BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Bill Moyers on environment, politics and Christian fundamentalists

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 2/20/05 5:00 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 2/19/05 3:14 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Weisr says:
===============
In the US, if your doctor is too busy to see you, you can go find one
that
isn't so busy, anywhere in the US
================

Similarly, in Canada, if my doctor is too busy, I am free to go to
another. Very often, when I have a minor OWie, I simply go to the
clinic in the nearest shopping mall and "some" doctor or another sees
to the malady.

Weiser says:
=================
It works fine until the system becomes overloaded with non-critical
cases. When that happens, people get prioritized and waitlisted, and
not infrequently die while waiting for the list
===========================

You misunderstand the process. If you are about to die, you are clearly
not a "non-critical" case. Thus you are moved to the head of the line.
People do not die waiting. People may get ****ed-off waiting for
elective procedures when emergency cases get higher priority. But,
would you have it any other way? You can't buy yourself to the front of
the line. Your medcal condition determines where you are in the line.
Seems logical and fair to me.

They die not because they are critical, they die because they *become*
critical, and unsalvagable, because they cannot obtain treatment for
illnesses that would prevent further declines in health, leading to
debilitation and/or death, because "critical" cases come first.

One anecdote I read was the heart patient awaiting surgery in England who
wrote to the Queen to beg for help because she was two years down the
surgery list. The Queen commiserated with her and suggested that if she
actually had a heart attack, she would move up on the list.

Such people suffer for years both with debility and often in pain, with
their conditions continually deteriorating until, while not critical enough
to jump the queue, they eventually succumb to irreversible medical problems
that might have been prevented, or significantly slowed if they had received
prophylactic treatment early on. But in socialized medicine, such
prophylactic treatment falls to the bottom of the waiting list, and often
doesn't happen.

Basically, the system waits till you've become critically ill to treat you,
and then you have a much higher risk of dying because the disease's course
is irreversible.

Weiser says:
===================
given a false high priority through political influence or other
forms of corruption.
=======================

Look, I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass and tell you that never
happens. It very occasionally does. And when it does, the public
outrage is palpable.

As it should be. Then again, it's a matter of being hoist on your own
petard. You folks created the socialized medicine system and you accepted it
because you think you shouldn't have to pay for your own medical care...that
someone else (everyone else) should be responsible for your illnesses, so
you suffer the consequences, which is fine by me.

Can you post one verifiable reference to a patient in Canada who died
waiting? Good luck finding one. But the way you are talking, you should be
able to find hundreds! You really don't know what you are talking about, why
not just admit that?

Because the faults of socialized medicine are well known, the complaints
many, and the impacts well documented.

That would be a NO then. That's what I figured.

By the way, why does the USA have socialized education?

My point is that down here in the US, we believe in personal responsibility.
Your medical problems are your medical problems and are not the problem of
taxpayers. Does that mean that poor people may die because they cannot
afford emergency treatment? Sometimes, but not often, because our federal
government subsidizes (there's that nasty word again) hospitals to provide
emergency medical care to the indigent and poor.

Why do you do that? I thought you believe in "personal responsibility" and
"personal responsibility" means that if you don't have enough money to pay
for medical care, then you should die.

That's not what I said. The difference between the US system and socialized
medicine is that under socialized medicine, the government runs the
operation and dictates who gets what care when and at what cost. In the US
system, the government lets private industry run the show, but provides some
financial support for the care of the indigent. The government does NOT
ration, control, schedule, organize or otherwise dictate to consumers who,
when or how they get treatment. Big difference. Enormous.

Agreed.

I also wonder why you have public schools, that doesn't seem to fit with
your definition of personal responsibility either.

I happen to agree. I think public schools are a big waste of money, and that
people should seek out and pay for private school education for their
children. However, given the fact that there are many people who cannot
afford private school education, it is appropriate for local government (the
"local" part is significant) to provide free public basic education, funded
with taxes approved and collected from the local citizenry.

So is it your view that health care is less important than education?

I utterly disagree with the federal government (or even the state
government) getting involved in controlling public education. It is
acceptable, however, for the federal and state government to supply funds to
local schools...if they have no control over the use of the funds or control
over teaching.

Likewise, if the federal or state government wants to make grants from tax
money to local hospitals to help defray the costs of treating the indigent,
that's acceptable because the government is not exercising control over the
providing of health care.

So the fact that local government administer socialized healthcare instead
of federal or state makes it OK?

My goodness, that's
billions and billions of dollars going to subsidize poor families who can't
take responsibility for sending their kids to private schools.

As well they should. Getting a better job so you can afford to send your
kids to school is a great motivator.

Ah. So your theory is that those without enough money to send their kids to
private schools are deliberately staying poor because they have access to
public schools. Interesting!

And for those who don't care to educate
their children, well, *somebody* needs to pick up trash and dig ditches, so
I guess those lazy parents will be raising the next generation of
grunt-laborers. If I were one of their kids, I'd sue my parents for failing
to properly provide for my education.

Besides, public education is entirely different from health care. The costs
of public education are easily calculable and controllable, and each student
receives the same education as every other, so there aren't a lot of
individual variables that make prioritization necessary.

Each student receives the same education as any other? Wow. You might want
to take a tour of different public schools around the country.

All kids progress
through the system at the same speed (with some exceptions) and only a few
have "special needs" that have to be dealt with.

You might want to find out more about that.

This is unlike medicine,
where each person has a completely different complaint and requires
individual treatment. Not only that, but a failure in the education system
merely leaves a child less well educated than another child, while failure
in the medical system can kill people.

Right. Medical care is essential. Which is why linking medical care to
economics is so scary and backwards.

Thus, your analogy is completely inapplicable from the get-go.

?