jerome scuggs' weekly "shit hits the fan" politics thread

[DoTheFandango]

didn't really read much of this...

get a job = get health coverage. what's the problem

not that easy.
many places don't offer automatic health care, and even those that do, not all qualify due to health reasons, etc.
nothing ever works, no matter what, so why bicker? bring the most people the most happiness we can all afford and then we can all shut up until we're too old to care.

[Jerome Scuggs]

nothing ever works, no matter what, so why bicker? bring the most people the most happiness we can all afford and then we can all shut up until we're too old to care.

well how would you go about doing that? :P

[Fluffz]

didn't really read much of this...

get a job = get health coverage. what's the problem

duno how this works in america, but what if you are a single and just got a child? you cant work. Is the child and the mother covered?

[Epinephrine]

I hate paying taxes. Screw taxes man. Let's just tear up the roads, the sewers, the police, the fire department, the army, and the rest of the government. I don't need to be paying for someone else's fires, I will pay a private company to construct all the roads and fight all the crime I need. Actually I don't even need to fight crime.

Under the Jerome model of doctors being nice enough to treat patients who really need it for free, i'm sure a Batman or similar persons will appear sooner or later and all my problems will be dealt with.

Batman, BATman.. BATMAN!!

[Jerome Scuggs]

I hate paying taxes. Screw taxes man. Let's just tear up the roads, the sewers, the police, the fire department, the army, and the rest of the government. I don't need to be paying for someone else's fires, I will pay a private company to construct all the roads and fight all the crime I need. Actually I don't even need to fight crime.

Under the Jerome model of doctors being nice enough to treat patients who really need it for free, i'm sure a Batman or similar persons will appear sooner or later and all my problems will be dealt with.

Batman, BATman.. BATMAN!!

I'm 90% positive you're trying to be sarcastic but at the same time... that actually sounds pretty awesome and I will be reading up on this "jerome model"

[Kolar]

So do i want to work 40 hours a week just to have a flatscreen in my 2 bed hospital room or 50 bucks extra when i a 70 years old?

You get flatscreen TVs in your hospitals?

[D1st0rt]

Canadians wouldn't understand

[DoTheFandango]

well how would you go about doing that? :P

lots and lots of acid.

[paradise!]

I don't understand how people like McCain can say that we have the best quality healthcare. That is ridicously idiotic. Yes, we do have the best technology, yes, we do have some of the best doctors, but they cater to only those can afford there services.

My neighbor, who's family does not have health insurance, took a stroll with me several months ago, and scraped/cut her leg open on a rock. So, she needed stitches, the next week her parents told me that it cost nearly 4 thousand dollars to stitch a 1 inch long x 1/2 inch wide cut, after she was told to come back to get the stitches taken out it cost another 1,000, taking the stitches out took around 5 minutes.

But when i was in Germany, when my Uncle was having a stomach ache I was able to call a doctor on the spot. Can you comprehend that? A doctor arrived on the spot to treat him. We are being ripped off. Nixon, while in office, was secretely recorded saying how he was going to profit off a new healthcare system. HOW DIRTY ARE WE????????

and McCain just smiles and says "my friends, we have the best healthcare system" a system that sadly caters to a minority. Abosutely disgusting if you ask me. And McCain actually said people go out of their home country to seek treatment in the united states. absolute bullshit. That is why the euros are going up and we are going down. Simple as that. American will never be as good as it used to be.

[Fluffz]

Trying to construct and 'plan' an infrastructure as opposed to letting an industry spontaneously develop and adapt to consumer's needs will always fail

bring the most people the most happiness

Ok, lets assume we change the system now, destroy all states, goverments, all regulations and all infrastructure. People spread out and start farming, a clean fresh start. People will start to work, some of them will group together and build roads, infrastructure and a factory. Eventually when 2 factories meet they will agree to use synergies, use a single bigger factory. They will build a highway with help of other factories that act alike (to get their resources and customers from the old site). The system starts to run super effcient.

But Joe Nobody who loves his work but lives in Nowhere now hates his long boring way to work. Most people dont mind because they overall spend less time traveling+working thanks to the synergy effects. Woha contradicting customer needs and no plan to regulate them. So no regulation, Joe being in the minority decides to move closer. He doesnt like the smog.

Same happenes to the healthcare, everyone wants a specialist in range but at the same time most of them do not want to work more to pay for him. Synergies, contradicting customer needs, ruling of the majority, everyone must move to the city. So lets say we have 10% of the people constantly moan about the current situation in the city. The other 90% is sick of this whining and decides to start educating the youth in order be conform with the majority. Generations later everyone will be happy.

Brave new world anyone? What you suggest is Dictatorship of the majority. Everyone is in the minority sometimes, the freedome you seek is destroyed by itself. An argumentation like that is not foolish but dangerous. I question the goal you are tryin to reach, im not saying it cant work.

a system that sadly caters to a minority

Well yes but the minority served is that minority that pays for it. The system in itself is not so silly. BUT in this new world every human has the same rights. By creating humans that are equal and untouchable the majority forced a morale rule uppon the minority and suddenly catering a minority was wrong. You just can not have our free will and an efficient system at the same time either way. The problem that exists in Healthcare is that nobody understands that (in both systems).

We have contradicting needs and morale of the majority is an unnatural regulation in itself, so an unregulated system is a contradiction. Either everyone is the same and the majority rules over someone or everybody is not the same and we have a leader class, someone is getting a rule forced up his ass either way.
And this is where goverment regulations come into play. Regulations prevent the morale of the majority to rule over a minority. Its the middle way between no morale and dictatorship of the masses.

Puh, so to end, Healthcare starts to cost more and more. Do i want different levels of halthcare for different people? Well i dont want to pay more taxes or work longer so YES, that already says i do. Morally wrong? YES. Lets throw all morale overboard, revolution? HMM wait, better not. So where is the mistake? Its my knowledge and attitude.

[genocidal]

Rule #93224 of TW Forums:

You can pretty much coast on the fact that if you argue the exact opposite of whatever paradise! posts then you will be right.

[Izor]

People absolutely do go outside of their countries to get medical treatment here. Think about it. If you were a wealthy bastard, and you had to wait in line next to 20 broke ass fools youd come here too.

A lot of (American) people are just jumping on the bandwagon of universal healthcare with no real experience with the system and their opinions based mostly off Sicko. I have universal healthcare myself and I can tell you its really not that good. By my own personal experience in about a year's time, I've already been prescribed the wrong medicine twice and I havent even gone in sick. Once was some shit for a training exercise and the second was me getting prescribed Chloroquine for malaria when the malaria in afghanistan is resistant to Chloroquine. (so yeah, I had to run around on my R&R time dealing with some bullshit...good thing I never saw any mosquitos out there). My point here is that in a country based off of capitalism, a system like this where every doctor makes the same amount undermines the principle that if you have skills above those of your peers, you can always make more money. What is the incentive for someone to learn their job better than the next guy that gets paid the same? Plus these guys dont have to worry about malpractice slapping them for 200000000 dollars so they can feel free to not do shit, although the UCMJ probably will come down pretty hard on that.

Point 2: its really hard for me to have any sympathy for people not getting a job that gets them covered. Honestly, its not that hard. Pretty much what pascone said. Has anyone here actually had experiences with this? I know that if you or your child keeps going in with some bullshit claims the insurance company will probably drop you...but thats simple enough to deal with...dont be a crybaby bitch

[MetalHeadz]

Aside from critiquing your ideology, which i'd have to spend alot of time untangling, I'll just say that it's not a question of competing designs but a question of design versus spontaneity. Trying to construct and 'plan' an infrastructure as opposed to letting an industry spontaneously develop and adapt to consumer's needs will always fail - because when you attempt to transfer an ideology based on illusory fallacies ("social justice", "common welfare", etc) - when it's transferred to actual law, you fail to deliver on what you promise at the point where you coerce people. That coercion is one of the many non-economic factors that cripple a nationalized industry, even before the economic factors come into play.

To state that a free market approach (where private capital dictates the quantity and quality of service given to customers, without subsidisation, regulation or government supervision) is better is absurd and you should retract it now before any more misinformed rednecks agree with you.

It is important to note that the healthcare market is not 'perfectly competitive'. Their are huge barriers to entry, e.g., startup capital, intellectual capital, regulatory restraints. This means that there is not the same capitalistic or entrepeneurial pressures to provide better services, as there might be. When you apply an economic maxim, in this case: competition increases quality of service, you need to fully reconcile the applicability and truth of the statement in the sector you are referencing. In this case, very little.

Privatising healthcare results in some people necessarily recieving better treatment than others. It means that unprofitable operations are not invested as highly in. It means the public are forced to pay for healthcare through insurance schemes.

It's alright for you rich Americans with expensive computers and too much free time to claim that private healthcare provides a better service. A lot of your countrymen and women are being screwed over because of a fundamental failing of the state. This half-baked, croney capitalism needs to be thrown out. Market competition simply does not produce a better service. Look at when England privatised it's public transport networks - a deficient, profit based service was soon introduced which left minorities and unprofitable areas without transport. Similarly in America, uninsured people are left deserted.

'The American life expectancy of 77.8 years at birth[163] is a year shorter than the overall figure in Western Europe, and three to four years lower than that of Norway, Switzerland, and Canada.'

'Over the past two decades, the country's rank in life expectancy has dropped from 11th to 42nd place in the world'

'The infant mortality rate of 6.37 per thousand likewise places the United States 42nd out of 221 countries, behind all of Western Europe.'

'In 2005, 46.6 million Americans, or 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 million more than in 2001.'

The NHS might not be as economically strong as the private insurers to the West. It may not even havr the same kind of advanced medical technology in some areas (namely cancer), but it still offers the same efficient service to everyone. Which I think is the crucial point you miss. Are you suggesting that a service which leaves 16% of the population uncovered is better than one which would treat everyone the same?

Despite the biased, tabloid reports that you have cited, Jerome, the NHS provides a very good service, and I speak from personal experience. I broke my arm twice mountain biking and each time I was treated quickly, without queues, waiting lists or any bill at the end. My parents do pay an incredible amount of tax, £35,000 ($70,000), but it's worth it. We live comfortably, and we also contribute to a system which helps others.

[DoTheFandango]

Izor understands everything, he really does.

[Troll King]

Of course he does. He says so himself.