Can't understand why so many Americans woted on a clown like Bush

The BBQ Pit
121

Dammit…I knew saying it would be my last time posting in this thread would come back and bite me in the ass, but I don’t want to bring an argument from one thread into another (The other one isn’t exactly like this one anyways, it’s asking for how NHS are in home countries of SD posters).

Coldfire: I can see what you mean for the most part, but I think I just wasn’t very good with wording (I don’t think I have very good writing skills). In the very core, fascist governments function like socialist governments (In a very basic way, socialism = more government control, fascism = 100% government control). I’m not saying that socialist governments are in any way fascist. It’s when socialist ideas and programs get out of control and extreme (And when people desire these things) that things could become fascist. You have to admit that it would be a lot easier for a dictator to come to power in a very socialist government than in a socialist democracy or democracy. That’s the point I was trying to make.

I know a lot of people like having NHS. I never said that existing NHS are inefficient or whatnot (Sorry if I came across as such). I know very little about European NHS, so I tried as hard as I could to refrain from making any uneducated claims about them (And I don’t believe I did). What I did do was present some very possible scenarios for what would happen in the U.S. if we did adopt a NHS. I compared them to HMO’s (of which I am quite familiar). HMO’s are basically smaller scale NHS. If you are unfamiliar with HMO’s, I can get you some stuff to look through.

Nearly everything I’ve presented was a worst-case scenario (The stuff about losing power, etc.) I don’t believe the people of the U.S. would let the government get very far with taking our rights (Except for the ban-the-gun crowd). As part of the original topic, I was trying to explain that Gore is very liberal in his political views (Which means larger government, which is inefficient and wasteful enough as it is). I wouldn’t trust politicians to decide what kind of health care I deserve. Even if we adopted a system of both NHS and private, I would still have to pay taxes for NHS. (Btw, people who claim it is hard or expensive to get good medical insurance: I live in a large family that would fall in the lower spectrum of the middle class. There have been a lot of injuries, and we still get excellent health care.)

Primaflora: What are you talking about? If someone has a medical emergency, they go to the emergency room and will be helped before less needy people. Even if they can’t afford it at the time, they will still get treatment, and if they don’t have insurance, they will be offered payment plans for any incurring costs (Or enrollment in a state or charity funded medicare system).

Also, each state has different systems of health care. It’s the responsibility of the state to determine the laws and systems for that, not the federal government. That’s one of the core reasons for our system of separated powers.

Oh, and guess what? The bad medical services poor people get is funded by our government (Or charity groups, depending on which service it is). Our government is historically bad at managing national projects, so why would they make it any different for NHS?

I don’t think you understand how the U.S. works. Until you do, please don’t make uninformed claims about us because your arguments will be uninformed, biased, and generally incorrect.

Messiah: You completely missed what I was saying. Governments don’t peacefully up and switch from one to another. Either it is a gradual process or a violent uprising. Communist governments are more extensive socialist governments, while fascist governments are extreme cases of corrupted socialism. (Unless I’m still incorrect on that, eh Coldy?)

122

“Is this h’yar Europe anything like New Jersey???”

“Get a rope.”

“I’ll fetch some watermelons!”

123

Even if this was the image in the UK, isn’t it sometimes politically expedient to portray all public goods as being on the brink of ruin? Our Social Security supposedly is going broke, but GAO estimates when the issue first arose indicated that the “crisis” wasn’t as bad as it was claimed.

124

No, Monster 104, you’re wrong. I do understand how your system works. I’ve done a fair bit of advocacy work and government lobbying about changes in the NZ healthcare system and as part of that I have looked at the US healthcare model. To be blunt, I really don’t like it ;). Please don’t assume ignorance on the part of people who don’t agree with you. I am definitely biased in favour of a system which values access to healthcare for all people, not just for those who can afford it.

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Why? The birth of our youngest cost $5,200. Ignoring food and lodging, how much do two round trip tickets to London cost?

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Primaflora: By saying that our system of health care doesn’t provide access to treatment to those who can’t afford it, you sound very uninformed because that isn’t how things work at all. I’m sorry if I got that impression, but that’s the one you’re giving.

I’m part of a large family. We cannot be defined as a wealthy family. Yet we can afford insurance, and when we need to go to the hospital, we get superb treatment.

I wonder how much of what you may have heard about people not getting treatment are cases in which people don’t need treatment? (i.e., common cold, a minor headache, a stubbed toe, etc…stupid things like that)

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Monster, there’s a post a little way up the page by Doctor J - he’s an American Doctor. Why not read that post and maybe the statistics I posted in the GD thread.

Many here have encouraged you to inform your opinions, I’d hazard they mean more than taking a straw poll of your living room.

128

No shit Sherlock but what the fuck has this got to do with presentday UK, Spain, France, Ireland, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium etc. all these countries are democracies. I’m not that familiar with some of these countries current governments but it’s a good bet that they have/did have socialist parties in power ( at least as part of a coalition). If the governments do stuff that the public aren’t happy about they can be voted out. That’s not taking power away from people.

In Ireland we have relatively free health care if needed and also have the choice to go private if we have insurance or the money to do so. We also have free 3rd level education. If a person does well enough to qualify for college it’s free, tax payers pay for this. We also have a semi-state public transport system which serves areas that if this was in the private sector would not be served. Tax payers pay for this aswell. If the tax payers decide that their tax burden is too high they can vote out the government if the next government still doesn’t listen they too can be voted out. How is this bad? How is this taking power away from people?

No system is perfect and any system can be shot down if picked at. If I wanted to look at the worst case scenario in any country I could easily paint a very bad picture indeed.

European democracies are democracies whether a left wing or right wing government is in power. The people put them in power and they can take them out, period.

129

Sweet merciful fuck! What state do you practice in? Do you even accept Medicaid in your office? You can get Medicaid in many ways. You can apply for Medicaid, it’s based on need. I’ve seen many patients who were not kids, pregnant or already sick. I’m sorry, but you are very misinformed. To say the least, your facts are just plain wrong.

Apart from Medicaid there are a lot of community centers where you get can good health care for a pittance. Many offices can give reduced fees based on circumstances. Maybe Dr. J practices out of some high priced downtown building where you are SOL if you don’t have full coverage, but he’s sadly out of touch with the rest of America.

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**
It’s actually the oposite that has happend. I have a strong impression that the government in all these countries was infact less democratic only a few decades ago.
There where less individual freedom in these nations some 30-40 years ago.
I’m not sure if everyone agree to that, but that’s my impression anyway.

131

To lighten things up somewhat I was sent this by a friend.

> NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE
> ------------------------------------
>
> To the citizens of the United States of America,
>
> In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The rt. hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

> 1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminium”. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary”. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up “interspersed”.

  1. There is no such thing as “US English”. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.

  2. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard.

  3. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.

  4. You should relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

  5. You should stop playing American “football”. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American “football” is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays “American” football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
    Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.

  6. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 97.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. “Merde” is French for “shit”.

  7. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called “IndecisiveDay”.

  8. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

  9. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy.

Thank you for your cooperation.

132

What’s all this argument about who does and doesn’t get Medicaid? I thought that you guys were against “socialised” medicine? So do you think that medicine should be private or not? Or do you think that it should be private for those who can aford it but “socialised” for those who can’t?

If you believe in the latter then it’s not that big a leap to a full NHS really.

pan

133

To clarify, I am a medical student, one year from being a doctor. The information above comes from my father, who is a social worker in one of the poorest areas of Kentucky, and thus something of an expert on the subject. It is also borne out by my experience seeing patients at the University and other community clinics.

At least in Kentucky, financial need alone is not enough to get Medicaid. That may not be true in other states with fewer poor people who don’t have to spread the Medicaid dollars quite so far, but it is true here.

Dr. J

134

lol yojimbo,
But, You lookin’ for trouble?
<ducks down awaiting tirade of anti-soccer/monarchy/marmite posts>

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Yojimbo: That’s pretty good…I saw something similar online. It was a button link that said “Download Constitution v. 2.0. Fixes second amendment bug” :wink:

You are just a tad incorrect on your assertation that those countries are democracies. They are actually socialist democracies. The U.S. isn’t even a true democracy, but it’s a lot less socialized than most countries in the world (I myself can’t think of any countries that are less socialized than the U.S.)

Now, I’m just curious, but what kind of taxes do European countries have?

Everyone, Major Feelgud is actually quite correct. Medicaid is a program proposed by the federal gov’t, enacted by the states. People who claim Medicaid is like socialized medicine, it’s not (I’ll go dig up the link so you can read all about it). Basically, it’s a basic set of requirements proposed by the federal government, but states that use Medicaid are free to determine the details of who gets it and what exactly it is they get (States aren’t required to implement Medicaid, but I think they all do). It is state run, it varies from state to state, so it is not socialized.

I also found a link to another site (From http://hcup.ahrq.gov/hcupnet.asp) that had stats (In 1997) like 19.7% of patients used Medicaid, 34.6% used Medicare, and 37.3% used commercial insurance, and 4.8% were uninsured. The average mean cost is $11,294, with the most expensive age group being ages 64-84, at $15,149, and made up 29.3% of the patients. 32% of patients had an income under $25,000, and that 72.8% of all facilities used were non-profit privately owned facilities.

Now, these are just numbers taken from a nationwide inpatient sample (35,406,187 people). It’s not completely accurate, and it is 3 years old, but I seriously doubt any of those numbers have changed drastically. If they have, someone provide newer numbers. However, from this it appears the U.S. medical system is working quite well, hardly as bad as Europeans make it out to be compared to NHS.

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Monster, really, quit while you are ahead, (or behind as the case may be.) Ireland, well, our government and opposition is made up of 3 shades of blue. Our left wing parties are a joke. The Workers party has 1 member. We effectively are a country just losing the influence of the church upon our government decision making process.

The UK? The Labour Party in power, about as left wing as David Beckham. (sorry for the reference, if you dont get it) They Came to power on a “New Labour” image, which was in effect rebadged Tory ideas. they are suprisingly center right for what was once the Bastion of the workers.

Spain? about as Right wing as you can get.

The only Socialist leaning government in Europe really are the Nederlands. At least, they act upon socialist initatives.

137

I think Sweden has the advantage over the Netherlands here. I always assume (without any facts to back me up) that the social security environment in the NL is comparable to those of Germany and Denmark. Belgium is a little worse, Sweden is better. The drawback is of course that a good social security systems costs buckets of money. Big buckets. But that’s what taxes are for.

To give you (Americans) an idea what the taxes are like: currently around 40% of my gross income goes into the Netherlands’ coffers. I’m not complaining. Because we (the Dutch) pay all those taxes, the NL is a rich country, which in turn gave me the opportunity to make enough money to fall in the 40% tax bracket.

I hope one day I will be paying 50% or more taxes. That would mean I’m making over NLG 220,000 (EUR 100,000) gross per year. That’s nearly ten times the minimum wage. Of which (the minimum wage) you can live comfortably…

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Skinny, how DO you manage? Your top bracket is 50% as well, right? You’re talking average here, right? I haven’t been paying too much taxes all this time, right??

FTR, our tax brackets are 40%, 50%, and 57%, IIRC. Although reaching the top scale is quite a feat. I’m doomed to 50% for a long time :slight_smile:

139

Yes, we’re talking average here. Of my total taxable income for 2000 I’ll be giving 40% to the Man. Giving, as in: “or I’ll take it from you AND rip off your nuts”.

For tax year 2000 the income tax scales (Dutch) are something like 33%, 38%, 50% and 60%. I’m in the upper ranges of the 50% scale right now :slight_smile: and if a certain grafkankerteringlul would be kind enough to pay my fucking invoices (thank god this is in The Pit) I’ll even reach 60%. :smiley:

And to think I’m only charging ridiculous rates, not ludicrous rates. Don’t you just love IT jobs?

And before anybody starts complaining I’m an opportunist: I’ve been in IT jobs since 1989, whether or not there was any money to be made. In 1994 I’ve been unemployed for a while because I just couldn’t find any work. Only since late 1996 have I been earning a good (ie. more than I need) living. Around the end of 1998 I started making disgusting amounts of money. So now you know why I don’t mind paying taxes…

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Ohh, I apologize. I was under the influence that I was a member and not a guest here.

Sirious: Is this like visiting an another country? I thought that this was cyberspace, a place where there are no borders.
If not, manybe they who run this place should change our status on the board to “guest” instead of “member”.

So is this cyberspace or isn’t it ?
By the way: Monster, no offence, but how many punches are going to take before you understand that you have lost ?
(you are an interesting man to debate with though:))