# Those damn socialists want to turn America into venezuela! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 31, 2019, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912 "2019-07-31T03:26:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/61 "2019-07-31T16:29:15Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Do you think it would help if I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and chanted “I think we can”? Currently that closing of eyes and crossed fingers is what is happening right now, the “I think we can” chant goes for the ‘we have it better’ or ‘we can’t do it better because it will turn into “socialism”’ message coming from many conservatives. > **[Sky-high prices of everything make US healthcare the world's most expensive](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/13/us-healthcare-costs-causes-drug-prices-salaries)** > > America spends twice as much on health as 10 other rich countries, due to the high cost of everything from prescriptions to doctors > [@](#): > > Recent attempts to reform American healthcare have assigned blame for the high cost of care to nearly every sector – from drug companies to hospitals to health insurers. > > However, a co-author of the new study said those arguments ignore the “800-pound gorilla”: sky-high prices everywhere. > > “Most countries get to lower prices one of two ways: they either have a very strong price setter, usually a government agency, or more efficient markets,” said Dr Ashish Jha, co-author of the study by researchers at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health. “The US has figured out how to do the worst of both.” > > In the study, America was compared to 10 other countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, Japan, Sweden, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland. > > Researchers used 98 indicators to compare countries across seven areas: general spending, population health, structural capacity, utilization, pharmaceuticals, access and quality and equity. The majority of the data came from international organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. What researchers found was not a single sector with high prices, but that every sector had extraordinary price tags. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/62 "2019-07-31T16:31:48Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Do you think it would help if I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and chanted “I think we can”? I think closing our eyes and doing nothing is much worse. Something has to be done. Our current system is broken and we need something that can replace it. Myself, I think we should take a good hard look at what other countries are doing to see what we can adapt to a new system that would work for us. And there ARE quite a lot of good aspects to single payer systems out there that we could use. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/63 "2019-07-31T16:35:06Z")
XT, Errr…ummmm… actually capitalist and socialist systems are a matter of degree. Russia suffered some set backs as a result of centralization, but they recovered. After WW2 Russia was a totalitarian capitalist state. Socialism has obviously been successful in Russia, Viet Nam, Cuba and China. Even Utah, before statehood was a successful communist theocracy. South Korea and Singapore are very Capitalist, but are they also socialist? I agree with your ‘whole hog’ issue. The problem with any system is optimization. Pure capitalism or socialism is degenerative. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/64 "2019-07-31T16:42:20Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > XT, > > Errr…ummmm… actually capitalist and socialist systems are a matter of degree. Russia suffered some set backs as a result of centralization, but they recovered. After WW2 Russia was a totalitarian capitalist state. > > Socialism has obviously been successful in Russia, Viet Nam, Cuba and China. Even Utah, before statehood was a successful communist theocracy. South Korea and Singapore are very Capitalist, but are they also socialist? > > I agree with your ‘whole hog’ issue. The problem with any system is optimization. Pure capitalism or socialism is degenerative. Russia was never a capitalist state (by which I presume you mean they had a capitalist economic system, since, again, capitalism isn’t a political system) until after the fall of the Soviet Union, and even today has many socialist aspects, though is at least nominally capitalism (of the crony variety). Certainly, today, systems are hybrid, as many countries (including even the US) still have some socialist (actual socialist) economic systems in place (state run and operated business, for instance, as an example). Socialism was NOT ‘obviously’ successful in Russia, Viet Nam, Cuba or China. Most of those countries adopted some elements of capitalism to make their busted ass systems work, and in fact the socialist economic parts are, across the board, the parts holding them back and the most dysfunctional. In China they cost the country something like a trillion RMB at least, annually. South Korea and Singapore are capitalist economic systems that happen to have a few socialist economic aspects still in the system. And, frankly, it’s holding them back, especially South Korea. But they are not socialist economic systems by any way, shape or form…I’d go (WAG) with a 80/20 mix at most in both of those. Same goes for the Nordic countries. China, on the other hand is probably 60/40 and Vietnam is in a similar mix. NK and Venezuela are more like 10/90 or perhaps even worse. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/65 "2019-07-31T16:47:31Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Currently that closing of eyes and crossed fingers is what is happening right now, the “I think we can” chant goes for the ‘we have it better’ or ‘we can’t do it better because it will turn into “socialism”’ message coming from many conservatives. > > [Sky-high prices of everything make US healthcare the world's most expensive | US healthcare | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/13/us-healthcare-costs-causes-drug-prices-salaries) I’m pretty firmly convinced that the “more efficient markets” is what we currently lack. Insurance companies basically torpedo the whole set of market mechanisms that would allow for consumers/doctors to see or set prices. Insurance is this huge market-distorting entity inserted right into the midst of the usual market mechanism that screws up price information on the buyer and seller sides of things. I mean, without insurance gumming up the works, things like MRIs would become a LOT cheaper, as few would pay that much for diagnostic procedures at current rates except in extreme circumstances (i.e. not for a banged-up knee), and the machines would sit idle (and not making money) until the operators dropped prices enough that people would be willing to pay. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/66 "2019-07-31T17:11:38Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Do you think it would help if I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and chanted “I think we can”? It would help if you had any faith at all in your country. That would be a good start. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/67 "2019-07-31T17:29:33Z")
XT, Interesting that you do not consider Russian literacy, industrialization, victory in war and first in space as success. You’re expecting maybe Jesus Christ? Russia had a brief Communist period followed by Lenin’s New Economic Policy of 1923 which provided enough Capitalism for the currency to work. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/68 "2019-07-31T17:36:07Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > XT, > > Interesting that you do not consider Russian literacy, industrialization, victory in war and first in space as success. You’re expecting maybe Jesus Christ?. Don’t forget about all those wonderful technological achievements of the Nazis. Plus, they really were pioneers in medicine, breaking ground in hypothermia and trauma science. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/69 "2019-07-31T17:45:38Z")
Scylla, Your point? Hitler was brought to power by German industrialists and was the enemy of Communism. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/70 "2019-07-31T17:51:09Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > With any program that gives you free stuff, the beneficiary will love it. That says nothing about its overall desirability. If you’d read my post, you would have seen that it’s not ‘free’ - it’s paid for by taxes. I paid 6% of my salary throughout my working life and my employers paid 9%. The NHS **is** free when you need it. When an ambulance arrives, it’s already paid for. When you’re admitted to hospital, it’s already paid for. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/71 "2019-07-31T18:09:32Z")
Agreed - taxes are fee for service. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/72 "2019-07-31T18:13:36Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > XT, > > Interesting that you do not consider Russian literacy, industrialization, victory in war and first in space as success. You’re expecting maybe Jesus Christ? I didn’t say they were not successes. I was pointing out that there was more to it than just those high level bullet points. > [@](#): > > Russia had a brief Communist period followed by Lenin’s New Economic Policy of 1923 which provided enough Capitalism for the currency to work. Sorry, but this is a no-true-Scotsman bullshit argument. They were a socialist totalitarian and authoritarian system (both political and economic) the entire time. The fact you are trying to claim they were capitalist during that period is, frankly, laughable. We could go down the list of all the things that make the socialist, but I’d like to hear anything that demonstrated they were capitalist at all (outside of the black market which I seriously doubt you meant) indicating this. Feel free. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/73 "2019-07-31T18:29:49Z")
XT, I’ll do you the courtesy of not demeaning your argument. Lenin implemented the NEP in 1921 to include “a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control” and put the currency on the gold standard in 1923. It’s always a matter of degree. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/74 "2019-07-31T18:34:04Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > XT, > > I’ll do you the courtesy of not demeaning your argument. > > Lenin implemented the NEP in 1921 to include “a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control” and put the currency on the gold standard in 1923. > > It’s always a matter of degree. It’s pretty simple really. Was their economy command or market based? Answer…command. Were the majority of their companies privately owned and operated or operated by the state (i.e. who controlled the means of production)? Answer…the state. The fact that, at some point they put their currency on the gold standard (and then took it off for their own, non-market based fiat currency) does in no way make them a capitalist country, unless the converse is true and the US was a socialist economy until 1971. :dubious: True, it is a matter of degree. But the USSR was something like 95% or more socialist with a small smidgen of capitalist like things (mostly the already mentioned black market). The US was, maybe, 20-30% socialist and the rest capitalist. So, overall, USSR was predominantly socialist while the US was, overall, capitalist. Today, nearly every country is mainly capitalist with some socialist economics (almost no one uses socialist political systems outside of North Korea, some China, some Vietnam and some Venezuela…maybe a handful of others). The REALLY fucked up countries use both of course, predominantly. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/75 "2019-07-31T18:38:17Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > America is different, better in most ways, worse in others. > For example the US government spends more money on healthcare per capita than Canada and yet only covers half the population. Advocates of UHC would have us believe that the US government has not really been trying this whole time, and as soon as they take over the other half of the the healthcare market they will suddenly be as good as the Canadians at cost control. > Obamacare had 10 programs designed to decrease the cost of healthcare. They all failed. The Democrat controlled house just voted to repeal the Cadillac tax which is one of the few attempts to rein in healthcare costs still standing. > It seems that the best hope for America to control healthcare spending via the government would be to switch to a parliamentary system and have started 60 years ago. What he said, especially the 60 years part. It’s not that America is inferior to Canada or Finland - it is that America is trying to figure out how to do something that Canada and Finland have never had to do - _ **reduce spending** _. Not slow its growth, not start from a lower baseline and have it grow more slowly - actually spend less in actual dollars next year than we do now. > [@](#): > > In Europe, medical inflation increased by 20 percentage points in 2018 to an average of 8.1 percent… [Cite.](http://business-review.eu/business/study-in-2018-healthcare-costs-increased-3-times-the-inflation-202192http://business-review.eu/business/study-in-2018-healthcare-costs-increased-3-times-the-inflation-202192) > [@](#): > > The annual Medical Care Inflation Rate for the 12 months ended in June, 2018 was 2.46%. [Cite](https://www.forecast-chart.com/inflation-medical-care-cost.html). Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/76 "2019-07-31T20:02:29Z")
> [@glee](#): > > If you’d read my post, you would have seen that it’s not ‘free’ - it’s paid for by taxes. I paid 6% of my salary throughout my working life and my employers paid 9%. > > The NHS **is** free when you need it. > When an ambulance arrives, it’s already paid for. > When you’re admitted to hospital, it’s already paid for. Maybe you paid for it and maybe someone else did. I’m not asking your salary, but you either didn’t pay for it and someone else did or you paid more than needed to pay for someone else’s treatment. Society pooled its collective resources based upon ability to pay and distributed it based on need. From each according to his ability and to each according to his need. That’s a catchy sentence. It’s amazing nobody has tried it. What could go wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/77 "2019-07-31T20:08:04Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Maybe you paid for it and maybe someone else did. I’m not asking your salary, but you either didn’t pay for it and someone else did or you paid more than needed to pay for someone else’s treatment. > > Society pooled its collective resources based upon ability to pay and distributed it based on need. From each according to his ability and to each according to his need. That’s a catchy sentence. It’s amazing nobody has tried it. What could go wrong? You mean like how we all pay for the fire department even if some of us never have a house fire? Or how we all pay for the police even though some of us never have had to call them? Or how we all pay for the schools even if some of us don’t have any kids? You mean like that? I’ll never understand why some conservatives have such a blind spot when it comes to health care when we do many things where we all pay for a service and only some need to use it. Hell that is how insurance works too. I paid for car insurance last year but didn’t have any accidents. Is that socialism? Jeeze. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/78 "2019-07-31T20:09:15Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Those aren’t socialism either. Or, to put this another way, which aspects of US healthcare (or European healthcare), specially, are ‘socialist’? I’m going to go with none of them, since ACTUAL socialist healthcare isn’t at all what people think. Here is a hint though…check out China’s healthcare system, or the system the Soviet Union had to see what it is. > > Regardless, none of this has anything to do with socialism. I agree with everything you said, even the parts I cut out. It’s not pure socialism at all. But if we agree, and even the left seems to believe that we agree, that on a continuum of things from pure free market to command control Soviet style Marxism, we believe that free markets are generally the way to go, then it would seem that we should point to special justifications as to why a government should control an entire market. These arguments for government health care beg the question that a free market cannot function in health care because the US has a free market in health care and it is not working properly. Wouldn’t the better thing to see what we can do to remove a lot of these impediments to the free market instead of throwing in the towel and say that the government must take it over? ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/79 "2019-07-31T20:12:07Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I agree with everything you said, even the parts I cut out. It’s not pure socialism at all. > > But if we agree, and even the left seems to believe that we agree, that on a continuum of things from pure free market to command control Soviet style Marxism, we believe that free markets are generally the way to go, then it would seem that we should point to special justifications as to why a government should control an entire market. > > These arguments for government health care beg the question that a free market cannot function in health care because the US has a free market in health care and it is not working properly. Wouldn’t the better thing to see what we can do to remove a lot of these impediments to the free market instead of throwing in the towel and say that the government must take it over? The free market in healthcare is that the insurance companies take as much in as they can in premiums and try to pay out as little as possible. Why would you rather your healthcare dollars go to rich people’s pockets than helping poor people. Why is that better? How does that improve outcomes when the incentive is how to maximize profit for insurance companies? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912/80 "2019-07-31T20:21:00Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > The free market in healthcare is that the insurance companies take as much in as they can in premiums and try to pay out as little as possible. Why would you rather your healthcare dollars go to rich people’s pockets than helping poor people. Why is that better? How does that improve outcomes when the incentive is how to maximize profit for insurance companies? Did you read the prior posts? Insurance companies are a big part of the problem in most aspects of healthcare: third party payer, no price transparency, insuring against known events, etc. They distort the market and cause it not to function properly. Most people don’t know and don’t care what their doctor charges for an office visit, for example. You pay your $20 co-pay and move on. Markets don’t function that way. You need market suppliers and consumers knowing the price and having that price reach its true market value through competition. ETA: In every market, a business will try to maximize its profits. That’s not a unique feature to healthcare. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/those-damn-socialists-want-to-turn-america-into-venezuela/837912.md?page=5)