Please explain American healthcare logic to me (a Brit).

[editec]

Some Americans (like myself) have a problem with the government getting too big and powerful. This is a complicated issue, but rest assured that our 'representatives' WILL pass some kind of universal health coverage for everyone soon, possibly this year. It's inevitable. And then in a few years the US will go broke and we'll become a 3rd world nation. I'll need a place to stay then. Do you have any extra room in your flat?

I live in a castle, as all Englishmen do, so you're welcome anytime

LOL!

Yes and we all live in log cabins. When you visit here, bring yer shootin irons just in case them injuns get uppity.

As I understand it the US is already pretty broke (the $10trillion debt I mentioned somewhere) - although, it's not that bad, only 100% of GDP).

The USA is broke, but not just because of the debt. Our system of deciding leaders is corrupt and all our problems stem from that.

I think the problem is Americans' innate dislike of the concept of tax.

We like tic tacs though.

I understand why many Americans think like that. You live in a vast country where, particularly in the sparsely populated areas there is a tradition of self reliance, and an understandable suspicion of outside inteference.

What a civilized way of saying we believe in the myth of the self made and self reliant man.

Unfortunately when you live in areas of high population density like some of your coastal states and most European countries it is simply not possible to have a functioning society without some kind of communal care system, be it social security or healthcare, or whatever because the disparaties in wealth and opportunities ultimately lead to rampant crime, anger and collapse of society.

It's possible for a bearly functional society to continue on for generation after generation. Isn't that how you Brits have functioned for the last 500 years?

This probably sounds like its coming straight out of 'Das Kapital', but it can't be argued that large inequities, and large numbers of poor people living on top of each other with a few very rich people has been the cause of most of the revolutions and subsequent misery that followed in the 20th century.

Not until the sheep look up, no. And with truly well designed propaganda one can expect a disc\fuctional society to last until some outside force causes even the terminally stupid to get it.

I don't see higher taxation as necessarily bad. It fosters social cohesion (yes you do get scroungers - but then there are plenty of them in the stock markets, media, sports etc., doing relatively little for the vast sums they make). It also allows you to shout even louder at public servents: 'I pay your wages'.

No better way to go to jail than to make a scene in a public office, actually.

As for the argument that the state always screws things up, heck, we have plenty of previously state owned companies in the UK who have made things far worse and expensive than was previously the case - public transport and utilities etc.

The state does not always screw things up.

Another thing that sickens me is the 'privatise the profits', 'nationalise the debts' modus operandi prevalent over here, and I guess in the US aswell, at the moment.

Socialism for the superwealthy, capitalism for the rest of us.

I think I'm woffling now. Anyway, you are welcome to come and stay anytime.

And your address is?

Provided you can stand to come and live in a 3rd world country (which by implication is what you were saying).

I have moose in my backyard. How 3rd world can England possibly be compared to that?

Although, I don't actually think the UK is quite in the 3rd world category yet, even after having had healthcare for all since 1948. Heck, we could afford a national health care system in 1948(!), when Britain was bankrupt, still on rations, with millions of bombed out homes etc. Surely you can't be serious when you think America will go broke under the staggering weight of paying for health care for the remaining 15% without the insurance!

Oh they can think that, alright..

Billions have been spend convincing them of that.

 

[8236]

1: If the Canadian system sucks, why do so many Americans buy their medication from Canada.

The pharmaceutical industry is subject to price controls in every industrialized nation except ours.

Oh really? Back up that statement. I don't believe you.

This means that their governments legally prevent pharmaceutical companies from selling their products there for much more than the cost of production. Drug companies are willing to do this because they make up the cost of R&D in the prices they charge Americans.

Pardon my descent into your tone of discussion but: what utter Bullshit. That would be flagrant breach of patent law, which does apply in most countries - maybe North Korea is an exception. I can think of only one example of what u r describing here, and that is anti-retroviral drugs in e.g. Africa, and only then after prolongued campaigning and millions of deaths caused the pharms to relinquish their patent rights.
Apart from that all governments/ individuals pay the going rate for medicines/drugs set according to whatever the patent owners choose. Drugs out of patent go for whatever the manufacturer wants to charge.

So in essence, all the smarmy bastards who like to sit back and smugly pronounce on how much better their systems are than ours owe the financial underpinning of those systems to us. You're welcome.

Yet again: B.S. Your statements in tne above quotes imply that all drugs in the world are developed in the US.

Ur nuts.

I am going to get a freaking macro to repeat this to you twinks, because I swear to God, I have had to post this so many times now, I could repeat it in my sleep. This would be an example of one of those things you should have read on the gazillion OTHER threads first, rather than rushing in and making us do it again.

Excuse me: I haven't been here for a while and haven't got the time to read EVERYTHING that has been said on this topic. In any case we all love a good argument, as you have aptly demonstrated by the length of ur reply.

Life expectancy has nothing - zip, zilch, nada - to do with health care in the industrialized world, and not as much as you might think in developing nations.

OMG life expectancy nothing to do with health care provision????? Earth calling cecilie, come in cecilie.

Be serious, Spanky. Do you really, GENUINELY think that the United States health care system is so deficient that it actually changes the life expectancy of a nation of 300 million people? Really? Is that really what you're sitting there, seriously thinking?

YES!!!! The greater the number of people the more statistically significant and accurate the life expectancy figures would be, despite what you say below!

In fact, life expectancy is affected much more by factors totally out of the control of doctors and hospitals, things like homicide rates, accidents, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. And no, socioeconomic status doesn't change things because of lack of access to health care due to money. Even when those people are given access to quality health care - which they are, thank you very much - via free clinics, their life expectancies don't change, because they're attributable to factors like diet and nutrition, heredity, etc.

The United States is a much less homogenous society than most industrialized countries. That means that when you take an average of our entire population, you are getting much more widely divergent results factored into the equation. The group with either the lowest or second-lowest (can't remember which just now) life expectancy in the United States is one that your country doesn't have: the Native Americans. This is just by way of an example.

Homicide rates are statistically insignificant in most countries, incl. the US. A quick simplified calculation (quite complicated to work it out accurately), for the US (c. 15000 homicide/year compared to c. 4million deaths/year total) would raise life-expectancy by about 3-4 months if no-one was murdered. This would be <1 month in the UK. Aint worked it out any others.
As for homgeneity. I think we're all a pretty mixed bunch everywhere, particularly in all the countries I mentioned. I specifically didn't mention places like Japan and Korea for that reason.
Your Native American point. They are a miniscule proportion of the US population and so would also not affect average life expectancy by much, BUT, by mentioning them you are making exactly the point I am. They are a marginalised mainly impoverished group (granted, the issues are way more complex for Native Americans), who generally probably don't have access to the health care most Americans enjoy.

By the way, the study you're quoting from has been discredited on this board so many times that I'm truly offended that you're even wasting our time with it again.

If you are referring to my link to Wikipedia, I'd trust ANYTHING written there 1000 times more than the truthes presented on this board. If u r talking about the actual source of the stats - i'll check it out.

Need a break - kid wants attention - might come back to the rest later. Ciao.


Hmmmm.... interesting, this thread is not visible from my laptop, but it is from my desktop PC. Very strange. Must have something to do with the MAC addr.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK.

You could have saved us all a lot of trouble and blather if you had bothered to read the other threads on this and taken notes, instead of jumping right to starting your own and making us repeat this for the eleventy-billionth time.

Then why did u bother to reply.

Because I had a bet with myself that you would do the typical leftist two-step and pick one line out of that entire, informative post to respond to, and pretend the rest of it didn't exist. And you did. Is it as boring for you to be that predictable as it is for me to watch you being that predictable?

Strange how some of the most hostile people here are women (which I presume u r).

Strange how some people are so transparently hypocritical. "Oh, I'm posting this because I just REALLY want to know, I'm so curious . . . your answer wasn't nice enough, so I don't really want to know after all." Give me a break. You were clearly being confrontational and snotty, and you got hostile responses back, so don't even try that disingenuous "wounded" crap on us.

As for telling u how to run ur country, 1. I am doing no such thing. and 2. LOOL, thats a cheek coming from an American - u r experts extra-ordinary in doing exactly that to half the world.

Oh, really? "How come you Americans aren't more receptive to our wonderful system? Look how much better it is. What the hell's wrong with you people that you can't see that?" Yeah, that's not telling anyone how to run their country.

As for us telling people how to run their countries, could you please show me where the United States is having a war or a genocide that necessitates outside intereference? No? And don't try any of that word game shit where you try to draw an analogy between some apocryphal health care "crisis" your shitbird media told you about and an actual war. I already think you're a lying, smarmy ass, so don't make it worse.

Might bother to reply to the rest of your hostile rant if I can convince myself this thread has not vanished.

Spare me the dodge. You're not answering because you don't HAVE any answers. You didn't come here for a dialogue at all. You came here to hand down pronouncements to the ignorant Americans about how spiffy your system was, and when you got hit with facts, you started dissembling like mad. This entire post is one big attempt to make excuses for why you can't accept the answers you said you wanted.

Stick to England from now on. Maybe they like lying, cowardly bullshitters better there than we do here. Don't know and don't care.

 

[Lonestar_logic]

You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK.

Sensationalist statements like 'Communist', 'Death panels' and (lol) 'have you seen the state of Brits' teeth' (<-might come back to that one some other time), strike me as bizarre. I probably only get to see the wackier stuff that people come out with in the US, but I've been doing a bit of reading around:

1: If the Canadian system sucks, why do so many Americans buy their medication from Canada.
2: Overall life expectancy in the US is lower than in Canada, the UK, Puerto-Rico and - shockingly - Jordan (Neigbour of Irak!). The US comes in at #35, just above Albania, an impoverished ex-commie state next to Greece (which also does better than the US).
3: America spends twice as much as the British do on health (as % of GDP), but yet still 15% of Americans have no insurance. That together with the life expectancy makes me think you're being ripped off.
4: The UK National Health Service is paid for out of general taxation, but nobody is forced to use it. There are plenty of private insurance schemes here, and if you can afford them then fine, but then it's also good that those wealthy people pay some tax for the benefit of the poor who can't. In fact, many people over here also get private health insurance as part of the jobs - just like in the US, and the NHS acts as a safety net for the poor and those who lose their jobs and insurance - not unlikely in these economic times.

I've seen TV reports showing thousands of (mainly poor black) people queueing in and around a football stadium for hours and hours, just to get some basic help on an assembly line kind of system with absolutely no privacy at all - it looked more like something I expect to see in Africa, not the worlds richest nation. Then there was the woman who had to sell her house and was living in a tent with her husband in order to pay for the cancer drugs she needed. Don't know about you but I find that quite shocking. Maybe I'm just being bamboozled by the media, but I thank my lucky stars I live in a country where everybody's life is regarded as of (reasonably) equal value. I thought the US constitution said something about equality somewhere... must have been meant selectively... oooh, heck, it was! It didn't apply to slaves (then) and obviously the poor (then, now and in the future too probably).

So, I really don't understand many Americans hostility to health care for all. Maybe I just don't understand the issues. If it is all about money, why not cut some of the defence budget - afterall the US spends as much on defence as the rest of the world combined (another figure that shocks me). Nobody in the US ever seems to question the amount spent on the military so I guess the issue can't be big government either. I'm confused. Someone please explain. Thanx

PS. I believe the US media dug up some Brit politician to slag off the UK's NHS. First of all he is member of the European parliament (MEP), not the UK's. No UK MP would dare say what he did. Second it's easy for a guy on over $100000 a year (basic) to come out with what he said. Third he was severely reprimanded by his party's leader in the UK (lol, silly Tory bastard ).

If you're not an American, then why the fuck do you care?

 

[roomy]

You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK.

You could have saved us all a lot of trouble and blather if you had bothered to read the other threads on this and taken notes, instead of jumping right to starting your own and making us repeat this for the eleventy-billionth time.

Sensationalist statements like 'Communist', 'Death panels' and (lol) 'have you seen the state of Brits' teeth' (<-might come back to that one some other time), strike me as bizarre. I probably only get to see the wackier stuff that people come out with in the US, but I've been doing a bit of reading around:

1: If the Canadian system sucks, why do so many Americans buy their medication from Canada.

There's a world of difference between some Americans exploiting a quirk of the Canadian system and all of us actually trying to live under the entire Canadian system. You comprehend the difference, I trust?

Do you know why pharmaceuticals are so much cheaper in Canada - and, indeed, virtually all of the rest of the industrialized world - than they are in the US? You probably don't, so let me fill you in.

The pharmaceutical industry is subject to price controls in every industrialized nation except ours. This means that their governments legally prevent pharmaceutical companies from selling their products there for much more than the cost of production. Drug companies are willing to do this because they make up the cost of R&D in the prices they charge Americans.

So in essence, all the smarmy bastards who like to sit back and smugly pronounce on how much better their systems are than ours owe the financial underpinning of those systems to us. You're welcome.



I am going to get a freaking macro to repeat this to you twinks, because I swear to God, I have had to post this so many times now, I could repeat it in my sleep. This would be an example of one of those things you should have read on the gazillion OTHER threads first, rather than rushing in and making us do it again.

Life expectancy has nothing - zip, zilch, nada - to do with health care in the industrialized world, and not as much as you might think in developing nations. Be serious, Spanky. Do you really, GENUINELY think that the United States health care system is so deficient that it actually changes the life expectancy of a nation of 300 million people? Really? Is that really what you're sitting there, seriously thinking?

In fact, life expectancy is affected much more by factors totally out of the control of doctors and hospitals, things like homicide rates, accidents, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. And no, socioeconomic status doesn't change things because of lack of access to health care due to money. Even when those people are given access to quality health care - which they are, thank you very much - via free clinics, their life expectancies don't change, because they're attributable to factors like diet and nutrition, heredity, etc.

The United States is a much less homogenous society than most industrialized countries. That means that when you take an average of our entire population, you are getting much more widely divergent results factored into the equation. The group with either the lowest or second-lowest (can't remember which just now) life expectancy in the United States is one that your country doesn't have: the Native Americans. This is just by way of an example.

By the way, the study you're quoting from has been discredited on this board so many times that I'm truly offended that you're even wasting our time with it again.



Then perhaps you ought to think a bit harder. Maybe this time you could try engaging your brain in the exercise.

Did you ever bother to consider WHAT we spend that money on? Or did you just look at the raw numbers and assume all that was being spent on bare medical necessities? When you look at national healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP, you have to keep in mind exactly what is going into that statistic. It includes elective procedures like cosmetic surgery; dental work, including those things that aren't strictly necessary, like crowns, caps, and veneers; prosthetics such as hearing aids, which are very pricey and rarely covered by medical insurance, and also need to be upgraded periodically; quality of life procedures like laser eye surgery and weight loss surgery; and over-the-counter medications, including vitamins.

The United States is a wealthy country, with a wealthy and aging population that, even in economic downturns, has quite a bit of discretionary income. People forget that health care isn't just getting stitches and setting broken bones and getting life-saving surgery. It's also very much a luxury item, particularly to senior citizens. It costs a lot of money to keep a fifty-year-old woman looking and feeling like she's thirty, and it says a lot about the economic health of our nation that so many here can and do spend that money.



Tell me, why is it that people in the UK aren't forced to use the NHS? I think you and I both know that that wasn't always the case, and your nation's health care system became such an open scandal that your government was forced to incorporate elements of OUR system, like allowing private health insurance, to fix the problem. Now you want to sit back and brag about how spiffy it is and brush the past under the rug and pretend it was always that way, and that that was what you folks intended. Don't bullshit us.

As for government programs that "act as a safety net", we already have those ourselves, although your vaunted media might have forgotten to mention them. I realize the European press likes to depict the US as allowing poor people to drop dead in the gutters for the street sweepers to haul away. In fact, we're just not inclined to extend them beyond the poor and allow even more people to use our safety net as a hammock.



Well, that certainly proves my point about your sterling media and its unbiased coverage.

Let me take this in order. First of all, yes, a bunch of deluded do-gooders who have been bamboozled by the media into believing that poor people are wandering around like stray cats with no health care do periodically club together and decide to have these massive health care circle jerks so they can feel good about themselves and their contribution to poor people they would otherwise never speak to. And because people are that way, they will queue up for anything that's free and to take advantage of the ignorance and naivete of people who desperately want to feel compassionate.

When I was younger, I drove a taxicab. One of my regular customers was a "homeless" man, who spent all day on a traffic island at a busy intersection, holding a sign begging for money. In the evenings, I would pull up at the gas station across the street from where he was and pick him up, then drive him to a decent residential neighborhood, turn down an alley, and drop him off at the back door of the house he owned, so no one would see the "homeless panhandler" entering or leaving. Take a lesson.

Second of all, selling a house and living in a tent to pay for cancer drugs? Really? You REALLY, seriously believe this? These people either had something else going on in their lives that they forgot to mention, they were bullshitting for the cameras, or they were stupid to the point of being criminal. People with that sort of catastrophic illness in the United States are eligible for Medicaid, and quite possibly Medicare as well. It doesn't take a whole hell of a lot of asking to get someone to tell you that. Hell, they're practically ADVERTISING for people to sign up for Medicaid benefits.

Third, as to how splendiferously equal your nation's healthcare is, shut the hell up. Your own government is reporting that NHS performance figures consistently show widening gaps between best- and worst-performing healthcare providers, and vastly different survival rates depending on where patients live. Your own press refers to it as the "postcode lottery", because a person's chances for timely, high-quality treatment depends on the "postcode" in which he lives.

One study found that if the proportion of cancer-related illnesses and deaths were the same in Britain's lowest socioeconomic groups as in the most affluent, there would be 16,600 fewer deaths from cancer each year. The British Heart Foundation found that premature death rates for working-class men are 58% higher than non-working-class men. They estimate that more than 5,000 working-class men under the age of sixty-five die of coronary heart disease each year in Britain because of variations in health care access for socioeconomic groups.

The Good Hospital Guide confirms the disparity between rich and poor areas. In a rating of British hospitals, it showed that among London hospitals (as an example), the ones with the best performances just happened to be located in or near the wealthiest sectors of the city. The worst-performing are located in the most economically depressed area of the city. In addition, there are nearly four times as many doctors per 100 patients in the wealthy sector as the poor.

So don't come in here bloviating about the stellar "egalitarianism" of your nation over ours, all right?

Fourth, when I want to hear some punk from another country spouting off about what the US Constitution says and what it should mean to us in practice, I will signal that by being so rude and boorish as to barge into a message board from YOUR country and start shooting my mouth off about YOUR governing documents and how YOU should run your country. Until I am that crass and ill-mannered, perhaps it would be a good idea if YOU refrained from being so. So much for the stereotype that British people are polite and courteous.

So, I really don't understand many Americans hostility to health care for all. Maybe I just don't understand the issues. If it is all about money, why not cut some of the defence budget - afterall the US spends as much on defence as the rest of the world combined (another figure that shocks me). Nobody in the US ever seems to question the amount spent on the military so I guess the issue can't be big government either. I'm confused. Someone please explain. Thanx

What's not to understand? We don't want your crappy system, we don't consider it better than ours, and we're tired right down to our toenails of hearing from a bunch of pompous, smug little prigs who have never lived in our country but imagine that we are waiting breathlessly to hear their unsolicited advice on how to run it.

In addition, concerning your mention of our military budgets - which, incidentally, are traditionally high in part because of the need for us to aid in the protection of the REST of the world, and you're welcome for THAT, as well - if you truly knew as much about our Constitution as you like to flatter yourself that you do, you would know that some of us take its provisions very seriously, and have no wish to see our government extending itself beyond the jobs it has specifically been given. National defense is one of those jobs; healthcare provision is not. Spending a lot on one thing is not "big government". Taking on dozens of things, particularly ones that aren't listed in the Constitution, is.

PS. I believe the US media dug up some Brit politician to slag off the UK's NHS. First of all he is member of the European parliament (MEP), not the UK's. No UK MP would dare say what he did. Second it's easy for a guy on over $100000 a year (basic) to come out with what he said. Third he was severely reprimanded by his party's leader in the UK (lol, silly Tory bastard ).

PS. If you think only one guy in your government is pissing all over your extra-special system, you're deluded. But hey, again, if you like it, have it. Unlike you British, we don't feel any special need to tell you how to run your country.

You assume he speaks for all of Britain and then you speak for all of the USA

What a fucking limpet you are.

 

[Political Junky]

You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK.

Sensationalist statements like 'Communist', 'Death panels' and (lol) 'have you seen the state of Brits' teeth' (<-might come back to that one some other time), strike me as bizarre. I probably only get to see the wackier stuff that people come out with in the US, but I've been doing a bit of reading around:

1: If the Canadian system sucks, why do so many Americans buy their medication from Canada.
2: Overall life expectancy in the US is lower than in Canada, the UK, Puerto-Rico and - shockingly - Jordan (Neigbour of Irak!). The US comes in at #35, just above Albania, an impoverished ex-commie state next to Greece (which also does better than the US).
3: America spends twice as much as the British do on health (as % of GDP), but yet still 15% of Americans have no insurance. That together with the life expectancy makes me think you're being ripped off.
4: The UK National Health Service is paid for out of general taxation, but nobody is forced to use it. There are plenty of private insurance schemes here, and if you can afford them then fine, but then it's also good that those wealthy people pay some tax for the benefit of the poor who can't. In fact, many people over here also get private health insurance as part of the jobs - just like in the US, and the NHS acts as a safety net for the poor and those who lose their jobs and insurance - not unlikely in these economic times.

I've seen TV reports showing thousands of (mainly poor black) people queueing in and around a football stadium for hours and hours, just to get some basic help on an assembly line kind of system with absolutely no privacy at all - it looked more like something I expect to see in Africa, not the worlds richest nation. Then there was the woman who had to sell her house and was living in a tent with her husband in order to pay for the cancer drugs she needed. Don't know about you but I find that quite shocking. Maybe I'm just being bamboozled by the media, but I thank my lucky stars I live in a country where everybody's life is regarded as of (reasonably) equal value. I thought the US constitution said something about equality somewhere... must have been meant selectively... oooh, heck, it was! It didn't apply to slaves (then) and obviously the poor (then, now and in the future too probably).

So, I really don't understand many Americans hostility to health care for all. Maybe I just don't understand the issues. If it is all about money, why not cut some of the defence budget - afterall the US spends as much on defence as the rest of the world combined (another figure that shocks me). Nobody in the US ever seems to question the amount spent on the military so I guess the issue can't be big government either. I'm confused. Someone please explain. Thanx

PS. I believe the US media dug up some Brit politician to slag off the UK's NHS. First of all he is member of the European parliament (MEP), not the UK's. No UK MP would dare say what he did. Second it's easy for a guy on over $100000 a year (basic) to come out with what he said. Third he was severely reprimanded by his party's leader in the UK (lol, silly Tory bastard ).

If you're not an American, then why the fuck do you care?

Why do you care, are you with your governor on secession?

 

[Bern80]

2: Overall life expectancy in the US is lower than in Canada, the UK, Puerto-Rico and - shockingly - Jordan (Neigbour of Irak!). The US comes in at #35, just above Albania, an impoverished ex-commie state next to Greece (which also does better than the US).
3: America spends twice as much as the British do on health (as % of GDP), but yet still 15% of Americans have no insurance. That together with the life expectancy makes me think you're being ripped off.

These two go hand in hand and use false logic as support for NHS. In America anyway, it is ridiculous to think our life expectency is related to the quality of our facilities and physicians. We are the most obese country in the world also and no one makes you that way. That is far better explanation for our shorter life expectancy.

I've seen TV reports showing thousands of (mainly poor black) people queueing in and around a football stadium for hours and hours, just to get some basic help on an assembly line kind of system with absolutely no privacy at all - it looked more like something I expect to see in Africa, not the worlds richest nation. Then there was the woman who had to sell her house and was living in a tent with her husband in order to pay for the cancer drugs she needed. Don't know about you but I find that quite shocking. Maybe I'm just being bamboozled by the media, but I thank my lucky stars I live in a country where everybody's life is regarded as of (reasonably) equal value. I thought the US constitution said something about equality somewhere... must have been meant selectively... oooh, heck, it was! It didn't apply to slaves (then) and obviously the poor (then, now and in the future too probably).

I've seen these too and it illustrates another problem when you reduce the cost of health care. At these stadiums turned hospitals, demand shoots through the roof because the cost when through the floor. An essential component of decreasing cost has to be increasing the supply of physicians and facilites to meet the increased demand. Currently we don't have that. While you may like the decreased cost component of your system, I don't think you can deny that a them of systems like yours and Canada's is long waits.

So, I really don't understand many Americans hostility to health care for all. Maybe I just don't understand the issues. If it is all about money, why not cut some of the defence budget - afterall the US spends as much on defence as the rest of the world combined (another figure that shocks me). Nobody in the US ever seems to question the amount spent on the military so I guess the issue can't be big government either. I'm confused. Someone please explain. Thanx

There is no hostility toward covering all people. But it isn't quite that simple when you take into account the demand issues and coverage does not inhernatly and probably won't in practice be the same thing as actual access.

 

[Cecilie1200]

1: If the Canadian system sucks, why do so many Americans buy their medication from Canada.

The pharmaceutical industry is subject to price controls in every industrialized nation except ours.

Oh really? Back up that statement. I don't believe you.

Well, whatta you know. You grew a pair. A small pair, but nevertheless . . . Now if only you could pull your head out of your ass, they might have room to get bigger.

Jurisdiction

pbs.gov.au - Consumer - About the PBS

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv25n4/v25n4-7.pdf

http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/health/phRMA/phRMA Response.pdf

I can give you more, but I'm not going to. Did you also need me to provide you links proving that water really is wet, while I'm at it? I'd just like to know if you're planning on denying painfully obvious information that no one else in the world is disputing often.

Pardon my descent into your tone of discussion but: what utter Bullshit. That would be flagrant breach of patent law, which does apply in most countries - maybe North Korea is an exception. I can think of only one example of what u r describing here, and that is anti-retroviral drugs in e.g. Africa, and only then after prolongued campaigning and millions of deaths caused the pharms to relinquish their patent rights.
Apart from that all governments/ individuals pay the going rate for medicines/drugs set according to whatever the patent owners choose. Drugs out of patent go for whatever the manufacturer wants to charge.

What the hell are you even talking about? Patent law does NOT give pharmaceutical companies the right to charge any price they want in any country they want. It only gives the right to be the only ones marketing their patented product for a certain period of years before other companies can create and market generic knockoffs. Who the hell do you think would even ENFORCE your pie-in-the-sky, fantasy scenario of some overarching patent law that forces nations to allow free marketing of pharmaceuticals inside their borders? Governments decide what will and won't be sold in their countries, and in nations where the government is essentially THE health care market via socialized/nationalized medicine, they sure as hell DO tell the pharmaceutical companies what they will and won't pay for their drugs, and those companies can either accept it or just not market there.

Yet again: B.S. Your statements in tne above quotes imply that all drugs in the world are developed in the US.

Ur nuts..

No, dumbass. Read for context. I never said all drugs are developed here, although many are. What I said - which really was plain English, at least plain American English - was that the ability to market their products for big prices in the US and thus make up the costs of R&D is what enables drug companies to indulge in the development of new medicines. We are subsidizing the rest of the world through our lack of government price controls on drugs. If we impose them like other nations do - and you're the only person I've ever seen who's pig-ignorant enough to deny that - it will remove any incentive they have to develop new medicines.

Excuse me: I haven't been here for a while and haven't got the time to read EVERYTHING that has been said on this topic. In any case we all love a good argument, as you have aptly demonstrated by the length of ur reply.

You're not excused. If you have time to start a new frigging thread, then you have time to make sure you're not pointlessly rehashing old news. If you DON'T have time for that, then you need to shut the hell up. And just because I enjoy beating the hell out of dolts doesn't make it okay to be one.

OMG life expectancy nothing to do with health care provision????? Earth calling cecilie, come in cecilie.

Sorry, Sparky, but it doesn't. Even this is not disputed territory, except among the disingenuous and the terminally stupid. Again, we are not talking about the difference between the United States and Somalia. We're talking about the difference between the United States and other OECD nations, places that putatively have modern hospitals and technology.

YES!!!! The greater the number of people the more statistically significant and accurate the life expectancy figures would be, despite what you say below!

In fact, life expectancy is affected much more by factors totally out of the control of doctors and hospitals, things like homicide rates, accidents, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. And no, socioeconomic status doesn't change things because of lack of access to health care due to money. Even when those people are given access to quality health care - which they are, thank you very much - via free clinics, their life expectancies don't change, because they're attributable to factors like diet and nutrition, heredity, etc.

The United States is a much less homogenous society than most industrialized countries. That means that when you take an average of our entire population, you are getting much more widely divergent results factored into the equation. The group with either the lowest or second-lowest (can't remember which just now) life expectancy in the United States is one that your country doesn't have: the Native Americans. This is just by way of an example.

Sorry, but what I said doesn't have a damned thing to do with whatever the hell you're triumphantly crowing about. Number of people is irrelevant to this point, which is that the life expectancy numbers of an entire nation - any industrialized nation - are determined almost entirely by factors out of the reach and control of the health care system.

Homicide rates are statistically insignificant in most countries, incl. the US. A quick simplified calculation (quite complicated to work it out accurately), for the US (c. 15000 homicide/year compared to c. 4million deaths/year total) would raise life-expectancy by about 3-4 months if no-one was murdered. This would be <1 month in the UK. Aint worked it out any others.

That would be why it was included with a lot of other factors, rather than mentioned alone. Duhhh.

As for homgeneity. I think we're all a pretty mixed bunch everywhere, particularly in all the countries I mentioned. I specifically didn't mention places like Japan and Korea for that reason.

Yeah, but you also think you have an accurate picture of US healthcare through your media, so clearly, thinking is not your strong suit.

According to Nationmaster, Great Britain's population is 92.1% white, 2% black, 1.8% Indian, 1.3% Pakistani, 1.2% mixed, and 1.6% other.

The United States, on the other hand, is 77.1% white, 12.9% black, 4.2% Asian, 1.5% Amerindian/Alaskan native, .3% native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and 4% other. It should also be noted that they don't have a listing for Hispanic, because "the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean a person of Latin American descent (including persons of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin) living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.)" So that's a whole separate category that Nationmaster is lumping into the other groups.

So are we less homogenous than you are? Yeah, I think so.

Your Native American point. They are a miniscule proportion of the US population and so would also not affect average life expectancy by much, BUT, by mentioning them you are making exactly the point I am. They are a marginalised mainly impoverished group (granted, the issues are way more complex for Native Americans), who generally probably don't have access to the health care most Americans enjoy.

They are a small proportion, that's true, but in a nation of 300 million + people, they're still a large enough group to change the life expectancy averages. The other thing to consider is that they're only one of the two lowest groups. The other one would be black people, who make up about 12% of our population. Do they drag down the average? Gee, y'think?

And don't even be after telling ME about Amerindians, Sparky. I would be highly surprised if you've ever even seen one in person. I, on the other hand, live a state that has more of its land taken up with Indian reservations than it does any other single category of ownership. I went to school with them, I spent every summer on those reservations when I was a kid, I work with them, I interact with them every day.

Reservations are not prison camps, whatever you may have been led to believe. The residents live there voluntarily and come and go as they please to work, shop, and go to the doctor. In fact, many members of Indian tribes choose not to live on the reservation at all. They still have essentially the same life expectancy levels as the ones on the reservations. Meanwhile, they qualify virtually automatically for Medicaid and Medicare, as well as falling under the jurisdiction of the IHS (Indian Health Services).

You really should stop watching so many old Westerns on TV, son.

By the way, the study you're quoting from has been discredited on this board so many times that I'm truly offended that you're even wasting our time with it again.

If you are referring to my link to Wikipedia, I'd trust ANYTHING written there 1000 times more than the truthes presented on this board. If u r talking about the actual source of the stats - i'll check it out.

Gee, what a thought. Actually bothering to find out what you're talking about. Next time, try doing it BEFORE you open your trap.

And I don't doubt for a second that you're happy to blindly trust Wikipedia as a source. That really says it all right there.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK.

You could have saved us all a lot of trouble and blather if you had bothered to read the other threads on this and taken notes, instead of jumping right to starting your own and making us repeat this for the eleventy-billionth time.



There's a world of difference between some Americans exploiting a quirk of the Canadian system and all of us actually trying to live under the entire Canadian system. You comprehend the difference, I trust?

Do you know why pharmaceuticals are so much cheaper in Canada - and, indeed, virtually all of the rest of the industrialized world - than they are in the US? You probably don't, so let me fill you in.

The pharmaceutical industry is subject to price controls in every industrialized nation except ours. This means that their governments legally prevent pharmaceutical companies from selling their products there for much more than the cost of production. Drug companies are willing to do this because they make up the cost of R&D in the prices they charge Americans.

So in essence, all the smarmy bastards who like to sit back and smugly pronounce on how much better their systems are than ours owe the financial underpinning of those systems to us. You're welcome.



I am going to get a freaking macro to repeat this to you twinks, because I swear to God, I have had to post this so many times now, I could repeat it in my sleep. This would be an example of one of those things you should have read on the gazillion OTHER threads first, rather than rushing in and making us do it again.

Life expectancy has nothing - zip, zilch, nada - to do with health care in the industrialized world, and not as much as you might think in developing nations. Be serious, Spanky. Do you really, GENUINELY think that the United States health care system is so deficient that it actually changes the life expectancy of a nation of 300 million people? Really? Is that really what you're sitting there, seriously thinking?

In fact, life expectancy is affected much more by factors totally out of the control of doctors and hospitals, things like homicide rates, accidents, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. And no, socioeconomic status doesn't change things because of lack of access to health care due to money. Even when those people are given access to quality health care - which they are, thank you very much - via free clinics, their life expectancies don't change, because they're attributable to factors like diet and nutrition, heredity, etc.

The United States is a much less homogenous society than most industrialized countries. That means that when you take an average of our entire population, you are getting much more widely divergent results factored into the equation. The group with either the lowest or second-lowest (can't remember which just now) life expectancy in the United States is one that your country doesn't have: the Native Americans. This is just by way of an example.

By the way, the study you're quoting from has been discredited on this board so many times that I'm truly offended that you're even wasting our time with it again.



Then perhaps you ought to think a bit harder. Maybe this time you could try engaging your brain in the exercise.

Did you ever bother to consider WHAT we spend that money on? Or did you just look at the raw numbers and assume all that was being spent on bare medical necessities? When you look at national healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP, you have to keep in mind exactly what is going into that statistic. It includes elective procedures like cosmetic surgery; dental work, including those things that aren't strictly necessary, like crowns, caps, and veneers; prosthetics such as hearing aids, which are very pricey and rarely covered by medical insurance, and also need to be upgraded periodically; quality of life procedures like laser eye surgery and weight loss surgery; and over-the-counter medications, including vitamins.

The United States is a wealthy country, with a wealthy and aging population that, even in economic downturns, has quite a bit of discretionary income. People forget that health care isn't just getting stitches and setting broken bones and getting life-saving surgery. It's also very much a luxury item, particularly to senior citizens. It costs a lot of money to keep a fifty-year-old woman looking and feeling like she's thirty, and it says a lot about the economic health of our nation that so many here can and do spend that money.



Tell me, why is it that people in the UK aren't forced to use the NHS? I think you and I both know that that wasn't always the case, and your nation's health care system became such an open scandal that your government was forced to incorporate elements of OUR system, like allowing private health insurance, to fix the problem. Now you want to sit back and brag about how spiffy it is and brush the past under the rug and pretend it was always that way, and that that was what you folks intended. Don't bullshit us.

As for government programs that "act as a safety net", we already have those ourselves, although your vaunted media might have forgotten to mention them. I realize the European press likes to depict the US as allowing poor people to drop dead in the gutters for the street sweepers to haul away. In fact, we're just not inclined to extend them beyond the poor and allow even more people to use our safety net as a hammock.



Well, that certainly proves my point about your sterling media and its unbiased coverage.

Let me take this in order. First of all, yes, a bunch of deluded do-gooders who have been bamboozled by the media into believing that poor people are wandering around like stray cats with no health care do periodically club together and decide to have these massive health care circle jerks so they can feel good about themselves and their contribution to poor people they would otherwise never speak to. And because people are that way, they will queue up for anything that's free and to take advantage of the ignorance and naivete of people who desperately want to feel compassionate.

When I was younger, I drove a taxicab. One of my regular customers was a "homeless" man, who spent all day on a traffic island at a busy intersection, holding a sign begging for money. In the evenings, I would pull up at the gas station across the street from where he was and pick him up, then drive him to a decent residential neighborhood, turn down an alley, and drop him off at the back door of the house he owned, so no one would see the "homeless panhandler" entering or leaving. Take a lesson.

Second of all, selling a house and living in a tent to pay for cancer drugs? Really? You REALLY, seriously believe this? These people either had something else going on in their lives that they forgot to mention, they were bullshitting for the cameras, or they were stupid to the point of being criminal. People with that sort of catastrophic illness in the United States are eligible for Medicaid, and quite possibly Medicare as well. It doesn't take a whole hell of a lot of asking to get someone to tell you that. Hell, they're practically ADVERTISING for people to sign up for Medicaid benefits.

Third, as to how splendiferously equal your nation's healthcare is, shut the hell up. Your own government is reporting that NHS performance figures consistently show widening gaps between best- and worst-performing healthcare providers, and vastly different survival rates depending on where patients live. Your own press refers to it as the "postcode lottery", because a person's chances for timely, high-quality treatment depends on the "postcode" in which he lives.

One study found that if the proportion of cancer-related illnesses and deaths were the same in Britain's lowest socioeconomic groups as in the most affluent, there would be 16,600 fewer deaths from cancer each year. The British Heart Foundation found that premature death rates for working-class men are 58% higher than non-working-class men. They estimate that more than 5,000 working-class men under the age of sixty-five die of coronary heart disease each year in Britain because of variations in health care access for socioeconomic groups.

The Good Hospital Guide confirms the disparity between rich and poor areas. In a rating of British hospitals, it showed that among London hospitals (as an example), the ones with the best performances just happened to be located in or near the wealthiest sectors of the city. The worst-performing are located in the most economically depressed area of the city. In addition, there are nearly four times as many doctors per 100 patients in the wealthy sector as the poor.

So don't come in here bloviating about the stellar "egalitarianism" of your nation over ours, all right?

Fourth, when I want to hear some punk from another country spouting off about what the US Constitution says and what it should mean to us in practice, I will signal that by being so rude and boorish as to barge into a message board from YOUR country and start shooting my mouth off about YOUR governing documents and how YOU should run your country. Until I am that crass and ill-mannered, perhaps it would be a good idea if YOU refrained from being so. So much for the stereotype that British people are polite and courteous.



What's not to understand? We don't want your crappy system, we don't consider it better than ours, and we're tired right down to our toenails of hearing from a bunch of pompous, smug little prigs who have never lived in our country but imagine that we are waiting breathlessly to hear their unsolicited advice on how to run it.

In addition, concerning your mention of our military budgets - which, incidentally, are traditionally high in part because of the need for us to aid in the protection of the REST of the world, and you're welcome for THAT, as well - if you truly knew as much about our Constitution as you like to flatter yourself that you do, you would know that some of us take its provisions very seriously, and have no wish to see our government extending itself beyond the jobs it has specifically been given. National defense is one of those jobs; healthcare provision is not. Spending a lot on one thing is not "big government". Taking on dozens of things, particularly ones that aren't listed in the Constitution, is.

PS. I believe the US media dug up some Brit politician to slag off the UK's NHS. First of all he is member of the European parliament (MEP), not the UK's. No UK MP would dare say what he did. Second it's easy for a guy on over $100000 a year (basic) to come out with what he said. Third he was severely reprimanded by his party's leader in the UK (lol, silly Tory bastard ).

PS. If you think only one guy in your government is pissing all over your extra-special system, you're deluded. But hey, again, if you like it, have it. Unlike you British, we don't feel any special need to tell you how to run your country.

You assume he speaks for all of Britain and then you speak for all of the USA

What a fucking limpet you are.

No, I assume that I speak for the actual facts. I know very well how many fools there are in the US that I can't speak for, simply because I can't get my head that far up my ass. And I don't give a rat's ass whether or not some dunce from the UK speaks for the whole country or not, because it's not MY country, so it's fucking irrelevant.

Call me when the Brits start speaking on a subject that actually concerns them.

 

[veritas]

You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK.

You could have saved us all a lot of trouble and blather if you had bothered to read the other threads on this and taken notes, instead of jumping right to starting your own and making us repeat this for the eleventy-billionth time.

Then why did u bother to reply.
Strange how some of the most hostile people here are women (which I presume u r).
As for telling u how to run ur country, 1. I am doing no such thing. and 2. LOOL, thats a cheek coming from an American - u r experts extra-ordinary in doing exactly that to half the world.

Might bother to reply to the rest of your hostile rant if I can convince myself this thread has not vanished.

Fluffy's just pissed because she got passed over for the Sith Lord promotion.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You could have saved us all a lot of trouble and blather if you had bothered to read the other threads on this and taken notes, instead of jumping right to starting your own and making us repeat this for the eleventy-billionth time.

Then why did u bother to reply.
Strange how some of the most hostile people here are women (which I presume u r).
As for telling u how to run ur country, 1. I am doing no such thing. and 2. LOOL, thats a cheek coming from an American - u r experts extra-ordinary in doing exactly that to half the world.

Might bother to reply to the rest of your hostile rant if I can convince myself this thread has not vanished.

Fluffy's just pissed because she got passed over for the Sith Lord promotion.

Damn it, Fido! Stop humping my leg! Down, boy!

 

[roomy]

No, I assume that I speak for the actual facts. I know very well how many fools there are in the US that I can't speak for, simply because I can't get my head that far up my ass. And I don't give a rat's ass whether or not some dunce from the UK speaks for the whole country or not, because it's not MY country, so it's fucking irrelevant.

Call me when the Brits start speaking on a subject that actually concerns them.

I think you talk out of your fucking arsehole and I probably speak for the whole of Britain and the USA, I also suggest that you belt up ,you ponce.

 

[GHook93]

Here are the reasons:

(1) The free of rationing care! The pundits on the radio talk about treatments and drugs getting rationed. Although private healthcare companies ration all the time. They consistently deny experimental and new drugs and procedures. Precisely the pundits on the radio cry we will lose.

(2) Raising taxes: Look taxes will go up if the government is going to cover healthcare. Obama says the rich are going to front the bill. However all the pundits on the radio and Foxnews make well over the $250K level. They know their taxes will go up big time. So they need to do what they can to get the masses mobile. If they coming out and saying, look they will take us millionaire to death at a tune of 32-40%, they will get laughed off by even the middle class. But if they come out and say rationing, death panels, long waits, big government, increased taxes for all, abortion funding, illegal funding, the old getting tossed away, Canada Britian Germany oh my! The sky is falling. Red Dawn is upon us. That gets the masses moving/

(3) Denial of care for the eldering and ironically the end of medicare: The old vote. The pundits scare the elder to make them think that they will be tossed away. Saying that is what happens to the elderly in Canada, Britian and ALL of Europe. My god man we are not Savages we don't toss away our old. Can you believe the Democrats are trying to take away your medicare (ironically what we tried to take away from you since it was great)! They are mobilizing the old through the end of medicare argument. Even through most True Republicans want to get rid of medicare and bashed Bush for increasing medicare drug coverage.

(4) The Death Panels: We hear the pundits on the radio state that their evil panel that are going to kill off the elderly, retard kids, cancer patients, AIDS victims or people with certain disease that we would treat today. In my opinion is BULL SHIT, but Rush and Hannity are convincing.

(5) The Long Waits: This might be true though. You hear what, you have cancer and need immediate treatment to stop the spread? Sorry Charlie you will have to come back in 6 months and we will treat you then. What you have a broken arm? Sorry check back next week. What you have a non-terminal disease, we have an opening in 2011. What you need shoulder surgery to repair your shoulder. Does Sept 10, 2020 work for you. We hear the long waits drive droves of rich Canadians and Brits over here for immediate treatment.

(6) People won't become doctors because the government will dictate what they make and pay them dick! As-if the $500K education price tag, the vast amount of malipractice insurance, the large administrative staff, the unpaid bills and the expensive and internal collections department don't cost them a ton. How about debt free med school, tort reform, UHC to cut out the need for large administrative and collection department and NO unpaid bills. I think UHC, tort reform and debt free educationn would make American flock to the medical field.

There are many more but I put blame on (1) The VERY VERY wealthy insurance industry lobbist (right now my premium dollars are going to a 100s of millions of dollar campaign to sink the public options, (2) Rich Pundits on the radio and (3) Politicians that fear the loss of campaign Contributions!

 

[Cecilie1200]

I think you talk out of your fucking arsehole and I probably speak for the whole of Britain and the USA, I also suggest that you belt up ,you ponce.

I doubt that you even speak for all three of your functioning brain cells. Belt up? Why? Are you going to "empty insult" me to death?

Excuse me while I go find myself a REAL man to be impressed by.

 

[veritas]

Then why did u bother to reply.
Strange how some of the most hostile people here are women (which I presume u r).
As for telling u how to run ur country, 1. I am doing no such thing. and 2. LOOL, thats a cheek coming from an American - u r experts extra-ordinary in doing exactly that to half the world.

Might bother to reply to the rest of your hostile rant if I can convince myself this thread has not vanished.

Fluffy's just pissed because she got passed over for the Sith Lord promotion.

Damn it, Fido! Stop humping my leg! Down, boy!

Sorry to burst your bubble Fluffy, but I don't swing that way.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Fluffy's just pissed because she got passed over for the Sith Lord promotion.

Damn it, Fido! Stop humping my leg! Down, boy!

Sorry to burst your bubble Fluffy, but I don't swing that way.

I'm not at all sorry to burst your bubble and point out that you're doing it right now.

 

[Contumacious]

You've maybe/probably heard all this b4, but I just don't understand the loud hostility of many Americans to the so-called 'socialist' healthcare systems of Canada and the UK..

Please explain :

BBC London: In A Socialized Medicine Emergency Room Patients Dropping Like Flies


Princess Diana was taken to a Hospital which was 4 miles from the crash scene - yet it took the French socialized hellcare an hour and 46 minutes to take her there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.

 

[roomy]

I doubt that you even speak for all three of your functioning brain cells. Belt up? Why? Are you going to "empty insult" me to death?

Excuse me while I go find myself a REAL man to be impressed by.

Do you think anyone might be desperate enough?

 

[tigerbob]

SWEET! A castle!

I was joking. I think(?) you know I was. Something along the lines of that old gem 'every Englishman's home is his castle'. I live in a flat really

We do have a communal care system, Welfare. Are you familiar with our government handouts to stay home, not work, no need for education, collect checks, have Enormous families so the entire vicious cycle will purpetuate itself? I've seen in in action for years! And they have gov't health care, if they just sign up or actually go to the doctor. Most of the problem is, they don't know HOW to use HC. People will call for an ambulance at 4am because they've been sick for 3 days or stumped their toe 6hrs ago. I've been there and witnessed first hand. These additionaly cost (ambulances, medics and then emergency room) are part of what's driving our costs up.

Yep I know exactly what u mean. We get the same over here

I don't think most Americans mind taxes, they know they're a necessary evil. But what I think most Americans would say is that they aren't taxed fairly. I saw a senator the other day say that he had a plan to where if we implimented a 13% flat tax, do away with most deductions, we could be out of debt in 10-15 years (or somewhere around that). I say go for it!

I've never understood this. In what way is a flat rate tax fair?
We don't have a flat rate tax here in the UK, but it is a fact that even though the rich are supposed to pay a higher proportion of their income in taxation, the top 10% pay a lower proportion of their income in tax than the poorest 10%. They can do this because they can afford to pay for creative accounting etc. This would be even more marked if there were a flat rate tax.
The poor also pay a higher propotion of income in tax because of the high taxation (in the UK at least) on fuel, and 'luxuries' like tobacco and alcohol.
The only way I would ever support a flat tax rate would be if was solely an income tax and all other taxes, like sales, alcohol, fuel etc. were abolished, and also, provisions were made to stop the rich sneaking away their incomes into ofshore institutions etc. (ofcourse corporation taxes etc. are a different matter, but I'm a science dude, and don't know much about that sorta thing.)

Can I ask where you got that figure? My last full year working i the UK I paid nearly £50k in income tax and N.I. contributions. I never considered myself to be in the top percentile but I'd be surprised if the bottom 10% paid more than me. Or am I misunderstanding you?

 

[tigerbob]

1: If the Canadian system sucks, why do so many Americans buy their medication from Canada.

Because the Canadian gubmint subsidizes medications and the Americans go nort of the border to scoop up on the foolhardiness of those subsidies.

2: Overall life expectancy in the US is lower than in Canada, the UK, Puerto-Rico and - shockingly - Jordan (Neigbour of Irak!). The US comes in at #35, just above Albania, an impoverished ex-commie state next to Greece (which also does better than the US).

1) Much of that has to do with the American lyfestyle...we like to have fun.

2) A whole slew of nations on that goofy list (like Albania) are microcosms of a mostly homogeneous ethnicity, and with populations that wouldn't add up to a large American metro area.



To a great extent, Americans spend more for the best reason in the world..... because we can. What those who have no insurance has to do with this, I have no idea.

4: The UK National Health Service is paid for out of general taxation, but nobody is forced to use it. There are plenty of private insurance schemes here, and if you can afford them then fine, but then it's also good that those wealthy people pay some tax for the benefit of the poor who can't. In fact, many people over here also get private health insurance as part of the jobs - just like in the US, and the NHS acts as a safety net for the poor and those who lose their jobs and insurance - not unlikely in these economic times.

That's your problem, buster.

So, I really don't understand many Americans hostility to health care for all. Maybe I just don't understand the issues. If it is all about money, why not cut some of the defence budget - afterall the US spends as much on defence as the rest of the world combined (another figure that shocks me). Nobody in the US ever seems to question the amount spent on the military so I guess the issue can't be big government either. I'm confused. Someone please explain. Thanx

A lot of our ancestors left Great Britain for a lot of different reasons that those putting up with King George couldn't understand.....Nothing new here.

Classic rationalization.