# Devil's advocate: saving America from socialized medicine. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 26, 2009, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032 "2009-01-26T07:39:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Ocean\_Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8797f3/32.png) [@Ocean\_Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ocean_Annie)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/261 "2009-02-04T06:06:07Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Right now, everyone does have access to a minimal level of care, food, housing and medicine. The problem is, it’s never enough. It’s never been the idea that people live for long periods of time on government assistance, but that is what has happened _and_ now, during yet another recession, we are supposed to give more. You need to provide some numbers to support your assertion that people live for long periods of time on public assistance. Public assistance is scant and doled out by individual states based on severe economic circumstances. Don’t you remember welfare reform? People work hard, some two jobs, and still can’t afford health care premiums or can’t afford the copays and deductibles. And no one wants to take your money, believe it or not, the people who want reform are on your side. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/262 "2009-02-04T07:23:20Z")
> [@Ocean\_Annie](#): > > You need to provide some numbers to support your assertion that people live for long periods of time on public assistance. Public assistance is scant and doled out by individual states based on severe economic circumstances. Don’t you remember welfare reform? People work hard, some two jobs, and still can’t afford health care premiums or can’t afford the copays and deductibles. > > And no one wants to take your money, believe it or not, the people who want reform are on your side. There really isn’t anything I can say to this that I haven’t already said. [There is this](http://www.slate.com/id/1039/), tho I’m sure someone will say the site is biased (I don’t have any idea). ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/263 "2009-02-04T07:23:43Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > All I am talking about is the money I pay to keep other peoples’ kids alive and reasonably healthy. OK suppose you are born to the sort of parents you disapprove of, what are you going to do now? ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/264 "2009-02-04T07:46:51Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > OK suppose you are born to the sort of parents you disapprove of, what are you going to do now? Don’t be silly. Right now I am 51 and have no worries about that. At a time when I was dependent on my parents, I had no recourses. If, perchance, you mean what would I do about children born to the irresponsible, I do nothing. I haven’t noticed that the billions of dollars we are now throwing at them has made a better world for them, and I do believe that if we quit paying people to have kids, many of them would stop doing it. Or at the very least wait until they can actually afford them. Then maybe there would be fewer children growing up in squalor than we have now. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/265 "2009-02-04T14:19:12Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > _He_’s selfish? Surely, then, the people who are actually taking other people’s money without their permission, rather than just resenting getting the short end of the stick, must be even more selfish? Yeah, those darn selfish children! > [@curlcoat](#): > > OK, you explain it - without trying to claim that the population will suddenly drop by hundreds of thousands in the next 10 years. Do it using realistic projections not “you say to quit having so many children, this is what will happen if no one has any”. Investment funds (of which pension funds are one) invest in businesses directly or indirectly. Businesses are run by workers. Future workers are those who are now children. Private pension funds are also funded by the payments of those below working age, and those payments in the future will be made by people who are now children. It’s very simple. The money doesn’t come from nowhere. If the birth rate declines, then there won’t be enough people to fund that process. You are advocating that even fewer people have even fewer children, without apparently considering the implications for your own future finances ten, twenty, thirty and forty years down the line. If those future adults are uneducated and unhealthy, which they’re more likely to be without good, free education and healthcare, then those pension funds are going to be in even more trouble. You’re not paying to raise other people’s kids, you’re paying to ensure a viable future working populace who’ll support _you_. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/266 "2009-02-04T14:57:53Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > I see. Instead of poor people working their way up in life the hard way, they are going to mug me unless I give them more and more of my money thru taxes? Shit happens. If someone doesn’t have money for necessities and can’t get it through normal means (ie. they’re unemployed and can’t find a job), do you really think they’re going to just starve? > [@](#): > > UHC isn’t a social safety net. Compared to the current system it is. Do you really think it’s right that people can go bankrupt because of something as necessary and ultimately unavoidable as healthcare? Personally I see it as both inhumane and a waste of time and money. 'Cause guess what happens when they can’t pay? You pay more! I say we just pay upfront and skip the part where they go bankrupt. > [@](#): > > At a time when I was dependent on my parents, I had no recourses. That’s the point. It’s fine to say that people shouldn’t have kids if they can’t afford to raise them (and I agree with you–they shouldn’t), but unless you can actually _stop_ them from having kids, you’re going to have innocent people living in poverty for no fault of their own, and without the ability to do anything about it. I know, I know, it’s a ‘think of the children’ answer, and it’s not perfect, but they neither asked for nor deserve their lot in life. ---
**Author:** ![Ensign\_Edison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ab992/32.png) [@Ensign\_Edison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ensign_Edison)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/267 "2009-02-04T15:06:31Z")
So you are, in fact, saying that we should just let the kids die in starvation and sickness because you think they shouldn’t have been born and if we allow their miserable deaths it might prevent more from being born in the future, curlcoat? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/268 "2009-02-04T16:02:38Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Cite? The generation that I grew up in 40 odd years ago didn’t subsidize the poor - we expected everyone to be responsible for themselves. That previous generation went through the depression and discovered that business and government mistakes can malignantly impact innocent people. The Bush generation decided to prove it. I too am from that generation . You obviously have seen many hard working careful people who’s lives have recently gone to hell. They should be growing their own crops and slaughtering their own animals , I guess. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/269 "2009-02-04T16:11:44Z")
[http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/mythbusting-canadian-health-care-part-i](http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/mythbusting-canadian-health-care-part-i) Time for this again. lets see what we should have. We have millions uncovered. Our system is an adversary system. The medical companies want to deny coverage to save money. They want to withhold services to save money. It is not hard to see how that would evolve into an abuse of the people who think they are paying for coverage. ---
**Author:** ![Ocean\_Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8797f3/32.png) [@Ocean\_Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ocean_Annie)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/270 "2009-02-04T17:01:13Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > There really isn’t anything I can say to this that I haven’t already said. [There is this](http://www.slate.com/id/1039/), tho I’m sure someone will say the site is biased (I don’t have any idea). The article was written a month before Bill Clinton signed welfare reform. The numbers referenced in the article are fifteen years old and irrelevant. The welfare of 1994 no longer exist. But I agree there is nothing more to say that hasn’t already been said. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/271 "2009-02-04T17:06:37Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > But, of course, you understand that the primary reason these things are different may well be that **Canada has universal health insurance and the United States doesn’t.** Now I’m going to need you to provide some evidence for this claim. How would universal health insurance lower how much doctor’s make? I can see administrative costs going down with a single payer system. How would malpractice insurance costs go down? I’m genuinely interested as to how the government footing the bill is going to magically cut all our doctor’s compensation in half and reduce the number of malpractice suits per year. Are we going to put a cap on physician compensation? Limit the legal rights of individuals to file suits? That may work–but that isn’t change because of a single payer system those are entirely different changes. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/272 "2009-02-04T17:11:46Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I’ve read some interesting points in this thread & the Pit thread, & it’s got me thinking. While I don’t think America desperately needs to be saved from “socialism,” it seems that calling for national insurance is missing the necessary fix. > > Doctors & hospitals benefit from a seller’s market. If we increase the supply of doctors, nurses, & hospitals, prices can go back down–& use of health care services will rise, meaning more preventative care–with or without national insurance. If we nationalize health insurance, we’ll still need to increase the number of doctors & nurses to get costs under control & serve the public. > > Previous American generations did not declare poor to be unworthy of doctoring, even as they had customer-funded medicine. Yet somehow today, to look at our actions, we’ve apparently decided that medicine is too sacred to be sold cheaply & needs gatekeepers. > > Is there a sort of lefty corollary to righty “Starve the Beast” politics going on? Are politicians & the AMA restricting supply to force this country to go to UHC? Or is it (& I suspect this is more likely, considering a _GOP_ Congress capped med school admissions in 1996) simply not seeing outside one’s immediate paradigm? So what you’re suggesting we do is make it so more people can become doctor’s and nurses? How do you do that? Don’t you think it’s possible there is simply a huge portion of the population that simply aren’t smart enough to be doctors? Or not driven enough? Going through medical school and the years of relatively low-compensation residency and such is extremely difficult. The hours are grueling, the information overload is extreme. There’s a reason only the most driven undergraduates go on to medical school. There’s also a reason most medical schools don’t let people in who had an undergraduate GPA under 3.5; sure part of it is there are a limited number of spots in a program, but part of it is if you don’t have the right combination of drive and smarts you’re not going to be a good doctor. The fix to our health care system isn’t to pump out a lot of lesser-quality doctors. Nurses are obviously a bit different as I think the barriers to enter nursing are lower. But here’s the thing, nursing is a fucking hard and thankless job. The compensation is right now “average” make it “below average” and I don’t see more people jumping on the band wagon. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/273 "2009-02-04T17:14:51Z")
[Link](http://canadiancpd.medscape.com/content/2003/00/45/29/452954/452954_tab.html#Table%203.) This graph shows that there were 2.8 Physicians per 1,000 population in the United States in the year 2000. The number in Canada was 2.1. The number in the United Kingdom was 1.8. Yet we pay ours more; not sure increasing the number is going to have a meaningful effect–unless you increase it so dramatically that basically anyone who managed to bumble their way through undergrad can get into medical school; and then make medical school easy enough that Joe Sixpac can get through it. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/274 "2009-02-04T19:11:04Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > Yeah, those darn selfish children! Which is what it always boils down to - think of da chiiiiiillllldren!!! It doesn’t maaaaaater if their parents are completely irresponsible and are selling their food stamps to buy drugs, you _must_ keep throwing money at them! And never NEVER suggest that anyone shouldn’t have children, they are so wooooonderful and will make the world perfect, no matter how poorly they are raised. > [@](#): > > Investment funds (of which pension funds are one) invest in businesses directly or indirectly. Businesses are run by workers. Future workers are those who are now children. Private pension funds are also funded by the payments of those below working age, and those payments in the future will be made by people who are now children. So, if the population slows down some, particularly in the sector where it is less likely the children will grow up to do any legit work, my pensions will disappear? How likely is that? > [@](#): > > It’s very simple. The money doesn’t come from nowhere. No, you gotta earn it. > [@](#): > > If the birth rate declines, then there won’t be enough people to fund that process. You are advocating that even fewer people have even fewer children, without apparently considering the implications for your own future finances ten, twenty, thirty and forty years down the line. If those future adults are uneducated and unhealthy, which they’re more likely to be without good, free education and healthcare, then those pension funds are going to be in even more trouble. You’re not paying to raise other people’s kids, you’re paying to ensure a viable future working populace who’ll support _you_. Oh come on. For one thing, I’d just like the population to quit _growing_, nevermind decline. But even if it did, do you really think that a slow decline is going to make\* that\* much difference? For another, the people that I want to quit having children are the irresponsible ones - you know, the ones that might not be likely to raise children to be adults that will “fund the process”? ---
**Author:** ![Ensign\_Edison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ab992/32.png) [@Ensign\_Edison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ensign_Edison)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/275 "2009-02-04T19:19:02Z")
Yeah, there’s a huge difference between wanting to help an innocent suffering child and some kind of insane child-worship mentality, and it’s not even just that generally we see people incapable of empathy as dysfunctional. It’s more expensive to deal with the fallout from letting kids get sick than it is to provide them with adequate preventative care, so even if the bottom line is all you care about (which you’re proud of for some reason), it still doesn’t make sense not to invest in protecting your own assets. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/276 "2009-02-04T19:33:09Z")
> [@Jayn\_Newell](#): > > Shit happens. If someone doesn’t have money for necessities and can’t get it through normal means (ie. they’re unemployed and can’t find a job), do you really think they’re going to just starve? No, they are going to expect the government to take care of them. > [@](#): > > Compared to the current system it is. Do you really think it’s right that people can go bankrupt because of something as necessary and ultimately unavoidable as healthcare? It depends on what they have been doing with their money. You act like every uninsured person in this county has no money at all and all they ask is the opportunity to go to the doctor, just once before they die. But that isn’t what is going on. If they have no money they are already on Medicaid. If they have money, what are they spending it on other than insurance? How many of these poor people going bankrupt because of a health problem decided they had to have “the American dream” right now, on credit? What has been going on with their money before they got cancer - or even worse, their kid got cancer? Why do they have any kids when they can’t afford to insure them? > [@](#): > > Personally I see it as both inhumane and a waste of time and money. 'Cause guess what happens when they can’t pay? You pay more! I say we just pay upfront and skip the part where they go bankrupt.That’s the point. It’s fine to say that people shouldn’t have kids if they can’t afford to raise them (and I agree with you–they shouldn’t), but unless you can actually _stop_ them from having kids, you’re going to have innocent people living in poverty for no fault of their own, and without the ability to do anything about it. I know, I know, it’s a ‘think of the children’ answer, and it’s not perfect, but they neither asked for nor deserve their lot in life. How about we quit supporting the idea that it’s ok to do whatever you want, the government will bail you out? How much money will that save? ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/277 "2009-02-04T19:34:34Z")
> [@Ensign\_Edison](#): > > So you are, in fact, saying that we should just let the kids die in starvation and sickness because you think they shouldn’t have been born and if we allow their miserable deaths it might prevent more from being born in the future, curlcoat? No. I don’t jump to emotional conclusions based on nothing at all… ---
**Author:** ![Ensign\_Edison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ab992/32.png) [@Ensign\_Edison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ensign_Edison)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/278 "2009-02-04T19:38:10Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > No. I don’t jump to emotional conclusions based on nothing at all… Okay. So, what do we do with the sick and starving kids which exist even though you don’t want them to? You’ve been asked this over and over and your only reply is that they shouldn’t exist, and then I thought you said we should do “nothing” as a way of using suffering children to change people’s behavior. If that’s not accurate, what do you think should be done when the kids you don’t think should be born get sick and hungry? ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/279 "2009-02-04T19:44:45Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > .You obviously have seen many hard working careful people who’s lives have recently gone to hell. Actually, no I haven’t. If it were just me, that could be counted as luck, but I personally know nobody at all who has “gone to hell” after living a hard working careful life. Some of our friends have been laid off and didn’t “go to hell” until they found a new job. One friend’s mother and father are both having serious health problems - no going to hell there. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/280 "2009-02-04T19:55:06Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > [Mythbusting Canadian Health Care -- Part I | OurFuture.org by People's Action](http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/mythbusting-canadian-health-care-part-i) Time for this again. lets see what we should have. We have millions uncovered. Our system is an adversary system. The medical companies want to deny coverage to save money. They want to withhold services to save money. It is not hard to see how that would evolve into an abuse of the people who think they are paying for coverage. Why would you think the government would be any different? Tax money isn’t infinite. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032.md?page=15)