Topic: "Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs..." - page 3. (Read 6171 times)

So you dont feel like you have a right to education, or a right to justice, or a right to security, because claiming the skills of educational professionals or judges or police officers is close to slavery? Doesnt make sense to me.


First of all, you seem to be confusing universal health insurance with free medicine. I dont know any place where healthcare is entirely free, I dont even think on cuba; but where I live everyone has insurance, which means that medical costs arent going to bankrupt you and your kids, but its not free. Well, technically, there is a maximum ceiling of medical bills, no matter how much healthcare you need, depending on your income, there will be a ca 2500 euro per year limit. Anything over that is free, even if you are hospitalized 365 days. But that doesnt mean I dont have to pay a dime if I go see a heart specialist, it means having a heart attack or car accident wont put me in a position where I have to sell my house or deny my kids a proper education.

Secondly, Britain is hardly a shining example of socialized medicine. In fact, its as close to the US system as any EU country and about as bad as it gets around here. Its no wonder the US insurance industry likes to point to the UK.  We point to the UK as proof of why privatized health insurance doesnt work.

THirdly, about the right to access; it exists here just as well. Its not mutually exclusive with the right to provision, its a  false dilemma. You are free to go to see any specialist you want. Depending on which type of specialist and the urgency of the condition, you might need to see a general doctor first. Actually, you dont even have to, but if you dont get a letter of referral, insurance wont pay the cost. If you pick a private hospital or a specialist that works outside the public system, the insurance may not pay or may pay only a small amount of the bill. Sounds imminently reasonable to me. You do have choice here as well. Its just that the public system is pretty darn good that hardly anyone feels a need to go outside of it.


Thats a plain silly system. Preferred modern procedure should be insured as well, if its deemed to be worth the cost. Yes, someone will have to make that call, and therefore it will never be perfect, but the idea that only rich would be able to afford, say, state of the art dialysis, because there are machines from the 1950s that also work to some extent, is ridiculous. Thats not to say I dont agree that anyone feeling they should spend or waste money on a unproven or extremely expensive treatment with dubious advantages shouldnt be allowed to do so. Its not like you can not do that over here, there are private clinics, who's costs for the most part are not covered by our universal health care. Thats fine by me, but the public insurance system shouldnt  only pay for WW2 medicine; it should pay for any reasonable treatments.

BTW, if you got rid of your private insurance cleptocracy, for the money the US spends on healthcare you could afford to give everyone state of art treatments. You spend 2x to 3x as much on healthcare per capita as most EU countries (while providing services for only part of them). I honestly dont feel like Im not receiving state of the art healthcare, but imagine what it would be like if you would triple the budget.

Canadians are certainly an interesting breed.

There are really only two conceptually different types of public health care system.

1) Everyone is entitled to a certain level of care paid for by the government. Those who want better care can pay for it on their own.
2) Everyone is entitled to a certain level of care paid for by the government. No one is allowed to purchase better care than that received by every other person.

The last I checked, Canada was in the second category. They are also very proud of the equality of their concept. I find Canadians some of the most civil people on the planet. I don't find your statistics very shocking. It is clear most Canadians would rather wait in line out of respect for civil equality, than sacrifice that principle even if the additional cost for immediate service was trivial to them.

I, however, am a whiny bastard. When I get sick, if I can pay extra to get treated, then get back to bed... Well fuck stoicism.

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(Edit) I wonder if there are any Canadian bitcoin users? I would be shocked to find even one who thought their Loonie currency should be abandoned just because it was mandated by fiat.

More damned dirty lies from lying liar socialists, I guess?

I also love this one:


I notice that there's always an American company with pockets full of money waiting to broadcast the full experience of every Canadian who's ever waited 8 hours in an emergency room, but they somehow manage to ignore all of the times we wait just as long. And none of the media ever seems bothered by the fact that 45,000 Americans a year die due to lack of health insurance, which you'd think should be a pretty big deal, but hey what do I know?

Seriously? That's your response? That the rate of Canadians going to America specifically for medical treatment is not one quarter of 0.5%, but in fact much, much higher because 17,000 Canadians all lied on the survey? And then they all lied on repeated surveys about how satisfied they were with their medical care, as did the British, while Americans told the truth?

Also, the reason Americans die younger than Canadians? Extreme sports!

Honestly, you couldn't make this shit up if you tried. Just how intellectually dishonest are you capable of being in the name of Free Market Jesus?

They have a higher life expectancy because they have a lower infant mortality rate.  They have a lower infant mortality rate because they record infant deaths differently.  In the US, if a fetus is delivered naturally, and was not known to already be dead before labor began, it's counted as an infant death instead of a late term miscarriage.  Thus skewing the life expectancy stats compared to nations that don't include infants that die during or shortly following birth.  I'm not sure how Canada does it, but it's still apples to oranges.  There is also the differences in a higher likelyhood of a US citizen dying as a young adult due to risker lifestyles.  Extreme sports have participants from everywhere, but they are almost invariablely invented here for a reason.  Also, Canada doesn't have nearly the minority population that the US has, and blacks are prone to heart disease for genetic reasons, just as an example.  There are so many things affecting the overly simple metric of life expectancy that comparing two different nations like that is apples to oranges.


Those aren't facts, they're statistics.  Numbers never lie, but the polled sure as hell do.  What kind of result would you have expected?

Then he probably shouldn't run around telling people they don't know the definition of socialism when his is one shared by maybe 0.00001% of the world's population. You can argue over the little details of socialism, how it should be achieved, the proper place of unions, all of that stuff, but the definitions shared by no actual socialists and only fierce opponents who see a socialist lurking in every shadow are most assuredly not what Marx had in mind.


Oh good, this again. Canada has a higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate than the U.S.

Also:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

Once again, unpleasant facts stand in your way, but I'm sure they'll be forgotten by tomorrow, to be replaced by uncited assertions that line up more properly with your beliefs.

Irony is that this comes back to my comment about access being more important than provision.  There are some great hospitals in Havana, Cuba.  It's also likely that a poor citizen who can get to said hospital is going to get care so long as the hospital isn't already at capacity with citizens with a higher political value.  It's not true that it matters how good the hospitals in downtown Havana might be, if you can't get transportation to said hospital when you need to.

OMFG! You heartless bastard! (sarcasm)

I pretty sure you just did something a kin to uttering the name of the lord aloud. And you did in public for all to see! Zeus will surely strike you down with his thunderbolt!

Yes, I know that is the wrong god, but all those supernatural deities tend to stick together. They're like evil bankers or CEOs but they don't even have to answer to stock holders.

Taxpayer funded healthcare isn't the answer to that either.  There are many Canadians who cross the border just to be able to get timely health care.  Like any other public good, health care will be rationed in some fashion.  The US system is broken because it's partially socialized care, and thus has many of the problems that plague social systems (deferred care, lengthy waits, poor service) as well as issues that drive the public want for such social systems (incompatible compensation networks, varied service models, uncovered populations).

The question is this, is provision of health care a right?  No, it's not.  For if it's a right, then you and I have a claim to the skilled labors of medical professionals, and that is as close to slavery as our modern societies will tolerate.  I say that access to health care is a right, and it is in the US but not in many other places.  I have the literal right to be seen by any specialist without discrimination, provided that I can pay his wages as well as anyone else.  That is not the case in Britain, which can deny such access to medicine as a means of controlling the public cost of health care.

Given a choice between the two perspectives; the right to access versus the right of provision, I'll choose access.


The US has been the market for medical innovation for decades.  Without the high potential profits that such a market represents, many of those great health care services that you can get for less elsewhere wouldn't be available at all.  And teh Cuba reference is rediculous.  Again, it's a matter of access.  Sure the political class has access to free & high quality health care in Cuba.  The ruling classes have such access in every nation on Earth.  This is nothing new.  Yet, even the politicos in Cuba would not have such access if the US's semi-free market in advanced medicine did not exist.

I can solve the debate in ten minutes.  If there must be taxpayer funded health care in the US, then it should be simply defined and never require a new government agency to manage it.  Simple enough rule, if a medical procedure, prescription medicine or device was available to the wealthest American 50 years prior to the current year, then the state should have no problem providing such a service through a public clinic.  But if there is a preferred modern procedure, over the counter alternative, or more advanced medical device; pay for it yourself.  In this way, anyone could go to the public clinic, staffed by government employees, to have a bone set and cast or get a polio vaccine. 

As an aside, I work for a major international corporation founded by some guy who invented a light bulb.  Where I work there is a clinic that is sponsored by the company itself, staffed by salaried employees of the company, using modern medical devices invented by the company, that charges nothing for the use of their services during normal business hours.  At the turn of the year, this clinic will be able to handle full 'primary care' for employees (as opposed to just work like a walk-in urgent care clinic, like it presently does) and plans to open up primary care services to all employees and their dependents regardless of which company sponsored health care plan (traditional, HMO) or unsponsored (Health savings account) that said employee has chosen.  At present, the clinic intends to remain at it's current cost point for all services.  This is a model that existed due to 'mutual aid societies' that were very common in the US prior to FDR, and were the model that American trade unions developed around in the 30's & 40's.

Considering that at least some of those same employees have chosen to not use the company sponsored plans, one might just wonder what motive that a souless company only after the pursuit of profit might have to pay the salary of such a clinic staff.

1) Happy employees with healthy children are productive employees and...

2) company sponsored access to affordable health care (not just health insurance) is a kind of goodwill that promotes loyalty among management salarymen and unonized wage earners alike, even when those who are being manipulated know the motive of the company. 

There is a silver lining to employer based health insurance that you might not recognize in a nation that taxpayers fund medical needs.  Another is that, in order to be adequately covered, one actually must be a productive member of society or otherwise be able to pay for care yourself.  Socially darwinistic, perhaps, but true nonetheless.

You mean in socialism some people don't have cars? That is pretty rare in the US. Even people without health insurance have cars. (true sarcasm)



This is pretty clear to everyone. Except perhaps for our president who decided that making it the employer's problem means he doesn't have to make it his problem.



I'm quite certain you will find every American is in favor of improving our health care system. The politicians however keep proposing systems that make, the already clear, problems much worse. We tend to be against that.

Excellent point. I also dont like socialism because I have a company car, and my girlfriend doesnt, so she keeps borrowing mine or I have to drive her around, and then she wants to drive, and she cant drive very well and I fear she will damage it.

Seriously; Im assuming you are in the US; about the only industrialized country in the world where not everyone has healthcare insurance. If for a second you would use your brain, you might find out that healthcare should NOT be related to your job. Its an insane concept, it makes you a slave of your employer (scared to quit to find another job or start a business because you cant afford to lose healthcare), and when you need healthcare most, you likely wont have a job.

Then after you realized that, if you do some reading, you might find out no country on earth has higher health care costs than the US, while most industrialized countries have better healthcare for a fraction of the cost. On many metrics even Cuba does better. Blame your corrupt and idiotic system, rather than "socialism", which has nothing to do with it. Fixing your healthcare system will not only improve your lives and that of 50 million uninsured and many more underinsured, it will also solve your budget deficit overnight. Just dont call it "socialist" I guess, because thats evil!

Here's why I don't like socialism, or any sort of idea that has to do with redistributing wealth:

- My wife currently does not have health insurance, because I make too much money (which isn't very much) for her to be eligible for the state health plan.  I have insurance through my workplace with 20% co-pays.
- I pay taxes
- Those taxes go towards the state health plan, which means I am subsidizing other people's health plans, while not able to pay for health care for my own wife.
- If I wasn't working, we could both get free insurance with $0 co-pays through the state health plan.

Just seems wrong that people who work can go without insurance while anyone who does not work can get insurance with $0 co-pays whenever they want.  It almost makes me want to stop working, just to see what would happen.  If anything, it seems as though those people who are working and helping the economy produce more GDP should be the ones receiving benefits of state health insurance, instead of those who are sitting around watching TV all day.

JMO.

I mean certainly we shouldn't be messing in other nation's politics. People should be allowed to form what ever kind of government they want. And if they should happen to want a kind of government that, in retrospect, ends up sucking, well then we should all learn from their mistake. If however it turns out to be genius, there is no law against copying productive social structures.


I think we are arguing on the same side. I'm saying no one should be forced to trade on either side of the table. If Greece sets out to keep devaluing their new Drachma, no one should be forced to trade in or hold Drachma against their will. Even if they are evil banks or corporations. If South American countries don't want to sell us oranges, bananas or even oil, we shouldn't force them to.

But if a legitimately recognized national government says, "Bribes are how we do business!" Then that is between the people and their corrupt government. I don't feel the need to overthrow corrupt foreign governments just because I want to eat bananas. If they say the price is 30 cents per pound plus bribes, then that is what the market price is.

Furthermore, I don't feel the necessity to hamstring companies trying to optimize a service for me (like bringing me bananas), by saying they can not compete to the best of their abilities. International trade is the big leagues. If two parties want to make a deal, they each negotiation the best deal they can. Otherwise, there is no deal to be had. Neither side *must* trade if the deal goes against their best interest.

I never said anything about leaving alone. Why wouldnt we trade, cooperate etc with Greeks or anyone else? Im not an isolationist or nationalist. Im just opposed to neocolonialism thinly disguised as neoliberalism or "free trade". As for what we should do, well one thing is expose and prosecute our corrupt businesses, regardless of the nationality of the people they expoited, and not turn a blind eye or go WAY further and doing their bidding just because they are exploiting another nation's population.

edit: if you meant we should stay out of their politics, then yes, we strongly agree. Unfortunately we do nothing else as meddling in foreign countries politics to benefit our corporations.

So if you are saying that the best thing we (as non-citizens of the target countries) can do is leave countries (and their citizens) alone to work out their own problems. To educate themselves in the ways of productivity and decide on their own rules for civility among themselves, I couldn't agree more.

No I actually mean *me* "Red", a random American. I've never worked in banking, or taking over foreign governments. Nor do I want to.

Pretty much all of them. Argentina, Brazil, most recently Equador.


No idea what you are saying. Who is "me" in the above quote? If you mean the greek, maybe this will help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJCHHiQ22GM

Which ones? It doesn't make a good example, unless you give an actual example.

But as long as you are saying, it's not my fault, nor is it my responsibility, then we're good.

Im not sure what your point is. Should I hate the greek for not repaying illegal and corrupt debts that banks and other companies from my country benefited from ? Not gonna happen. I have no reason to hate greeks, and I will not fall for the caricatures of them being lazy or whatever. The greek people arent responsible for this debacle.

The truth of the matter is Germany, US and other rich western countries and multinationals with the help of institutions like the IMF deliberately ran greece (and so many other countries) in to debts by corrupting their governments, making them dependent on cheap loans they knew they could never be able to pay back, loans that didnt benefit greeks, but for building infrastructure benefiting our oil companies, our rail road manufacturers, our banks, and other companies.  In return for those cheap loans we forced them to implement neoliberalism which really meant allowing our companies to buy greek assets, ports, utilities etc on the cheap. We pretty much took over their government, even helped them to hide the corruption.

Then, once the music stopped, goldman and the like, who fully knew what was happening since they essentially orchestrated it, quickly dumped the toxic assets on greek banks, and rather than lending started shorting greek bonds, thereby ensuring interest rates on those bonds would skyrocket and make the debt unservicable. Clever scheme, they made a fortune on the way up and on the collapse which they timed themselves.

Mind you , its not like greece is unique in this prospect, we do it everywhere. The Balkan, the Mediterranean, Latin America, Africa,.. thats how we try to control those countries.

As for what the greek should do; several Latin American countries where in a position similar to greece. until they elected courageous leadership that didnt surrender to demands of IMF and the big banks for "austerity", commit economical suicide, dismantle and sell off their country; instead they pursued policies that benefited their people and their economy, refused to pay back illegal debts and kicked out the IMF. They seem to be doing relatively fine by themselves now.  I hope the greek find the courage to do the same. Im not demanding they pay for the corruption of our banks and corporations.

He might at that, but the word has differnet meanings to different people.  There can never be any agreement about what 'socialism' does or should mean because there can never be much more agreement about what Karl Marx intended in his magnum opus 'das kapital'.  It can be interpreted in many different ways, but he was most likely responding to the obvious poverty in the wealthiest city on Earth at that time, London, England.  He never lived long enough to see the fruits of the industrial revolution come to pass, and thus that same abject poverty alieviated by capitalists' own self-serving greed.  Who knows how he would have been changed by that.  As for myself, any society that actively aggresses against a citizen for the simple act of opting out isn't a free society, even if the vast majority of the middle class can reasonablely be considered the privilaged class.

http://www.panarchy.org/spencer/ignore.state.1851.html

If you don't have the right to ignore the state without that same state grabbing you and throwing you into a cage, then you are not really free no matter how much liberty the state permits.