US health care question

[Zoupa]

The more I learn about health care in the US, the more perplexed I get. I dont understand how US citizens can accept the current system. I truly dont.

Americans travel abroad and they see what others have and how it works. Then they come home and are afraid it's gonna turn out like what they saw so they say they'd rather keep what they have now than turn into that. Demagogues exploit this, effect magnifies, rise, repeat.

So your explanation is that rich white folks that travel get scared on their trip to Brazil?

What if you offered free trips to all the poor folks to places like Europe or Canada?

Methinks they'd jump on socialized med.

[MadImmortalMan]

So your explanation is that rich white folks that travel get scared on their trip to Brazil?

What if you offered free trips to all the poor folks to places like Europe or Canada?

Methinks they'd jump on socialized med.

Poor people don't go to Brazil. Or the UK. Yeah, it's dumb. NHS can't compete with what rich Americans get. 

[Sheilbh]

While I think the entire "death panel" thing is contemptible, I cannot help but be amused at the shock and outrage from people who use the exact same tactics themselves when it suits them.

I don't know.  The Bush=Hitler/Obama=Hitler thing's the same.  But I think there are two big differences. 

First it's been six months.  Now Bush wasn't doing great in August 01, from what I remember he'd got the tax cut and was being attacked by future-Languishites for being weak-willed with China over the spy plane thing.  But at that point he didn't have people carrying guns to his events with 'kill Bush' signs, he didn't have the Bush=Hitler stuff at that point either.

Second is the lie involved in this.  I'm just amazed that something so blatantly untrue can be believed by so many people (45% according to a recent poll).  Michael Goldfarb, McCain's spokesman and Weekly Standard writer, said that even if healthcare passes it'll be great for the Republicans because they can 'find' another death panel issue every week until it is enacted in 2013.  Meanwhile Michael Steele sounds like a post-structuralist philosopher by saying that 'death panels' may not be in the bills being debated but that doesn't necessarily make them less 'true'.  It's utterly bizarre.  I can't think of anything like this: an allegation that's untrue, really serious and so bizarre being believed and entering mainstream political discourse.

Poor people don't go to Brazil. Or the UK. Yeah, it's dumb. NHS can't compete with what rich Americans get. 

Then why don't they pay for private healthcare when they're ill and here? :p

[Berkut]

Poor people don't go to Brazil. Or the UK. Yeah, it's dumb. NHS can't compete with what rich Americans get. 

I don't think that is it at all - it is that the NFHS cannot compete with what the middle class in America get - or at least that is the perception.

People complain about our system, but at the end of the day, we have excellent health care largely available to most of the people. Where has this perception come from that health care in America for most people is a problem? It is expensive, but it is also generally very, very good compared to the stories I have heard from other places.

[Valmy]

but it is also generally very, very good compared to the stories I have heard from other places.

So we are comparing generalities against anecdotes now?

[Berkut]

While I think the entire "death panel" thing is contemptible, I cannot help but be amused at the shock and outrage from people who use the exact same tactics themselves when it suits them.

I don't know.  The Bush=Hitler/Obama=Hitler thing's the same.  But I think there are two big differences. 

First it's been six months.  Now Bush wasn't doing great in August 01, from what I remember he'd got the tax cut and was being attacked by future-Languishites for being weak-willed with China over the spy plane thing.  But at that point he didn't have people carrying guns to his events with 'kill Bush' signs, he didn't have the Bush=Hitler stuff at that point either.

Second is the lie involved in this.  I'm just amazed that something so blatantly untrue can be believed by so many people (45% according to a recent poll).  Michael Goldfarb, McCain's spokesman and Weekly Standard writer, said that even if healthcare passes it'll be great for the Republicans because they can 'find' another death panel issue every week until it is enacted in 2013.  Meanwhile Michael Steele sounds like a post-structuralist philosopher by saying that 'death panels' may not be in the bills being debated but that doesn't necessarily make them less 'true'.  It's utterly bizarre.  I can't think of anything like this: an allegation that's untrue, really serious and so bizarre being believed and entering mainstream political discourse.

Oh come on, just look at the Iraq war. You saw the exact same kinds of lies and bullshit and appeals to irrational emotion about something at least as serious, and people STILL believe a lot of it.

This is no different. The Republicans are attacking the Dems because the Dems are in power and they think that beating them is more important than anything else, and if that means a badly needed reform of the health care system is acrificed on the alter of "Get Obama" then so be it. It is everything that is wrong about politics, and is utterly contemptible.

But I said the exact same thing when all the lefties where cheering on Michael Moore, and going on about Gitmo and gulags and killing hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq, or exaggerating instances of atrocities, etc., etc., etc. "Get Bush" was considered to be the over-riding goal, and if that meant that people supported the US losing a war, then so be it.

This is no different, at all.

[Berkut]

but it is also generally very, very good compared to the stories I have heard from other places.

So we are comparing generalities against anecdotes now?

Of course - we are talking about politics and why people have the perceptions that they have. It is all about comparing anecdotes and generalities.

The reality, as I pointed out, is that for most Americans, they get very good health care. The "crisis" is in many ways vastly over-stated in its particulars. The real problem isn't the problem being discussed, just like the real valid objections to the Dems/Obamas plans have nothing to do with bullshit like "death panels".

But this is politics for the masses - the real issues are complex, so instead we rant and rave about bullshit that makes for a compelling story.

[MadImmortalMan]

Then why don't they pay for private healthcare when they're ill and here? :p

Most of the stories I have heard from folks in that position involve them giving up and doing exactly that.

[Valmy]

The reality, as I pointed out, is that for most Americans, they get very good health care.

That is  not a reality for me.  I fucking am so tired of the general incompetence and nonsense I have to put up with just for supposedly trained medical professionals to recognize the obvious.  I have to pay a shitload and go to private practicioners who do not take insurance to get somebody to spend more than two minutes with me and gives a flying shit.

But I must be one of the unfortunate few.  Heck just yesterday my wife went into a place and the doctor diagnosed her and proscribed anti-biotics...but the thing the stupid asshole diagnosed is a mother fucking VIRUS.  Last year I ripped my achilles tendon but three separate doctors insisted it was a sprain before I finally got fed up and spent hundreds to get it treated by somebody with a grasp for the obvious.

But anyway I am glad somebody out there gets excellent health care.

Heaven help me if I ever have a medical condition of any complexity I am really fucked.  This is for shit that I already can recognize and anybody with a brain should.

My sister in law went to doctors for months insisting she had a serious problem in her abdomen and of course non of the many doctors she went to checked it out or gave a shit.  They diagnosed it as all sorts of things.  Well guess what?  It was cancer and now she is going to die!  Hurrah for our excellent health care!

Of course government universal care is not going to solve these problems which I primarily blame on Doctors being overworked, being afraid of being sued all the time, and the ridiculous bureaucracy of the insurance industry.  In fact I expect these problems to continue to get worse.

[DGuller]

It never ceases to shock me when I hear of somebody going to the doctor, and being prescribed anti-biotics and being diagnosed with a virus at the same time.  I hear that frequently enough.  Doctors who do that should be stripped of their license for dooming the humanity to anti-biotic resistance.  They should also be executed, just to make sure that they wouldn't get their license back in some way.

[Valmy]

My favorite part is how doctors are rewarded with money if they ask you to take tests or proscribe pills...so naturally I am always getting pushed to take pills and tests.  I mean a chest x-ray?  For a cough?  Are you shitting me?

Anyway those are my anecdotes. 

[Sheilbh]

This is no different, at all.

Here's the difference. 

The Democrat party was divided over Iraq.  Camper rightly predicted that the immediate political effect of Iraq was to damage the Democrats, not the Republicans, as they split into pro and anti-wars at each others throat and trying to discern some sort of common policy they could unite over.  Because of that split and that significant pro-war section in the Democrats I think that while the anti-war Democrats took over the majority of the party by around 2006 (at roughly the same time as the anti-war part of America became larger than the pro-war part) the loony anti-war Democrats never took over.

Because of that I can't think of a single senior Democrat who pushed a Michael Moore-ish, General Betray Us, Lancet report version of events.

Incidentally just thinking on what you're saying there '"Get Bush" was considered to be the over-riding goal, and if that meant that people supported the US losing a war, then so be it.'.  Do you think it's possible to be sort of honourably, or patriotically anti-war?  What I mean is if you're honest and truthful about things (so no distortion) but genuinely believe that the war is wrong or that withdrawal is right how can you express that without being perceived as a political hack or wanting  the US to lose a war?

[Valmy]

[Do you think it's possible to be sort of honourably, or patriotically anti-war?  What I mean is if you're honest and truthful about things (so no distortion) but genuinely believe that the war is wrong or that withdrawal is right how can you express that without being perceived as a political hack or wanting  the US to lose a war?

Man I so want to answer this one so bad...but I will wait for Berkie.

[Admiral Yi]

Incidentally just thinking on what you're saying there '"Get Bush" was considered to be the over-riding goal, and if that meant that people supported the US losing a war, then so be it.'.  Do you think it's possible to be sort of honourably, or patriotically anti-war?  What I mean is if you're honest and truthful about things (so no distortion) but genuinely believe that the war is wrong or that withdrawal is right how can you express that without being perceived as a political hack or wanting  the US to lose a war?

Maintain a consistent, principled argument.  Avoid trying to score debating points and making arguments of expediency.

Be scrupulous about your facts.

Avoid trying to demonize your political opponents.

[Valmy]

Maintain a consistent, principled argument.  Avoid trying to score debating points and making arguments of expediency.

Be scrupulous about your facts.

Avoid trying to demonize your political opponents.

Yeah the Democrats, for the most part, did not do these things.  They changed their position fluidly and it seemed to me it was a strategy to win back Congress than a strategy to actually leave Iraq which I did not think they actually wanted to do.  Events have seemed to me to show my cynicism was correct.

It was especially sad seeing alot of the Dems who voted for the war (and I think supported the war all along and continue to do so) use this strategy.