>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Under this so-called 'awful' system in the U.S. I had a family member who was diagnosed with NHL and skillfully treated by excellent doctors in top-notch medical facilities. They recieved over a half-MILLION dollars in medical care and I paid a grand total of $5,000. I'd be paying just as much (or more) under a social system in the form of taxes and 'denied care'. Every social plan so far includes premium payments, copays, and prescription drug costs - so 'free' it ain't...
People get medical care in the US just fine. The sad-sack horror stories that neolibs drag out are rare exceptions. Most people in the US get fantastic medical care at very affordable prices. For every person who has a bad experience in the US system, there are equal numbers who have horror stories about thier socialized medicine.
This dictomatic language of "Oh my social system is PERFECT and your private one is hell on earth...!" is so typical of the neolib left. Neolibs can't have a discussion on an issues without resorting to propoganda, logical fallacies, exaggeration, and outright deception. They have no sense of nuance and substance.
The fact is that there are many very valid arguments against socialized medicine. The US government's current medical care programs are abject failures. With a track record like Medicare and Medicaid, why would anyone with a brain assume that the US government is going to run a clean, tight ship with its so-called 'public option' of Obamacare? And PLEASE... Spare me the bologna of "well the government runs medical care just fine for congress and the military..." People who say that crap are comparing grapes to basketballs.


I'm a cancer survivour and a type I diabetic, I had a tumour on a nerve branch, and had to have six weeks of radiation therapy, total cost to me: The parking at the hospital, and the skin cream for the therapy, which was fifteen dollars. The only thing I waited for was for my doctor get better, after he was recovering from surgery (which was two weeks.) I had all these procedures appraised (including talking with a nutritionist who rearranged my menu while I was having the therapy.) The surgery and radiation, going off a hospital in Virginia, came to just over 180,000 dollars. Most of it being the surgery on the nerves.

How much would all those tests and surgery, and therapies cost in the US, with all the hidden costs of pharmaceuticals etc. And yes, Canada does have other expenses, we're helping fight in Afghanistan, so we're shouldering the cost at the same time. I doubt anyone has ever said their public health care is perfect, but everyone can agree: It's a lot better than Americas current one. So "every social plan" includes premium payments, copays, and prescription? Well, they don't cover all prescriptions, but they reduce the cost on a lot of them in Canada. But, I didn't have to pay for a damned thing for my cancer surgery and treatments, other than parking at the hospital and some cortazone. I pay my taxes, and I'm glad I can help people like me or who are worse off than me.

>> ^dag:
^with these kinds of comments I fear the US will once again get the healthcare it deserves. Now is not the time for quoting Locke. And if you disparage the elderly getting quality healthcare- I'd say your heart is two sizes too small. There should be a "common good" and care for the elderly falls into it.


They don't call me 'frosty' for nothing. But yes, thank you for nursing such a bleeding heart and proposing to stop it with someone else's means. If you care so much for the elderly, here's what I suggest you do. Get through the grueling pre-medical curriculum. Get all A's. Get through four years of medical school and go well into six figures in debt. Maybe if you score high enough on your STEP 1 and are at the top of your class you can place into a geriatric subspecialty residency. Work 80-100 hour weeks at minimum wage for five years. Then and only then will I respect your 'generosity' and give you credit if you choose to devote your mind and effort to probono or reduced wage public sector work. In the mean time I suggest you leave the geriatricians to dispose of what is rightfully theirs as they goddamn well please.

>> ^dag:
^with these kinds of comments I fear the US will once again get the healthcare it deserves. Now is not the time for quoting Locke. And if you disparage the elderly getting quality healthcare- I'd say your heart is two sizes too small. There should be a "common good" and care for the elderly falls into it.


I'm not disparaging the elderly, I'm telling you straight up that there is a larger dynamic here than what you are suggesting. If given the choice between no SS/Medicare taxes throughout life or a million dollars worth of procedures when I'm 85, brother, I'm choosing the less taxes. That's an even easier choice for my generation than ones before it since SS/Medicare will implode long before we retire. But even if those were sustainable systems, the point is that some people would rather live a better life than a longer life. In the old days, people made these kinds of decisions and accepted the tradeoff. Now we run a giant ponzi scheme called Social Security (of which Medicare is a part) where the choice is made for us to live a longer life at the expense of a better one. Even that is debatable since a prudent investor would be able to get both. SS/Medicare intake isn't invested at all, just transferred from one generation to another, with a "trust fund" spent by congress decades ago and replaced with IOU bonds.

We don't have a 100% private system, far from it. The high prices are because of government involvement interfering with the market's pricing mechanism. What I fear most is idealist people like you who have zero understanding of what costs are incurred by such systems despite the fixed prices. The costs in the quality of life, the costs on your currency's value, the cost in being unable to compete with foreign production whose employers aren't strapped with paying for the abuse and fraud borne by a system in which people are spending other people's money on services. Like I said before, our economic wellbeing has changed dramatically since leaving the gold standard and borrowing at interest well in excess of our productive capacity. People like you don't understand how ugly our bond market looks, how it went from a normal mortgage to an ARM equivalent. You can't even figure out how to fix Medicare without cutting into some other socialist program you want, and you want more? Figure out how to pay for all the imports, interest obligations, military empire, and socialist services you currently have before dreaming up new ones and adding to the deficit. You think you can add to it in perpetuity, but one day foreigners really will scoff at the notion of buying our debt and we'll be SOL.

Would you trade your current public health care for the American one?

This is exactly the mentality I am talking about. You act as though health care systems exist in a vacuum. In reality, every country that has socialized medicine has to try and budget it AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHER THINGS. And each country has different OTHER THINGS. We have a shitload of OTHER THINGS we already have to borrow trillions year over year for. I blame our socialist education system if people spent all those years in school and can't figure out basic economics. Sure, Cuba spends a shitload on socialized medicine and manages to achieve a lower infant mortality rate, BUT AT WHAT COST ELSEWHERE? Cuba has little else to spend on other things and has a relatively poor standard of living compared to America. That's why people die on banana boats trying to get here, not the other way around. They don't have the privilege of being the reserve currency of the world where central banks will buy their debt in the most absurd circumstances.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Why stop with "free" health care? Doesn't everyone deserves a free home, food and automobile (plus for kicks a high-paying job that pays the same whether you're a brain surgeon or sweep floors)?
This communism sh t has been tried. Doesn't work. People want private property and individual rights, and the profit motive is what makes the system work for saint and sinner alike.
Medicare fraud already costs the US 60 billion a year and no one's doing a goddamned thing about it.
Government has no interest or incentive to keep costs down. It can't be fired in a timely manner and the bureaucrats can't ever be fired, they're not going to give a rat's ass when they're the only game in town (the Govopoly).
Maybe someone should crack a history book instead of heeding the "wisdom" of Leibowitz's jerkoff joke-writing team when it comes to mattes of literal life and death.


Your post suggests that the American system is working. I'd say give it 30, 40 years, and the problems you had to face in '09 will look like happy times, compared to allowing business as usual to complete it's vicious cycle, and topple the American regime. Your rhetoric will be reminiscent of grampa and his wild, rambling stories about the good old days, as the world collectively wheels you and your insane ideology to the nut house. or, sorry man, naturally, you're 100% fucking right all the time. what was I thinking to even speak at you in your tower of logic.

>> ^BansheeX:

And we have to remember also that any service in which the customer is spending someone else's money and not their own is going to be of higher cost and far more susceptible to fraud. Trust me, I have witness many older family members get unnecessary procedures and equipment sent to our house that is never used on the medicare bill. And Grandma didn't care because she paid virtually nothing out of her own pocket. Thus the high cost of these procedures is precisely because doctors can just charge the public whatever the hell they want since their patient has no premiums or deductible to pay. Without the fear of loss, the patient won't say no, and if the patient won't say no, then there's nothing holding doctors to a lower price.


aaaha! ALOT of the procedures i do are mostly unnecesary. i have to do them because the dr order them. actually, i think a public option is the answer to this. federal regulation and imposed budget constraints could presumably, if done right, squeeze the vast majority of waste and fraud out of the system. the private sector is never good at squeezing out waste and fraud, its only good at making it.

>> ^spoco2:

Yeah... there's an efficient damn government at work.
Anyone who is against a free public health system is either so f cking rich they don't care how much it costs, or in the medical business themselves and is making obscene amounts of money from everyone else.


*ahem*

im in the medical business. im for a public option. i make a modest living.


however i am stunned at my peers. many many of them dont want "health care reform". amazing. considering how much we all bitch about the waste and inequities in our current system. but... oh yeah wait.. i live in texas.

>> ^spoco2:
All I'm saying is that I'm FRIGGEN glad I don't live in the states thanks to your healthcare.(...) That's disgusting, and I am STUNNED that anyone would argue to keep your system the way it is... STUNNED.

I'm very sorry to hear about your son's medical costs being so expensive. I'm sure they cost a fortune where you live too, and I think it's very fortunate that you're not the one stuck with the bill.

Remember, the US is a terrible example of private healthcare, it's already socialized in many ways. You shouldn't rush to assume that's what private healthcare ultimately looks like in terms of costs and insurance. Your indignance is misplaced.

You do realize that those taxes should be spent to make life better for everyone in the country yeah?

Yeah, it is actually because I care about making life better and because I think socialized healthcare is a costly delusion that I consider this a worthy discussion.

You do realize how much of your taxes have been spent on your puffed up bullshit military don't you?

Agreed 100%, terrible use of money.

Anyone who is against a free public health system is either so f*cking rich they don't care how much it costs, or in the medical business themselves and is making obscene amounts of money from everyone else.

That's nonsense, I'm not rich and not a doctor.

>> ^curiousity:
You left out the brainwashed people...

You guys should try having a more open and critical mind, there are people out there who think different about politics, don't take the easy way out.

>> ^spoco2:
I don't see in any way why everyone putting in a bit so that anyone who needs healthcare can get it is a bad thing?

Me neither. The keywords are "government-run" and "forcing people". I'm fine with the rest.

Works here, works in Canada, works in many, many countries.

It might work, but have you considered that it also pushes costs up since there's no price competition? It poorly allocates resources because it's run by bureaucrats and politicians?

>> ^quantumushroom:
Why stop with "free" health care? Doesn't everyone deserves a free home, food and automobile (plus for kicks a high-paying job that pays the same whether you're a brain surgeon or sweep floors)?
This communism sh t has been tried. Doesn't work. People want private property and individual rights, and the profit motive is what makes the system work for saint and sinner alike.
Medicare fraud already costs the US 60 billion a year and no one's doing a goddamned thing about it.
Government has no interest or incentive to keep costs down. It can't be fired in a timely manner and the bureaucrats can't ever be fired, they're not going to give a rat's ass when they're the only game in town (the Govopoly).
Maybe someone should crack a history book instead of heeding the "wisdom" of Leibowitz's jerkoff joke-writing team when it comes to mattes of literal life and death.


Thank god. One voice of reason in the midst of this big happy socialist circle-jerk. Maybe it's just me, but I thought Locke was on to something when he declared no one is entitled to the labor and effort of another. Selfish concept? You bet. You socialists rail against selfishness. It's immoral to hoard what you earn for yourself, you say. What is it, then, when you extort the unearned from another to provide for yourself or pay for the luxury of your own pity?

You want lower health care costs while preserving rights to private property? Create a more consumer driven market by allowing insurance companies to operate inter-state. Detach coverage from employers and force insurance companies to compete for business on an individual basis. Consider switching the paradigm of physician compensation from 'fee-for-service' to 'fee-for-care' to check queer incentives to over-prescribe and chase wild geese with the patient or insurer's money. Or maybe steer away from the insurer model and encourage people to allocate funds into personal tax-exempt health savings accounts and only insure against catastrophic events. Lack of disincentive to over-use is one of the primary pitfalls of the insurance model, and the problem stands to be exacerbated ten-fold when the government starts providing all this 'free' health-care without requiring a copay.

And for god's sake crack down on frivolous malpractice litigation.

>> ^vairetube:
It's curious how opponents claim the government is too incompetent to run any program, yet fail to remeber they're the same people claiming the govt runs the "best" military in the world.

I don't know who said that, but you do realize that the military can't be run by private citizens and has to be done by govt because it requires the use of force? Apples & oranges. Besides, that statement is not comparing private versus public, so I don't get the "curious" there.

It's curious how you find Keywords like "Sell", Socialized", and "Recession", more important than the actual relevant issues, if you want to talk about what is "curious" here.

The US is deeply in debt, mostly thanks to govt, and socialized healthcare has an enormous cost. Maybe we should be talking about healthcare when we actually have money to pay for it?

Most curious, indeed. Not only is taking care of the weakest link beneficial to the collective (not killing it, in our case), it is the right thing to do regardless of religion. Sickening displays of selfishness and fear in this country.

I wouldn't attribute that to selfishness or fear, but to an understanding of long term consequences. Taking care of the weak seems very honorable to me. However, forcing people to financially support a govt-run institution to provide for the weak is just a terrible idea.

while i was aware of the historical implications,this movie does a fantastic job in explaining the "neo-liberalism"(later changed to neo-conservatism) agenda.there were quite a few names missing in this movie though,such as William Kristol,Richard Armitage and the entire bush clan among other prominent names.all in all i feel this movie got its message across quite well.

*note* if you are a nationalist and are a USA is NUMBER 1 rah rah kind of person,do not watch this movie.it will most likely offend your tender sensibilities and make you do something you may not have done in quite awhile.....think.

>> ^spoco2:
Anyone who is against a free public health system is either so f cking rich they don't care how much it costs, or in the medical business themselves and is making obscene amounts of money from everyone else.


You left out the brainwashed people...

Your video, Bill Kristol Admits That The Public Health Option Is Better, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Well one of the arguments that conservatives use consistently is that they dont trust the government to run their healthcare. Stewart was arguing that the program being run by the government was in fact a good, well constructed program. Now what we need to do is create a similar program that is less costly.

Orrrr we could just stop fighting wars we dont belong in and save money for healthcare that way.
I keep hearing about the 1 trillion dollar price tag on a new health care plan, but the Iraq War to date has cost the US $860 billion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/weekinreview/01glanz.html?pagewanted=all
Not to sound like a hippy douche but we need to get patriotic about something BESIDES war.

In reply to this comment by rebuilder:
Oh FFS. I think public healthcare is a fine idea, but this clip is just a load of bull. Kristol is saying that U.S. soldiers get expensive, quality medical services paid by the state that, if offered to everyone, would be too costly, but the soldiers have earned it. Stewart ignores the cost issue and uses this as proof the state should, in fact, provide a similar level of care to everyone.

Whether or not the state can provide good healthcare services at a high cost is not the issue. The question is whether the state can provide it at a reasonable cost to taxpayers. I think yes, but I can still see there is no good argument being made here for that point of view.

Oh FFS. I think public healthcare is a fine idea, but this clip is just a load of bull. Kristol is saying that U.S. soldiers get expensive, quality medical services paid by the state that, if offered to everyone, would be too costly, but the soldiers have earned it. Stewart ignores the cost issue and uses this as proof the state should, in fact, provide a similar level of care to everyone.

Whether or not the state can provide good healthcare services at a high cost is not the issue. The question is whether the state can provide it at a reasonable cost to taxpayers. I think yes, but I can still see there is no good argument being made here for that point of view.

Honestly, you couldn't go far wrong by taking everything Kristol says is a good idea, and doing the opposite. I'm just trying to decide if he's really that stupid, or somehow profiting by lying through his teeth.