US Republicans tell lies about the NHS

[Chi_town/Philly]

Originally Posted by Balthazar

Don't we already exempt emergency services like the fire department from such forces? Should we force firefighters to make cost-benefit analyses about putting out fires in certain regions?

I appreciate the analogy, which gets a little bit closer to the matter than the fatuous comparisons our Chief Executive uses. May I run with it for a little while longer??

We take the Fire Department as a shared-community obligation- but it's an obligation that has some burdens (and righly so). Taxes, of course- but also Building Codes, requirements to have smoke-detector & CO gas alarm in your home, etc.

Now say we adopt this attitude for health-care. we will be taxed for the services that the government lets-us-have... but will it stop there? Does it stop there?? Will we wind up with the personal equivalent of mandatory preventive care? Will we line up for our waist-measurements, as I mentioned the Japanese already do, back in this post? Will we eventually be subject to surcharges for the 'sinful' foods like extra-cheese pizza & sugared soft-drinks? [Hey, it's already been proposed.] Are we comfortable with even the very CONCEPT that government could have a heightened fiduciary interest in exerting this kind of control on our lives? Count me among the people who answer that question with a resounding Hell NO!!

You know, I'm not nearly as fired up about politics as my wife (to her great disappointment), and not as motivated as I once was. Upon Obama's election, I tried to find a sofa to duck under- and offered a silent prayer that he would govern as a moderate (you know, the way his handlers and his teleprompter text would have led us to believe). Ultimately, though, his naked power-grabs could wind up being a massive game-changer. I don't think I can afford inertia of rest on the matter... and suspect that the number of formerly less-than-enthused right-of-center folks who have been stung out of a torpor can be counted in millions.

[Philidor]

Chi, there are lots of fiscally responsible socialists and social democrats around (honest! ) but penny-pinching tends to be associated more with the political right. In which case, how do you justify the extraordinary expense of the US healthcare system compared to a European socialised model?









Is it a case of ideology trumping economics: you're prepared to tolerate the runaway expense of the US system because it's private industry stuffing its pockets, not the state? But you strike me as a centre-right pragmatist, not some wild-eyed ideologue polishing his rifle and buying books about Timothy McVeigh. Wouldn't you like to see better, cheaper, fairer, healthcare?

And aren't the US health insurance company executives, whose pockets are being stuffed, some of the lowest forms of life in the known universe? Why would a nice, pragmatic, law-abiding, community-minded, centre-righter like your good self wish to buy them BMWs? It's such an odd thing to do! Would you mind explaining the pathology?

[Balthazar]

Originally Posted by Chi_town/Philly

Count me among the people who answer that question with a resounding Hell NO!!

But you only answer your own questions, not the ones people actually ask you. Once again, what would you propose the hospitals do with people who aren't able to pay for their treatment, if the big bad government shouldn't force them to provide care?

Upon Obama's election, I tried to find a sofa to duck under- and offered a silent prayer that he would govern as a moderate (you know, the way his handlers and his teleprompter text would have led us to believe). Ultimately, though, his naked power-grabs could wind up being a massive game-changer. I don't think I can afford inertia of rest on the matter... and suspect that the number of formerly less-than-enthused right-of-center folks who have been stung out of a torpor can be counted in millions.

I think the amount of right-of-center folks who have lost their tiny little minds can be counted in the millions too.

In order to demonstrate your unfortunate divorce from reality, you couldn't possibly do better than deploring Obama's radicalism and complaining about his "naked power grabs" in public. Obama's response to the financial meltdown couldn't have been less radical: all he did was staff his cabinet with Clintonite centrists (some of whom even served on Clinton's cabinet and participated in the deregulatory folly) and ignore calls to break up or nationalize the entities that caused the cataclysm in the first place. And without single-payer or a public option, the health-care reform legislation he signed was considerably less progressive than the one he initially proposed.

This outcry about radical Obama's program of totalitarianism is idiocy, plain and simple. Right-wing politicians are fearmongering in the hopes of winning seats in Congress come November. But anyone who falls for it should be ashamed of himself.

[Chi_town/Philly]

Originally Posted by Balthazar

...right-of-center folks who have lost their tiny little minds can be counted in the millions, too...your unfortunate divorce from reality...[t]his outcry about radical Obama's program of totalitarianism is idiocy, plain and simple... Right-wing politicians are fearmongering in the hopes of winning seats in Congress come November, but anyone who falls for it should be ashamed of himself.

Congratulations- you won the personal insult contest (by walkover- I'm not participating in that aspect of this exchange). I don't think you've carried the argument, though- if the maxim of Adlai Stevenson the First ("he who throws mud generally loses ground") has any merit.

The way I was taught, resort to this kind of vituperation was considered an illustration of the poverty of one's ideas. Perhaps there are Keith Olbermannesque circles that consider such language epigrammatic wit. Thank God I never fell into such circles... not even when I was a Dukakis-supporting siphon who believed the world owed me a living...

[Balthazar]

Originally Posted by Chi_town/Philly

Congratulations- you won the personal insult contest (by walkover- I'm not participating in that aspect of this exchange). I don't think you've carried the argument, though- if the maxim of Adlai Stevenson the First ("he who throws mud generally loses ground") has any merit.

The way I was taught, resort to this kind of vituperation was considered an illustration of the poverty of one's ideas. Perhaps there are Keith Olbermannesque circles that consider such language epigrammatic wit. Thank God I never fell into such circles... not even when I was a Dukakis-supporting siphon who believed the world owed me a living...

Your continued evasion of the question is duly noted.

And I'm not engaging in ad hominem attacks if I'm pointing out the considerable divergence between the real nature of Obama's policies and your caricature of them. I'm not saying anyone who disagrees with his policies is a fool. However, anyone who calls Obama a radical or accuses him of "naked power grabs" is not describing reality.

[Chi_town/Philly]

Let the record reflect that I'm encouraged a little by the most recent post- and out of consideration, I'll get back to your particular question in due time. In fact, the only reason I didn't address it earlier is that it was couched in the label "what would a laissez-faire libertarian have to say..." which I guess was supposed to describe my position. [Since labels like 'idiocy' and pathology' are being thrown around, I'll add one that comes from Michael Medved, and isn't specifically addressed at any present company... please count me out of the ranks of the "losertarians."]

Let me start to address some of your questions, Phil-

Originally Posted by Philidor

...you're prepared to tolerate the runaway expense of the US system because it's private industry stuffing its pockets, not the state?...[w]ouldn't you like to see better, cheaper, fairer, healthcare?

I think that, speaking from somewhat to the right of mid-field, it has to do with government, or to be more accurate American government. We have a medical system that has a lot of warts and flaws (regional oligoplies for insurance companies in many areas, runaway tort) but somehow it manages to keep 75+% of the adult population happy with their current situation. Against that, we have the (American) Federal Government, whose record with domestic expenditures would have to get better to be called abysmal. The financial future of Social Security is going to ughi in a hand-basket. Funding Medicare in its present arc is unsustainable and also headed to ughi in a hand-basket, and National Debt (through the fault of both parties, but present executive company is really taking it to an unimaginable 'Phantom-Zone') is approaching levels where the only ready comparisons to its volume are astronomic space and geologic time. To the casual observer, it really looks like they have the reverse-Midas-touch, on the home-front. Everything they touch turns to (soil).

So they introduce their overhaul- vote for it without understanding what they're voting for [Nancy Pelosi famously said 'we'll have to pass it to see what's in it'] and those frightful 11 syllables echo through the land: "we're from the government and we're here to help!"()

On a gut level, this kind of thing scares tens of millions of people....

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Chi_town/Philly

On a gut level, this kind of thing scares tens of millions of people....

I can understand that. I'm enough of a natural anarchist (and reader of Orwell) to hate Big Brother too. But I hate the private insurance companies still more. At least in Britain and the US we can vote governments out. The insurance companies, unless you're a major shareholder, are untouchable.

But I accept there are different attitudes towards the state in Britain and the US. There's the notion of the benign, enabling, state in Britain, and the NHS flows from that ideology. Sure, people complain about government waste and bureaucracy. But the notion of private industry making a profit from sick people is very unpopular. No anti-NHS politician can get elected in Britain, so its popularity extends from left to right.

Another reason why the NHS is so popular relates to how it was born. The men returning from WW2 (and the women who ran the factories/farms in their absence) voted it in. So to attack the NHS is to attack our war heroes who prevailed against European fascism. People get very emotional about it. I certainly do.

It's a huge shame returning GIs didn't insist on a new social contract in post-war America. Returning, victorious, armies scare the sh*t out of civilian governments. They basically get whatever they ask for. Ironic that the NHS was established with a US loan!

[haydnguy]

I would like to tell you a true story that happened several years ago that illustrates a big part of the reason why health care will never be a truly market driven industry. (Unless it collapses first).

I was in a phone conversation with a friend of mine (who is very right-wing, evangelical, etc.) when out of the blue he said, "You know haydnguy, it's just a crime. We pay 50% our income in federal taxes. We don't make enough to qualify for the loop holes of the really rich but we make enough that the government takes 50% of our check. I told him that I agreed that was terrible, that he was basically working for the government half the year. He went into a discussion about how we needed to cut the size of government, etc.

Several weeks later I was talking to his elderaly mother who shares his ideology. During our conversation I gently ask her if she would ever consider a reduction in Medicare if it meant a corresponding lowering of taxes and was fair to all. Her response was, "NEVER!!".

See, part of the problem is that even when you have a strong ideological belief, when it affects your own pocketbook things look a little differeent often times. We want smaller government but we don't want it to affect US. It's ok if they cut medicaid but "Never" cut medicare.

Unless and until conservatives are willing to give up the benefits of a big government themselves, we will certainly always have one.

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by haydnguy

I would like to tell you a true story that happened several years ago that illustrates a big part of the reason why health care will never be a truly market driven industry. (Unless it collapses first).

I was in a phone conversation with a friend of mine (who is very right-wing, evangelical, etc.) when out of the blue he said, "You know haydnguy, it's just a crime. We pay 50% our income in federal taxes. We don't make enough to qualify for the loop holes of the really rich but we make enough that the government takes 50% of our check. I told him that I agreed that was terrible, that he was basically working for the government half the year. He went into a discussion about how we needed to cut the size of government, etc.

Several weeks later I was talking to his elderaly mother who shares his ideology. During our conversation I gently ask her if she would ever consider a reduction in Medicare if it meant a corresponding lowering of taxes and was fair to all. Her response was, "NEVER!!".

See, part of the problem is that even when you have a strong ideological belief, when it affects your own pocketbook things look a little differeent often times. We want smaller government but we don't want it to affect US. It's ok if they cut medicaid but "Never" cut medicare.

Unless and until conservatives are willing to give up the benefits of a big government themselves, we will certainly always have one.

Excellent - well said. Conservatives want services to be cut for those other people over there (who are probably lazy scroungers, immigrants, homos, commies etc) but not for themselves. Because they are somehow deserving while those other people over there are not. This attitude is so blatantly hypocritical, it amazes me that anyone is stupid or mad or corrupt enough to seriously promote it.

[haydnguy]

What makes this story even more ridiculous is that one of the mother's other sons is a doctor so she gets her perscriptions from him (no doctor visits) unless it's something serious. Meanwhile, one of the doctor's regular golfing partners was a pharmaceutical salesman. (The doctor is the same right-wing, evangelical).