The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central This is the country I want

The best way to create opportunity is to create jobs. It's no secret the more jobs that are out there, the better opportunity you will have to get one. The last four years the opportunity wasn't there as it has been in the past. It could have been it if weren't for this Administration giving money to South America to drill offshore oil, while ours have remained the same, when more offshore drilling could have came online. Not to mention the big job loss when the Administration decided to not fully back the XL pipeline. Instead money was given to several failed companies in Green Technology that went bankrupt. Again more job losses from those failed ventures.

Want a better education system? Then get rid of the federal education department and let individual states decide what's best for their local population. Instead of a bunch of hot shot Government officials that THINK they know what's best for everyone, when they don't know anything about what's going on at local levels. This is a HUGE flaw, If it weren't a flaw then we wouldn't be placing on the bottom of performance education scores compared to other countries that pay far less money. Also the teachers unions are a big problem as well. Sure teachers should get good pay for what they do, but we also need to remember most barely work 10 months out of the year. The teachers and the students would be far better off if there weren't a teachers union.



We have social nets for people that need them. They are there to HELP, not as a career choice. As far as going after your dreams, are you trying to say you can't go after your dream because someone else went after theirs and made a lot of money? Are you a quitter when things get tough? Seems like you believe when things get tough someone should come bail you out.

You can do whatever you want, if you don't go after your dream that's your problem. It's not because someone else succeeded and you didn't, that's called being a fucking cry baby. People that have went after their dreams and made a lot of money deserve it. If going after your dreams were easy EVERYONE would be rich. But we don't live in fantasy land, we (or most of us) live in the real world.

I would love to hear about any country in history that has wiped out hunger,disability,sickness & homelessness. Please indulge!

I think the closest anyone has come is us. The poorest in our country are still in the richest 1% of the world...

From what I have heard the poorest among us are in the top 30% of the world, got it from NPR, last year during the OWS movemeant.

Absolute "richest" is meaningless - wealth is a ratio of money in/money out, someone living in a bush in Africa with an access to shaman doctor is richer than unemployed, uninsured person living in the projects in the US.

Great then come live in America because all that is here.

BTW a poor person in America gets free health care that is a lot safer then a shaman.

Are you kidding? How can you possible think that the healthcare available in the U.S. is a basic human right and then say that a shaman is effective healthcare?

You forget that thanks to your side, many many many people in the US don't get access to this basic right of healthcare.

A shaman is BETTER than NOTHING that a lot of people in US currently get.

Have you seen Texas uninsured figures? Something like mid -20%.

I bet they would take even a shaman, if one was available.

The concept that people have a 'right' to healthcare, is just slavery. Its forced labor and immoral.

You can feel bad for people who lack, you can certainly help them of your own volition. But using violence of govt to force others to provide them with free services simply because its how you would like the world to operate makes you no better than any other slave master.

When bad morals masquerade themselves as "good", that is the true face of evil.

"Want a better education system? Then get rid of the federal education department and let individual states decide what's best for their local population."

Eh. . . no thanks on that one.

Left to its own devices, the Texas education system would become a very scary place indeed. Jesus would have single handedly smote the Indians while driving a Ford truck and drinking a beer.

Texas is a hard core bible-thumping state and the Texas Education Agency is pushing hard for creationism in school. If we go that route, I would ask the rest of the country to wall off this State and let none escape without testing them first :D


"Have you seen Texas uninsured figures? Something like mid -20%."

I would be curious if those figures included our MASSIVE undocumented population. If so, they're skewed somewhat. For an eye opener, go to the emergency room on a Weekend.

These are your undocumented folks who have crossed over the border looking for work. While they DO perform the work that most Americans will not do ( not enough pay ) the very same reason Americans don't do it is why they're in the emergency room to begin with.

The work they are performing does not pay well enough for them to afford any sort of health care to begin with. It's really that simple.

Some health plan monthly premiums I've seen EXCEED the entire paycheck of minimum wage earners. That's how out of whack it is.
Is it so shocking to wonder why they don't have insurance ?

THIS IS WHERE A PISS POOR EDUCATION SYSTEM WILL ULTIMATELY LEAD BTW.

No education or skills equates to minimum wage jobs for most. Minimum wage equates to piss poor quality of life. Health insurance for these folks is a luxury they cannot possibly afford.

If the minimum wage wasn't the poverty line, and was actually semi-decent, then perhaps they MIGHT have some health care of their own.

Bottom line is, if you don't pay folks a decent wage to live upon, then don't act surprised if they cut corners where they have to.

How one can someone from the same culture can call white black is beyond me. I realize morals are relative, but to me you are highly amoral person.

Society doesn't exist on its own, it has to be maintained with pooled resources. If this makes it slavery, then I am glad to be a slave.

Democracy doesn't exist in a vacuum, you have to protect it and make sure that your fellow members of society are not too hungry, too sick or out on the streets to meaningfully participate in it. If this makes it slavery, then I am glad to be a slave.

Opportunity to excel and to succeed is impossible without standing on shoulders of others, you succeed because others around you created an environment that enabled you to succeed. If contributing to environment that enables success is slavery, than I am glad to be a slave.

If you have such disdain for this slavery, then I invite you to immigrate to Somalia where you could be from all of the above.

This is even more laughable coming from someone such as yourself who believes that ends justify the means.



Society has existed for a long time before some people started deciding that health care was a natural right.



First of all, we live in a Republic not a democracy. Democracy itself is not inherently just, its actually two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

Rules need to be established, reflecting principles that defend an individual's rights for a society to be just. Because society is comprised of individuals, so if individuals do not have rights.. noone has rights. Individual rights > mob rule.

People actively have partaken in society, and in politics for long before health care started being called a "right". So on the face of it, your implied assertion that health care needs to be a "right" for participatory society to function has no relevance in the face of centuries of historical fact contradicting you.



Fantastic and amazing societies have been built without health care being a "right". So, a non-sequitur here as well. Plus you seem to, as a concept, confuse society with government. The two are not the same. Society may have a responsibility morally to care for the unfortunate, and this responsibility may reflect on individuals who have a moral responsibility to help - but this is different than govt violence having moral authority to ensure such a thing.



Using this analogy improperly once again, apparently you do not learn from prior mistakes, or else you live in some sort of intellectual bubble.

You seem to think that the necessary level of collectivism required for the common good can be extended and expanded to encompass whatever arbitrary concept your whim deems necessary. Those who disagree with your arbitrary expansions are fit to be ridiculed as either insane, or amoral.

What a twisted worldview.

An honest question I have, is if education was decentralized... would Texas really end up as a "creationist state".. or are the bulk of the sensible residents just enjoying being lazy, by not participating in civil society using the excuse that "The FedGov will take care of it"?

I would expect that if the FedGov stopped acting as a crutch against a popularly reported idiocy, that the locals might finally start to realize the benefits of actually becoming involved. Its easy to stay uninvolved when it "doesnt directly affect you" and some amorphous , larger body is supposedly managing things.

Or in other words, the only way to motivate many good people to take action.. is to actually place the responsibility for their own well being on their own shoulders... and stop letting them pretend that someone else is or should be taking care of it for them.

You are talking to empty chairs here, again.



So you advocating Amish lifestyle? Sure, people lived in the wood shacks, died before 30th birthday and had 12 kids, with only about 4 making it to adulthood. I didn't know you were such a literal traditionalist. Even back in these days, a visit from a doctor to drain your excess humors would not bankrupt your family.



Are you familiar with hierarchy of needs? It is very basic concept that boils down to following conclusion - if you are hungry, homeless or too ill then you only capable caring about food, shelter or getting better. Participation in democracy does not come until all these basics are fulfilled. By denying these basics to a segment of your society you are denying them an opportunity to participate. While you convinced that healthcare is slavery, I am equally convinced that denying access to healthcare is voter suppression.



Then you turn around and deny the right to live healthily, free of medical-bill-bankruptcy? Deny it categorically, regardless of circumstances?!



Historically, access to a public highway wasn't a right ether, but I don't see modern society existing without such access. Or you also advocate that highway system should be reserved for a well-off segment of population that could afford to buy-in into the system?

Still, main difference, is that "historically" almost everyone had access to "historical" health care, and it did not bankrupt you. Nowadays, we get much better medicine, but system is set up in a way that there is no way to get some basic level of it - you ether buy into system, with all its "defensive medicine" excesses or you are left out of it. Why should it be a choice of leaving someone bleeding on the street or bankrupting them with medical bills? Why can't we have a universal and basic access to "we won't let you bleed to death, on the house" and what so monstrous about such system that you equate it to slavery?!



Yes indeed, what an arbitrary concept of not leaving people bleeding on the streets.

Haha, yeah you are correct - I am talking to an empty chair. You summed up trying to discuss things with you quite succinctly.

I need to go get lunch, but I will happily dissect the monstrosity of non sequiturs you just puked up once I grab my food. I mean seriously, you try to make a correlation between the principle of rule of law over mob rule equating "denying others the right to live healthily" ? It would be laughable if you didnt take yourself so seriously.

My advice to you though in the mean time: before daring to insult others, actually get the slightest clue about whether, how, and when things actually logically connect.

Also, you do make one good point - health care used to be available and not bankrupt people. You might want to ask yourself what changed. In theory at that point, you would investigate.. and you would find that govt involvement in health care changed , and is the root cause of said problem.

I fully expect you to intentionally keep yourself ignorant though, and continue advocating importing more bears to deal with the lion problem.

It would be fool's laughter.

Concept of accessible healthcare is not so arcane that partisan ideologues like you would not be capable of understanding it.

They are:

1. Healthcare, a basic need, take precedence over higher-order necessities. Without satisfying basic necessities there is no way we can guarantee higher-order necessities, like an ability to participate in democratic process. Since we agree that ability to participate in our democratic process has to be protected, we also have to remove issues that impede it. Fail to do so undermines the very foundation of our democratic process.

2. It is both practical and cost effective to enable all-inclusive access to health care. People priced out of the system still end up using it to some degree (emergency rooms and so on) but in ineffective manner, and this increases overall cost to society.

3. Pure market forces are unable to regulate health care system, there is clearly no price point that would suppress demand, the only control on whole system is % of people getting priced out of the system. This is undesirable and ineffective way to control the system.

Now I spelled out the argument for you, have a go at it.

If you are not up for the challenge you can always continue talking to Clint's empty chair.

Ok, first off - you insulted the Amish. Unlike you, I actually have met and known Amish and Mennonite people.... and they dont typically "die at 30", have 12 kids, or live in "shacks". Sure, they have a different lifestyle than you or I, but I have found them to be polite, industrious, clever in the application of technology (yeah they live "off grid" and have at time seemingly odd religious regulations about tech, but that doesnt mean they are primitives... you should see some of the innovative steam powered heat pumps, or greenhouse cooling systems they have engineered.) and generally healthy. Their agriculture practices help keep them such, using time tested methods for producing and preserving food combined with an active lifestyle.

Your insulting them simply because they have a different world view than you, simply highlights a high degree of arrogance and ignorance.

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Next, your misuse of hierarchy of needs. You are trying to seriously say that people do not participate in civic life unless they are full and perfectly healthy? Pick up a history book sometime, I beg of you. I would however agree that govt should facilitate the ability of the populace to be full and healthy - I just think your means are ineffective, and your presentation and the way you advocate those means even worse.

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You try to say I would deny people these basics? I would deny people nothing. Why would I wish to interfere with other people obtaining such things? You seem to equate not wanting to abdicate my own moral obligation, and instead transfer it to a large Federal Govt as denial of service. Obviously, this is a fallacy.

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Going even further.. you try to assert that I think healthcare is slavery? Your lack of reading and comprehension skills are showing again. I said and say that using violence to force provisioning of said services arbitrarily based on mob opinion is slavery. For you to take it a step further and claim that this is voter suppression suggestions you do not know the working definition of the word "suppression".

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Public highways are a bad analogy for several reasons.

1) The original intent was military. So they serve a larger purpose than just convenience.

2) Highways are largely, and should be, paid for with usage fees and taxes. Things like costs of drivers licenses, car plates, and etc. You mostly can, and *should be able to* opt out of the bulk of those expenses. It actually is possible to not own a car. Transportation companies pay large fees for transporting good on highways, which is fine.

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Now, at the end of your post you get into the good stuff. Suddenly the type of health care you are talking about goes from providing all services to all people.... to "not letting people bleed in the streets".

Previously, it had all been about good or poor general health. Now it is suddenly an emotional appeal regarding acute trauma? So which is it? Cant you at least maintain some sort of consistency for one short post? Or are you actually incapable of discerning the difference between a societal mentality of not letting people bleed to death.... and a massive Govt apparatus that forces the provision of care for all, even long term self-inflicted ills as you were previously advocating in your posts?

Talk about disingenuous.

But still, there is a difference between the things an individual has a *right* to and the things one is generally morally obligated to provide. However, you seem to think that these things need to be dealt with at by an unaccountable FedGov , instead of by civic society.

Apparently you trust unaccountable bureaucrats, but people who would have a representative body that was accountable deal with these types of baseline standard of services - and determine locally the means to provide them - are all amoral crazies.

I find it ironic, because in my experience the lefties are most often the ones who most resent their moral obligations. They cannot bear the thought of providing to "the unwashed masses" unless they are comforted by the fact that men with guns (though they claim to hate guns) ensure that everyone else is as well. So out of their desire to offload their own responsibility onto others, they take a faux moralist position that the proper way to give back to society is by abandoning personal responsibility and simply forcing everyone to pay taxes toward a problem that "someone else now can deal with". Whereas many other people prefer to use their resources to take a personal hand in civic life and personally allocate their own resources based on their own judgement and involvement.

So, they confuse the faux morality of using violence to attempt to mold society according to their whim with taking responsibility for their own personal morality. Because it sure is a lot more convenient to grandstand on a supposed moral superiority than it is to actually take part in civic life, isn't it? Get to comfort that self-righteous ego, while still not having to pay social problems any additional thought beyond one liners that make you look good at a cocktail party - plus the added comfort that noone is getting ahead of you in life because armed thugs are making sure everyone else is "contributing" at least as much as you.

How convenient it is to be a lefty.

Interesting you call *me a partisan ideologue...

And unlike you, I actually understand multiple and opposing viewpoints whereas your worldview seems to be entirely two dimensional. Understanding a concept, or an asserted application of a concept is not the same as agreeing with it or agreeing with the application, which is something you seem to have troubles with.

After all.. your response to "health care is not a natural right" is....... "Somalia". Think about that for a second. Seriously.

As far as capability for understanding..... I have had to correct you or explain just about every topic or concept we have discussed. Someone who has proven themselves so utterly incapable of actually applying words or concepts correctly, should refrain from insulting those who actually have to tutor them on almost every topic.

Now as for correcting your latest broadside - I shall begin:

1) You claim healthcare is a basic need. You claim this basic need is required to be met to participate in democratic process. However, the way you state this falsely implies that an all-encompassing FedGov healthcare plan needs to be in place to properly provide this level of health provision.

You provide no evidence of fact or logic to identify what level of health is required to participate or what level of care is required to meet that metric... and boy, you have to be pretty ill to not be able to show up to townhalls or vote. Countless people with various serious illnesses are on record as having been politicians... let alone participating in civic life. Also, even if we accept your misuse of hierarchy of needs for the sake of this discussion - my stance is that reforming govt *out of the healthcare business to a large degree would enable cheaper and more widely available care. After all, things that govt heavily subsidizes have been empirically shown to become dramatically more expensive. Govt simply introduces market distortions, but until you realize that - you cannot even begin to start thinking up ways to help ensure a level of services without introducing or managing market distortions of price and availability. Thus, economic efficiency will fall leading those like yourselves to inevitably call for more govt control... which further separates provision of services from rational and objective valuation mechanisms (free market) leading to further inefficiency and eventual breakdown.

2. Your second point is a simple false assertion. You will likely try to justify it with an observation that preventative medicine is cheaper than emergency room care after a would-be minor problem has become a major one. This in of itself is true, and proves that the current status quo is inefficient. What it does not prove however, is that your model of universal care is any better - because systems need to be evaluated independently and in the entirety of their effects, so until you can accurately model a universal system wholly - you cannot make an assumption that such a system would actually address this or any other issue sufficiently.

3. Well, in a free market the providers of services have financial incentive to not price people out of a system. Also, I have always left open possibility of some level of public service - however the logical way to address this issue is at a more local level, since the economic realities of supply and demand of various types of services can vary widely by location. Even the Social-corporatist states like Sweden that have socialistic systems that dont malfunction as badly as other examples of central health planning (though they do have serious issues as I have demonstrated here previously) do almost all of their actual health planning and allocation on a very local level. Which is the complete opposite of anything proposed by you or the general "left" in this country where the focus is on Federal level planning and allocation.

I didn't have healthcare when I had to have Emergency surgery. I made far less money than I do now, I guess I was one of the lucky ones without healthcare that got treated despite not having healthcare. My lucky number must have been called that day huh...

I was really hoping you would not take me up on that offer to talk to an empty chair. If you carefully read what I stated, I was referring to “back in the day”. This willful or accidental misunderstanding makes your later rant on “lack of reading comprehension” somewhat ironic.

Amish happened to be an example of traditional way of living, and despite their traditionalism they are not completely removed from the progress. They also have issues with health care – some Amish groups do not buy into health insurance, avoid going to hospitals and/or die of easily treatable and preventable diseases. Is this the model you advocate general population should follow?



Didn’t you just rant about logic only to turn around and say this? Well, let me hold your hand while we work through what I said.

I said (formalizing): “Since healthcare is a basic need, and we need to satisfy all basic needs before we can address all other needs, then we need to provide healthcare to guarantee access to a democratic process”.

Proposition A: Healthcare is a basic need.

Proposition B: You need to satisfy all basic needs before any other needs.

Conclusion: We need to provide healthcare to guarantee access to democratic process.

Your objection that some people might participate in civic life despite not having access to healthcare does not invalidate my argument. To draw an analogy, voter suppression tactics, like poll taxes during Jim Crow period, would not turn away every black voter, but enough to compromise democratic process. Try again.



You actively advocate (and I assume vote) to propagate system that would deny people these basics. According to your moral code, do you actually have to be the one to pull the trigger, to be one to turn away sick from the hospital, to assume moral responsibility for such actions?



Shall we cut bullshit out? You think that paying taxes is a violent confiscation of property by the government and especially oppose to spending said tax money on things you don’t personally approve of. You also try to establish false equivalence of paying into society to slavery.

I will ask you again, if you are so opposed to paying into society why not stop all your participation in its benefits and move away to somewhere society doesn’t exist, like Somalia?





No, in most cases you can’t opt out of paying property taxes. Some of the fee structure confuses this issue, but I will stand on the point that you can’t opt out of contributing to national highway system.

I also don’t understand on this fixation on opting out. I’d like to opt out of paying for Bush wars; do you think I should be able to?



Which is it? Some of it, all of it. Why do you insist that we differentiate someone bleeding on the street from someone quietly suffering at home from some preventable disease unable to afford a treatment? You in your blind opposition do not differentiate - you oppose all of it; why are you asking me to act differently? Under the system you advocate both people bleeding on the street and suffering at home are thrown under the bus so you, so you could satisfy your ideological purity.

If you are asking what I personally would consider a basic acceptable minimum level of health care, then we can talk about it. I think we will agree on more points than disagree. Still, our disagreement is that you think there should have no guaranteed access to healthcare whatsoever, and I think that there should be. The only time it makes sense to discuss details is if you concede the argument and agree that some level of healthcare should be universally provided.

--

Now, I noticed you didn’t mention anything about #2 and #3. I was curious to see what you have to say on it, or would you rather I leave you alone with your chair so you could rant about having to pay taxes?

You actually benefited from a number of factors - a) mandate that people are not turned away from emergency rooms (speaking of ineffective government regulation!) b) partially tax payers, sometimes charitable funds that absorb portion of uninsured bills.

Even with all of this you were probably paying the medical bills for decades after that, or declared bankruptcy.

Big question, would you rather have someone else go through similar experiences or pay extra taxes? All this talk about personal responsibility is nice, but with 9% stated and more like 15% real un- and under-employment it kind of sounds hollow.

YOUR WORDS


You're trying to say a shaman doctor is better than someone that is uninsured. I just told you I was uninsured and still received the healthcare I needed despite having healthcare!

I did pay off MY medical bill. I could have went through medicaid to receive help. I took the responsibility of paying 95% of my bill. I did have a couple thousand knocked off from a fund the hospital has setup from donations that help with these sort of things. It was based on my yearly pay, So If I hardly made any money I would have had a bigger portion paid for if not all of it. Since I am making a lot more money now, I have given money back to that fund.

The question isn't should we pay more taxes in order to get Government involved in our healthcare. The question SHOULD BE, how do we reform healthcare without Government being so heavily involved and leaving it up to the people and states to decide the best course of action in healthcare. Since Obama used most of Romney's Ideas from Massachusetts healthcare then he should know it works better at the state level and wasn't intended for a Federal level.

I'm just curious, do you have to have someone always holding your hand?
You sure seem to love the Idea of Government doing it!

quote/- Ok, first off - you insulted the Amish. Unlike you, I actually have…

I was really hoping you would not take me up on that offer to talk to an empty chair. If you carefully read what I stated, I was referring to “back in the day”. This willful or accidental misunderstanding makes your later rant on “lack of reading comprehension” somewhat ironic. -/endquote


Your exact words were: "So you advocating Amish lifestyle?" that was the sentence. You then went on to say " Sure, people lived in the wood shacks, died before 30th birthday and had 12 kids, with only about 4 making it to adulthood. I didn't know you were such a literal traditionalist. Even back in these days, a visit from a doctor to drain your excess humors would not bankrupt your family."

Based on your grammar here, you are saying current Amish lifestyle - or - the way the rest of us supposedly lived some vague period of time ago. That is what you said, and since you have resisted efforts in the past to tease out what you *meant* to say I no longer bother trying and simply take you at your words prima facie. If you do not want to be misunderstood, communicate better.

When communicating with your pet chair you like to show off, it probably does not matter. When communicating with humans, its best to say what you mean. Unless you can tolerate further inquiry into the nature of what you had written, which in the past you have shown yourself unable to do.




Proposition A is debatable, proposition B is patently false. Thus conclusion invalidated.

Its worth mentioning here I suppose, exactly how you are misusing Maslow.

According to one of the first lines in your own link "So Maslow acknowledges that many different levels of motivation are likely to be going on in a human all at once. His focus in discussing the hierarchy was to identify the basic types of motivations, and the order that they generally progress as lower needs are reasonably well met."

In other words, even Maslow himself admitted multiple levels are ongoing simultaniously whereas you claim "Participation in democracy does not come until all these basics are fulfilled." which is not even something Maslow would have claimed. Also, "reasonably well met" - you have defined no criteria regarding what is reasonable levels of health care in regards to participation means you have no reasonable grounds to suggest, especially in the face of ample empirical evidence to the contrary - that the current health care system, or a free market system would or does provide such a lower level of service that it would comparatively prevent civic participation in a statistically significant manner that would amount to voter suppression fait accompli.



Yes, lets cut the bullshit out - please. I think that paying taxes to support your opinion of what society should look like simply because you have falsely deemed yourself righteous is slavery. I do not equivocate paying taxes with slavery per se.

It is also important to factor in the fact that many who are forced to pay into your various schemes, would by virtue of that forced payment have their own options for health care be robbed of them. Many people even under the Obamacare we already have, have lost access to sensible health plans at affordable prices because they did not fit the more expensive mandated mold - and have been priced out of higher tiered selective yet catastrophically comprehensive coverage with good benefits into lower tiered Obamacare templated plans. Further govt interference will surely only compound this problem, as spending decisions are taken away from citizens and put into the hands of bureaucrats.



As I said, in "general terms". Plus where I am at... property taxes are not used for highways to the best of my current knowledge. If they are where you are at, well thats Federalism at work and thats fine.

Your war analogy is poorly constructed for a number of reasons, the least of which is wars are not analogous to infrastructure services like a highway... and gets even further from the healthcare topic. The only similarity universal federal health care has to the Bush wars, is that we should not do/have done either of them.



I think in a properly constructed society where corrupt and inefficient govt does not get in the way, that the bulk of our health issues will be alleviated.

However, as I have stated and you have either ignored, been unable to comprehend, or willfully dismissed my primary criticisms are your methods stemming from:

1) Your assertion that people have a natural right to the time money and services of others, moralizing the use of violence to obtain those services. This is wrong and immoral on a fundamental level. - It should be noted that this is a different argument, than arguing that health care should be provided because it provides a material benefit to all. (Which the proposed implementations do not, so its understandable) But that would be a theoretically moral argument.

2) Your obsession with providing said services via the most inefficient, ineffective, and unresponsive means possible. Even socialists in other countries have concocted more sensible methods, leaving your approach basically indefensible even from a leftist perspective let alone the perspective of liberty.


I also as noted, and based on personal experience, tend to harbor suspicions about the true motives behind leftists wanting to stuff away care for social ills in some Federal bureaucracy somewhere.

Why else propose such absurd means for dealing with social ills? Heck, the FedGov cant even safely manage a simple forced retirement savings fund (Social Security).... what would make any rational person think it would safely or sanely be able to nationalize a dynamic and complex market system like health care?
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Also I answered #2 and #3 in my own #2 and #3.... try adjusting your reading glasses.

/boggle

You really going to make issue out of this? Note past tense, note "back in these days" reference. I am putting you on note for being ridiculous.

I will address rest of the points at a later time.

We all make typing/grammar mistakes, and its poor form to obsess over them. However in this case, in this context, you being arrogant and intolerant is extremely believable. I dont think anyone would have taken what you said any differently.*

You used incorrect grammar, and instead of obsessing over my alleged "willful misunderstanding" you should have simply said "thats not what I meant" and it wouldn't have been an issue.

edit: * especially those who act on a different wworldview due to *religion*

Gold. Pure golden truth.

So your idea of right is to force people to pay thousands of dollars to pay for something they may not even want, just to make yourself feel better about yourself. Don't bother with the fact that they may not beable to afford it or just out right not want it, you say they need it and by god,or not, they will have to pay for it or we will fine them the same amout if they don't.
Your a real humanitarian.

We don't need shamans in southeast Texas. We have cajun voodoo.

Not want? How is that exactly works? So you are bleeding on the street, and decide, hey I would rather bleed to death, no thank you. Well, if one that suicidal, it is probably advisable to see a psychiatrist, and one would need coverage for that.

People don't want to get sick, people don't want to get bankrupted by emergency hospital visits, people don't want to die of preventable diseases.

Lets call spade a spade, people DON'T WANT TO PAY for access to health care system. They want it for free.

Speaking of freeloaders...

Fuck You Texas...

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I think your assertion of “properly constructed society” is silly, I remember hearing similar arguments from proponents of communism. Ideal society cannot exist; we have to design system that is robust enough that it can deal with corruption, inefficiency and irrational actors.



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Your position is flawed. Any society other than pure anarchy requires contribution from its members, almost always in form of taxes. Thus, by belonging to a society you give explicit agreement to give up some of you “time, money and services” in exchange for benefits of society. Since you view any society as immoral, I invite you to purchase one-way tickets to Somalia.



You did not address my point #2. I stated that uninsured population relying on emergency room service is highly inefficient way to provide health coverage. It is both costly to the system, participants and does not provide good outcomes.

Emergency Room Use Among Adults Aged 18...une 2011 [PDF]

Expenses for a Hospital Emergency Room Visit [PDF]



My argument was much simpler – I pointed out that emergency room use for uninsured (they don’t have anywhere else to go) was inefficient, as a result getting them ON INSURANCE and channeling them away from emergency rooms will be cheaper.



Still, you bring up universal health care, and I am highly surprised you would state “what it does not prove however is that your model of universal care is any better”. In the past I demonstrated that universal health care is cheaper, both in % of GDP and absolute costs, and provides better outcomes by comparing US healthcare to a slew of other countries with socialized medicine. I posted data, studies and comprehensive charts demonstrating this. US health care costs, of about $8000 per person and 15% GDP, are above and beyond what any other country pays, with most socialized healthcare first-world countries paying about 9% of GDP and $3000 per person. You are making bad faith argument, you know, or ought to know, what you saying is not true.



No they don’t. They have an incentive to maximize profits, that is by definition includes pricing some people out of the system. That is how profit optimization works.

Again, free market is ineffective model for a health care. People are unable to be rational consumers when health care is the product. While most consumers can make rational decision not to consume some good, putting a downward pressure on the price, there is no such downward pressure exists in a health care. Health care is market with unlimited demand, as a result supply/demand breaks down and entire system becomes unworkable.

Yes some people don't want to pay for healthcare, I didn't want to pay for health care when I was in my 20's so I didn't.

Its really sad that you don't see a problem with the feds forcing people to pay for something or get fined for it.

PAY is key word.

I have no problems with people not wanting to CONSUME health care, like Amish, but people not wanting to PAY?

We ALL pay for it when these people get sick and clog emergency rooms. Some have conscience and eventually pay it back, but most are freeloaders and don't.

You'd think this would resonate with conservatives, but no, they go "you will pry my right to freeload the system out of my cold dead hands!" on this one.

I guess conservatives have bigger hearts then you because they are willing to let the poor have free healthcare.

When you force someone that is poor to pay thousands of dollars for healthcare, and if they don't you fine them, you are making them poorer(is this a word it looks funny to me).
So now you are the guy making people eat sawdust soup, grats now they have free healthcare. Good job on not replying to this when I have brought it up several times, you would make a great democrat politician.

Great! So lets not needlessly waste money and get them all on insurance. Visits to emergency rooms cost significantly more than alternatives.



Since you decided to bring ACA into this, "someone that is poor" will get subsidized. This subsidy is still cheaper to the taxpayers than subsidizing non-insured visits to the emergency room under current system.

Meant to address this, but missed it in a huge train of quotes.

Maslow's theory and hierarchy of needs is well-established principle in both psychology and sociology. It states "If basic needs are not met, then there is a tendency to ignore higher needs".

What does it mean? Well, it means that humans tend to prioritize basic needs. It does not explain what any individual would do, there are individual exceptions to this, but over large enough population sample tendency is there.

To preserve democratic process it is not enough to simply demonstrate that it is possible to participate in it, you have to ensure that there is no barriers to entry in such participation. Well, having to address your basic needs is one huge barrier that we know will turn voters away.

So what does it mean in context of democratic process? It means that people that do not have basic needs satisfied will tend to ignore democratic process. I hope you are familiar with historical examples of this, I believe almost every dictator in the last 100 years came to power promising to address basic needs of population... and people let them, because they were more interested in addressing basic needs instead of higher needs, such as protecting principles of free society.

I never argued for an ideal society, unlike leftists I realize that society will never be anywhere close to perfect. Building a "robust" society to withstand the forces of corruption etc via larger and complex mechanisms is impossible. Entropy works on a social level, not just in thermodynamics.

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Your view of society is flawed. Societies must work together in some regards *for a universal good. In other words, if it doesnt benefit everyone equally - at least in principle, it does not apply as a required contribution. Police, in principle, benefit everyone by protecting everyone equally from internal violence.

A military, in priciple, benefits equally by protecting everyone from external violence.

Perhaps you are seeing a trend. A just Govt exists to *protect everyone from violence, equally.

What you propose on the other hand, *inflicts violence for the purported good of a select few. There is a massive moral canyon between justice and a leftists arbitrary opinion on how social control should be handed off to the feds.

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I addressed your point #2, and even pre-empted the point you tried to make with your "rebuttal". Reading glasses more. I specifically predicted you would bring up the emergency room example... and you ignored the fact that I did so... and brought up the emergency room example..... mmmmmmmkay.

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As for you demonstrated how "cheap" and effective universal care is... you and I both know you did no such thing.

You *asserted such... but missed and ignored anything you didnt want to hear. Since you had no effective rebuttals, your arguments were unconvincing. You really did not seem to understand why the GDP ratios were different, either lower in some cases or higher for us. Nor did you demonstrate an understanding of many issues plaguing our own system.


Your idea that universal care could be implemented here while maintaining any quality of care was pie in the sky wishful thinking.

Since nothing can penetrate your intellectual bubble (see repeated misused Somalia references for hard proof) I can see how you might see it differently.... but as has been aptly demonstrated , your opinion and objective reality have very little in common.

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Maximizing profits typically involves finding ways to get more buyers. Obviously services would be tiered. In fact there have been multiple good attempts to get more affordable care via free market in the USA to date... however the govt keeps stepping in due to lobbying influence and killing it. Obamacare included.

Also, health care market demand is not *unlimited*.... and if it WAS unlimited... that is the worst indictment you could possibly make to have a central planning committee decide how it was allocated. Because you are introducing even greater inefficiencies in the face of an already unmeetable demand.. which is insanity.

I said:



You said:



"Your second point is a simple false assertion". Not according to government data and studies, some that I even linked in this post.

"You will likely try to justify it with an observation that preventative medicine is cheaper than emergency room care after a would-be minor problem has become a major one." It is not justification, it THE REASON. It costs more to go to emergency room. End of story.

"What it does not prove however, is that your model of universal care is any better." What does universal health care has to do with emergency room costs? Why bring it up here?

"so until you can accurately model a universal system wholly - you cannot make an assumption that such a system would actually address this or any other issue sufficiently." I cannot accurately model our universe ether, but I can make accurate observations about its properties. You insist changing subject of this discussion from "emergency room medicine cost a lot, maybe we should get more people into doctors since we have to pay for the whole mess anyways" into "universal health care is bad". These are not the same arguments, and they have very little to do with each other, other than you are wrong on both accounts - universal health care is demonstrably more effective than what we have now.

Just to remind you:

Cherry picked, and already debunked. I explained it to you already.

Next.

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Also as a reminder just to refresh your memory - those countries are 1) much smaller, 2) mostly operate more as a large corporation functionally speaking, 3) benefit from US system setting base prices 4) Have their defense mostly subsidized by US 5)Disparity in number of smokers per capita alone accounts for aggregate difference in life expectancy 6) US system isnt private, its mixed - where govt artificially inflates pricing for many services delivered to US citizens domestically

And I could go on. Thats even without bringing up the declining quality over time, and many many issues those countries experience.

"An honest question I have, is if education was decentralized... would Texas really end up as a "creationist state".. or are the bulk of the sensible residents just enjoying being lazy, by not participating in civil society using the excuse that "The FedGov will take care of it"?"


A valid question.

See if I can provide an answer for it :D


It's not that folks are lazy or stupid, but rather the majority of folks down here are full-blooded Bible Thumping types who take Jesus and the Gang a bit too seriously.

When it comes to fanaticism, your fire and brimstone variety of Southern Baptists aren't far off from our overseas counterparts who burn down embassies when you say something unflattering about their prophet.

When the MAJORITY of the population WANTS creationism in school, well. . . . you reap what you sow I guess.

So, yeah. You would see Texas education become the craziest sh*t you've ever seen. . . lol

Shameful how quickly you capitulated. I was actually curious what new take you going to try, apparently just a new doze of denial with a side order of selective amnesia. What makes you think that this time around your exactly same flawed argument would work?





#1 is irrelevant, absolute numbers, %GDP and spending per capita allow you to compare countries with different population. Otherwise, nothing would ever be comparable to say, China or Luxemburg. This is 'magic' process called normalization.

#2 is benefit of the system, its like saying trains don't derail because they run on tracks. Well, duh.

#3 is unsupported assertion/speculation on your part. It ignores all medical R&D done elsewhere in the world. I would not be surprised if US is #1 spender in absolute number in this area, proportional to GDP, but again magic of normalization can help us here. Even if I were to agree with your premise, wouldn't it actually reduce medical spending by generating export revenues?

#4 What does defense spending has to do with healthcare? Or are you just going down the "generic conservative FUD list" and hope I would be too disgusted to touch this point with a 10 feet pole?

#5 Dealing with smoking, obese, sedimentary people is a universal First World Problem. While I know we have our fair share, I don't think US has a monopoly on fat ignorant fucks. Plus in other countries fighting obesity, smoking and unhealthy lifestyle is part of medical spending.

#6 Whatever US system is, with Jesus on a toast added to it, it is a) really expensive b) does not generate nearly as good results as in countries with socialized medicine. US healthcare generates THE BEST results for top 1% of population that can afford "all you can eat", rest of the country - it miserably fails and POPULATION-BASED statistics show that.

you cant believe that

I don't think this is fair comparison, I lived in Texas for years, and while you are absolutely right on fanaticism, culture of "mind your fucking business" takes precedence. Most places you wouldn't know they are Christian unless you go to church with them or talk politics... but if you do... DEAR MOTHER OF GOD.

You earn 100,000 a year but you spend 110,000 you are in the same $10,000 hole if you only earn 15,000 and spend 25,000.

A $10,000 deficit is a $10,000 deficit. You may have a prettier house, but your ass is still broke.

I cant say Texas would do that, the school my kids attend is a rural school, and it is ranked 12th in the nation.

Even with the Dept of Education gone, civil liberty lawyers would ensure you maintained a separtion of church and state.

However I do feel all religions need to be tought in the schools, put it under phislphil, theology, or what ever you like. The goal is to bring more tolearnce into it, if you can understand where the other person comes from, there is a chance of less hatered and intolrance.

I am not so sure. Even on this board separation of church and state is highly controversial.

When schools can not have crosses on the walls, when schools can not have the bible on a teachers desk, and when schools can not have a prayer before school starts or before a game; there will be a separation. School boards will avoid lawsuits, it is either spend money on a case that they will lose, or spend money on the football program. In Texas football is king, and not even god can stop it.

As a side note, my childeren school does not have a football program. Every year it is brought up and every year it is voted down. That is why they have state of the art computer labs, biology labs, and were hireing teachers when everyone else was firing them.

That's only because it doesn't exist anywhere in our founding documents. Not the way you all choose to interpret it anyway. All it says is that the federal government "may make no law respecting the free exercise of religion." I doesn't say what religion can or cannot do, only that government doesn't get a say in it.

Shameful how quickly you capitulated. I was actually curious what new take you going to try, apparently just a new doze of denial with a side order of selective amnesia. What makes you think that this time around your exactly same flawed argument would work?




/facepalm

Do you really think if you re-attempt this line or argument, it would go any better for you this time?

so lets translate sinjispeak into reality here

1) Doesnt make a difference? Your misusing the concept of normalization here. Societies and organizations of such differing scale and scope have a much different structural dynamic - you are tying to compare them as apples to apples , and thats just wrong.

2) The benefit is not "the system" , the benefit is being a micro entity functioning within a much larger economic context. The countries that do relatively well with their socialized medicine are able to support the systemic inefficiencies for the time being because of myriad other factors. Most socialized countries do not do very well with it - just the ones that either have a lot of interchange with the USA, or super small states that can , in a macro sense, purchase what amounts to bulk health care as a large corp would.

3) Its not unsupported at all, as the largest consumer, originator, developer of health care in the world - in absolute terms - the USA not only incentivises the bulk of health care advancement it develops the bulk, and consumes a great amount. If you seriously think normalization applies here... there probably is not any hope for you. The world isnt so simple as to be understandable by such simplistic methods, especially when misapplied.

4) Its one example of how their overall economy is crutched by outside influence. Another example is their export economies and sounder position within the EU itself. Wealth and talent from poor EU countries flows into these countries which affects everything from price stability to relative valuation/inflation and more... while not having to maintain a large military per capita frees up societal and economic resources that can then be squandered inefficiently in other sectors.

5) I previously posted up the relative numbers. Smoking differential alone explained the life expectancy gap.. sure there are Euro smokers, but the ratio of smokers in the US was much higher. That is without even getting into dietary or other differences. If you want to be taken seriously, at least cognitively process information that comes your way and don't ignore it.

6) Top 1% eh? Thats not even worth addressing, you cant even believe that. Most countries with socialized medicine are abysmal failures, as I have also previously pointed out. Countries that are less abysmal have certain specific circumstances that help them be less abysmal, relatively speaking. But you only seem to be able to process 1:1 correlating relationships, anything more complex goes right over your head.

Plus your selective memory gets old.

Lets translate:

Sorry anything more complex or detailed than a flat 1:1 correlation goes over your head. It is also unfortunate that you cant seem to accurately turn text into thoughts. Theres really nothing I can do to fix those issues, other people will have to read and judge on their own.

What you suggest - that you can't normalize consumption of X to population - is absolutely absurd. If we follow this broken logic we can easily claim that no country can be compared to any other country in any way.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a good way to look at productivity of any country, it measures overall productivity of any given country. When you measure portion of say manufacturing or healthcare against GDP it tells you how much of that country's "effort" goes toward that activity. So when I say 15% of GDP is spent on healthcare, that translates to 15c of every dollar going to healthcare.

When you want to compare countries with different populations you simply normalize to population, so you have GDP/population of country A compared to GDP/population of country B. This is Economy 101.

You can also look at raw numbers, total money expended/population vs. total money expended/population. This isn't as accurate as above, but does and can give you an idea.

Last but not least, you can just look at costs vs. cost, this is by far crudest method because it does not reflect the fact that countries with higher population tend to be more productive than countries with lower population.

Your attempted critique of all these methods reveal your complete lack of understanding of these concepts. When you start talking about specific differences between countries you show lack of understanding of normalization, and when you start rejecting it as a concept you show level of ignorance comparable to science deniers.

This isn't an argument of correlation, we are not looking at modeling system, it is about looking at overall effectiveness of each system. Money goes in, results get produced kind of analysis. What numbers tell us is that US SPENDS TOO MUCH and DOESN'T GET MORE THAN OTHERS IN RETURN.

It boggles my mind that you can look at other countries, beating US in most healthcare metrics ON A FRACTION OF COST, and turn around and say that socialized medicine doesn't work. Yes it does, and it is A LOT cheaper.

Still, never mind socialized medicine, my original point was simply that it cost more to treat someone in an emergency room than, for example, at a general practitioner office. You ideological zeal won't even allow you to see that TAXPAYERS ALREADY PAY FOR EMERGENCY ROOM USE BY UNINSURED, so if you got stuck with a bill, wouldn't it be more effective to TRY TO MINIMIZE IT?!

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-winter/moral-vs-universal-health-care.asp

Good article. Well not for some who don't have open minds to see past their propaganda masters.

I did not suggest you couldnt make a comparison of consumption per person, just that it is not relevant to many of your arguments. First of all, dollars consumed does not necessarily correlate to value consumed. Secondly, you are completely ignoring the context regarding the social, political and economic structures those people live in. Because the thing we are trying to quantify here in these discussion, is the *applicability of process management principles as they could be applied in the USA*. Since Sweden for example, is economically several orders of magnitude smaller than the USA and its place and function within the larger scope of global economic processes is drastically different - you cannot logically say that having the USA apply the same process management principles dealing with health care would have the same effects in our environment as they do in their environment. What you are saying is the equivalent of saying that a manufacturing or financials management process that works in a mom&pop shop with 2 employees will produce the same relative results if implemented in a multi national Fortune 100 company with sixty thousand employees.

This is how you are misusing normalization - you are trying to argue that since a few specific metrics look better for the Swedes (or others) than the US after normalization, that therefore implementing the way they do things would provide an improvement to our system. Which is a fallacy.

Like I said, these systems are to complex to be evaluated in such a simplistic manner.



Again, as with our other discussions... I understand the concepts perfectly well - better than you, because I understand them well enough to inform you on how you are misapplying them.

As I said previously - I am not rejecting normalization, I am letting you know that you are misusing it. The only thing normalization can show us here is that other countries are paying less - it tells us nothing about why. That "why" is the part you get wrong. That "why" , and regarding the future of USA health care planning - the "how" - are the topics of discussion.

You are tying to build a house, but only understand how to use a hand saw. When to build a decent house, you also need hammers, and nails, an understanding of the materials properties regarding weight and stresses, etc.



Yes yes, comparing populations. What we are striving for however, is the determination of a superior system. The population comparison of dollars per capita is just one metric for comparing results. To analyze the reasons, and formulate workable solutions you have to look far beyond economy 101 - if you stay stuck on that level you will never learn how to properly apply analytical techniques or concepts to achieve the desired result.



This exemplifies where you go wrong. If you cannot model a system, you obviously are not understanding all the factors at play with that system. Its pretty fundamental, that to improve a process you have to have an understanding of the process you are trying to improve.

Trying to say that "A" is better than "B" when both exist in completely different environments on a completely different scale is sillyness. To even begin to make a valid apples to apples comparison, you have to compare the EU to the US as a whole. Even without getting into the weeds, the scale alone between the US and your poster countries is analogous to a toy model skyscraper to full size 100 story skyscraper.

Again, you can say we spend to much and get too little - and even be correct on that point, it just does not validate your assertions that your way would be an improvement. If you cannot model the system, you also have no means to begin to predict or attenuate unintended consequences either.

I am well aware that taxpayers foot the bill for much emergency room use by the uninsured. I have said as much in the past, so this attempted insult falls flat as well. The question is how we deal with it, which is where your proposals fall short.

Did you know that Nigeria uses the money scammed from people in the email and phone scams in thier GDP.
So if the US would use say mob or gang profits then the health care cost would lower by GDP standards.

No Derid, I disagree that we have to extensively model entire system to reach conclusions about it. We don't have a model of universe, yet astronomy can tell us a lot about how it works. The same principle applies here - you don't have to model minute details to observe obvious trends.

I understand your position that ONE on ONE comparison, say Luxemburg to US, there is a possibility that some factors could have disproportional effect. This is not the case here, it is US compared to ALL socialized healthcare countries. EACH AND EVERY SINGLE SOCIALIZED MEDICINE COUNTRY DOES IT CHEAPER! US population are still homo sapiens, you can't come up with "different enough scale, environment, circumstances" large enough to explain all of it away. If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, looks like a duck it must be a duck.

Sinij, I want to propose a test. You are a firm beliver in unviesral healthcare, to help those that dont make enough to help them. For a family of 6, our house hold clears roughly 36k a year after taxs. That averages out about 6k per family member. Since you dont have childeren, and dont need to worry about cost assoicated with childeren. I need you to send me 6k a year, this will cover all shots, dental, copays, out of pocket expenses for medicine, broken bones, check ups, bith control, otc drugs like asprin and tyleno.

Since you are such a firm beliver, dont wait on the taxes, show everyone you are willing to put your money where your heart is.

If you are starving, you only need to ask. PM me your address and I will help you out. I am sure I am not only one here who would be willing to help fellow KGBer in distress.

Now, if you are trying to draw some misguided parallel - it doesn't work this way. Me giving you money will not address healthcare crisis in this country, just like me filling a pothole on the street outside won't fix our crumbling infrastructure. Certain things could be done only via government because of massive scale of undertaking.

I can feed my family, and yes it is parallel. What you are wanting done on the natinal level is what I am asking you todo on the personal level. You wince from it and only want to be engaged with it if some one else runs it, but the moment you are put on the spot to reach into your own pocket and distrubt the funds as you see fit, you draw back.

There in is the difference from me and you. I dont wait for others to fix the problem, but put myself out there to help others. I can see where you are coming from, but to me for your argument to hold water is enact it at the lowest level and work your way up. A true grassroots change to the system.

Interesting analogy... sure you can learn some things, or at least make educated conjectures about the universe from astronomy. But we didnt learn enough to make much valuable use from astronomy alone. Do you have any idea how many rocket tests failed, when we were developing rocket technology for example? A LOT.

I mean, data gleaned from astronomy let us conjecture about things like force required to exit earths gravity well, and how objects in space move and could affect each other via gravity.

And hey, a small rocket flies straight up right? So why are all these large rockets crashing? Oh, a gyroscope? Why would we need one of those.....

In the case of rockets, a lot of accidents and trail and error were required to get things right. A lot of disciplines other than astronomy were required to make systematic use of new technologies based on, and/or involving astronomy.

Economically speaking, its kind of similar to what we are currently going through with the Fed and central fiscal planning.

Repeating these follies with our health system out of pure faith and ideological fervor is not something I care to see.

So your astronomy example was a good one.



Most socialist systems in the world fail miserably and provide nothing close to the value our horribly broken one does, in many and some cases most types of incidences. The amount of social or mostly social health systems that are even in the same ballpark is small. If you come down with a serious illness, and need advanced treatment and/or complicated surgery.... most people wouldnt volunteer to have it done in Greece or Venezuela. If they had any other option.

Sweden might be able to perform it, but you also might be waiting a few months longer than you would want.

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Anyhow, the gist of what you seem to be saying is that even though we dont understand how the health economic system works globally, or even locally in socialist systems... we should make large scale changes based on faith.

Since we cant model it, and therefore have no management criteria in the absence of an open market valuation system (and this gets even more complex, because our broken mixed pub/private system already distorts pricing very badly)... how on earth do you begin to implement even the day to day management of such a system in a rational way?

I dont like tinkering with important things out of faith and ideology.

Also, see Helemotos earlier link for references and explanation regarding the market distortions inflicted by govt on our current system. Its a good read, and does a good job explaining may of them.

Again, you are pushing "US is too different to compare to anything else" point. It isn't. Sure, US is big, but not to the point that we can't compare when we have so many examples. You know why US is about the only First World country that doesn't have socialized medicine? Because rest of the countries seen the writing on the wall and decided they can't afford to throw money away on inefficient systems.




This is demonstrably false. I provided WHO statistics showing exactly opposite, but since you tend to dismiss them, please prove that "most socialist [health care] systems fail". Pick any 2 fist world socialized medicine countries and find any 3 meaningful population metrics where they do worse than US.



This is interesting point, because if you are in position to chose a country to have a treatment, you are in a "well off" segment that US healthcare services well.

There is no denying that if you had a cancer and 1 mil to burn on treating it, your best bet is US. For most people who don't have a mil to burn they are better off in Greece or Venezuela. Why? Because "don't have a million" treatment in US sucks, and Venezuela and Greece does not.

This tells us nothing about overall level of healthcare, only that the very best and the most expensive hospitals happen to be located in the US. Unfortunately they are such a minority of all healthcare providers that their contribution gets drowned in the sea of not-so-great.

Erm, there were plenty of metrics they did worse by. We already had that discussion.

As for spending a million bucks, well you know well that you are playing around with this.

It works for lots of people, not just the wealthy... as reflected in some of the metrics I brought up in our last discussion regarding life expectancy in the face of serious illness.

The relative size of the US is only one aspect, but yes it is an important one as it is the target market (due to profitability). But there are so many other factors, including relative place in global economy and such forth. Its also important to understand where the other systems will be in 10 and 20 years, which is another aspect that bears looking at.

Most not all of the new medical tech comes from the US. So yes we pay more for it. As with all tech the first people to use it pay more till enough people are using it to make the cost come down, that's how a company makes money back on the cost of R&D. Its easy for other countries to copy the tech and make it cheaper. So to the rest of the world that benefits, your welcome.

This is wrong.