I do sense a digression from cycling on this thread. Oh well, sorry to interrupt, please continue with the Foo.

You EXACTLY make my point in your own response. If it is so costly in the way we are doing it for people just over 65 (because of how inefficiently it is run), why in our right mind would we give the responsibility to the US Governmennt for ALL people? You just made my point.

It says a lot about you that instead of having a rational conversation about ideas you resort to attacking the person with the idea rather than the idea itself, you must have learned that technique from Mrs. Clinton.

Because most industrialized countries manage to provide high quality, universal health care for their citizens...and they spend a lot less per capita than we do with our current FUBAR'ed system.

Thank you for pointing out the obvious. I was taking an extreme in a sarcastic manner to make a point with the DMV comparison. Obviously a Doctor would be more qualified than the guy at the DMV (I hope!!). However, you will get lower quality doctors with less advances in medicine the more socialized you become. If you don't believe this than go to college and take (or retake) Economics 101. The Canadian health care may be cheaper, but what difference does that make? Since when did health care become about how cheap you can get it? If you were looking for laser eye surgery, would you go for the small run-down discount center doing it for $500 per eye or for the reputable center with a proven track record for $2,000 an eye? A capitalistic system is the only way to create the efficiencies that push people to perform better quality care. I have had experience with socialized medicine when I spent a few years in Brazil. The scar on my forehead is proof to me that socialized medicine sucks (oh, but it didn't cost anything!!!, yippee! -- the true cost is walking around with a scar on my forehead for the rest of my life because of a simple procedure that would have left no scar had it been done in the states).

As for your military comment, yes I do believe the military is inefficient. Mainly in the fact that the politicians tie the actual military personel's hands behind their back in everything they do with all the poltical games they play. The men and women in the military from private to general are first class citizens. The most brave, competent people on the planet. The military is a different animal than other branches of the government because of the nature of the people who join the military. Within the ranks of the military, it is run very well from what I understand.

You are still making my point. The US system with Medicare is clearly inefficient, and adding more burden will only make it worse.

Again, I'm not defending our current system. I agree that it is seriously FUBAR'ed. Mostly because of the way it is set up with the insurance industry and cash payers, or uninsured (it also doesn't help that we are GIVING it away to 20 Million illegal aliens, which significantly drives up costs because most of them don't have the means to pay). This just increases the rates responsible citizens do pay. Universal health care will only make it worse though. Where does almost anybody in the world come when they need any type of specialist in a medical field? The answer is clearly the United States. the US is responsible for most medical advances for the last 100+ years. The reason for that is a capitalistic system. Once socialized medicine is implemented, medical advances will almost stop completely (but it will be cheap!!!):rolleyes:.

If you by "anybody in the world" you mean "really rich people" then sure. The US healthcare system is great for rich people. It sucks for everyone else.

I am truly sorry to hear about your wife having cancer. I feel I must point out, however, that France would not even be able to perform those procedures if not for the advances in cancer research that the US is doing. Socialistic medicine is piggy-backing on the advances that the US has already made. It is a hard situation all around, but unfortunately your wife would not even be afforded the opportunity to even get treatment at all like she is if not for the capitalistic medical practices in the US for the last century, with all the advances in cancer research. It will be all well and good for a little while, but no advances will be made and the quality doctors will be less and less as socialistic medicine is practiced longer.

You make a good point. I concede their is truth to your statement.

You're talking out of your arse. The U.S. may be the number one country in the world when it comes to medical research, but advances in medicine are being made around the world. While I personally do not care for China's political system, the amount of research being done there is incredible. I'm a slightly-right-of-centre capitalist myself (save for medical insurance), but capitalism is no guarantor of scientific advances. A certain communist country managed to get into space first back in the 1950s, you may recall.

Appreciate it. But without our healthcare nightmare, I'd probably worked a couple more years. So; The hell we went thru, One of the reasons we did an early retirment. I owed to her. The kind of medical care we got in Calif. Very risky stuff. After the risk Blue Cross HMO put us thru we decided to chuck it all and live overseas for a couple of years. The doctor infered the delay caused by Blue Cross almost spread to the kidney's . Another week or two who knows what would have happened. How can a system by efficient when the US medical system has like 25% administrative costs? does not make sense.

Sorry to jump in so late, but do you work in the healthcare field because what you write is untrue at the very least when it comes to medical devices and probably healthcare as a whole. The US may spend more in R&D than any other individual country but how does it rank against the EU? Your source statistics would be helpful because I think the combination of the UK and France would trump us alone. I have been to hundreds European and American medical conferences with papers from from around the world with new research. Hell, Watson and Crick determined the structure of DNA in the UK. I don't think it gets any more major than that in the last 100 years.

A big problem with the US is the FDA, getting medical devices (diagnostic instrumentation, surgical equipment, etc) approved is a nightmare. It is much easier to get approval from the EU and all manufacturers launch in the EU at least a year before the US, sometimes several years and sometimes never because they don't want to deal with the hassle of the US. These socialized countries have the best equipment available. They still have to buy it, capitalism isn't completely forgone.

Just when I think I have read the most foolish thing ever on BF someone writes this.

Yes, the Soviet Union did because of their dictatorial leadership who had no regard for safety of their own people.

Can we talk about religion next?

I have to agree with what you are saying here. You are swaying my opinion to say the least. To be honest I sort-of am speaking out of my arse as someone kindly pointed out somewhere on this thread (in other words, I am speaking based on my own knowledge and of what I've heard and learned through day to day interacts, but no serious research). I have certain ideas in my head that I have heard at various places, including from other people by word of mouth but I really haven't done hard research in this area. What you are saying makes sense to me here and perhaps I need to do some more research. I have to especially agree that the FDA and getting things "approved" in the US is part of the major problem. The US is overboard on getting things approved and plus hospitals are very cautious because one wrong move and there will be a lawsuit because we a such a sue-happy people. There should be $$ limits set on mal-practice lawsuits.

Wow this is not a good thing that you have gone through. It really is a shame that the US has failed you. I'm sorry to hear that you have had to put up with such garbage. It is true that the US medical system is very inefficient and has caused problems to many people. I think that there must be a way to have a capitalistic system but fine-tune it to get rid of all the inefficiencies that exist. The whole health insurance business (ie. your Blue Cross HMO fiasco) seems to have run amok and it has become ridiculous. I think a big part of the problem is the amount of dumb things that insurance companies will cover like Viagra, but then won't cover certain types of cancer treatment (or cause delays). The shear volume of medical treatments that insurance companies cover is ridiculous and this cause the rates to go through the roof.

Another big problem as I see it are all the subsidizing that goes on for non-payers (ie. illegal aliens & non-insureds). I heard a statistic that around 70% of non-insureds end up not paying their medical bills. This really hurts things and causes prices to sky-rocket imho.

Looks like you're buying all the crap about "aliens" ruining the economy and public safety proffered by the Republican candidates. I'm conservative and voted for many of them into office but some of the bs has got to stop. Most hospitals don't even see illegals for specialized care so all of them show up in the emergency room from 911 calls. In fact, many illegals die from diseases that can be easily averted from early stage intervention because they are afraid of going to a hospital, where documentation is neccessary for admission and follow up. These problems are documented in JAMA (journal of the American Medical Association), the Economist, and sometimes even the Wall Street Journal. The government, in fact, appropriates very little funding to cover for illegal immigrants and the uninsureds. There was a time where hospitals would just admitt anyone and send the bill to Uncle Sam but now, with Bush, 9/11, and the recent New Jersey Killings, voters are less tolerant of immigrants. It's sad, and I really hope things would change for the better in 08.


[QUOTE=Another big problem as I see it are all the subsidizing that goes on for non-payers (ie. illegal aliens & non-insureds). I heard a statistic that around 70% of non-insureds end up not paying their medical bills. This really hurts things and causes prices to sky-rocket imho.[/QUOTE]

my take on one of the excuses for justifying high premimums. Hospitals charge insurance companies more for procedures just because they on ocassion have to pay for the uninsured. So they charge us all more. Most of the costs of the uninusred are passed onto our insurance premimums rather than the government.

Exactly...

BTW, we're already living under a form of socialized medicine. To the people worried about your access to specialty treatments - maybe you should try to get approval for one of those procedures, or drugs now... You might be surprised at your insurance company's response. Between outright restrictions, and price controls that serve to turn doctors offices into revolving doors, the quality of care is already being dumbed down.

I'm not necessarily complaining about it, just saying...

My stance, however, is that we quit straddling the fence. Either we need to provide healthcare for anyone who needs it, or we don't. Currently, we're not covering everyone, yet covering enough non-paid costs that it's having a sizable negative impact on those who can, and do pay.

^ . Tell us about it. Blue Cross Calif. HMO came darn close to making our situation from serious to verging on catstrophic. WHen we finally got to a surgeon, she just said nothing and noded her head. But,she did not look shocked either. Sort of a disgusted, no comment. After all was said and done , we got a fantastic surgeon, but at that poiint; boy , did we ever need her expertise . Probably what would have been a 45 minute surgery turned into almost 4 hours.