Rock 'em Sock 'em Health care

[CAGERATTLER]

If private is so much better than public healthcare where do we rank in healthcare compared to the U.S.A.?

HINT: It isn't behind them! SURPRISE!!!!

[scribblet]

The top rated health care systems are a mix of private and publicly funded, Sweden France and New Zealand are two examples, and I believe France receives the top ratings.

There is no reason why Canadians shouldn't have a choice, one should not have to to the U.S. to avoid wait lists, why not spend the money in Canada.

[Argus]

You are one bitter, angry man, Argus. How do you manage to ever even post to topic through your red eyes.

I'm not angry, I'm knowledgeable. I understand how this must confuse you, never having been subject to the condition.

[Argus]

If private is so much better than public healthcare where do we rank in healthcare compared to the U.S.A.?

HINT: It isn't behind them! SURPRISE!!!!

Nobody cares how we rank compared to the USA.

How do we rank compared to Europe.

HINT: It's BEHIND THEM!

And they have private health care.

[August1991]

Let me give you a clue, sunshine. Barlow is from here. She is the only woman I know who makes Sheila Copps seem like a paragon of intelligence, refinement and sophistication. She ran for city council here, but even in the dumbass area of yuppies and bearded peaceniks where she ran she failed miserably. She is a rabid anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-porn, pro-Affirmative action, ultra feminist with no education. She is a brainless gadfly, a knee-jerk reactionary who is almost a cliche of all the worst elements of well-meaning but horribly self-righteous birkenstock clad, cheese eating socialists from the comfortable middle class suburbs.

Absolutely priceless quote. Worth much more than the price of the ticket to this show.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear August1991,

Welcome back!

Indeed, as ad hominem attacks go, that was a doozy. too bad we don't see that kind effort going into factual posts that often.

The public health care system sucks, at present, but private is often worse. It also often depends on whose reports you read.

[Hugo]

What happens when the next Black Tuesday comes to pass?

You mean economic crash? These anomalies are created by government intervention in the economy, specifically, inflation and the malinvestment it creates. Irregularities such as this in a genuinely free market are very small, but the effect of inflationary monetary policy is to make a million of them happen at the same time.

It doesn't seem possible, given your absurd ideas about "theft" and "slavery."

No, it isn't possible. Thank you.

Now, I want to hear your concept of theft and slavery, please. Apparently you have the "correct" ones. Let's hear them.

Right. But what about the dismal poverty of the many nations who have been bamboozled into striving for free markets? Those nations don't seem to discredit the idea of free markets in your mind.

Which nations, please? Give some examples.

Specualtion. There are a number of factors that could all account for improvement in products, chief among them being technological advance. But I'm sure you'll make the absurd claim that there would be no technological advancement without competition.

The vast majority of technological advances in human history were made for profit. Technological advance in a planned economy is stagnant - the USSR was legendary in its backwardness and most of its advanced technology was stolen from the USA.

So you are telling me that it is a huge, huge coincidence that industries in a free market consistently deliver cheaper and better products over time, whereas those under state control don't?

Fast food. When McDonalds held a virtual monopoly on that industry in my area, the service was far better and fasr faster.

Anecdotal evidence, invalid.

With several national competitors now in the market, the service is both atrocious and slow. Also the prices have risen dramatically.

Anecdotal evidence, invalid. Cite a study to back this up.

Source?

Find me the "crisis" in car repair, dentistry, veterinary services, IT consultancy, etc. Can't? Oh dear. I can find you the "crisis" in healthcare. It's been going on for decades.

As for a source on who claims that free-market services provide ever-higher quality at ever-lower prices, you can start with the Nobel laureate economists F. A. Hayek and Milton Friedman.

In the case of health care, business would be nothing but "the excercise of arbitrary and coercive power." Unless, of course, you believe that choosing to die rather than pay a health care provider is a meaningful choice.

People choose to die rather than be healthy all the time. They're called smokers. What you are telling us is that your desires should be more important than those of other people, and your view that healthcare must be of primary importance should be enforced upon them by making them pay taxes for healthcare you have no evidence that they actually want.

I have no intention of looking for a source for the "watr" situation in England, Hugo.

Good. Get lost, then.

Services are not commodities or consumer goods and they do not respond to supply and demand which is applicable only to the pocket book of a consumer.

What about dentistry? Plumbing? These do not respond to supply and demand? I beg to differ! Right now, the wages of electricians are being driven through the roof because demand is far in excess of supply. The wages of IT consultants are being driven down because supply exceeds demand. It is very, very easy to prove your point wrong.

Sometimes I wonder about you. Anyone who can claim that Nazi Germany was Socialist has to be a few bricks short of a load. Nazi Germany was Fascist.

Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek disagrees with you. Note that the ranks of Nazis were full of former Communists, and that a lot of the philosophers considered key to the Nazis were also beloved of the Communists. Their policies are almost identical - complete state control of the economy, abrogation of all individual rights, the right of the state to use violence on its own citizens, etc. They're two sides of the same coin.

Orwell said of Fascism that it was " the counter attack of Capitalism."

Was that before or after he said that he agreed with Hayek's observation that Nazism and collectivism (socialism) were indistinguishable, in 1944?

What you ignored was that I said that government provision of other than services does not work because there are a myriad factors that come into play.

Again: what factors?

Or do you also need to be educated into an understanding of Marxism.

Where did I mention Marxism?

Taxation is a manifesation of the social contract. In societies with a clearly consensual social contract (such as Canada) taxation iswhat participants pay to support the shared objectives of their society.

There's no such thing as a social contract, because a contract is between clearly identified parties with clearly identified terms. The so-called social contract has neither. Social contract theory has already been debunked over a hundred years ago, by Lysander Spooner. Get reading!

If it isn't a contract (which it is not, check the dictionary), what is it?

[Guest eureka]

"Those countries" do not have private systems any more than Canda does. I gave the proportions for public funding. The mix is different, that is all.

[Black Dog]

You usually do. 

Uneccesary ad hominem from someone who usually opts to cut and run when faced with a real argument. Tell you what: why don't you head down to the playground where you can rule as intellectual overlord of the sandbox (barring the precense of any precocious 6-year olds).

As for raising taxes, perhaps you've failed to notice, but taxes directed towards health care have been escelating massively for years, and despite vast increases in funding there have been no improvements to health care. Quite the contrary.

Health care costs have been rising across the board (drug costs alone are rising twice as fast as other areas). Costs also rising about twice as fast as inflation (though not as fast as GDP).

As for the notion that taxes relating to health car eincreasing, that's balderdash. At the federal level, the amount of money going into health care has been shrinking (not sure exactly how low, I belive it's around 15 per cent). Meanwhile, more provinces have been adopting regressive taxes in the form of health care premiums which, at least in our case here in Alberta, go into general revenues and not back into the health care system. Bottome line? The system has been choked for funding even as costs increase (which is a result of external factors), the feds have been downloading like crazy, and the provinces, most of which are strapped for cash to begin with, keep chipping away. There's absiolutely no reason to think that a renewed committment to public funding couldn't alow the system to regain lost ground.

[Guest eureka]

Orwell wrote it in 1942, Hugo, and never changed his thinking. I know that you must find it a little confusing, but you really must try to understand that collectivism is not Socialism and that Orwell spoke against totalitarianism not Socialism.

Nazism and Communism do indeed spring from the same root. That root went in opposite directions except for the totalitarian aspect. Rouseeau is the likely villain for both, though he would have died rather than be identified with either. From him, they followed different paths.

What in the name of does plumbing, and dentistry have to do with this or IT consultants and electricians? Are you devoid of any reasoning capacity. Dentistry could (probably should) be part of the healthcare system since it has serious health implications beyond teeth. But, unfortunately, it has been considered too expensive to include - of course it wouldn't be if it were part of the tax base.

As for the British water supply debacle, I really don't give the proverbial tinkers' what you think. It is a fact and I know it and have known it for a long time. I will not waste time looking things up unnecessarily.

So, why don't you get lost, as you so elegantly put it and take your fixation elsewhere? I am tired od having to skip over constant references to von Hayek and to economic anarchy. Of course, we can do this in every discussion until you do as always and get yourself too confused for coherence.

Oh, another little fact relevant to some other jousts! The US government is spending $2,500,000 annually in subsidies to WalMart employees. Now, I suppose you will think you have to demand to know where that comes from.

[Hugo]

Orwell wrote it in 1942, Hugo, and never changed his thinking.

Apparently, he changed it in 1944, if not before. Sorry to burst your bubble.

collectivism is not Socialism

Yes, it is. Collectivism is another name for socialism, i.e. the subjugation of the individual to the collective, the pursuit of collective goals, and the planning of most if not all aspects of both individual and civic life.

Orwell spoke against totalitarianism not Socialism.

He spoke out against collectivism. I have the quotation upstairs somewhere, I will get it for you tomorrow. It was an official comment made in response to Hayek's Road to Serfdom in which he demonstrates that Nazism and Communism are two sides of the same coin, and walking down the road of planned economics leads us there. I advise you to read it. I know you'll tell me some excuse as to why you won't, but since I have read Marx, and Lenin, and Mao, and Galbraith, and Keynes, that just demonstrates that you are the one who is prejudiced, uninformed and ignorant.

Nazism and Communism do indeed spring from the same root. That root went in opposite directions except for the totalitarian aspect.

The totalitarian aspect is the only aspect worthy of consideration. When you consider that both require the subjugation of all individuals to a leader, they will necessarily follow the direction of that leader on all matters, political, social, economic. In this way they are exactly the same. They may differ a little in terms of overall policy, but no more than rival camps of socialism usually do (e.g. Mensheviks/Bolsheviks, Kruschevites/Maoists, Vietnamese/Khmer Rouge). The opposition between Nazism and Communism is the same as the vicious hatred that different sects of communists have for one another.

What in the name of does plumbing, and dentistry have to do with this or IT consultants and electricians?

You told me that services do not follow supply and demand. Plumbing, dentistry and IT consultancy are services, and they do follow supply and demand. You were wrong.

As for the British water supply debacle, I really don't give the proverbial tinkers' what you think. It is a fact and I know it and have known it for a long time.

Translation: you have no evidence, never had any evidence and won't try to get any evidence. After all, facts might interfere with your blinkered view of the world.

The US government is spending $2,500,000 annually in subsidies to WalMart employees. Now, I suppose you will think you have to demand to know where that comes from.

How is this relevant? This is statism, paternalism and interventionism, all of which I decry. I don't know what your point is. I suspect you don't either.

[Guest eureka]

Hugo, I won't help you to hijack this discussion for another example of where you are so full of it that it is coming out of your head. I recall your bragging of your IQ once. Are you ever going to learn to use some of it.

How do you know that I have not read those things also. Possibly, to judge from your interpretations, with rather more discernment than you.

One who can say, and apparently believe, that Socialism is Collectivism has to be not one with a high IQ but a prize idiot. Your interpretation of Socialism is also rather silly and can only come from your never changing script. Nazism and Socialism (Communism, but you would not know the difference) are a world apart. Your implication is no more than the common recognition (Orwell again) that both lead to totalitarianism; not socialism, of course, since Socialism is a highly individualist idea and only the perversion of doctrine can have the result you think of. Get the quote, if you like, and perhaps, if I feel that it is worth it, I will explain it to you.

I have a mass of material on Orwell since quite one of the best things ever written about him was by an old school friend of mine who did a critique of the critiques for the International Socialist Review. Also, I have access to all of Galbraith's work including personal things that have never appeared in print, so don't try to bring him into your enclosed world.

Services do not follow the laws of supply and demand as you see those laws. They do so only when they are not treated as services but as commodities

[Hugo]

One who can say, and apparently believe, that Socialism is Collectivism has to be not one with a high IQ but a prize idiot.

Why? Demonstrate how or your point is null and void.

Your interpretation of Socialism is also rather silly and can only come from your never changing script. Nazism and Socialism (Communism, but you would not know the difference) are a world apart.

Why? Demonstrate how or your point is null and void.

Your lack of argument either says that you don't know how to defend your views or you don't consider them worth defending. Either way, pretty damning.

I have a mass of material on Orwell since quite one of the best things ever written about him was by an old school friend of mine who did a critique of the critiques for the International Socialist Review.

You may have a mass of material, but I bet you haven't read any of it. Wasn't it you who once bragged of having a personal library that would take a fast reader several decades to read, non-stop? It took me a minute to refute your claims on Orwell, and your only response is "Well I know all about Orwell." Unfortunately, your actual arguments prove the exact opposite: you haven't the faintest clue what you're babbling on about.

Also, I have access to all of Galbraith's work including personal things that have never appeared in print, so don't try to bring him into your enclosed world.

I'm familiar with Galbraith. I also know that Galbraith has no recognition from his peers and no following, unlike genuine economists such as Keynes, Marx, Friedman or von Mises. Galbraith is interesting in a know-nothing-popularist way, like Hillary Clinton. This is why laymen like him, and economists ridicule him.

Services do not follow the laws of supply and demand as you see those laws. They do so only when they are not treated as services but as commodities

Why? Demonstrate how or your point is null and void.

[Guest eureka]

All that has been demonstrated, Hogo. Your inability to understand simply makes any pretense of yours at furthering your views, null and void.

You most certainly are not familiar with Galbraith. You say only what you say of any other economist: that is, that s/he is not Mises or von Hayek and therefore is nobody.

[Hugo]

All that has been demonstrated, Hogo.

Hogo? Anyway, where has "all that" been demonstrated? I seem to have missed it. If you'll be so kind as to point it out...

Your inability to understand simply makes any pretense of yours at furthering your views, null and void.

Inability to understand what? I'm still waiting for you to actually explain anything or construct an argument!

You most certainly are not familiar with Galbraith.

How do you know? We haven't even discussed him yet.

You say only what you say of any other economist: that is, that s/he is not Mises or von Hayek and therefore is nobody.

I happen to disagree with most economists who are not of the Austrian school. I do, however, like some who are not, such as Milton Friedman and the other Chicagoites. Though I think they are wrong on a few points, the vast majority of times we can agree.

I also recognise that while, for instance, Marx and Keynes may have been wrong in a great many of their theories and assumptions they were certainly able enough thinkers to earn the respect of many of their peers. Therefore, I have given their work consideration and thought, although I ultimately disagreed with it.

Galbraith, however, has no following and no recognition amongst his peers. His teachings are strictly for the layperson as economists give him no respect at all.

However, my point was that while I have read a great deal of work fundamentally opposed to my points of view, you have read absolutely none opposed to yours, and what is worse, you shamelessly state that you have no intention of so doing. Therefore, it is ridiculous and utterly laughable that you would accuse me of being prejudiced, blinkered and uninformed, of being unable to consider points of view other than my own.

I expect that you have only ever discussed these matters with those who agree with you, which is why you are dumbfounded that somebody would disagree, and which is also why you are incapable of formulating any kind of rebuttal - you've simply never bothered to think about it in any depth.

Well, off you go, to whine about this episode in your Socialist Sewing Circle, or wherever the heck you half-baked your silly ideas.

[Guest eureka]

Hugo - with a you - I am not going to get into who has read what: it would be laughable if you knew the reality. It won't be proved on here, though. It is clear that whatever you may have read, your understanding of it is limited. You are fixated on a few thoughts that most readers have passed by as the originators of those thoughts have passed on. Your dismissal of Galbraith is evidence enough for any observer who has actually read widely.

However, this thread is about Canadian healthcare and was proving informative and interesting until you, as you always do, tried to make it into one of the "debates" about your obsession. You jave been shot down in flames so many times now that I sort of admire your persistence - tiresome though it becomes.

[I Miss Trudeau]

Social contract theory has already been debunked over a hundred years ago, by Lysander Spooner. Get reading!

As opposed to anarchy, which very few have even taken seriously enough to comment on, let alone "debunk."

It is really rather tiresome to see you, Hugo, hijack virtually every thread, claiming the inherent moral and economic superiority of a system that you can't (or won't)even describe.

[Hugo]

You are fixated on a few thoughts that most readers have passed by as the originators of those thoughts have passed on.

Ad populum fallacy. Once upon a time, equal rights for women and blacks was also a thought that most people passed by and ignored. The fact is that society without government has arisen quite a few times in history, often separated by several centuries, so it isn't the case that this is an idea that nobody cares about. Jesus was an anarchist, and also the single most important person in human history.

However, this thread is about Canadian healthcare and was proving informative and interesting until you, as you always do, tried to make it into one of the "debates" about your obsession.

I advocate free-market healthcare. You are crying foul because in my advocacy I talk about free markets? How should I discuss free markets without discussing free markets?

I completely dispute your claim that I have turned this into a debate about anarchy. Indeed, I even penned a lengthy proposal about how free-market healthcare could be brought about within the framework of the state as we know it today! You had no response to that - why?

As opposed to anarchy, which very few have even taken seriously enough to comment on, let alone "debunk."

Yes, and once upon a time the same could be said for democracy, for a heliocentric solar system, for a spherical Earth, and so forth. Ad populum fallacy. Try again, and this time try not to trip over yourself.

It is really rather tiresome to see you, Hugo, hijack virtually every thread, claiming the inherent moral and economic superiority of a system that you can't (or won't)even describe.

You're pretty new here, so I'll forgive that. If you do a search you will see quite a few threads where I have argued and described these things. You are welcome to continue them, Greg hasn't closed any of them.

But as I said to Eureka, you are either very stupid or very prejudiced if you seriously think that advocating free-market healthcare is 'hijacking' a thread on healthcare. It isn't my fault that trolls like Eureka can't stay on-topic and keep a civil tone. The reason why this thread has been hijacked is because he happened upon this thread, made empty claims without any argument or evidence, and threw insults around in humiliation at his demonstrable lack of knowledge and ability. Very childish behaviour indeed. However, soon he will follow his usual pattern, deliver a final salvo of petty insults (for which I will probably have to report him to Greg - again) and abandon the thread, at which point perhaps we can get back to discussing the topic at hand.

What I did was to posit that free-market healthcare is a superior option. A lot of people in this thread then demonstrated that they did not know what free markets were, so I had to explain that, otherwise they would not have understood my point (as they evidently didn't). Since we are not coming at the issue from a common frame of reference it became necessary for me to define my terms before moving on. We're still stuck there, because you and Eureka insist on quibbling about the terminology, so that we can't get back into the actual discussion.

[Guest eureka]

Go ahead and report, Hugo. I don't know how you define "troll:, but I would define it as someone like you - a "one-trick-pony" who inundates every serious discussion with his obsession.

[Hugo]

So you're not going to answer any questions or make any arguments, then? Your sole purpose is to aggravate?

That's how "troll" is defined, Eureka:

One who purposely and deliberately (that purpose usually being self-amusement) starts an argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by his or her peers [for example, ignoring all my points and requests for evidence or argument]. He will spark of such an argument via the use of ad hominem attacks (i.e. 'you're nothing but a fanboy' is a popular phrase) [or "one-trick pony", "prize idiot" etc] with no substance or relevence to back them up [still waiting for that evidence/argument, Eureka] as well as straw man arguments [or an ad-populum fallacy or two], which he uses to simply avoid addressing the essence of the issue [as you have yet to actually discuss healthcare with me at all, despite my having written a great deal on the subject already.].

--Urban Dictionary

You are a troll. Now, do you have anything to say about healthcare? Anything at all? Or are you planning a continuation of this total waste of time and bandwidth?

[Hugo]

Moving on, I notice that Blackdog has gone back and edited one of his posts with some questions for me.

I'm going to skip over the questions on anarchy since they have already been answered here and there doesn't seem much point cluttering up this thread rehashing them.

Less area means there's less infrastructure required (physical and administrative), while a small population means there's more coverage to go around.

Even comparing life expectancies of a city like Toronto to Singapore, the latter still comes out on top, even though Toronto has around the same population as Singapore in a very similar area.

So I don't buy that argument. Don't forget, also, that dense populations also have factors that count against them, for instance, the universal tendency of large urban populations to suffer more crime and pollution than in more rural areas.

If you're in a car accident and you need treatment stat, are you in a position to comparison shop?

If you run out of gas in the middle of nowhere, you are not in a position to comparison-shop either: you buy gas at the first gas station you come across. Does that mean that the gasoline industry should be nationalised?

No, and it's because the vast majority of gasoline purchases can be made with comparison shopping, and so it is with healthcare too. Your example only allows for emergency care, not checkups, MRIs, bloodwork, gynecology, planned surgery, pharmaceuticals, dentistry, optometry, etc. Even in emergency care there is often some choice as to what facility or doctor performs the said care. Helicopter transport from the scene of an accident usually makes several hospitals only minutes away. If one hospital was much better than another, with a much higher survival rate of patients, the pilot would certainly take an extra couple of minutes flying time to get the patient there.

Not only that, but in health care, consumers are highly reliant on the providers of the service.

Consumers are even more reliant upon the providers of foodstuffs. We need food more urgently than healthcare to live! Still, a free market and competition in food provision seem to have worked out pretty well. Indeed, those countries that have state-controlled food industries are the only ones still suffering famines that cannot be attributed to natural disaster or war.

It is the case that consumers are reliant on some services, but the providers of those services are also reliant on the consumers for their livelihoods. Therefore, it is in everybodys best interest to come to a mutually satisfactory agreement.

Besides, with competition, if one provider decides to rip people off he breaks the market wide open for a competitor who decides to be more ethical. Consumers reject companies that they perceive to treat them unfairly.

[Guest eureka]

I no longer find you amusing, Hugo.In fact, I find you extremely offensive and annoying.

You can sum yourself up in your provision of a definition of something. You can't even do that without your own spin: your amplification of every statement in the definition with terms that suit your little mind.

That is your approach to every discussion that I have seen you in. You give no attention to argument and no thought to anything. You simply trot out your patented spiel and twist others' words while coming down from the mountain with your revealed meaning of words.

[Hugo]

So you're not going to answer any questions or make any arguments, then?

You can sum yourself up in your provision of a definition of something. You can't even do that... I find you extremely offensive and annoying... You give no attention to argument and no thought to anything. You simply trot out your patented spiel and twist others' words... [and it goes on like this]

I'll take that as a "no".

[cgarrett]

yeah, i find that the rhetoric regarding the power of 'competition' in the market place pronounced everywhere in this forum without any idea of how little 'competition' really exists!

ever wonder why, say, portable cd players have been the same price for a decade? suppliers making continual costly advances? ha!

or how about the price of gas going up at every gas station at the same time? the term 'gas price war' left with the last independent gas chain!

i could go on forever here...

a first year university economics class is all one needs to know...

suppliers of goods and services continually strive to obtain the price of the 'perceived value' from the purchaser. in a mature market (which covers 99% of everything), players have their cut of the pie and don't rock the boat. sure there is an occasional stirrup (eg. wall mart) but for the most part things remain the same and market players use 'industry representation' to communicate etc...

[cgarrett]

oh, and i'd like to weigh in on the taxation is stealing thing.

do you like the fact that turning on a light switch creates light?

or that turning on the faucet gives you water?

or that there's a road outside that goes somewhere?

or that you can call somebody on the telephone?

or that you don't have to worry about someone coming over and kicking your head in and taking all of your stuff?

sure, some of the 'operations' of these things can be privatized (provided that we get to look at the books)... but you own it. its yours!

why is it that a company that sells you something at a 'market determined' prices (ha ha ha ha...) is not committing a crime when they are laughing all the way to the bank? oh, because that can't happen?! because of competition?

ps. my wife is going back to japan to get some extensive dental work done by the public system they have. we weren't concerned with the financial aspects of getting the work done here... but she was appalled at the amount of time that dentists would spend with her explaining what was happening and options available. why is dentistry so expensive? lack of competition! the school of dentistry dictates how many dentists will be produced in this country every year... at our expense!