Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
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To all those flag-waving for US Capitalism vs European Socialism:
You need to listen to Ron Paul some more. What you have their isn't capitalism, it's corporatism. You haven't had true capitalism since before the days of Andrew Carnegie and the big trust. Instead of your income being taken off you by the state (national healthcare), it's taken off you by various large corporate interests (insurance companies, big pharma).
Same racket, different thieves, brahs.
You need to listen to Ron Paul some more. What you have their isn't capitalism, it's corporatism. You haven't had true capitalism since before the days of Andrew Carnegie and the big trust. Instead of your income being taken off you by the state (national healthcare), it's taken off you by various large corporate interests (insurance companies, big pharma).
Same racket, different thieves, brahs.
The way things work here in the US, if we made a public healthcare option, the government would make it ran by the private health insurance companies in exchange for campaign contributions, then funnel the money directly out of the pockets of the insured and into the pockets of the government.
Oh wait. That's what we just did.
Our government in the US is so corrupt, systemically, that it cannot be trusted to do anything.
It is just a system of theft and bribes that needs to be rebooted back to a minimal constitutional level of regulation and law enforcement and getting the fuck out of everyones way.
Oh wait. That's what we just did.
Our government in the US is so corrupt, systemically, that it cannot be trusted to do anything.
It is just a system of theft and bribes that needs to be rebooted back to a minimal constitutional level of regulation and law enforcement and getting the fuck out of everyones way.
I love how these threads always turn to America vs the world in health care.
It goes like this:
American: Hur hur our healthcare is great fuck yeah. I don't give a shit about poor people let them die. Canadians/European health care sucks and they pay in taxes!
Canadian/European/Australia: Bla blah our healthcare is great I can't believe you Americans are so ignorant and don't have free health care bla bla bla.
Honestly I don't give 2 shits. You know why. I live in an awesome country so I don't care if people insult it or say shit about it. Because am living better then 90%+ of the world. I enjoy free healthcare, am an sure many Americans would like it as well. But as it stands the majority don't want it. So to all the Australians/Canadians/ Europeans arguing here stop wasting your time.
It goes like this:
American: Hur hur our healthcare is great fuck yeah. I don't give a shit about poor people let them die. Canadians/European health care sucks and they pay in taxes!
Canadian/European/Australia: Bla blah our healthcare is great I can't believe you Americans are so ignorant and don't have free health care bla bla bla.
Honestly I don't give 2 shits. You know why. I live in an awesome country so I don't care if people insult it or say shit about it. Because am living better then 90%+ of the world. I enjoy free healthcare, am an sure many Americans would like it as well. But as it stands the majority don't want it. So to all the Australians/Canadians/ Europeans arguing here stop wasting your time.
You know what I meant. And compared to America Healthcare in tax cost it is practically free.
I think there were some numbers from a study posted earlier (?) that said the tax cost was about half of America's.
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Still, if it's so great, why do so many Canadians go abroad for health care? Don't say they don't. The numbers are pretty big. Lots of them come over here to Thailand mostly to beat the wait lists from what I understand.
World Health Organization's ratings of "overall health service performance", which used a "composite measure of achievement in the level of health, the distribution of health, the level of responsiveness and fairness of financial contribution", ranked Canada 30th and the U.S. 37th among 191 member nations.
Studies have come to different conclusions about the result of this disparity in spending. A 2007 review of all studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the US in a Canadian peer-reviewed medical journal found that "health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent."
In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was US$3,678; in the U.S., US$6,714.
A lot Canadians do go abroad for healthcare, but it's for minor surgery/cosmetic that can wait. But am sure more Americans go abroad for healthcare then canadians anway;
an estimated 750,000 Americans seek treatment abroad in 2007. It was also estimated that a million and a half Americans sought healthcare outside the US in 2008.
With that am out. I didn't come into this thread to argue. I like my system, you like yours. Am not trying to change your system, I don't care.
Studies have come to different conclusions about the result of this disparity in spending. A 2007 review of all studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the US in a Canadian peer-reviewed medical journal found that "health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent."
In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was US$3,678; in the U.S., US$6,714.
A lot Canadians do go abroad for healthcare, but it's for minor surgery/cosmetic that can wait. But am sure more Americans go abroad for healthcare then canadians anway;
an estimated 750,000 Americans seek treatment abroad in 2007. It was also estimated that a million and a half Americans sought healthcare outside the US in 2008.
With that am out. I didn't come into this thread to argue. I like my system, you like yours. Am not trying to change your system, I don't care.
They're exercising their right to go elsewhere to a poorer country and pay, where they will be the top of the income tree and have access to the best private healthcare due to the income disparities between Thailand and Canada.
Why don't they all go to the US and pay for it there then?
Um, that's where most of them go, to the U.S. At least that's what the published studies say - you'll have to Google it yourself (you shoulda Googled before you posted)
You guys praising socialized health care probably just probably haven't been in a situation where you need something done fast or expertly. Of course, socialized health care is great for runny noses or a broken arm, but wait until you need an MRI or allergy test or top of the line treatment and see how you like several months waiting period, then a few more months to follow up. You're likely dead by then = money saved for the government.
If you're serious about your health then you get private insurance.
If you're serious about your health then you get private insurance.
The magical market frowns on your insistence of a respectable standard of living. Sometimes dying sick and alone is a sacrifice that the island I mean the market demands.
Err wait hangon. If we just let the market work then prices would match demand and currency would would be strong, like he-man, and everyone would be employed and have money for their penises, and charities would cover when necessary, and the market gods would carry you aloft on a privately chartered hospital bed to a center of medical marketeering, curing your bladder and letting the urine flow from your fountainhead once again.
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IMVHO:
You either accept a certain amount of welfare to ensure that basic human needs are met: health care, education, care in old age, food and housing for the unemployed and sick
OR
You accept paying for security in the form of guards, police, prisons, judicial system and the costs of crime that comes with the increased numbers of people on the margins of society scrapping to survive.
I don't see how the above equation can be avoided in a democratic, liberal society.
The US has accepted some compromises on a pure objectivist/libertarian philosophy- you provide public education to high school level, some basic health care provisions, food aid etc. Just at a much lower level than Europe and elsewhere, but you are forced to spend much more on criminal justice.
tl;dr A free-market, liberal, democratic society has maintenance costs. The choice is merely what to spend the tax revenues on- chains or medicine.
You either accept a certain amount of welfare to ensure that basic human needs are met: health care, education, care in old age, food and housing for the unemployed and sick
OR
You accept paying for security in the form of guards, police, prisons, judicial system and the costs of crime that comes with the increased numbers of people on the margins of society scrapping to survive.
I don't see how the above equation can be avoided in a democratic, liberal society.
The US has accepted some compromises on a pure objectivist/libertarian philosophy- you provide public education to high school level, some basic health care provisions, food aid etc. Just at a much lower level than Europe and elsewhere, but you are forced to spend much more on criminal justice.
tl;dr A free-market, liberal, democratic society has maintenance costs. The choice is merely what to spend the tax revenues on- chains or medicine.
At guerilla et al.
At those who support using the threat of violence to compel some to pay for others' health care needs:
At those who support using the threat of violence to compel some to pay for others' health care needs:
That's an over simplification. There are many other factors at play such as etnic diversities. Europe is going to go down the shitter just like America because the Arab immigrants have become the gangsters of Europe.
Btw, the reason for privatized health care is not only cost but choice and higher standards because of competition. If you don't believe that the free market competition leads to a better product then just see the kind of crap people in the Sovjet Union could get. There is no debate - the free market delivers better and more efficient products than the socialized.
sounds like you are living during the great depression. congrats on being proud of that.
Last time my mum needed an MRI she waited a total of 3 hours in the public system (and this was for a non emergency). I've never heard of any of my friends or family having to wait anymore than a couple of weeks to get an appointment for anything non-elective.
We also have the option of private healthcare if we want it, although most just get it because it works out cheaper tax wise.