worryingly jolly batman

Yes. Exactly. I don't know how they continue to defend a system which is just beyond broken - I mean, rational, intelligent people on both sides of the political spectrum insist that somehow this system is the only possible way Americans can handle their health care. And if that is true, there is something seriously, dramatically wrong, because 45 million people in that country are uninsured - that's eleven times the number of people who *live* in my country, people whose only access to healthcare is through an emergency room (and that's not really healthcare - that's like giving a five year old a knife and then bandaging her up when she chops off a finger. TELL HER TO PUT DOWN THE KNIFE. Metaphorically.) Why aren't there riots in the streets?

If I feel this emotional watching this, I have no idea how people who actually live in the damn country manage it.

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huggenkiss.livejournal.com

I agree 100%. It's just insanity. *hands*

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rewihendrix.livejournal.com

don't you understand? poor people are poor because they don't work hard enough. and shouldn't get any health care they can't afford.

and (to use one of the "in-phrases" of the current NZ election), "Government should be run like a business". Especially all the completely inelastic markets like...healthcare.

i have so much shit i could rant at the moment. but i should be studying.

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Dude, we agree with each other on this issue! High five!

I would find your first sentence a lot more ironic if I hadn't actually heard people *advocating* that - and not just in america, sigh.

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rewihendrix.livejournal.com

i think we agree with each other on most issues

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Yeah, but the ones we agree on never seem to be the ones we have discussions about - which I guess makes sense.

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There's a general perception in America, even on the left, that socialised medicine doesn't actually work. It's possible that saying 'socialised medicine' is just a shorthand for supply failure.

And, on the flip side of the coin, I know many right wingers, particularly in New Zealand, who complain that lefties are so short-sighted they see socialised medicine as the goal, rather than the process, and that they'll react negatively to anything that involves private industry in healthcare even if it can demonstrably provide better outcomes.

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There's a general perception in America, even on the left, that socialised medicine doesn't actually work.

But this is false - this is actually, demonstrably false. Medicine is actually one of the things that socialism is quite good at! Cuba has a longer life expectancy than the USA, ffs. Inequities in health care have grown in China even as their GDP has increased so significantly (as they became capitalist.) Etc.

And, on the flip side of the coin, I know many right wingers, particularly in New Zealand, who complain that lefties are so short-sighted they see socialised medicine as the goal, rather than the process, and that they'll react negatively to anything that involves private industry in healthcare even if it can demonstrably provide better outcomes.

Well, to me this is kind of talking about a fantasy world, because private healthcare does *not* provide better outcomes to any society as a whole. It may provide slightly better outcomes to those individuals who can best afford it, *maybe*, but everyone else suffers. So for righties to say that, to me, is kind of like whining "even if we were right, you wouldn't listen to us!" Well, it kind of doesn't matter, sugar, because you're not right.

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But this is false - this is actually, demonstrably false.

Yes, maybe, although 2bh I doubt it's as simple as that. But I was merely saying that to many people "socialised healthcare" is merely a byword for "crappy healthcare" in the same way you would use "privatised healthcare" as a similar byword, based on your own reading of the evidence.

So if we accept that preconception, it is intellectually defensible to say "socialised healthcare isn't worth it even if it provides better healthcare for children" because the implication is it isn't worth the cost.

And if you're not prepared to accept that preconception, I'd simply give up on trying to communicate effectively with anybody to your right.

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Um, I don't accept that I have to accept *flawed realities* to communicate with anyone to my right (for starters, there are plenty of people to the right of me who nevertheless agree with me about healthcare.) Additionally, *accpeting* that preconception is like giving up the argument right from the start, because if you accept that socialised healthcare produces worse results, then obviously... I'm wrong! I'm not really sure what you're getting at there, to be honest. It's like saying that lefties need to accept that righties are right about it being indefensible to tax people in order to talk to righties - it's kind of... the whole *point* is missing there.

So if we accept that preconception, it is intellectually defensible to say "socialised healthcare isn't worth it even if it provides better healthcare for children" because the implication is it isn't worth the cost.

If this is what they were actually saying, I would accept that. Even if they were saying "socialised healthcare is intrinsically bad because it undermines the competitive environment of freemarket healthcare, which produces the best-quality healthcare", I would still disagree with them, but at least they'd be making a genuine argument. What actually seems to happen is that the words "socialised healthcare" are being used as magic demon words to convince people that a proposal is bad. It's like the effect of the words "political correctness" - it doesn't matter what it actually means, and it doesn't matter what the issue being discussed is, "political correctness" is used as a bludgeon. It obscures discussion of the issue at hand.

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When I say "accept" I mean "accept for the sake of the argument", or more accurately "for the sake of comprehending what the person is saying".

As for the second point, I agree that it would be better to be specific, but I'm not sure if this is a particularly exceptional use of sloganeering. One could hardly claim that this sort of thing is unique to the right - you might agree with a leftist complaining about "big business", but it'd be better if they outlined exactly what they meant by that, wouldn't it?

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But, as I said, if you accept this for the sake of argument then the argument is over already. AS far as understanding what the person says - I understand what they're saying, alright, I am just really sceptical as to its rationality.

I did not, and will not, claim that this kind of thing is unique to the right (although in all fairness I don't think I've heard anyone talk about "big business"... er... ever. This is probably a generational thing.) However, I do think this is an exceptional use of sloganeering because it is representative of such a significant and vital misunderstanding - this slogan, "socialised medicine", can be put up against "healthcare for kids". You can't put "big business" up against "healthcare for kids." You can't even put "political correctness" up against "healthcare for kids." But socialised medicine, apparently, you can. Well, okay then!

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Yes, maybe, although 2bh I doubt it's as simple as that.

Actually, it kind of is that simple. Public health systems usually have plenty of flaws, but the more equitable (socialised) a health system is, the better the health outcomes are for that country - this is almost irrespective of how much income the country generates. (Actually, the more equitable a *country* is, the better their health outcomes are *as an aggregate*, which is all sorts of interesting, but of course includes factors outside the direct purview of a health system. Health is housing, etc...)

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Well, the country that righties always raise as a counter-example is Singapore, which AFAIK has a highly privatised healthcare system and generally excellent levels of achievement in every easily measurable area (child mortality, life expectancy, etc). Thoughts?

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My chief thought would be that for a private health care system, Singapore's is pretty socialised: it's universal; employers have compulsory (I think) contributions and so do employees (i.e. you can't opt out of healthcare); it's subsidised significantly; there are a number of exigency programmes; there's also a government healthcare system (hospitals, etc).

My other thought would be: what kind of class gap is there in singapore? Unemployment is low. The real test of a healthcare system (IMO) is how well unemployed people do under it. Things like the Black Report in Britain in the 1980s show that even when overall statistics improve, you can still see uneven results - for example, durring the 70s in Britain, overall life expectancies improved, but for trained and untrained manual workers, life expectancy decreased. I don't know much about singapore, however, so I cannot speculate.

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kitsunerei88

I think many Americans are also worried that such a system will raise their taxes. And if there's anything Americans don't want, it's raising raising taxes.

On an offhand note, I just found out my relatively progressive family in California will be voting McCain/Palin. I don't know how to react to this.

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Well, that's fair, it probably *would* raise taxes, at least initially. That being said, though: Americans have the highest health expenditure of ANY coountry, half of which is government expenditure - they spend 15 or so % of GDP on health, about half of which is government expenditure. Just comparing this to somewhere like NZ or Canada, spending 9 and 10% of GDP, about 78-80% of which is government expenditure - what that means is that we are *all* spending about the same amount of government resources on health right now, but Americans, and Americans alone, are spending an additional 6-8% of GDP on healthcare out of their own pocket - and 40 million people *still aren't insured.* So yeah, it would raise taxes, but frankly they might be better off anyway.

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delicatelight.livejournal.com

Oh, it's not all the Americans who disagree with you, it's all the conservative Americans. It's insane, and I'll never understand it. I don't have insurance, which means I CANNOT go to the doctor. I mean, I would have to be seriously hurt to even consider it. That's fucked up. I hate this country so much sometimes.

Rachel Maddow is seriously one of my favorite people right now. She and Keith Olbermann are pretty much the best things on TV at the moment.

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And Jack Cafferty. So boss.

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I suppose I do know that it's not everyone, but there's a clip of Bush saying, basically, "federalised medicine is evil" and I know he's not the most popular guy in the world but he is kind of head of state, he's got to be expressing some kind of zeitgeist.

On the other hand, everyone on my friendslist seems to be fairly rational (and by rational I don't mean "agrees with me", although obviously you do ;)) so there's hope for you guys left! And the whole world's watching, so no pressure!

I don't have insurance, which means I CANNOT go to the doctor. I mean, I would have to be seriously hurt to even consider it. That's fucked up.

It's also bad for health outcomes overall - the more people put off going to the doctor because they can't pay, the more it eventually costs to treat when they *have* to. :-/ I'll be crossing my fingers for you not to get sick!

I totally dig her.

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Welcome to my life.

My personal favorite low in American politics, however, is the fact that the Republican party has recently decided that FDR was a "hero". Well, yes, but they've been basically calling him a dirty commie for the last half century. But the slightest sign of financial trouble? OMG HERO.

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The finance thing is really just very... yeah. I mean, we're having our own little "Shit, we're really fucking dependent on the US market, how quickly can we diversify to China?!" economic panic of our own, which is really fucking with our election campaign too. But I haven't seen any reversals in national's (the bad guys) policies really, whereas there have been some interesting commitments from Labour (the good guys - who, um, obviously I'm going to think are more interesting than the bad guys.)

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And it's all Reagan's fault...which is funny, because guess who used to be the hero of the GOP?

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Oh, he's still their hero. And probably will be for a while too. His actual positions don't matter much - for instance, apparently Reagan would never have allowed abortion to exist (he did) or sign an amnesty for illegal immigrants (he did).

Edited Date: 2008-10-26 10:26 pm (UTC)

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Gotta love it when they rewrite history.

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