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  • Current Events & Politics Moderators: deficiT | tryptakid | Foreigner

Socialized Medicine: Pro and Cons for residents of nations with such systems

one of my mates has a rare condition which means that he can function with an injection which needs to be administered every day or couple of days, each one has a full price in the thousands of dollars. the australian government covers it for him and maybe half a dozen others countrywide.

i had a deviated septum fixed for free. almost lucked out with an early hospital admittance, but i had a flu at the time, so I waited about a year, but it wasn't urgent so that's fine with me. slept like a baby ever since.

nb: it works.
 
I should take back my comment about preferential treatment. If you know someone in the health care profession, you can actually pull strings. I don't agree with this practice, but I know for a fact that it's done. This is more for non-life threatening procedures.

Specialists, despite getting funded publicly, tend to want complete autonomy, which I disagree with. Canada has done a lot to prevent brain drain in the medical profession by offering really good incentives, and sometimes I feel our specialists don't pay the piper as much as they should.
 
Cyc said:
Canada is similar to Aus. We pay for or privately insure dental and eye care, and everything else is covered.

Nurses don't come and fluff your pillow and check to see if the colour of your Jell-o is to your liking, because you're not staying at a hotel, it's a hospital. Our hospitals are clean, professional, well equipped, and efficient. You don't get preferential treatment, and if your procedure can wait, chances are it will.

If rich people want to buy five-star treatment, they can go to the US and blow wads of cash there. Some do, but in my experience, most are happy here.
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This is probably the crux of the matter, especially when it comes to American complaints about how we can't afford it for everyone, and I think this is where the disconnect lies between US and non-US citizens in this discussion. It's because Americans expect their hospital stay to be a five star hotel visit with all the very best doctors and very best tests and too much/many of all of the above to boot. When I was in the hospital last, I was shocked that I got to pick my meals every day during an extended stay - that's a huge extra cost, and although I know I paid for it, I know many others didn't, and that means I was eating their cost through my higher insurance payments. When we think "care for everyone" we think "fancy shmancy care for everyone" because that's what everyone demands here (and it's compounded by the fact that everyone thinks that everything is a friggin fatal disease nowadays - your kid's cough does not warrant an emergency room visit and you do not need Prozac!). It's just like that King of the Hill episode where Hank gets the Army cat and ends up paying hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for fancy machines and tests and treatments for a cat that isn't really sick.

Good, standard care should be available to everyone, and by all means, if you want to be pampered while you're there, you can pay for it if you like.
 
i don't think that's the crux of the matter at all. we used to have much lower costs, even if our hospitals might be more comfortable (i'm not sure if they are on average). monopoly style business and corporate influence over government allowed profits to soar at the expense of the customers. the private sector cannot handle the business of ensuring everybody healthcare, unless checks/balances/referees are introduced aka regulation. the most efficient way being to simply make it public
 
^good pick up r*n*r. over here, no one considers a hospital stay anything near pleasant or desireable. absolute last resort.
 
rant*N*rave said:
Good, standard care should be available to everyone, and by all means, if you want to be pampered while you're there, you can pay for it if you like.
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If you want to be pampered then go to a day spa, not a hospital, that's what I always say.
 
kong said:
I'm getting off topic, but it can't be paid for. As advanced countries we may have amazing medical technology, but everyone can't have it. It doesn't matter what system we use.

Lets frame this discussion in honest terms. Under any system some people cannot get the care they need. It doesn't matter how "civilized" the country is.
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But what about Cuba? We've ran their economy into the ground and yet they get some of the same medicine for sometimes hundreds of dollars cheaper. I'm sorry, but there is no reason for any country that is industrialized to not have free health care. The only problem with America is we've framed a government where private sectors directly influence government control and procedure. More so than the individuals. It seems our health care will always be lousy, because we'll have to rival private sectors which seem too giving (to representatives) to fall prey to what's right for everyone. That's just my two cents.
 
Pander Bear said:
Cuba has doctors that moonlight as prostitutes to make ends meet. I don't think their particular brand of healthcare is too appealing to most Americans.
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I'm sure they do, I wouldn't be surprised one bit. What reasons can you think they have to do that? The country is broke, if a private sector for health care was introduced it wouldn't be much better, because they're broke. America on the other hand, is no where near broke. We could afford to do this. Much like Britain, or France. France being one that has the best health care in the world. There is absolute zero reason for we Americans to pay for our health when the government would be far more suited.
 
Access to healthcare is the cornerstone of a Western liberal democracy. It's not difficult, it's not bankrupting.
 
Pander Bear said:
I don't think their particular brand of healthcare is too appealing to most Americans.
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coke/pepsi or nike/reebok, who gives a rats as long as peoples is ficksed. anyone whinging about names on the labels in terms of healthcare needs to be beaten to a pulp and sent to hostipal.
 
zomg! alarm!
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oh wait, are you still using cuba as an analogical argument?


....or american jumbo jet pilots?:\
 
ya-- I'm very disconcerted that this page seems to be about support for a command economy... and jumbo jet pilots lead very posh lives for being the sky's bus drivers. I've been to the residences of a couple.
 
Pander Bear said:
ya-- I'm very disconcerted that this page seems to be about support for a command economy... and jumbo jet pilots lead very posh lives for being the sky's bus drivers. I've been to the residences of a couple.
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I'm not sure progressive and slightly higher taxes to fund health care, and welfare (which is pretty strongly monitored for signs of abuse) constitutes a command economy.
I am for these things which may have you guessing I am on welfare myself or on a low income. To the contrary, I earn well over $90,000 a year taxed. I am currently between jobs as my old company closed down and am not illegible for welfare myself as I received a large redundancy. Thankfully I am back to work next week but I did not receive a cent although I pay considerable taxes.
So Even though you could say I am on the paying side of the equation I wouldn't change it for one second, either would most people I know. I do despise that overtime is taxed at such a high rate though.

( I have needed a doctor a few times in the last month and that was free including very cheap medicines).
 
My opinion has been discussed and rediscussed over several posts with Heuristic in the other healthcare thread.

To sum up my position, which I feel VERY strongly about:

Medicine should NOT be in the market, period. Renumeration for doctors and pharmacists, and funding for medical research, should be made up ENTIRELY of tax-money. This does not necessarily equate to low wages for doctors - government funded doctors in Canada are still amongst the richest people. But of course, an increasingly-capitalistic government managed to find a way around this: less doctors.

My government does not do me a "favour" by giving me free health care. It is merely doing what it is MEANT to do, and (in the case of Canada), it's been getting more and more half-assed at it (compared to what it was in, say, the 70s).

Free healthcare (and other things of slightly lesser priority such as Education) should not be a privilege, but rather the raison d'etre of the government. Exactly when did we get the silly idea of electing business-men to tell us how to run our lives and not do much more, I don't know.

And for those who claim that tax money can't afford it. Actually, we can. All that is needed is an adjusted taxation system for proper redistribution of wealth (the actual socialism part which people can't seem to get right) and less spending on irrelevant things like fighting other countries' wars.

EDIT: Lol, I guess I didn't exactly "sum it up". Let's try again:

a) The golden standard I go with is that of Enlightened-Anarchocommunism. But since primitive humanity has a very long way to get there, the next best thing we have is a socialized state.

b) Health should be the number one concern of any government, since sick and dead workers tend to produce nothing at all. The Canadian government is indeed better than many others in its pseudo-socialist ("welfare state") policies, but has been eroded by the myopic lure of capitalism. This has been the reduction of social welfare (which includes free health) through "policy by stealth"* over the last few decades. IMO, it is not socialist enough, and there is vast room for improvement. Unfortunately, I do not see this happening.

Properly socialized healthcare has no "cons". The few possible "cons" come out only when you place this in a capitalist framework.

* Also see (Chappell, Rosally, Social Welfare in Canadian Society, 3 Ed., Nelson Toronto 2008.) for more details. This is a standard textbook on the issue used in most post-secondary institutions.
 
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