the same level of health care then this has to be available everywhere, whether you have 100 people per square km or 10. Denser population centers always have access to the better care. This is a hurdle for North America. Even so I think it's doable.


Canada's health care system is ok, but it is on of the worst performers in the spectrum. I contend one of the major obstacles is population dispersal. To wit:

Population density persons per KM European examples:
Spain.............80.87
Belgium...........342.79
Germany...........236.02
United Kingdom..250.88
Switzerland.......189.19
France.............106.

With numbers like those most people could count on being pretty close to a major urban center. This means if they need to be transported, for example, by road or air, it will be less expensive. If they need specialized treatment, it is closer. Also supplying, maintaining rural medical centers becomes easier too.

North America in contrast:

Canada...........3.64
United States....32.57




Just sayin',
Ahk

A question for Totino:

Why you American pay 250% MORE to get LESS health care, and feel like you're very smart? That always amazes me... ???

(That the wealthy claim with a full mouth that the price of failure to earn must be paid with health and/or life, doesn't shocks me the least... aristocrates aux lanternes!)



BTW, Akh, I don't doubt that population idspersal is a problem. Here we also have got dispersal populations and this causes some trouble, but I would like to point another meaningful difference: doctors per population. Here in my piece of land, Catalonia, we got 340 doctors per 100,000 population, and yet there's a shortage of doctors which we're compensating with foreign doctors, usually from Latin America and Eastern Europe. Spain's average is slightly lower, but anyway they're miles ahead of Northern America.

Let's compare physicians per population and expenditure per population, Spain versus Northern America:

In Spain, there are 330 physicians per 100,000 inhabitants.
In the USA, 256 per 100,000
In Canada, 214 per 100,000
In Mexico, 198 per 100,000

Health care expense in Spain is of 1,853 $ (PPP) per citizen
In the USA, 5,771 $
In Canada, 2,989 $
In Mexico, 582 $

In Spain, health care as percentage of GDP is 5.5% (public health care) and 2.2% (private health care), totalling 7.7% of GDP.
In the USa, it's 6.8%, 8.4%, total 15.2% of GDP
In Canada, it's 6.9%, 3%, total 9.9% of GDP
In Mexico, it's 2.9%, 3.3%, total 6.2% of GDP

Now, wouldn't that point out a problem? Namely, a proficency problem? ???

It's obvious that population dispersal is a problem, but having 35% less physicians, surely this doens't helps out. Also doesn't helps that even having this few physicians (I guess also it haves less medical hardware), the system is quite more expensive.

Something doesn't rules. ???

(Just a note... an internist in Spain's public health care haves a salary of between 72,000 and 84,000 euros per year. That's about 100,000 to 117,000 $ per year. In the USA, internist's earnings range between 175,000 and 300,000 $. SS hires the best internists and actually most internists prefer working in public health care too, which is telling about private health care in Spain...)

Doctors per person proves absolutely nothing. It doesn't even take into account quality of health care, wait time, etc, etc.

Same with cost.

We get less? Again, Canadians are coming to the US because of our BETTER healthcare.

The problem with disbelieve in Universal Health Care by some americans (still there are a few bunch like theese), is that they like to pay more for something they believe is better quality.

Same when you got a membership at Costco, it makes you feel more important than others. In the end you spend more, because you buy a huge package, but you will throw away the leftovers after a while, because will get bad in your fridge, but hell no, you are a special member at Costco, not too many people can afford to do that.

How do you define quality in health care though?
That the doctor takes you in half an hour as opposed to 2 or 3 hours? Or maybe that you can see a specialist in 1 week as opposed to 2 months?

All I can say is that I used myself the Canadian health care and my family too, in a few occasions. And if it wasn't universal I would have been banckrupt now, paying for the rest of my life. As compared to U.S.: yes you have a little more money in your pockets because of lower taxes, you can buy a few more packs of cigarettes :D every month, but you piece of shit don't dare to get sick, or for God's sake don't get an accident, because you can be left to die like a small piglet you are.

This is good health care? I think this is called selfishness and lack of respect and dignity for your fellow human being.
They always talk in America how precious human life is, I dare to challenge anyone that this is just BS, you mean how precious rich people's life is?

Wow... perfect example of someone who has absolutley no idea what it's like to live below the poverty line and have no helath insurance. You're telling me that a little kid who is sick, has no health insurance can't see a doctor because he hasn't earned it. The rich don't want to give up their luxuries at the expense of their own people.

They go there because they have money to throw and because they think they are too precious species.
As I said, if you have a little patience, you will get your fix here in Canada, free of charge.

Looking from other perspective, think about the following: Canadian government, naturally, wants it's people as healthy as possible, because they pay big bucks for their health, so you can bet they have the best interest not to poison you, or conduct some freaky experiment on population.
Am I implying that U.S. govt may have done this in the past or will they do it?
I don't know, I cannot prove this, but I don't feel good about that. Freaky, eh?

I will just add a few words about the water you drink in U.S. I've been travelling so far to a bunch of different states: NY, MN, IL, FL, CA, NB, TN. The tap water stinks, I felt yaky even to shower, but had no choice. Long live the bottled water companies.
Yes, you can purchase an expensive filtration system, but why the hell shall I do that, after I paid taxes to my government, or this goes in sync with the american mind mentality, that drinking water is something you have to earn ?

.....
Mate I pay out of my own pocket for health insurance. I work full time and go to school full time. You act as though I'm rich. Sadly, it just isn't the case. Grow up with the OFFBASE personal attacks.

Furthermore, I wouldn't be oppossed to healthcare for children. Afterall, why should they suffer because of good for nothing parents? But sweeping unviversal healthcare is bullocks.

Don't assume. It makes an ass out of you and me.

Most medical problems worth seeing a doctor about get worse if untreated. So more time before treatment --> more treatment needed per person--> fewer people treated. medicine delayed is medicine denied.

I think that general practitioners, emergency rooms, and specialists are very different kinds of care and that treating them the same is not wise. I'm for nationalized emergency rooms on the principle that folk have a right to live. I'm for subsidized gp's on the theory that health is important, but not really a right. And I'm for free market specialists, in that I have no interest in paying for complicated procedures for strangers.

More to the point I think it's a bad plan for the US to imitate Europe, being different is where we get our power from.

They go there because our health care is superior to yours. Haha, free of charge? Yeah because it isn't like you pay for that out of your taxes... Oh wait, yes you do.

Patience? People die because they don't get healthcare quick enough. Death and disease don't say "Oh he hasn't seen a doctor yet, let's hold off on killing him for a bit". You're crazy.

And tadpol raises a good point about untreated issues.

I am also in favor of a very limited form of national health care by limited I mean free health care to poor kids and free emergency room care, in principle(I am frightened of what might happen to ERs like here in California). I would like to couple that with mandatory health insurance and mandating employers offer health insurance. Thats more of a kind of compromise plan I have been working in my head.

I ALSO work full time and go to school full time, but I can't afford medical insurance. Do you honestly think that because kids are poor they have good for nothing parents. I would love it if you said that to my face you dumbass. My assumption was correct, also.

A HUGE diference betwene theNorthern Ameircna health care sistems and the european oens, is general medicine. Here in Spain there is a thick network of internsist whos eonyl role is..

...take car eof minor diseases
...sort ptoentila seriosu diseases
...appoint potential serious diseases to eh right spoecialist

This saves specialists time, conslultations, and of course provides a mean to detect potential serious diseases in an early stage -the persisten coughing before it becomes pneumonia, the sweating and thirst before they become a hipoglucemic crisis caused by diabetes, this sort of thing. In Spain comes for the price of waiting til tomorrow or after tomorrow. Yes, gettigna test may be long. The'res room for improbvement. Btu gettigna test or a surgery in a ffew months is better than never get them because you ain't got the money and you ain't got a excuse (aren't dieing) to visit a ER for free.

And all in all, it's 60% CHEAPER than the American way to NOT provide health care to whole millions of people.

(Cabrini, don't get too angry at Totino. He was part of an experimental empathy transplant, they manufactured the succesor to Martin Luther King with the empathy they removed from Totino... ;) )

Not only Canada is an example of good health care system. See Sweeden, Norway examples, just to mention a few.

This issue is about a country's health and well being. If the population, in general, has access to to a health care system that country is doing better as quality of life.

Besides, some states in U.S. already realized this fact and implemented by themselves a form of system that fells just short of being universal: Vermont and Oregon, as far as I know.

So this just tells something to the like Totino type of guys? , or maybe not ? too stubborn/proud to accept hard, cold facts.

Your assumption was wrong as I've already proven. You're making an ass out of yourself with those personal attacks. In reality attacking someone like that just proves you don't have any sort of intelligence to back up your point. So now you're acting like a 5 year old.

I don't think I ever said all poor people are good for nothing. You have some single parents working two full time jobs, etc.

I'm glad to see most here are ignoring cat_fta's ignorance here.


I think Canada's health care system works but is in trouble. You speak of no problems but you must've been one of the lucky ones. Listen for a moment to someone besides yourself and you'll have heard the way HC is now forced into extremes. There are people with chronic illnesses who are unable to afford the medication - in many cases pain relief, there are long waiting lists (everything surgery, MRI's, whatever) in some places and shorter waiting times in others. There are doctors walking out because they are forced to work in remote areas for long periods. It works cat, but its one of the worst performing models out there.


DO you live in Canada? Have you ever seen it on a map? Seriously. You do know that Canada has the most open freshwater on the planet right? Dispersed over one of the smaller populations? You speak like a patriot-bot who doesn't want to think. US water. Hmm. Okay. Have you tried Italian tap water recently?


This used to be "high society" and now we let anyone in here no matter how prone to the smack-talk they are. When did that start?



Ahk

Dude. Come on. Take a look at what you bring forward then superimpose a map of Spain and/or Belgium over a map of Canada.

You have people living in remote areas? Like what's remote? Here 'remote' is 1000km from any city of 500k or more.....nearly the width of most of these countries. Population dispersal does affect service or expense of service. In Spain where are the communities that are 500km+ from Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao or Saville? There aren't any dude. There aren't any at all that are more than 100km from any other town either.

Same thing with Belgium: Huge population in a country that is barely 800km accross at it's widest point.

When supplies, doctors and patients have to be transported these long distances they have their negative effect on the health care system.


Ahk

I said that I DID NOT doubted it, Akh... ;)

Yet then I introduced another issue... docs per population and the consequential lack of sorting out caused by lack of internists and a surplus of specialists.

By the way... nobody forces people to live 1000 km away from civilization. That's the sort of thing that should definitively be paid with a private insurance rather than let society bear the burden of a individual caprice, IMHO. :-\

ok ok ok :)


I know but I wanted to point out that this distances impact this point even more. Also the persons/per KM doesn't point this out but the small population also means less money from the taxes for it, so all I was pointing out is one of the reasons why the Canadian health care is one of the worst performing models is because of the distances multiplied by the low tax income for the program (and subsequent high tax for every individual).


Well that's what we gotta do if we want to guarantee healthcare to all. And just to paint the picture, we're not talking about a couple hundred people here. There are almost a million spreed out in the Yukon alone.  No one forces them to live there but they do get born and raised there. Canada's challenge here is we can't really say we're going to provide heath care to all for free IF it's feasible because none of it is truly 'feasible'...it's something for nothing that nations feel they can afford and it's people want. (and I tend to agree).


Ahk

Distance and population do play a huge part, as does health care as in quality.  When I worked in Peru they boasted a dentist in almost every village, I would let some of them clean my toe's much less root around in my mouth.

And in some countries they are satisfied with considerably less because they don't know better.

I am not sure what Canada's medical liability laws are, or how they are set up, but it would seem to me that some Canadian doctors coming to the US to build a practice are willing to take that exposure as opposed to exposure in the frozen North.

Well this thread stopped flat.



Im pro-health care it was just that in Canada there are unique difficulties. In order for a system to work these realities must be acknowledged. Then it can work.

Its impossible to ever really examine these issues because it always becomes a narrow "USA vs Socialism " issue on forums and that is so far removed from my concern as a Canadian towards the issue that I simply cease to want to participate.

In the US serious debate on the issue is always nullified by the specter of "socialism". Alternatively people just don't want to see anything you can't make a buck from. If it doesnt make money then naturally it should fail. National Parks should also churn a profit.

In ironic fashion here in Canada debate is equally nullified and people refuse to acknowledge simple realities that could easily save a system that still works. They do this in the childish name of "not being American" and believe me it's one of the few times I look at Canada and just shake my head. SO ridiculous . We're likely to loose our precious health care to stupid blind pride.


There's only one good reason for universal health care. We deserve it. No no that's not that we deserve something for nothing. What's nothing? We work. We pay taxes. Our ancestors both dreamed and built a future where we could manage this Western boon. A society that worked hard and came from a background of people who worked hard and studied hard to be able to give the best medical care to everyone. Frankly that sounds like exactly the kind of thing Americans would be proud to excel in. Or at least I thought so. Hell the West in general is providing free health care to how many places in the world right now?


There was a story a month or so back where a rich prominent Canadaian (in politics) caused a ruckus because she went down to LA to get a very specific cancer treatment. This was the best hospital in the world for this specific case. She had the money. On forums some thought this proved something. To me it only proved that an American health care institution was happy to give a non-American first dibs in front of...who knows? A dying father? A dying 9-year old? Native to the country that spawned this hospital? That trained these doctors?


It'll never make sense to me.
Ahk

Quite sensible way to put it...

It is not a right, it has never been a right.  Now if you want to make it one and justify it, thats fine.  But then you will also ration it.

One reason no innovative medicine comes out of Europe is because they ration it, they ration the growth and development.  You have the citizen "slugs" who must wait for the proper treatment.  And you have the upper class who get the best treatment because they can afford it.  In the end the only difference between rationing based on price and rationing based on politics, is that he rationing based strictly on politics, usually sucks.  French doctors hate working in France (they are paid roughly what your teachers in the US are paid), and many do come to the US.  German healthcare workers hate the system and there are constant strikes, and they can't find enough people to fill the needs of their population and they literally tax the hell out of people in order to cover it.

US rationing which is partially through price, tends to have a better standard of care, though it doesn't cover all of citizens (85% are covered).  So in the US we have a higher standard of health care for 85% of the population and the issue lies in how to handle the 15% (some of whom opt out in order to take home more pay - an option not available in Europe).  Throwing out our medical system would be the worst mistake because Americans by and large reject the European system of healthcare.  Americans tend to enjoy making their own decisions and using their money as they see fit (I know its a radical thought in socialist countries). 

So from our point of view (the US), rights, are especially important and enumerated and not everything that is convenient or desireable is a right.

So lets look at the rebuttal:

1-Our ancestors did not dream of a future where their medical was covered.  They dreamed of a future in which they could make their own economic decisions and make their own way.  Europe was a paternalistic hell hole for them, that is why they left.

2-We do work and we do pay taxes.  But the taxes we pay are not a guarrantee for full medical coverage, and based on that reasoning we might as well pay all of our income to the government and then make economic demands, but that means giving up our rights to choose.  Every time we want the government to do something, it means we have to give up some individually based right.  If you want the government to have the right to medical care, then you give up your right to choose your doctor, to choose your treatment, to choose much of anything (unless you are, of course the wealthy who don't have to worry about poor healthcare).

3-Our ancestors did not dream of "managing" the western boon.  They dreamed of being part of it, of allowing the unfettered individual free to make their own income.  Western boon was managed in Europe, that is why they left.

Americans don't trust government, they almost never have.  Europeans have always trusted government, they always will, whether that government is benovelent, as many are, or a fascist nazi program (which many have been and will be again), Europeans tend to do those things the government wants.  It is their nature, it is their "group think".

But lets talk about socialism:

In the US socialism is not considered a virtue.  Group think isn't a virtue.  In Europe it is the norm.  For univrsal healthcare to work, the population must be easily malleable.


It has nothing to do with "first dibs".  It does have something to do with the right to choose, including the rights of individuals outside the US.  Socialism sees things as limited and sure, someone could have "dibs" since the healthcare was very limited.  There is no "first dibs" (which indicates the idea of a limited abilty to provide healthcare).  In fact all who can are allowed to come and take advantage of the healthcare available.

At this point one is forced to ask.  Canada, and Europe, with all of its taxes to ensure a great "quality" of healthcare to its people, why is it the best treatment for cancer in the world - a major killer in Europe and the Americas is in the US?  Why do they come here, why is innovation dead elsewhere?  If it is simply a question of investment, then why is Europe failing miserably in that investment with no innovation to show for it, and in the US, new drugs and treatments coming forward all the time?  If you have cancer, you are better off in the US than Europe or even Canada.

France, not surprisingly, has not made the cancer survival rates public.

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2007/08/21/ncancer121.gif)

UK Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/21/ncancer121.xml)

So how does Europe cover all those people.  Well, a bureaucracy will tell you that some drugs are covered and some are not.  The decision is not based on effectiveness, but cost.  Cheaper drugs are easier to deal with.  In the UK 41% of the Brits have to wait more than 4 months for surgery.  And European health systems have emphasized preventative health care less and less.

 
Somewhat telling.

So what about that awful life expectancy in the US?

I mean people harp on that all the time.

What was it Moore said, the US is ranked 42nd in the world?

Turns out if you discount fatal injuries (which have nothing to do with healthcare), the US with its disproportionate number of fatal injuries (automobile deaths, which are higher in the US due to the higher number of people who actually own an automobile in the US than in Europe) you see some suprising statistics. 

life expectancy (http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2007/09/natural-life-expectancy-in-united.html)

If you look at the "dynamic" table, you can see that if you discount fatal injury costs that the US actually ties with 16th place and ties with Austria while its close to the UK and Germany.

I believe that European style medicine creates "political" medicine.  That it lowers the incentive to adapt and innovate.

Personally I favor Mitt Romney's view.

Under a Social Fascist system, the Motherland would provide health care for all as well as jobs for all but the most severely disabled. The good of all before mammonism and individualistic greed.

OswaldTheOsprey

Well no baldar socialism has absolutely nothing to do with the inarguable linar time restriction under which the entire universe operates. There are only so many doctors, only so many operations that can be done.....normally that would that would mean first come first serve.....nothing socialistic about that, under these circumstances it would not become first come first serve unless you had the money. So indeed a non-American was given precidence over an American because the non-American had the money.

Dibs, precidence. Whatever.
Ahk

Socialism has become, like racist, a scare word. Unfortunately.

OswaldTheOsprey

Wrong, wrong and whatever, still wrong.

First, the flawed logic.

1-How do you know it was "first dibs".  You don't have detail and you don't know if there was, or wasn't a waiting list.  Indeed, they might be meeting the demand of those patients who want the procedure (versus those who are seeking a different type of procedure).  You don't, you assume it.

I don't think anyone was denied the procedure, so its not precedence, first dibs, it is not even "whatever" along those lines.  The only place people would be denied those procedures would be, well, in Canada where that really good procedure was not deemed "cost effective" by the government (though you can politicize it, get the right groups in a position of power, and then have it declared an acceptable procedure, making medicine the purview of political parties, but then, you'd be dead by the time that happened.

Now understand this part.  If people don't like being doctors, there will be less doctors.  Just as the number of new doctors is falling in many places (especially France, except for the foreign doctors who receive accelerated visas in order to have more doctors in Europe, the recent car bomber in the UK was one of those).  Less people want to be doctors, less doctors.  Research doesn't pay off with any kind of monetary benefit, well, less people will do research too.  Next thing you know, the neighboring country produces the research, has the doctors, can carry out the therapy and your government decides, through some bureaucratic office, that the therapy will not be available in your country.