wtf is wrong with the American right?

[1v0ry_k1ng]

british healthcare is free and avaliable to anyone, rich or poor. there are wait-times of up to a year for non-emergency problems like arthritus and stuff like that, but if you pay privately as per america you can skip the que.

free british healthcare dosnt have access to new and expensive treatments because it has to operate to a budget and cater for a majority of the population.

private british healthcare is much the same as the american system, if you and your insurance can pay up you can get whatever you want

Hmmm, I can go to the doctor tomorrow if I need care urgent care. Can you? Oh right, those silly waiting lists, no matter that your emergency isn't life threatening and just hurts a hell of a lot, take some asprin, you'll feel better.

YO DAWG, I HEARD YOU CANT READ

[FLOZi]

I could point out that waiting lists are a product of years of underfunding, being ripped off by drugs companies and backdoor privatisation...

But I guess I won't.

This in particular

On Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel, the conservative commentator Sean Hannity recently alighted upon the case of Gordon Cook, a security manager from Merseyside, who used superglue to stick a loose crown into his gum because he was unable to find an NHS dentist. The cautionary tale, which was based on a Daily Mail report from 2006, prompted Hannity to warn his viewers: "If the Democrats have their way, get your superglue ready."

Has been caused by pro-market reforms instituted by New Labour in the past 10 years. When I was a child, there were 3 or 4 NHS dentists within 5 miles of my house, that I am aware of. Likely there were more! Of the 3 i know best, one is now private practice only, one has shut down completely, one offers both NHS and private practice.

One of the comments on the guardian article puts it perfectly:

Funny how these rightist Americans like to point out British grumblings about our health service but rarely highlight that most people here think the best cure is to spend more public money on it!

MPs' expenses? Trident missiles? EU Subsidies? War in Iraq? Doesn't matter what people oppose, eventually almost any campaign will boil down to arguing that the money would be better spent on hospitals, nurses, doctors... not that the Republicans want Americans to know this.

The NHS ain't perfect, but the overwhelming majority of Brits want a better NHS not private healthcare.

[Relative]

Forb you have done one hell of a job of alienating everyone here. I didn't even endorse Obama's plan, the NHS, or any other model of health care for the US. I was never talking about policy, I was talking about politics. All you did was typify the sort of behaviour and language I was decrying in the original post.

Maybe you could have instead have talked about alternatives, such as anti-trust measures against insurance companies, patent and R&D funding reform for the pharmaceutical industry, limits on compensation, some sort of regulatory body to ensure good standards by private sector bodies, and encouragement for charitable bodies to provide more free clinical access to health care.

Instead you make up crap about things you have no experience with (NHS and so-call "socialised" medicine) and throw around tasteless rape analogies.

Furthermore, I only used the guardian and telegraph as sources because they happened to be in front of me, and because they had a relevant story about Stephen Hawking and the reactions by the NHS to the baseless accusations coming from abroad. I tend to rely on NYT, Washington post, LA Times, Politico, c-span, and whatever crap the Drudge Report and the Huffington post are pushing as journalism for my news about US politics and policy.

[Nemo]

First, let me state that I'm an American, and have been cared for by private insurance on varying occasions throughout my life, from asthma to pneumonia to whooping cough to anemia. It has always worked for me, but I've always been under the plan of my parents (which they get through their employment), so the costs have pretty much always been invisible to me personally.

Here's an interview by a former PR exec for CIGNA, a massive insurance organization.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102 ... ript2.html

The essential message is that private insurers can never be as beneficial for general care as public because the -basic incentive- of a private plan is to make the company more money, which means spending as little as possible on actual medical care. While a public plan would also be looking to keep tax dollar usage low, they don't have a group of investors or analysts who will blacklist your company for spending too much money on medical expenses.

If this seems dubious, here's a quote from the wall street journal, on
UnitedHealth Group Inc.'s second quarter earnings:

Medical-loss ratio, or the percentage of premium revenue used to pay patient bills, rose to 83.6% from 83.2% a year earlier. The company cited an increased proportion year-over-year of public and senior markets risk-based business, and blamed more than 20 basis points on elevated medical costs related to the H1N1 influenza virus.

"While business fundamentals appear to be improving in many respects for UNH," Credit Suisse analyst Gregory Nersessian said, "the pressures of commercial enrollment attrition, lower investment yields and unexpectedly high swine flu costs this quarter (not to mention the government's watchful stare) are enough to take a more guarded view on significant back-half improvement."

Full text: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-200 ... 11785.html


This is an analyst telling investors to be wary of a company because it spent 0.4% more money on actual medical bills. This makes perfect economic sense. I have no qualm with what the analyst is saying...but here is a very plain case of money being valued more than the lives of the people who depend on that insurance. I am NOT arguing that the company should be doing any differently - as an economic interaction, this is -exactly- what should be going on, but it shows you why letting market forces take their course on an entity that is responsible for life and death is a poor plan.

[CarRepairer]

It is of no interest to me that European newspapers masturbate over BHO's health care plan. He's the second worst president in U.S. history and dumber than a bag of rocks. If he got any stupider he'd implode. But that's democracy and we deserve what we get, see following quote...

From one of those articles in the OP:

Urbanitejewelry, an American in Britain, wrote: "I'm an american in the UK. Had a bad health scare a few months back and was well taken care of, no money involved. incredible."

"no money involved." Yes that is incredible. There is no hope for mankind. Here's a thought... if we get sick let's go to the drink from the bottomless well of the UK and everyone wins. After all it's free over there.

Nemo: You make a good point. But it's ironic that at least five BHO appointees didn't even pay their taxes. Have no faith in a business paying for your meds, while the same rich people who you'd depend on to cover your bills in a nationalized health program are instead paying lawyers to find loopholes in their tax returns, or better yet not even paying. While there is more than one insurance company who needs my business, the alternative is a single government treasury I depend on. (P.S. I have lived in both Canada and the United States).

[tombom]

Nemo: You make a good point. But it's ironic that at least five BHO appointees didn't even pay their taxes. Have no faith in a business paying for your meds, while the same rich people who you'd depend on to cover your bills in a nationalized health program are instead paying lawyers to find loopholes in their tax returns, or better yet not even paying. While there is more than one insurance company who needs my business, the alternative is a single government treasury I depend on. (P.S. I have lived in both Canada and the United States).

I'm pretty sure every single insurance company CEO pays experts to get out of paying taxes.

Interested in who the worst president ever is though.

[Nemo]

Car, that's a bit of a straw man.

In a govt program, the people in charge don't have a salary (or bonus) that depends on how little they manage to spend on medical care. In a private company, that is very much the case; an executive committee or investor group could very well decide against giving a particular CEO a bonus (or shrink it) one year because of an increase in the medical-loss ratio. Which means that the CEO (and thus, everyone under him/her) has a direct incentive to bring that number down - a number which contains the health-care fate of thousands of people.

Anyways, I don't think I can make my point any more clearly, so I'll let it lie.

Edit: sorry. anyways - before people start going on about how this means that a govt system will be massively inefficient (because of the lack of those profit incentives), note that government administrators get paid a lot less than private ones, meaning that the overhead for all of the processing involved here would be drastically less.

To be more clear (from that PBS interview):

WENDELL POTTER: ... The Medicare program that we have here is a government-run program that has administrative expenses that are like three percent or so.

BILL MOYERS: Compared to the industry's--

WENDELL POTTER: They spend about 20 cents of every premium dollar on overhead, which is administrative expense or profit.

[[TS]Lollocide]

Didn't I read somewhere that the reason the cost per head of Medicine in America was higher than everywhere else was due to American's demanding MRI's/X-rays/unneeded tests for their ailments?

The 'I saw it on House/Grey's Anatomy/medical investigation, therefore I want one' theory.

[Imperium]

I truly hope that when the time comes Obama wins the next Presidential Election, just to piss off people like Forb.

Edit3:

Defenders of Britain's system point out that the UK spends less per head on healthcare but has a higher life expectancy than the US.

United Kingdom ÔÇö Population: 60,943,912 (July 2008 est.)
United States ÔÇö Population: 303,824,640 (July 2008 est.)

Hey, good job on your homework!

This in particular is rage worthy. Are you even thinking about what you're typing?

[Forboding Angel]

Less per head, ok, per capita. You forgot one thing, namely the some 60 million illegal aliens roaming around who can't (or don't) pay for care they receive.

So how can they drive up the "money spent on healthcare" number if they're not paying?

Go to the mirror, read what you just wrote, and slap yourself. If the people receiving the care aren't paying, then who spent money on the care those people received? It's ok, take your time, I'll wait.

Lollicide, at this point it's going to take a miracle for him to get a second term.

Btw, regarding the worst presidents in history, Jimmy Carter would be the first, and Obama is shaping up to be the second.




DO you guys know about all that has been happening recently? As in the deceptions coming from DC? It just occurred to me that if you don't live here, how on earth could you have even heard about it?

Here is just one occurrance, there have been a lot more: http://townhall.com/blog/g/a822f030-600 ... Descending

And a bit of a funny youtube vid of Shelia Jackson taking a phone call while a lady is talking to her about her struggles with cancer... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L3FnWNk ... r_embedded

[Imperium]

Yeah because 8 months into a 4 year Presidency that coincided with the biggest economic crisis since the great depression is definitely the time to be judging someone as the second worst ever President. I'm not saying that Obama should be free from criticism on his actions or anything stupid like that, but Christ, I really get the impression from you that no matter what he could've done you wouldn't have liked him. I think it is safe to assume you didn't vote for Obama?

[Forboding Angel]

When did I ever blame the economic situation on obama? Throwing money at it has only made it worse, and for that I DO blame him, but he wasn't the cause, nor was bush for that matter.

Are you forgetting that Obama has already spent more money than all the other presidents before him COMBINED?! That alone qualifies him for worst president ever.

[lurker]

Go to the mirror, read what you just wrote, and slap yourself.

What you said about populations was just as wtf.


Forb, I am forbidding you to post in this thread unless you'll be civil and calm.

[Imperium]

When did I ever blame the economic situation on obama?

When did I say that you blamed him for that? I merely mentioned it as it is an important thing to consider with regard to his opening months. Wasn't the best situation to arrive at. I truly think that 7 months is way too soon to be saying that he is the worst President ever, you need to be able to step back and look at what his actions do in long run. Hell, even the relatively short run of at least a year!

It just seems to me that you're not happy that your candidate didn't win, so you're already looking at whatever happens in a bad light rather than looking for any positive like you would've done had you got the President you wanted. It's perfectly normal, many people do the same thing in many different situations.

[[TS]Lollocide]

It just seems to me that you're not happy that your candidate didn't win, so you're already looking at whatever happens in a bad light rather than looking for any positive like you would've done had you got the President you wanted. It's perfectly normal, many people do the same thing in many different situations.

QFT.

[Forboding Angel]

Lurker, care to point out where I haven't been civil and calm? If I wasn't being civil I would have called KDR a "Dumbass" for not thinking it through. But wait, I've been called a bunch of names so far, yet I'm the one not being calm and civil?!

When did I ever blame the economic situation on obama?

When did I say that you blamed him for that? I merely mentioned it as it is an important thing to consider with regard to his opening months. Wasn't the best situation to arrive at. I truly think that 7 months is way too soon to be saying that he is the worst President ever, you need to be able to step back and look at what his actions do in long run. Hell, even the relatively short run of at least a year!

It just seems to me that you're not happy that your candidate didn't win, so you're already looking at whatever happens in a bad light rather than looking for any positive like you would've done had you got the President you wanted. It's perfectly normal, many people do the same thing in many different situations.

You'll have a hard time believing this, but whatever. First of all I didn't want Mccain or Obama. I voted for Mccain because if he were elected with a Dem congress, he wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything, which would give us time to come up with 2 candidates that didn't suck.

When Obama got elected, I said wait and see, and that I doubted that he would do a particularly bad job. 4 months in and I'm reeling from the WTF!?!? that is happening in DC. Then he started shoving government programs down our throats right and left. It's the political equivalent of a Blitz, you shove shit through congress before the american people have a chance to react or even become truly aquainted with what you're trying to do. He tried to do the same thing with health care, and would have succeeded if it were not for conservative print and radio talk show hosts.

If your leader were pulling that crap would you be inclined to trust him?

Ever since Reagan we have had bad president after bad president. H Bush, who did okayish, but still did some funky shit. Then we have Clinton... Sigh. Then W. Bush, who warrants 2 sighs and a facepalm wherever "No child left behind" is mentioned. And now we have Obama, who warrants an "Oh shit WTF?!?!" because he's been smashing bills home faster than a dictator on crack (no that isn't a comparison).

As I told someone else, he's moving too quickly, and the american people don't like it. I dunno about the UK, maybe you guys like your government passing stuff right and left before you have a chance to put in a point of view, but we here don't go for that bullcrap.

Edit:
I see where this is going, I didn't vote for Obama, therefore I MUS BE radically opposed to his presidency and so therefore nothing I have to say is credible.

[Forboding Angel]

Screwit, the eurofags can have this thread. I'm out of it. Nothing like arguing with a rabid bunch of elitists who don't listen to what anyone else has to say. Pretty typical of a leftist.

[momfreeek]

Screwit, the eurofags can have this thread. I'm out of it. Nothing like arguing with a rabid bunch of elitists who don't listen to what anyone else has to say. Pretty typical of a leftist.

yeah, fucking dirty mouthed swearing cunts

[FLOZi]

where I haven't been civil and calm?

Screwit, the eurofags can have this thread. I'm out of it. Nothing like arguing with a rabid bunch of elitists who don't listen to what anyone else has to say. Pretty typical of a leftist.

'Eurofags' 1 - Forb 0

[Imperium]

Edit:
I see where this is going, I didn't vote for Obama, therefore I MUS BE radically opposed to his presidency and so therefore nothing I have to say is credible.

Screwit, the eurofags can have this thread. I'm out of it. Nothing like arguing with a rabid bunch of elitists who don't listen to what anyone else has to say. Pretty typical of a leftist.

Aha. I was just about to make a post about how more reasonable you were sounding, and BAM, you hit me with this. Seems sort of ironic to me that the 'elitist Europeans' are the ones that support the system where everyone can get healthcare. Oh well, no need to reply properly since you won't be back in this topic.