In 2004, I’d just finished a novel and by way of celebration had taken my family for an extended visit to Australia, where I was born and raised.
I didn’t expect that trip to save my life. But I’m convinced it did, because of Australia’s “socialized” medicine…
Two weeks later, I was in a Sydney hospital, discussing treatment options for my invasive stage II cancer. According to testimony by Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) at last Thursday’s health-care summit, I should have been heading for the airport at that point. Like his unnamed Canadian state premier with the heart condition, I should have been hightailing it to the U.S., to avail myself of “the best health care in the world.”
No thanks, Senator. I elected to stay in Australia. We had ample U.S. insurance; cost wasn’t an issue. I simply wanted to remain in a humane, rational system where doctors treat a person as a patient, not a potential plaintiff, and where the procedures ordered for me were the ones shown by hard science to produce the best outcome for the most people.
Australia adopted universal health care in 1984. Since then, life expectancy for women has increased to 83.5 years from 78.7 (for males to 79.1 from 72.6), while spending on health care has risen less than 1 percent, to 4.4 percent of government outlays (in 2008-09). The scheme is funded by a levy of 1.5 percent on taxable income, and all political parties, even the most conservative, support it.
RTFA. Try it! It won’t harm you.
Geraldine Brooks suggests, you might pass this along to a Republican or some other reactionary.
Thanks, honeyman
#33 Oh boy, it’s Bobbo!
Once again, were disagreeing in terms and semantics due to the angular separation in perspective. You regard values as a cultural phenomenon, for reasons you you’ve explained at length. In my mind values are the primum mobile of all change or lack there of.
Apparently we agree in all but the why, and we don’t need to go there again.
I’ve been preparing for that revolution we both seem to be expecting, how ’bout you?
Rush Limbaugh is threatening to leave this country, for Costa Rica, if the health care bill passes:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/09/limbaugh-exile-health-care/
The hilarious thing is that he doesn’t seem to realize that Costa Rica has universal health care.
# – SRGO — said “I shouldn’t be forced to pay for your health care if I don’t want to.”
If you are paying for health insurance now, you are also paying health care for other people. Sure, you were not forced to buy health insurance but whether forced or not, you are paying health care for other people.
Supposedly what this new enforcement of health insurance will do is increase the pool of money. If everyone is pitching in then the cost should go down. But the current system proves this not work so well. Health insurance premiums are going up no matter how big the pool size.
To my US buddies on both sides of the fence. Run the numbers and figure for average health care spending in the US is about $18,000 per person. The split on public/private spending is 45%/55%.
The US spends a lot on public health care, even compared to countries like Australia and Canada. In fact you spend more per person on health care than Canada (~$9000 per person with a 70%/30% split).
You may as well get good at public management of health care.
#37–amodedoma==I actually don’t expect a revolution. When have you ever seen fatted cows stampede?
No, I do expect a very slow evolution unless we go broke first.
Speaking of “values”===I assume you think “civilization” is one of those primum mobile factors? It is not. Rather it is a consequence of other factors leaving it but an all too thin veneer of what it covers.
How many links can a chain have before it breaks of its own weight?
#40–qb==don’t bring Math to a LIEBERTARIAN fest. Facts don’t matter to them. He would rather pay more for worse care as long as he is fooled into thinking someone else gets hurt as a result.
It is astonishing that so few people even understand how insurance works. If healthy people opt-out, the system collapses. If everyone pays a little, the system is healthy and everyone is covered. It really is simple.
The public ends up paying every time an uninsured person is treated in the emergency room – and a LOT more than if the public insurance had been in place. Wake up you selfish bastards!
Universal health care would be great in a fairy tale world where you could trust strangers with your well being and money. If Australia was so great, they’d have our immigration problem, and a bigger population to boot. People fail to see all aspects of Liberty. Even if they have the greatest health care system in the world, they will lock you up for possessing porn with small breasts and female ejaculation. I’m just sayin…I believe in the free market. We don’t need a government nanny to tell us what’s best for us. We’re all adults here. We need to start acting like it. I don’t see why we can’t deal with each other voluntarily instead of using this government structure as a weapon to force others who don’t agree with your point of view to do what you want them to do.
Socialized medicine: the only real health care good people want. All others simply can’t think their way out of a paper bag or a moral dilemma. Like the above person who can’t seem to separate health care from immigration, and porn. Besides, that “free market” joke is a lie since what we’re dealing with here is a trust. What a dunce.
Universal health care is where it’s at.
It costs much less (generally less than half the price), with better outcomes – by lots of metrics including life expectancy.
If you want proof – you have the rest of the industrialized world to look at. I like some other people here have experienced US and universal health care systems first hand. The US system is an expensive, overly complicated mess.
The American for profit experiment has failed.
We can come up with a new experiment (like fining people if they don’t have health care). Or just take something that works.
Why, for crying out loud are we incapable of just taking the best of things that work?
Ah_Yea linked to dennis prager who asserts liberals will indebt the Country because they are leftist and bad.
Yeah Right!
how about I label you as a descendant of the Nazi’s who fleed Germany whom Stalin said should have been shot (10,000ish). Oh because you seek to deny Americans who are victims of hedge fund outcomes the right to life saving health care and probably soon food.
Look out!
Scandinavian countries ahave had universal health care since seventies. Finland since 1963. Most of the above mentioned UK, Canada, Australia etc. used those as a model when forming their own system.
Sure there is also well doing private sector healtcare services widely available. It’s not just either its both. You can save your cake and eat it too 🙂
I shouldn’t be forced to pay for your health care if I don’t want to.
I shouldn’t have to pay for your roads if I don’t want to or your police department if I don’t want to or your military if I don’t want to…
#41 Bobbo
Fatted cows? Where are you living? Friends and folks I got living back in the USA definitely not giving off that fatted cow vibe. Civilization isn’t the ‘kind’ of value I was referring to. I was referring to those priorities of the individual or society that determine his/their ‘destiny’. As you make your decisions based on your values they are put to the test in much the same way as the physical characteristics. Survival of the fittest, those values that prepare us to survive as a society must prevail, or we will not.
#49 MattG
Thanks for the explanation.
It sounds like a pretty reasonable arrangement.
I wonder how many fiscal conservatives in the US would endorse such a plan. And if not, why not?
#43 gmknobl – What do you mean by “what we’re dealing with here is a trust”?
I think you missed my point. My point is you can’t trust government in any aspect of your life because it is arbitrary and controlling. Why would you give strangers power over you? That’s exactly what you’re doing when you give government a monopoly over healthcare. You’re taking the decision making ability out of your hands and putting it into the government’s hands. And once you do that, it is very difficult to undo.
#44 freddy – You’re right, the US healthcare system is a mess. But why is it so expensive? Could it be due to the laws (passed by the same government you’d like to take over the health care system) which require hospitals to treat anyone who walks through their doors? Or the laws that allow frivolous law suits to pay out millions, most of which end up in lawyers’ pockets? Isn’t it the government who manipulates monetary policy and prints money and borrows money, causing it to inflate? All these regulations that have been imposed on doctors and hospitals in the guise of protecting the consumer have also contributed to the high cost of health care. And the bureaucracy of the government has contributed to how complicated the health care system is. Not to mention how insurance companies and lawyers have manipulated the government and had laws passed for their benefit. We don’t need more government control, we need less.
#47 How about some evidence from a non-right-wing think tank? This one has a clear political bias.
And you make the same mistake all the right-wingers do: pretend there is no problem with the current system. But the current system is close to bankruptcy. Private insurers are charging more and more, and we can’t keep up. Our medical insurance will be limited one way or another: either because we can’t afford to buy it from a private insurer, or because we have socialized medicine.
freddybobs68k said “Why, for crying out loud are we incapable of just taking the best of things that work?”
Apparently its either because are the best, most innovative, most desirable country on the planet, and because we have the worst, most wasteful and corrupt government and could never, ever manage such a system effectively.
See arguments above.
#52 I normally don’t respond to libertarian idiots, but this one is too idiotic:
Or the laws that allow frivolous law suits to pay out millions, most of which end up in lawyers’ pockets?
It’s an article of faith for libertarians and other right-wing nuts that frivolous lawsuits are a huge cost. Only one problem: there is absolutely no evidence that this is true. If it was, we’d be hearing about frivolous medical lawsuits every day. Go ahead, BmoreBadBoy , show us some evidence, or STFU.
In fact, the ones pitching this line are the insurance companies who sell malpractice insurance to doctors. Gee, how about that.
Yes B, everyman for himself. The rich can afford healthcare. The poor are unsightly anyhow. Better off letting them die.
Hey, that’s a great idea. Once the poor die off everyone will be rich! Everyone can afford everything, all our problems solved!
I’m really failing to see how their system saved her and the US system wouldn’t have. Apparently the insurance company did pay up according to her own story (and I suspect that their hesitance may have been related to the overseas business aspects of it all) and everyone got their money as well as their care. Aside from her very-correct comments regarding US doctors and unnecessary diagnostics there is nothing I see that doesn’t apply equally for the US and Australia in terms of the care provided.
Aside from that its just subjective pontificating about which flavor you prefer.
So if some country has a health care system they label ‘universal health care’ that has some good features, that automatically means you should support some other system labelled ‘universal health care’. Even if it increases spending on health care, explodes the deficit, and does nothing about trial lawyers, which is one highlight of the system being praised.
Jolly, I’m not sure why a paying customer should have to spend hours on the phone to get the company to fork over money for healthcare they agreed to pay for. Its not just the international situation – this happens everyday for claims as little as a hundred dollars.
The bottom line is, the insurance company makes money by *not* paying out. Why do we entrust our healthcare to an organization who’s stated public goal is to *not pay* when you need them?
Consider this: Most insurance is for unlikely, but catastrophic what if’s. House burns down, car gets wrecked, robbery, untimely death. Insurance companies know that statistically these things are unlikely for a large population, but catastrophic for individuals. That’s why it works in those situations.
Every one gets sick eventually. Some people are perpetually sick. This is not a good situation for the insurance model.
#58 jollycynic
Essentially her argument is that she would rather use a health care system that is based around social benefit rather than profit. She goes on to explain how, in her opinion, the Australian social benefit based system is better then the American profit based system.
The main contention here is not the health care standard itself but the ideology that drives it. Her conclusion, and mine also, is that the ideology that drives American health care is inherently unhealthy.
Ok, here’s something that really blows my mind. Why do people attribute the quality of healthcare to the government? Policies and regulations are not what save lives. Technology and medical expertise are what save lives. Yes, big insurance companies hinder doctors and hospitals from making life-saving decisions due to profit seeking motives. But those insurance companies were able to grow by using the government to pass regulations that drove their competition out of business. If those insurance companies had limitless competition, they would have to serve the customer better, or lose said customers. It’s so simple, a caveman can understand it…
#48 jccalhoun – You’re absolutely right! All of these things should be paid for voluntarily, not via taxes at the point of a gun. In a free market, you’d have roads and police because there would be a demand for them. Everybody has to travel from their own property and over other people’s property. So it is simply rubbish that there wouldn’t be roads without government enforcement. And instead of police, you’d have the choice to either protect yourself with a firearm, or hire a security company to provide protection services. This security company would do a much better job at protecting you because if it didn’t, you’d stop funding them. Unlike the police, which gets funded by you even if they violate your rights directly. And the military…well, we’d save a hell of a lot of money if we didn’t have over 100 military bases in over 80 countries around the world.
#56 Phydeau – They are a huge cost. They give insurance companies the excuse to increase malpractice insurance for doctors, who in turn have to charge more for their services. Thanks for helping me clear up that part of my argument! If insurance wasn’t so heavily regulated, we’d have a lot more insurance companies, and the competition would drive down the cost of malpractice insurance.
#57 tcc3 – Tres drole. As cold as it may seem, though, healthcare is not a “god given right”. It is a service that a doctor/hospital/clinic/nurse/etc provides to a patient. And that health care provider deserves to be compensated for his work, time, effort. Not only that, that health care provider has the right to provide that service to whom they want, when they want. The government takeover of healthcare is just enslaving those providers. Instead, government should get out of healthcare completely, and allow providers to compete for patients. Unless you’re mentally deficient, you would go to the hospital/doctor/etc. that provided the best care for the least cost. You’d also have clinics which would cater to those who couldn’t afford expensive healthcare, not to mention charity (there are hospitals now with charity wings). Where there’s a demand, someone will supply, as long as government isn’t around to prevent that.
Honeyman==that was well said. I’ll rephrase it to emphasize nearly the same thing: HEALTHCARE by its inherent nature is not a proper subject for regulation by the free market. No arms length transactions are possible. There is no equal dealing at arm’s length with ready alternatives available.
And so forth.
I hate LIEbertarians. Just as dogmatically stupid as the religious types but they do more harm in that they form a strong core for the repuglican fiscal conservatives. If they met in groups and tried to change our textbooks, why they truly would be worthy of scorn.
B, thank you for the backhanded compliment (droll)but you didn’t answer my basic point. What do you do about people who just cant afford to keep living?
I think its great how the anarchists push the every man for himself healthcare system but pussy out on the very foreseeable end result.
C’mon, man up and tell us what you really think. Just kill all the poor people. I mean they’re poor…barely people at all.
tcc3==that IS what he said. He emphasizes only the good parts of his “philosophy” and doesn’t deal at all with the effects.
IOW—-a simpleton.
#- BMore — said “it is a service that a doctor/hospital/clinic/nurse/etc provides to a patient. And that health care provider deserves to be compensated for his work, time, effort. Not only that, that health care provider has the right to provide that service to whom they want, when they want.”
This would also mean eliminating health insurance companies. Once a person signs a deal with an insurance company, that company decides what treatment you will receive, by what doctor and at what hospital.
If people are worried about the Stranger (government) calling the shots about their health care, why aren’t the people also worried about the Stranger (CEO) of the health insurance company?
Governments do make regulation and laws that are meant to protect citizens. These regulations and laws do drive up cost. The question is would buying cheap beef at a supermarket be worth the risk of dying of food poisoning?
I thought the claim that health care is 1.5 % of taxable income in OZ was a lie meant to sucker in the brain dead so I did a little web search:
http://www.medhunters.com/articles/healthcareInAustralia.html
It was a stupid lie posted by a *****. The word I would have used seems fair to me but would have most likely gotten this pulled and it may be anyway.