# 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:** 15
**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, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/281 "2008-10-22T23:40:49Z")
> [@Meyer6](#): > > I have never in all my life heard a Canadian say they wished we had the US system. You need to read more posts by Sam Stone, the Republican in Canadian clothing. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/282 "2008-10-22T23:42:55Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > I’m a poor, very liberal 36-year-old doctoral student in biology, thank you very much. Not a recipe for current (or even future) wealth. > > But it’s hilarious that you guys equate “not really 100% convinced about the financial sense of UHC, especially as applied to a massive bureaucracy and population” with “ZOMG!! He sleeps on a mattress made of $100 bills pilfered from orphans. He must be rich!” You don’t sound ‘very liberal’ to me. Also, if you are a PhD student I am going to assume you have health insurance through the school, and will probably continue to have health insurance if you become a professor or researcher. Look, I’m a grad student too so I appreciate feeling cash-strapped, but lets not pretend for a second that being a ‘starving student’ is in any way, shape, or form like actual grinding poverty. Because I’ve been minimum-wage-earner-trying-to-keep-a-roof-over-my-head poor in the past and it’s not even in the same ballpark. Anyways, you don’t have to be rich to be greedy with your money, which is what I was actually accusing you of. It’s also weird to me how you keep saying you are just ‘not really 100% convinced’ about UHC. You sound completely convinced about it’s essentially evil nature. You are getting awfully bent out of shape for someone who claims to be not all that involved. Anyways, when come back bring arguments actually addressing more of my posts than just one line, please. you’re really severely cherrypicking here. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/283 "2008-10-22T23:51:30Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Yes. At the time, the AFL-CIO opposed the Nixon plan, because they thought they could get a better deal. > > Yeah, Nixon. Real liberal guy. Yeah. Many say he was. YMMV But the record shows that if it weren’t for the Democrats frustrating Nixon’s plan we wouldn’t be arguing about UHC in the new millenium . ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/284 "2008-10-22T23:57:47Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > You need to read more posts by Sam Stone, the Republican in Canadian clothing. I’ve read many of **Sam Stone’s** posts and I can say as well that I have never heard of any Canadian claim they prefer US style health care. We do bitch about our system though, since nothing’s perfect. ---
**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 23, 2008, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/285 "2008-10-23T00:05:52Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > I’ve read many of **Sam Stone’s** posts and I can say as well that I have never heard of any Canadian claim they prefer US style health care. We do bitch about our system though, since nothing’s perfect. We are either not reading the same posts or are interpreting them differently. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/286 "2008-10-23T01:14:08Z")
[quote=“Bayard, post:78, topic:468846”] Oh, and I forgot the managers – another five or so people probably in the 90K range, and the five or six programmers and assorted IT folks at 60-70K each who do nothing but deal with billing interfaces and claims programming. So, we’re up to about $3 million a year worth of grabbing our ankles for the insurance companies. According to [payscale.com](http://payscale.com), the median salary for an RN with 10 years experience is 58K. Let’s say 60K to make the math easier. So, for that 3 million we spend dealing with our complex, inefficient system, we could hire 50 highly-experienced RNs. Fucking brilliant. (Yeah, I know, you wouldn’t recover all that money if we had a single payer; my numbers are WAGs, blah blah blah. Our system still stinks.)[/QUOTE As if that weren’t enought…My brother works as a trainer for a company that makes practice management software for surgery centers. His company charges $900 dollars a day, plus his expenses, for him to train the office staff and nurses to uses the software so that claims get filed with the insurance companies correctly. Add to that the off-site support agreement that runs in the ten thousands a year. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/287 "2008-10-23T01:15:37Z")
I’ve heard lots of Canadians point out bits where the system is not good and could be made better, perhaps with greater involvement from the private sector, and perhaps emulating schemes from other countries with UHC. I have never heard any Canadian propose that we all save a bundle of money by simply kicking 15% of the poorest Canadians out on to the icebergs(even if these people likely contribute nothing to the national coffers at all! The rascals!) and letting the free market sort them out. If you then consider that the US system actually does this and _still_ manages to cost more, well, I’m just not seeing an upside here. ---
**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 23, 2008, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/288 "2008-10-23T01:34:59Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > The US government is the most ridiculously inefficient organization in the known universe… I understand that you are hyperbolizing, but even so, our government is not horridly inefficient. It is ineffecient, but any government with checks and balances, with proper auditing and investigation, is going to be. That’s what those things are designed to do. To claim that our government is less deciscive, than, say, India’s, or Mexico’s is simply inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/289 "2008-10-23T02:07:23Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > The US government is the most ridiculously inefficient organization in the known universe What it is then, that makes UHC governments so much more efficient than both the private health care industry in the USA and the American government? ---
**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 23, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/290 "2008-10-23T02:12:21Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > What it is then, that makes UHC governments so much more efficient than both the private health care industry in the USA and the American government? It’s the American exceptionalism argument. It always crops up in UHC conversations. If we can’t claim an exceptionally _good_ something, we’ll claim an exceptionally _bad_ something, just so long as we aren’t _normal_. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/291 "2008-10-23T02:24:28Z")
I share one concern that some of the US people are talking about. Namely, will the powerful insurance groups try to hobble a plan for universal healthcare in the US? I think they will at least try, rather than fading away into nothingness. Would a hobbled plan be worse than what they have now? Possibly. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/292 "2008-10-23T02:33:32Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > You still haven’t told us where this “massive bureaucracy” is going to spring from and for what purpose. You just seem to throw out statements as fact and then rail against some comment you take offence at, and point out that you’re a liberal and undecided on UHC (which I think marks you as “not a liberal at all”). No True Scotsman. Gotcha. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/293 "2008-10-23T02:35:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, if you are a PhD student I am going to assume you have health insurance through the school,… You assume incorrectly. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/294 "2008-10-23T02:45:06Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > No True Scotsman. Gotcha. I wonder, **Ogre** , if you could comment on my cite in post #280, in the context of “massive bureaucracy”, and administrative costs in a UHC system (Canada) versus the current US system. thanks ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/295 "2008-10-23T02:59:58Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > I’m a poor, very liberal 36-year-old doctoral student in biology, thank you very much. Not a recipe for current (or even future) wealth. Very liberal? [QUOTE=Ogre] I never identified myself as a liberal. I certainly don’t self-identify as a liberal. I’m NOT a liberal. And yet, because I have some socially liberal views, I’m automatically plastered, like Opus, with the label that won’t come off? I mean, there’s the other half…the conservative half. Miss that? [/QUOTE] I’d say you’re a moderate, at best. You are conservative fiscally, and not nearly as liberal socially as you seem to think. While I don’t think this is necessarily true in your case, it reminds me of the Weirddave “I’m a Democrat” spiel, and that doesn’t give your argument the weight you might like it to. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/296 "2008-10-23T03:03:13Z")
This thread (plus a WSJ editorial the other day) really makes me scared to think of all the bone-headed shit Obama would do if he gets elected with a Dem’ed up congress. Fucking hell. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/297 "2008-10-23T03:15:31Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > You assume incorrectly. Okay, fair enough, I was wrong. See how easy that was for me to admit - try it sometime. It’s just that here in Canada students get coverage from the school for things like prescriptions, dental, etc that are not covered by Canadian Universal. So, what happens to you if you get ill or are hit by a bus or something? Is it Mommy and Daddy to the rescue? Or do you think that could just never happen to you? And please, stop with the picking out one little point and ignoring the rest of peoples posts, it’s really annoying and a very poor debate tactic. Both Euphonious Polemic and I have asked you to address points, and you just keep picking up minor insignificant points, and defending them poorly at that. ---
**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 23, 2008, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/298 "2008-10-23T03:25:52Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > This thread (plus a WSJ editorial the other day) really makes me scared to think of all the bone-headed shit Obama would do if he gets elected with a Dem’ed up congress. Fucking hell. Great–if retarded numbnuts such as yourself are paranoid it means we’re totally on the right track! Welcome to having your world suck as much as mine has for the past eight years–except you’ll be able to go to the doctor when you get sick, a luxury I’ve not had. Since you’re such a bootstrap kinda guy, though, I’m sure you’ll refuse the socialist largesse and insist on paying for 100% of your medical bills as a protest against the administration, right? Sure you will… ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/299 "2008-10-23T03:27:27Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > This thread (plus a WSJ editorial the other day) really makes me scared to think of all the bone-headed shit Obama would do if he gets elected with a Dem’ed up congress. Fucking hell. Troll. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846/300 "2008-10-23T03:32:25Z")
What it comes down to is that both Canada and the USA have tax-payer funded health care systems at roughly similar total population per capita costs, but the Canadian system covers everyone, whereas the American system fails to cover a large percentage of its population. Then on top of this publicly funded system, most Americans pay privately (out of pocket or through private insurance) for health care that they have already funded out of the public purse but are not eligible to receive. In dollars and cents terms, that’s just pain wacky, and in moral terms, that’s obscene. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-i-want-socialized-medicine-and-i-want-it-now/468846.md?page=16)