# Fuck I want "socialized medicine" and I want it now! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 21, 2008, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846 "2008-10-21T02:32:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/181 "2008-10-22T00:46:36Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Also, it’s not like waiting is the only problem with socialized medicine. It’s first and biggest problem is that it’s socialized. You mean like street lights, freeways and fire departments? Is being “socialized” the first and biggest problem with the Federal interstate system, too? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/182 "2008-10-22T00:53:22Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > I was being a bit hyperbolic purposefully. Hell, there are people who are well insured NOW that die waiting in line for tests/treatment. Okey doke. I lots of these conversations, it’s really hard to tell where people are exaggerating and where they’re confused. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/183 "2008-10-22T00:59:15Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > And there will be plenty of people under UHC who will die waiting in line. All you’ve demonstrated is that there are flaws in the system. Baby - bathwater. We’ve already covered this, and no they don’t. Unless you have a countercite? > [@Ogre](#): > > …including UHC. The point of UHC is not to save money. THe point of UHC is to provide everyone with comprehensive medical coverage. And that would be a goal to strive for even if it cost us a considerable amount. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/184 "2008-10-22T01:03:28Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Okey doke. I lots of these conversations Me typie English goodski! ---
**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:** [October 22, 2008, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/185 "2008-10-22T01:09:16Z")
I’m vaguely reminded of the old Mac/PC arguments. You know, where Mac users claim “Windows is full of bugs and never works right!”, while PC users wonder what the hell they’re smoking. This thread seems to be going in a very similar direction. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/186 "2008-10-22T01:11:06Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Whereas I share your sentiment here, I have to disagree with the wording–I agree that doctors and nurses should be well paid commensurate with their skills and experience but health care itself should not be a for profit enterprise. Take the Boy Scouts–a non-profit organization to be sure, but its executives are quite highly paid. Or my credit union–they pay their employees well, but any profit they make must be plowed back into the business and health care should be the same way. **Take away the profit motive** and you take away the incentive to cut corners, to compromise care, to deny care outright, to bill creatively–in short, you get rid of all the things that make insurance companies so very, very sucky. > > _snip…_ Bolding mine… I wonder about this. One of my biggest fears about UHC is that the government has proven time and time again that it is inefficient with both time and money. That comes from the lack of competition. Don’t you think that taking away the profit motive will lower the quality of health care? Like it or not, people respond most to profit. Taking it away might also have the effect of stifling research (particularly with prescription drugs), the promotion of unqualified medical care professionals, and the overall lowering of quality of medical care. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/187 "2008-10-22T01:14:04Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Well, $3500 would probably do me quite nicely for a year. One relatively minor car accident would change that rather quicky, I’d think. > [@](#): > > No. We’ve talked about your histrionics. Desist immediately. If I may suggest, this request may carry more weight if you desist “being a bit hyperbolic purposefully”. In any case, I wonder how much of a drain on the Canadian single-payer system is created by Americans who sneak over the border to mooch off of us. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/188 "2008-10-22T01:16:46Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > One relatively minor car accident would change that rather quicky, I’d think. > > If I may suggest, this request may carry more weight if you desist “being a bit hyperbolic purposefully”. > > In any case, I wonder how much of a drain on the Canadian single-payer system is created by Americans who sneak over the border to mooch off of us. Hey, she started it. If you’re condescending to someone, don’t be surprised if they come back and snap your head off. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/189 "2008-10-22T01:33:58Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Hey, she started it. If you’re condescending to someone, don’t be surprised if they come back and snap your head off. Oh yeah, _that’s_ the mature way to handle things. What are ya, 6? ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/190 "2008-10-22T01:36:45Z")
> [@pedescribe](#): > > Oh yeah, _that’s_ the mature way to handle things. What are ya, 6? Nope. I’m in the Pit. Perhaps you should look around a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/191 "2008-10-22T01:39:14Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Hey, she started it. If you’re condescending to someone, don’t be surprised if they come back and snap your head off. You’re assuming your response was a rhetorical success and I beg to differ, but no matter. I’m by no means an expert on the Canadian or American medical system (my health has been decent enough to avoid much contact with the former) but I think I can discuss the issue without making it personal. The opinion I’ve formed is that some Americans do have access to some very high-end treatments unavailable elsewhere. Similarly, many Americans have no access to anything beyond what they can get from emergency rooms and free clinics. It’s unclear to me that the competing American insurance companies are in fact competing in any meaningful way, i.e. they are striving to offer customers better coverage at lower rates. Rather, they make the system far more complicated than any Federal or Provincial/State system would and while I dislike bureaucracies on principal, I somehow find myself more able to trust a civil servant with a fixed pay rate and job security over a claims adjuster whose bonuses go up if he denies claims and who may get fired if he lets too many claims through. It strikes me as akin to a for-profit fire department who has the power to negotiate payment after a fire has started. Certainly, Canadians who are wealthy have the option of travelling to the U.S. for treatment. Rich people everywhere have more options. At some stage, Americans are going to have to decide if the belief that every individual can become rich is worth ignoring the very real problems of the vast majority of Americans who will not. ---
**Author:** ![pinkyvee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@pinkyvee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkyvee)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/192 "2008-10-22T01:41:55Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > A few weeks ago I was watching TV and absentmindedly put a Qtip in my ear. stupidity is both painful\* and\* expensive ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/193 "2008-10-22T01:47:04Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > Bolding mine… > > I wonder about this. One of my biggest fears about UHC is that the government has proven time and time again that it is inefficient with both time and money. That comes from the lack of competition. > > Don’t you think that taking away the profit motive will lower the quality of health care? Like it or not, people respond most to profit. Taking it away might also have the effect of stifling research (particularly with prescription drugs), the promotion of unqualified medical care professionals, and the overall lowering of quality of medical care. The pharmaceutical companies aren’t part and parcel of UHC so they maintain their profit motive, albeit they won’t be able to grab quite as much from setting up individual deals with different insurance companies–they’ll have to make their deal with the government as a whole. Nonetheless, I’m sure they won’t be hurting for cash, especially since the single payer system will have fifty million new customers and expanded coverage for millions more who will be upgrading their junk insurance coverage. That’s a whole bunch of drugs we’ll be needing. Saving money by not paying for insurance overhead allows for the government to expand research money, and different hospitals can still compete for grant money just as they do now, which will force them to compete for the best brains to secure that research funding. Also, nobody’s stopping private companies from investing in research just as they do now–why would it stop? Having a national standard for care will, I think, improve quality of care in many areas and expanding current programs that give tuition money in return for service in rural areas with inadequate health care would also help bring up the aggregate level of care. There are still many areas where competition comes in–profit motive is not the ONLY means to drive improvements in performance. Non-profit, again, does NOT mean people don’t make money, it just means that there are no shareholders to report to or to skim the cream from the top. I say let’s allow the people in charge of healing decide how to do it without having bean counters second guessing them at every turn–and give them incentives to do it well. Just off the top of my head I could think of many ways to foster competition, improve standards of care and encourage cost reductions without compromising care levels. If nothing else, we’ve had decades to prove how inefficient and damaging the for-profit model can be, I say I’m willing to see how the not-for-profit model does because frankly I really don’t see how it can get any worse! As Paul’s Law states, you can’t fall off the floor. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/194 "2008-10-22T01:49:09Z")
> [@](#): > > You’re assuming your response was a rhetorical success and I beg to differ. Noted. Irrelevant, but noted. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/195 "2008-10-22T01:54:21Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Nope. I’m in the Pit. Perhaps you should look around a bit. Certainly I understand you have the _option_ of being an asshole, I just am of the opinion that it is highly unbecoming of you. Some people can pull it off and still look good. Not you. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/196 "2008-10-22T01:56:25Z")
> [@pedescribe](#): > > Certainly I understand you have the _option_ of being an asshole, I just am of the opinion that it is highly unbecoming of you. Some people can pull it off and still look good. Not you. :rolleyes: Random internet person judges my character. I’m devastated. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/197 "2008-10-22T01:58:51Z")
It appears so, as you’ve stopped arguing. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/198 "2008-10-22T02:00:02Z")
> [@keturah](#): > > I have an honest question…The government has been running VA care for quite a few years and it doesn’t seem to be very effective. [No?](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.longman.html) ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/199 "2008-10-22T02:03:12Z")
> [@pedescribe](#): > > It appears so, as you’ve stopped arguing. That’s right. I’m now reading instead. Try it some time. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/200 "2008-10-22T02:10:35Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Hi SA. If I may jump in and try to answer on behalf of Sublight. Thank you for doing so, I just came back to the thread this morning to find it’s tripled in length. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846.md?page=11)