How I Lost My Fear of Universal Health Care

Discussion in 'Health Care' started by Leo2, Jul 23, 2012.

  1. Leo2

    Leo2 Well-Known Member

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    http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/07/12/how-i-lost-my-fear-universal-health-care

    Leaving aside pregnancy (for fairly obvious reasons,) my experiences of UHC in both Great Britain and Australia have been very similar. Any comment? :)
     
  2. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    I would like to comment on the last paragraph, many rich capitalist canadians who are fed up with the wait times in their universal health care system usually travel to the US for care.

    So the problem becomes when the US the last resort for capitalist sponsored premium health care goes socialist, then there is no hope for those rich people who want a system that heavily favors the optimal health care possible for an elite class.

    Now disclaimer i'm a liberal and favor universal health care, but if I were wealthy I would be angry because the US will lose that efficient quick health care system where all the break throughs in health innovations are reserved for the elite classes.
     
  3. Leo2

    Leo2 Well-Known Member

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    Good point, and to that extent the British and Australian UHC systems would have greater appeal to the wealthy. There is always the private option for those who choose to pay for it, whilst the majority of the population - irrespective of financial standing - is more than adequately cared for by UHC.
     
  4. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    My Canadian friends love their health system. I have friends who are dual American/Canadian citizens and one of the reasons they love living in Canada is the health system. I have never heard them complain about the wait time.
     
  5. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    Here in Australia we have both UHC and PHC. If you don't want to wait for an elective you can pay, if you can afford it, to have it done right away in the private system.
     
  6. toddwv

    toddwv Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That, at least according to wiki, is also available in Canada.
     
  7. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    good point but that is still not enough for the higher classes, one reason why the US has the best health care in the world in terms of innovation is because its set up in a capitalist structure where alot of the wealth goes to funding new ways to care for people. Even the rich british and aussies come to the US when their own small time privatized health care system fail them because they are not equipped to handle complex illnesses.

    so to conclude the english have subpar health care services when compared to the US because it is publicly funded by the taxpayers while our system which is privately funded by the wealthy private enterprises is very advanced due to it not being a small time private operation but the entire country is structured to service AROUND the wealthy classes . that harnesses more power than those privitized systems in australia and UK because there is a bigger pool of money being privately used for health care

    in essence our rich can live in risky lifestyles and eat unhealthy foods but with the advanced health care services we provide they can afford to live on comfortably.
     
  8. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    HAHAHAHA!

    Sorry to burst your bubble there but a number of medical advancements have come from Australia.

    I'd sure love to see this list of rich Australians who leave the country to flee our primitive medical system so that they can get care from the glorious USA.
     
  9. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    Lets say that were the case but my links below contradict that since we are free market based and not socialist based our healthcare is naturally more advanced because its driven by profits.

    Now to get access to "advanced australian health care" it takes at least 6 months and the rich whether be it aussie or American like things right away especially when concerning important things like their health.


    http://selectusa.commerce.gov/indus...and-medical-technology-industry-united-states

    http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/09/the-canadian-patients’-remedy-for-health-care-go-to-america/
     
  10. Makedde

    Makedde New Member Past Donor

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  11. Unifier

    Unifier New Member

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    Straight from the mouth of a man from Quebec.

    [video=youtube;q2jijuj1ysw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw[/video]
     
  12. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    The rich in Australia get private health care and get everything taken care of right away.

    They do not have to, not matter what you think, have to travel to the US to get elective surgery done right away.
     
  13. TM2

    TM2 Active Member

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    Yay for Australia.
     
  14. TM2

    TM2 Active Member

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    While I am a supporter of UHC, I have to admit that this uninformed, peanut gallery opinion is of little use to anyone. Its a million times better, you say? Oh well, everyone is convinced now!
     
  15. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    Australians and English with complex illnesses come to America for treatment, this is because once again our healthcare is capitalist based which means we are the leader in innovation in healthcare.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/06/us-medical-care-haven-nhs
     
  16. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    Oh, a 10 year old British boy is in the US getting treatment? Well, you've sold me on the idea that rich Australians are going to the US in droves for treatment.
     
  17. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    Well not in droves but rich australians who have an illness that needs a proton therapy machine will be glad that the US is the last stronghold of capitalism sponsored medical innovation in the world.
     
  18. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    1. Posting something about the UK has no bearing on Australia.

    2. Australia is not some backwards 3rd world (*)(*)(*)(*)hole.

    3. Australia has PRIVATE health insurance, which I've mentioned like 5 times already.
     
  19. Leo2

    Leo2 Well-Known Member

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    Well, as we all know, a single swallow does not a summer make. But be that as it may, the trip to the USA and the cost of the procedure were met in toto by the NHS. In what way does that prove that the British UHC is inferior to the private insurance model operating in the US? Remember that this discussion is about the desirability, or otherwise, of UHC - not about which society has developed greater medical advances.
     
  20. Colonel K

    Colonel K Well-Known Member

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    The British UHC system is obviously superior, since it funds specialist treatment for patients worldwide if it is not available at home!
     
  21. IndieVisible

    IndieVisible New Member

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    I have long favored and supported a national health care in the USA. Sure if your rich and can afford the very best of the best doctors and fly to any hospital or fly your doctor to you, national health care may not be for you. Or if your brain washed by conservative doom and gloom horror stories how this is bad it may scare you. I was and still am for national health care. I hope some day we can have that here in the USA because I am very disappointed in Obama Care. It does not go far enough IMHO.
     
  22. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    That is whats being addressed the lack of desirability for universal healthcare in this case by the wealthy since they are people too unless mistaken and their desires don't count...

    Societies with greater medical advances is very pertinent information to be discussed when addressing their desires and the article provided shows an example of how socialised medicine is leeching off the capitalist medicine from American innovation

    In that article the Nationalized health care system was not able to provide for the care of a british child with a complex illness similar to australia and the rest of europe under those circumstances so they were forced to send the child to the USA. The point of that story is if Universal healthcare goes to the United States these type of innovations would no longer be possible for anyone to benefit from socialist or capitalist so that questions its Desirability according to this discussion.
     
  23. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    By the way, they are currently building this machine you say Australia can't provide. It'll be offering treatments in 2015.

    So much for your idea that ONLY the US can offer this.
     
  24. Diuretic

    Diuretic Well-Known Member

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    The US has some of the finest medical centres in the world. There is a cardiac centre in Cleveland that is the best in the world. But just the other day some rich bloke from somewhere else died there, so I suppose they're not miracle workers, just medical workers. There are some excellent scientific research centres in the US as well. Their research illuminates the work of other researchers around the world so we can benefit from it. I reckon that's pretty good. But if we refer to the provision of health care it doesn't look so good and the provision of health care, gaining access to health care is the point.

    The US treats health care as a business.
    Much of the rest of the advanced world treats health care as a social service.
    Much of the developing world treats health care as a business.

    It's okay to be very wealthy and sick in the US, you will get excellent care, best in the world.
    It's okay to be poor or average and sick in those parts of the advanced world that treat health care as a social service.
    It's not that okay to be poor and sick in the developing world.

    If you're reading this you're either in the first or the second category.
    If you're living in the States and are not wealthy then I feel for you if you get sick.
    If you live in a country that has universal health care and get sick then I feel for you but unlike the American in similar circumstances to yours at least you only have to worry about your condition, not how you'll pay for the care to get well again.

    Americans like their system where health care is a business. Leave them alone, they're okay with it. Don't try to persuade them that it's not a good system, that there are better ways of doing things, like regarding health care as a social service. It's their choice.
     
  25. Leo2

    Leo2 Well-Known Member

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    I agree with the entirety of your post. My reason for the OP is the frequent assertion by various Americans that universal health care, as practiced by the rest of the developed world, is inadequate and inferior compared to the health care that is available via the private system in the USA. An article written by a Republican American who heretofore subscribed to that view, but has since, by means of first hand experience of one of the lesser UHC systems, radically altered her view, seems relevant to the question.

    We have seen four years of repeated misinformation, ranging from 'death panels' to the imminent demise of the society concerned, regarding the NHS, and various other national UHC systems, being pedalled on these pages. I do not think that we who know and experience these systems at first hand, should be expected to suffer this pejorative propaganda without demur.

    I agree that Americans should decide upon the details of their society amongst themselves, but those opposing systems of UHC in the US, do not have the right to promulgate fanciful untruths, and half-truths, about other societies in order to support their objections to the concept.
     

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