Brilliant NHS

[Azathoth]

I will just leave this here
http://epianalysis.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... suseurope/

[ronmcd]

How long did you have to wait for your appointment and how much did it cost someone else to give you your MRI?

Just over two weeks, and my MRI was exactly what the NHS is there for.
And the cost is on average, half of what Americans pay for the same thing. And that's in spite of the fact that the USA doesn't cover fifty million of it's citizens.

That would equate to 11 or 12 million people in Britain with no health cover. You should be ashamed and embarassed, as a nation.
I would be ashamed of my country, if we left 12 million brits outside the NHS.

You'll be more ashamed when your country goes bankrupt from the cost of all that "free" healthcare and NOBODY gets NHS.

It's not free, we all pay for it. This keeps escaping you. Everyone contributes, and everyone is covered, and while it's not prefect (there is no perfect system) it does work. The US system I would suggest does not work for a larger percentage of it's population. But, hey, you're alright jack (seth), right? You're fit, you exercise, you're not a slob, so why should you care?

Sadly disease and illness do not only affect those you dislike.

[Seth]

How long did you have to wait for your appointment and how much did it cost someone else to give you your MRI?

Just over two weeks, and my MRI was exactly what the NHS is there for.
And the cost is on average, half of what Americans pay for the same thing. And that's in spite of the fact that the USA doesn't cover fifty million of it's citizens.

That would equate to 11 or 12 million people in Britain with no health cover. You should be ashamed and embarassed, as a nation.
I would be ashamed of my country, if we left 12 million brits outside the NHS.

You'll be more ashamed when your country goes bankrupt from the cost of all that "free" healthcare and NOBODY gets NHS.

It's not free, we all pay for it. This keeps escaping you.

What utter shite. I'm the one who has taken great pains to illuminate the fact that NHS is not free as a refutation of the oft-seen claims like "My grandpa got his bunions fixed at the NHS for nothing."

Everyone contributes, and everyone is covered,

Maybe, unless they are too old or too sick, and only when and to the extent that the needed medical resources are available. People have died waiting for NHS treatments and you fucking well know it.

and while it's not prefect (there is no perfect system) it does work.

Except for those for whom it does not work, and only for so long as there is enough OPM in the nation to support the program, which there isn't an unlimited supply of. The cracks in the UK economy, and particularly the NHS are already showing and widening, and when it goes down, everybody is going down with it, along with the UK economy. That's what YOU keep missing.

\ The US system I would suggest does not work for a larger percentage of it's population.

Works just fine actually. Best on the planet. But we understand TANSTAAFL.

But, hey, you're alright jack (seth), right? You're fit, you exercise, you're not a slob, so why should you care?

Why should I care? Or more correctly why should I care more about someone I don't know and have never met than I care about my own health care needs?

Sadly disease and illness do not only affect those you dislike.

True enough. Sometimes you die. But then again everybody does in the end. The question becomes do you die an ethical, moral person or do you die a selfish thief who enslaved others?

[Seth]

dupe

[DaveD]

Why should I care?

Because you're nominally human?

[Seth]

Why should I care?

Because you're nominally human?

Okay, that's some sort of answer anyway.

Now, if one is "nominally human" one presumably has a mature, well-formed adult personality right?

[ronmcd]

Jesus.

What utter shite. I'm the one who has taken great pains to illuminate the fact that NHS is not free as a refutation of the oft-seen claims like "My grandpa got his bunions fixed at the NHS for nothing."

Wait, you're saying people think the NHS isn't paid for? Weird. Well, you may be that ignorant, or think others are, but we who live in UK and pay our taxes and national insurance know that the NHS is not free. We pay for it, we do understand. We're clever like that.

Maybe, unless they are too old or too sick, and only when and to the extent that the needed medical resources are available. People have died waiting for NHS treatments and you fucking well know it.

Rationing happens in US, don't pretend it doesn't. But the old and sick are very well treated here, and unlike in US we don't have huge numbers who are not covered by the same system as everyone else. Does that mean the NHS has to decide which new drugs and treatments can be used, because there is a finite pool of money? Yes. The same as the US system. And if someone wants to buy insurance here, or pay for additional drugs or treatments, as you would, they can.

Oh, and people have died waiting for treatment in US, yes? People can't GET treatment in some cases, without insurance, until they are an emergency case and have to go to the (free) hospital, but then it's too late often. Is that better than UK where everyone can go at the first sign of trouble and be TREATED?

Except for those for whom it does not work, and only for so long as there is enough OPM in the nation to support the program, which there isn't an unlimited supply of. The cracks in the UK economy, and particularly the NHS are already showing and widening, and when it goes down, everybody is going down with it, along with the UK economy. That's what YOU keep missing.

So the alternative is only the wealthy get good healthcare? no thanks. And again, the percentage for whom the US system does not work is much greater than UK. Because ... we are all covered.

Works just fine actually. Best on the planet. But we understand TANSTAAFL.

No, it's not the best on the planet. It's great for some, no doubt. When one of the Royal family get sick, they get the same treatment as in US, at fucking expensive private hospitals, all paid for by me and the rest of the commoners. See, rich people can pay for health care here too!

So you're really not as special as you think.

Why should I care? Or more correctly why should I care more about someone I don't know and have never met than I care about my own health care needs?

Fuck me. I'll give you this ... there's no answer to your point. I mean, if you don't care ... *shrugs*
I prefer a different kind of society.

True enough. Sometimes you die. But then again everybody does in the end. The question becomes do you die an ethical, moral person or do you die a selfish thief who enslaved others?

So your contention is that the free market, taken to it's logical extreme condemning the poor (slobs and wasters presumably) to no healthcare, and the rich (admirable successful types) to the newest and best cutting edge treatments ... that is "ethical" and "moral"?

I've seen this movie.

[Seth]

Jesus.

What utter shite. I'm the one who has taken great pains to illuminate the fact that NHS is not free as a refutation of the oft-seen claims like "My grandpa got his bunions fixed at the NHS for nothing."

Wait, you're saying people think the NHS isn't paid for? Weird. Well, you may be that ignorant, or think others are, but we who live in UK and pay our taxes and national insurance know that the NHS is not free. We pay for it, we do understand. We're clever like that.

You (the abstract Brit "you") aren't all that clever I'm afraid. The issue is not that Brits don't know NHS services are paid for, it's that they either don't understand or are satisfied to simply ignore the fact that the NHS services that THEY personally enjoy are not "free" by any stretch of the imagination, they are paid for, and the point is that they are paid for by someone else, not by the individual who enjoys the service, except in the case where the services rendered cost less to provide to the patient than what the patient has actually paid in NHS taxes over his lifetime. One might have paid in enough to get a bunion removed, or a cast on a broken arm, but the hard economic fact is that for the sick individual who would be bankrupted by the cost of caring for a serious illness or injury they have not and never will contribute TO the system anywhere near what they have taken OUT of the system.

This should be obvious even to you. The whole paradigm of "insurance" is based on a risk pool of payers, most of whom do not make significant claims who pay premiums in order to be guaranteed coverage in the event they do have to make a significant claim. Insurance, as an industry, depends on the accurate calculation of risks and control of costs (claims) in order to have enough money collected from individual policy holders to create a pool of cash large enough to pay out claims that are made, plus, in the free market, expenses and profits of running the company.

If the insurance company miscalculates or some disaster happens that causes mass claims they have to pay, the company goes bankrupt because it cannot collect enough from the non-affected policy holders to pay the claims.

Now I suspect you understand this but I'm pointing it out because it seems that every time this comes up NHS advocates seem to lose track of the economic realities of the insurance industry.

There are all kinds of risks that can be insured, and the actuarial tables are constantly being revised to assess each particular risk vs claim ratio to keep the company in business. Some risks are simply uninsurable because the probability of a major claim due to the peril covered is so high that the cost of premiums are unaffordable to the consumer and the potential payout is simply too large for the company to afford.

Of all the risks one can insure, insuring someone's health is among the most volatile and unpredictable precisely because disease and injury are hard to predict and the costs of medical care for severe injury or illness can be astronomical. Why they can be astronomical is another discussion, but it's intimately connected to the existence of the health care insurance industry itself.

Everybody knows that most people, as they get older, will have more and more medical complaints that require treatment. Add to that less likely but very expensive to treat illnesses like cancer and the like and the accuracy of predicting income versus claims becomes very unstable.

This is why most health policies have lifetime limits and exclusions for unlikely but expensive ailments and exclusions for pre-existing medical conditions that the insurance company can be reasonably sure will require a disproportionate amount of payout cash over the live of the policy holder. If they take too many people in those categories, they end up paying out more than they can make from all the other policy holders in the risk pool, and they go bankrupt.

Again, this is obvious, but now we come to the crux of the inevitable failure of socialized medicine.

A commercial insurance company has strong incentives to control its costs and claim outlays because if it doesn't it goes out of business.

But the government has no real incentive to control either costs or claims. Theoretically it does, but in practice rational constraints on what health care is provided and to what extent are utterly ignored because, quite simply, it is political suicide for any politician to tell the voters that the government cannot afford to provide that individual voter with every possible medical treatment available to save their life. It happens to be a fact of economics that no government CAN afford to pay unlimited amounts to treat everyone in the nation who might need expensive care, but politicians will never say that because it might lose them votes. Telling the hard truths is something the vast majority of politicians are simply incapable of doing. At best they rant and rave so they look like they are trying to "cut costs" while actually doing little or nothing to do so, and then they try to blame the deficiencies of the system on other people.

The hardest thing for any politician to say, and I frankly have never heard ANY major politician anywhere on earth say it, is "I'm sorry, but that's not something the government can or is supposed to help you with, you'll have to deal with it on your own."

This is especially and universally true of Marxist, Progressive and all forms of socialistic governments, whose entire social theory is based on an a priori assumption that not only can the government provide everything everyone needs when and to the extent they need it, but also that government is the ONLY thing that can properly provide those goodies to the seething proletarian masses.

The only fundamental difference between government and private insurance companies is the size of the claims pool. Private industry must always collect more than it puts out. So must government. But government, unlike private industry, has a power that the private insurer doesn't have; it has the power to compel everyone in the country to contribute to the claims pool, whether they want to, whether they are in the risk pool, and whether they ever make use of the benefits.

Therefore, there is no practical constraint on the NHS, which is extremely susceptible to graft, fraud and corruption as well as inefficiency, laziness and featherbedding by public employees. Because government has a "deep pocket" people who use the NHS don't seem to be able to comprehend the fact that "deep pocket" does not mean "endless amounts of spare cash." So, they go right ahead with over-consuming health care resources without a thought in the world of who is going to actually pay for it (everyone else) or what happens when the need for and costs of "free" healthcare becomes so large that the taxes needed to pay for it all beggar the entire economy. At some point, sooner or later, the OPM runs out, the taxpayers can't pay any more without starving to death, but they go right on demanding that their politicians provide them with "free" health care, right up to the point where the national economy collapses entirely and then the NHS has no money, no employees, no facilities, no supplies and no ability to provide any health care to anyone.

And people die by the millions as a result of being greedy and ignorant about the ACTUAL costs of providing "free" health care.

The laws of economics are immutable. You can't get something for nothing, and when you try, inevitably the market will collapse and nothing will be all you can get.

The primary cause of this inevitable economic collapse is the expectations on the part of the citizenry that they are "entitled" to "free" healthcare whenever they want or need it, and the greed that blinds them to the simple fact that for every dime they consume in medical care that they haven't actually paid for themselves, they are enslaving other people and are forcing them to labor and sacrifice their property for the convenience and comfort of people they don't know, will never meet, and have no moral or ethical responsibility to serve.

With private health care paid for by the individual needing service there is always a strong motive to balance need and cost carefully before deciding to consume and pay for health care. Is that bunion painful enough that it's worth putting however much it costs to fix it on the barrel-head at the time of service? Is the cost of treating this inevitably fatal cancer in order to give me a few more months or years of life going to bankrupt me and drive my family to economic ruin? Should I simply accept the fact that it's selfish and thoughtless to force my family, or others, to pay exorbitant amounts of money just to keep me alive in a hospital bed for a year? Or should I accept the inevitable, do the compassionate and loving thing and decline to wipe out my family's savings and embrace my fate?

There's also a strong motive to plan and save carefully for medical needs. Buying insurance is a good idea for some people, like families with children...just like buying life insurance is prudent for a father and mother. But it's just as important to balance the benefits of insurance against the ongoing costs of premiums. If the cost of insurance premiums is unsustainable then the family may have to do without in order to pay rent and eat and suchlike. This is unfortunate, but it's a decision that every individual must make for themselves. Is it more important to have health insurance or a new flat-screen TV?

Make the right choices and you win. Make the wrong choices and you lose. That's how life works you see.

The problem with NHS public health care insurance is three-fold: First, it's compulsory. This means that someone who wishes to assume the risks of life and live without paying a premium every month is compelled to pay into the system anyway, even if they never use the benefits; Second, being compelled to pay into the system that you do not and do not wish to make use of is flatly involuntary servitude. You aren't paying for your medical care, you're paying for someone else's and you must labor on their behalf or be punished by the government. That's pure undiluted slavery; and third, because there are political motivations that inevitably warp and corrupt the system, publicly-paid health care can never fulfill it's mandate because there is simply not enough money in the entire world to give everyone unlimited amounts of health care with no out-of-pocket expenses, which many socialists claim as a "right" due them from the government.

The simple economic fact is that sometimes you cannot be saved, nor should you be saved if it requires enslaving others to your service against their will. Everybody dies. Some die sooner than others. So what? Big deal. Get over it. You may have a "right to life" but that right is not plenary nor does your right to live impose an obligation on others to labor on your behalf to make your life either better or longer. Sometimes your moral and ethical duty is to die rather than burdening and enslaving others to prolong your life against their will.

So the alternative is only the wealthy get good healthcare? no thanks. And again, the percentage for whom the US system does not work is much greater than UK. Because ... we are all covered.

Right. Everybody gets one plaster per year. Use it wisely because that's all you get...but you're all "covered." TANSTAAFL. When the OPM runs out, as it is in the UK, being "covered" will be meaningless because there won't be any health care resources for you to make use of. This is the simple economic fact that you seem incapable of understanding. You seem to think that the public purse is bottomless and that the government will be able to pay for whatever care you need whenever you need it from here to eternity. 'Taint so I'm afraid. Best get sick now, while there's OPM in the system, because once it runs out, and it will, you'll be entitled to your equal share of bupkis.

Why should I care? Or more correctly why should I care more about someone I don't know and have never met than I care about my own health care needs?

Fuck me. I'll give you this ... there's no answer to your point. I mean, if you don't care ... *shrugs*
I prefer a different kind of society.

See, that's the problem with socialism and socialists, they are entirely unable to articulate any rational argument as to why such a burden should be forcibly imposed on others. You just make an a priori assumption that there is some moral, ethical or legal obligation on the part of each individual to provide for the "needs" of others. In other words, you subscribe to the Marxist dialectic, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," and you have no compunctions about enslaving others in your society to labor on YOUR behalf.

Personally, I find such involuntary servitude to be utterly repugnant and intolerable, and I will not endure it.

Now, if the person in need wishes to appeal to my sense of charity, altruism and rational self-interest, why then I very well may choose to assist that person...if they ask nicely and are deemed worthy of my labor and property. And perhaps surprisingly to you, the fact of human nature is that the vast majority of people are charitable, altruistic and rationally self-interested so they willingly and voluntarily labor on behalf of others without having to be coerced to do so.

A recent flash-flood in Manitou Springs, just west of Colorado Springs, caused by water, mud and debris from the Waldo Canyon fire last year buried parts of Manitou Springs six feet deep in mud, debris and enormous boulders that arrived at a speed sometimes in excess of 50 mph, killing several people.

Within 20 minutes of the stoppage of the floodwaters, more than 300 residents and visitors to Manitou Springs surged to help search for, rescue and assist others, for weeks now they have been cleaning up, removing hundreds of tons of rock, sand and mud, cleaning personal belongings of the victims and in every other way giving of themselves to help the needy...and all without one single law or order by any government bureaucrat ordering them to perform this labor.

Go figure.

So why, I ask you, do you believe that ONLY THE GOVERNMENT is properly authorized or capable of administering to the needs of the needy, and that it must be done by involuntary servitude and taxation? Why are not the charitable instincts of the public sufficient to provide for the true needs of those in trouble?

Because socialists have been carefully indoctrinated and trained, on a generational basis, to believe that they are only "cogs in the machine" and that everyone else is a selfish prick who must be compelled to obey the dictates of the collective. That's basic Marxism 101.

I happen to disagree. I believe that the needs of the truly needy and deserving can easily be met by voluntary contribution of labor and property organized by the community itself to support members of that community who are in genuine need. The existence of innumerable private charities and free services provided to the public that are entirely funded by charity is proof enough for me that the government is the LAST organ that anyone wants administering charity...if for no other reason (and there are many) than because government ALWAYS skims 20 to 30 percent right off the top in order to pay for the bloated bureaucracy and cupidinous bureaucrats who administer such programs. That's 20 to 30 percent that could go directly to the needy.

The same applies to health care. Those who are in need and are worthy of assistance get assistance from private sources all the time. There are more than 600 Catholic hospitals in the US who provide absolutely free care to the truly indigent and needy, and they comprise some of the finest hospitals in the nation that provide the most up-to-date, cutting-edge medical care found anywhere on earth...at no cost to, and not under the control of the collective.

Imagine that.

It's just fine that you prefer a different sort of society. That makes your tax contributions to the NHS an act of charity and altruism and enlightened self-interest...even though if you don't some thug with a machine gun will eventually come around and take it from you by force.

True enough. Sometimes you die. But then again everybody does in the end. The question becomes do you die an ethical, moral person or do you die a selfish thief who enslaved others?

So your contention is that the free market, taken to it's logical extreme condemning the poor (slobs and wasters presumably) to no healthcare, and the rich (admirable successful types) to the newest and best cutting edge treatments ... that is "ethical" and "moral"?

I've seen this movie.

That's not what I said. I asked you to justify your position that such a duty exists. I did not make a moral or ethical judgment about helping the poor or not helping the poor. I merely assert that the poor will get help without government having to enslave others forcibly to their service.

[Tero]

Again, this is obvious, but now we come to the crux of the inevitable failure of socialized medicine.

A commercial insurance company has strong incentives to control its costs and claim outlays because if it doesn't it goes out of business.

It could. But we have one size healthcare, you can only have good care, not cheap or poor care. You can't have a group room, maybe a room for 2.

The health care and insurance give the good care it does for as long as the money lasts. Sometimes a bit past. many patients die owing the hospital.

Anothe problem is US healthcare keepin patienst alive needlessly for weeks, in pain. Pull the plug on grandma when she can't pull it anymore. The Terry Shiavos do not happen in Europe. Brain dead is dead. Most Americans spend about hald their lifetime dollars in healthcare the last few weeks. The doctors keep them alive because they can.

[Seth]

Again, this is obvious, but now we come to the crux of the inevitable failure of socialized medicine.

A commercial insurance company has strong incentives to control its costs and claim outlays because if it doesn't it goes out of business.

It could. But we have one size healthcare, you can only have good care, not cheap or poor care.

Well, that's a load of bollocks. You get the care they can afford to give you when it's available to give you, which may be next month or never.

You can't have a group room, maybe a room for 2.

The health care and insurance give the good care it does for as long as the money lasts. Sometimes a bit past. many patients die owing the hospital.

It's that "as long as the money lasts" part that you need to integrate into your understanding.

Anothe problem is US healthcare keepin patienst alive needlessly for weeks, in pain. Pull the plug on grandma when she can't pull it anymore. The Terry Shiavos do not happen in Europe. Brain dead is dead. Most Americans spend about hald their lifetime dollars in healthcare the last few weeks. The doctors keep them alive because they can.

Yup. And guess who is to blame for that? The federal government in the personal of the FDA and Department of Health and Human Services, that's who. And the FDA and DEA are the ones harassing and frightening doctors into under-prescribing pain medication because they think it's bad public policy to risk having patients get "addicted" to painkillers. Fuckwits.

And it's no different in the UK, although the reason is usually "cost-cutting" rather than a philosophical objection to narcotics.

[Hermit]

[snipped]

Some time ago (at RDF, in fact) I used to take the time to read most of your walls of words in full. By the time you posted your stuff at Ratzkep, I began to get the impression that I read it before, and started skimming. Here at Rationalia I read the same old, same old between employing the scroll-wheel. I thought it couldn't get worse until just now. Do you realise that your 2721-word-post would have taken up about 10 double-spaced A4 sized pages? I have abandoned the scroll-wheel in favour of the Page-Down button, because it's more efficient, and still managed to glean enough to come to the conclusion that I've heard all of that from you before.

[Tero]

I was able to read part of Sethology.

I have to disagree. Can't blame the gubment for this one. It is in fact how healthcare and insurance wants to run these things.

If you have an advocate for the patient, you can handle the costs and care for end of life very well. And you are not doing anything illegal. Doctors in the right clinics and hospices will give the pain meds. And you can be civilized and die with dignity with less cost.

[Seth]

[snipped]

Some time ago (at RDF, in fact) I used to take the time to read most of your walls of words in full. By the time you posted your stuff at Ratzkep, I began to get the impression that I read it before, and started skimming. Here at Rationalia I read the same old, same old between employing the scroll-wheel. I thought it couldn't get worse until just now. Do you realise that your 2721-word-post would have taken up about 10 double-spaced A4 sized pages? I have abandoned the scroll-wheel in favour of the Page-Down button, because it's more efficient, and still managed to glean enough to come to the conclusion that I've heard all of that from you before.

And despite all that work and educational material I provide you still can't understand basic economics or make a rational argument about the subject of the thread. The best you can do is more ad hom. Sad, really sad. Not unexpected however.

That's ok though, I like the piece enough that I'm going to massage it a bit for an editorial, so my time is hardly wasted.

[Hermit]

And despite all that work and educational material I provide you still can't understand basic economics or make a rational argument about the subject of the thread. The best you can do is more ad hom.

1. What you so charitably refer to as "educational material" has - I repeat - become rather too repetitive. Hence the skimming, scroll wheel and finally the page-down procedures.
2. Nowhere have I made a single remark concerning "basic economics ... about the subject of the thread."
3a. You are of course free to deny the reasonableness of my arguments, but I have yet to encounter an adequate rebuttal by you, neither of which particularly surprises me.
3b. To my knowledge, I have not made any argument at all; just an observation.
4. Kindly quote the ad hom you accuse me of making. It should be easy to find if it exists, because this post is only the second one in this thread, and the first one not far away, and just as brief.

[Seth]

And despite all that work and educational material I provide you still can't understand basic economics or make a rational argument about the subject of the thread. The best you can do is more ad hom.

1. What you so charitably refer to as "educational material" has - I repeat - become rather too repetitive. Hence the skimming, scroll wheel and finally the page-down procedures.

Well, when other educational efforts fail, rote learning is a last resort. Just keep reading it until you have it down pat. Or you could try presenting a reasoned argument in rebuttal...if you're able.

2. Nowhere have I made a single remark concerning "basic economics ... about the subject of the thread."

Er, that's part of the problem.

3a. You are of course free to deny the reasonableness of my arguments, but I have yet to encounter an adequate rebuttal by you, neither of which particularly surprises me.

What arguments?

3b. To my knowledge, I have not made any argument at all; just an observation.

Precisely. Which rather refutes your statement immediately above.

4. Kindly quote the ad hom you accuse me of making. It should be easy to find if it exists, because this post is only the second one in this thread, and the first one not far away, and just as brief.

In both cases you have not addressed the subject of the thread in any way, you direct your "observations" at me, complaining that you find my arguments repetitive.

That is classic ad hominem argument. Ad hominem means that the statement made is directed at the person of one's opponent rather than at the argument itself. It's something that I find liberals do quite a lot when they are confounded by my arguments and have no rational rebuttal to them. It's an intellectually bankrupt evasion used by inferior intellects who haven't the wit or skill to rebut a logical and rational argument.