Opponents of public health care.. oops, "socialized medicine"

Great Debates
1

Just got a question for American citizens who oppose “socialized medicine”.

What do you make of the fact that the United States is the only first world country that doesn’t provide free, universal health care? Has every other country got it wrong? Are all these other countries suffering terribly as a result of their socialized medicine? Do you believe that there is some difference between the US and every other developed nation that makes socialized medicine impractical only in the US, but fine everywhere else? I’m interested to know why there’s opposition to socialized medicine in the US, held in the context of the US being the only developed country without it.

As a side discussion, why “socialized medicine” but “public school”, “public roads” and “public transport”?

Thanks.

2

Thank you for using a blatant logical fallacy. This makes it much easier to to argue against you.

“If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?”

To say that “a lot of other people have done it” says nothing at all in your favor.

3

Good post. A couple of answers

  1. Yes. They have got it wrong. A lot of them also have monarchies. Should we sign up for that one, too…just because they have them and don’t seem to be ‘suffering terribly’?

Our employment, openness to immigration, general standards of living, ability to innovate in new technologies and medicine and a lot of other things is also superior to other ‘developed countries’. Maybe we have it right, and they have it wrong.

  1. I don’t know what ‘suffer terribly’ means.

Is your assertion that somehow if things don’t get too bad, and we don’t ‘suffer terribly’, that it’s a given that we should turn over more of our resources and decision-making to government officials?

That the burden of proof is somehow on the individual citizen to prove that if he/she won’t ‘suffer terribly’, they have no case to argue against the government taking more of their money and exercising more control over their lives?

  1. I also disagree that we should be paying for those things you list at the end…at least in their present form.
4

Correction, this would be my reaction:

“What the…?! EVERYONE ELSE has jumped off a cliff except me?! There must be something VERY UNIQUE about me which means that it isn’t the right thing for me to also jump, but damned if I will try explaining to anyone what that thing is if they ask me!”

Oh wait, that would be your reaction…

5

They don’t have all have monarchies, some do. If you’re going to search for comparative examples, you should find something that only the US is without, or, is with.

Huh? Cite?

Conceded. “Suffer terribly” was a poor choice of phrasing. Incidentally, most (all?) other developed nations have both a public and private health care system - you would only have to turn the management of your own health care over to the government if you chose to do so.

Sure, but that’s not the point. Why the different use of terms?

6

Nitpick: NO first world country provides free health care - universally, it’s paid for via some sort of tax or premium payment.

(Actually, I’m for UHC, but I insist that everyone keep their facts straight)

7

If it was apparently safe, fun, and worthwhile, absolutely.

8

How about “a lot of other people have done it, and it seems to work?”

9

This isn’t even close to being true.

France reimburses patients for 70% of routine health costs, and 100% of catatrophic costs. Supplemental insurance is available from private providers. As a result, 20% of all health care expenditure is paid for privately.

In Germany, mandatory universal coverage only applies to lower income people. Wealthier people can opt out and fund their health care privately.

In Japan, the government covers 70% of medical expenditures, and patients pay the other 30%.

In Canada, more and more services are being privatized, and we have completely private health care for dentistry, prescription drugs, and many other medical services.

The fact is, most countries in the world have a mixed health care system with a combination of public and private elements. It is true that the U.S. is the only first world country without some form of universal insurance available, but the form that insurance takes varies widely, and none of it is ‘free’.

The U.S. also has the highest cancer survival rates in the world, despite having the most obese population.

U.S. spending on medical research dwarfs that of all other countries. Of the last 15 Nobel prizes in medicine, 12 went to U.S. researchers.

The U.S. performs more than 2 times as many angioplasties as the world average. It performs more coronary bypass operations per population than all but two other countries. As a result, the death rate from heart attacks is lower in the U.S. than it is in most other countries, despite the U.S. having an obese society.

The U.S. spends more on pharmaceuticals than any other country in the world. $878 per capita, vs $691 in Canada, for example)

The U.S. has more than 2 times as many MRI and CAT scan machines than the world average.

The U.S. has the best cancer survival rates in the world, and by a pretty good margin - especially for men. The overall cancer survival rate for men in the U.S. is 66%, vs 60% for the next best country, and many countries with socialized medicine are dramatically worse.

10

Aside from the self-satisfied 'tude and the completel lack of any intellectual content to your post, or for that matter jsgoddess’s or blaron’s, you are assuming that it is good and fine. Your assumption is unwarranted, and simply “I say so” doesn’t cut it.

That’s as far as I go unless you start ponying up more. Frankly, I waging a war against nothing, and there’s no point. You have utterly failed to make any point, coherent or cogent or otherwise, and I’m not going to waste my time countering the points you’re not making.

11

Yes. Those welfare countries are running into issues with slow economic growth. They’ve got upside-down demographics working against them: they are forcing a higher and higher tax burden on the young working class to finance the non-working non-productive elderly’s medical care.

No country has figured out the math of funding UHC in a sustainable way without negatively affecting economic growth. If a country has stagnant growth, then they will not have the wealth to buy the latest and best medical technology on the world market. What good is offering all your citizens universal healthcare if the newest brain scanners and heart monitors, etc go to Sinagpore and China because they have the money and your country does not? In that case, your “universal health care” eventually becomes just a feel-good name for a political policy and not an actual delivery of real healthcare.

People that just want to blindly duplicate the European model are just inadvertently duplicating their fiscal problems.

But who cares right? Most people in the USA don’t even know how to manage the finances for their own households: they know how to buy things but don’t know how to pay for it – they just run up credit-card debt. With this broken mindset, they have no need to critically examine Europe’s complete funding model. It’s just easier to look at the surface level and notice that Europe offers “free” health care and stop there; if Europe has free health care, why can’t the USA?

If you want to intelligently use Europe/Canada socialized health care as a point of discussion, you’d have to explain what aspects of Europe’s system you would do differently to avoid sending USA into bankruptcy. If you can point out the negatives of Europe/Canada’s system, we’d then know you’ve seriously analyzed and honestly tried to understand the tradeoffs of their system.

They are suffering, but it’s in slow motion so you don’t see the meltdown happen in one year. Nevertheless, analysts in their own countries are sounding alarms that public spending reforms (health care cuts) are required for future growth.

Google search will reveal articles written by European writers (not conservative Americans) on this issue.

Well, the USA has 100 million poor people (Mexico) bordering it to the south. Both Canada and Europe don’t have an equivalent situation. They also have citizenship based on parents instead of just the place of birth (USA).

USA people have very different behavioral patterns than Europe. Most Americans are fat – they use their cars to drop off their kids at the school 5 blocks down the road from their house. Europeans walk more. They live healthier lifestyles. That accounts for millions (billions) of dollars of health care savings.

USA has a very large very expensive military. Europe doesn’t have to spend as much money in this area (because they can piggy back on USA’s expenditure – NATO).

There are a dozen ways USA is different from Europe that would significantly affect how free medical care would be architected: malpractice lawsuits, medical school training costs, medical and pharmaceutical R&D, demographics, etc.

Because no country has truly solved the math of socialized medicine. Europe looks like they’ve done it, but they really haven’t. One thing is for sure: don’t rely on the politicians for the mathematics. They’re just like the typical fiscally irresponsible citizens they represent; they know how to put stuff on the credit-card but they don’t know how to pay for it.

On the other hand, we seemed to have figured out the math of public schools and public roads. There is a reason why the math (taxes in relation to spending) is much more difficult for universal health care than it is for schools – I’ll leave it up to you to guess why.

12

Dude, you offered a mommy cliche as your argument. I really don’t think you have a ton of room to talk about intellectual content, binky.

13

(French man here) It’s pretty fine down here ! You should come down and have a look. There’s cake and Bordeaux.

Indeed ! Many French doctors have a convention with the state and then their fares are fixed by the state. It’s… 22€ for a general doctor, 25€ for a specialist. Other doctors are more expensive and you’ll get paid 70% of the official tarif. But in the end, anyone can get an appointment at a specialist and pay… 8.5€.

Of course, this is paid by an income tax called CSG. Of 7.5%.

I mean, really, let it be plain and clear: no-one-worries-about-the-cost-of-his-medical-care-in-France.

And we have Bordeaux. Down the cliff.

If I may add a personal statement, I have to say that the sight of you guys freaking out with your “socialized medecine” fantasies is sometimes a little bit surrealist.

14

I want to applaud your candor in openly admitting that you are from France.

15

A quick check on Germany’s health care uncovered this:

“Currently 85% of the population is covered by a basic health insurance plan provided by statute, which provides a standard level of coverage”.

85% of German citizens are low income earners?

Additionally, when people talk about universal health care, they are talking about basic cover for, as you describe it, “catastrophic” health issues. Anything that is considered “elective surgery” is not covered under the standard definition.

As for your claim about health care in Japan? Why this disputing source:

“The general health care in Japan is not only provided free in every Japanese, but also for foreigners.”

16

France! Tell them we come from France!

  • The Coneheads
17

Actually, I asked, in very clear english, this:

I wasn’t arguing that “it works everywhere else, therefore it’s good!”. On the contrary, I specifically asked, that’s SPECIFICALLY ASKED what did opponents of socialized medicine think was different about the US compared to every other developed nation.

You know, specifically asked and all.

Your response just built up and then knocked down a strawman, and did not answer my question.

18

Its so typical. A conservative posts the simple and obvious truth that socialism medicine is a total disaster everywhere its been tried, and some jerks come in here, pretending to be from those foreign countries and have the unmitigated gall to call them fibbers!

19

If you had no money, and somebody was giving you something for free, would you say it was

  1. Great? or,

  2. It sucked, and should be taken away from you

20

Scout’s Honor, innocent of snarcasm, I swear! I have no idea what you are talking about.