Why socialism is bad

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Well, let's put it this way, if the system were inferior as has been argued, then the US's adjusted life expectancy would be lower than the rest of the world, however, technically it is higher.

Honestly, one could argue that same thing with any other product, but that does not mean that socialism is a great system. The actual cost of the treatment does not necessarily change, only the burden of cost of the treatment, and that question isn't technical so much as ethical. Frankly though, part of what I would hope from a market system is innovation in health care provision such as found in wal mart health clinics and things of that nature.

More factors go into that than just the quality of healthcare. Japan has some of the longest life expectancies in the world because I've never really heard their healthcare system touted as being exceptional one way or another. Cuba has some pretty long life expectancies too, and they're still suffering under communism.

Also, healthcare has some pretty big dissimilarities with other products.

No, other factors DON'T go in. This is an adjusted healthcare measure, Japan has an actual rate of 78.7 but an adjusted rate of 76 because their health care system is not exceptional in any way. Cuba also has put lots of resources into medical care, it is the rest of their economy that sucks, although some would argue that this will catch up to the health care system.

Health care is a service with assymetrical information and high value to the consumer.

You missed what I was saying. I'm simply saying that life expectancy isn't the end-all, be-all metric to measure the quality of a healthcare system.

Um... ok, but you aren't developing the argument that well at all as one example has an average adjusted life expectancy as opposed to high, and the other example has a non-health care system based failure to discredit it. You'd really have to point to other factors and why they are really important metrics.

To clarify with Cuba; most Cuban citizens do not get this amazing health care that the government talks about (the system is actually two-tiered). Senior ranking Communist party officials and "health tourists" do get the best tier with those nice and shiny hospitals you see on the news; however, the average Cuban receives relatively substandard care.

socialized healthcare in europe and canada has saved those countries money, even the US could save money health care if we switched to subsidized or universal health care.

Not just subsidized, it would have to be nationalized. The US's problem is that we already subsidize healthcare in ways that cause the costs to increase. The issue is that we have terrible cost control mechanisms due to the fact that we subsidize our healthcare system to function in ways it shouldn't. Such as making most health care costs indirect, which increases are consumption. A reform would either need to be towards a market or a nationalization, this mixture is just a pain.

what I mean by subsidized is sliding scale healthcare based on how much a pesron makes, it it the persons choice wether or not to have healthcare. The health care would be somewhat funded by the government and would be federal legislation.

This already somewhat exists in the United States, it is called Medicaid. Medicaid is for poor people, which would be the target group of your idea (since the Middle class does not really need subsidized health insurance). Also, what you subsidize you encourage, so assuming some not poor people are effected and are voluntary uninsured, they may become pursue your reduced cost health care(which would in fact be bad, if you aren't willing to pay for it yourself, having others pay for it reduces the end value of it (i.e. you buy your friend a $100 vase, but he only values it at $5, so it is wasteful on net)). On a similar note, if the people who you are taxing to pay for this program really cared about the poor being uninsured, then they could pay for it themselves, willingly.

It is still not available to all, it is really a rogram for seniors and people with mental and physical problems. The scale changes on ones ability to pay. It is not free only reduced to a point where it may be affordable to the person purchasing it, thesliding scale is ased on a pesrons income.

In other words, your idea targets poor people, which is what Medicaid is for. Most middle class and even poor people can afford health care if they so desired (through their employer, or through a company like Kaiser; the thing is people really want Anthem Blue Cross level of "health care" where whatever the doctor recommends, the patient gets, when in reality Kaiser sometimes says no, but does a pretty good job still). "Making stuff cheaper" for the sake of making something cheaper (with little to no added net benefit mind you) is not what government is for. Aside from that, why do we want to encourage people to buy health insurance with your "sliding scale" again (and moreover, who would pay for it)?

The cost of emergency room care and rivate healthcare are higher than universal or subsidized so it would cut down cost of medical care and make it more freely availible to others, this is actually a good idea economically.

So says the person who probably has not studied economics? It may be "cheaper" for some consumers of health, but in the real world there is no free lunch (someone has to pay for it). It is not clear at all that taxing citizens more to pay for universal or subsided health insurance (which in turn goes to people who won't value it at what it costs) is "cheaper" or makes any economical sense. As economist Robin Hanson points out (http://hanson.gmu.edu/showcare.pdf), the marginal benefit of health care is zero, the RAND experiment indicated people who received "free" health care consumed more of it, but were no more healthier, so providing "free" or "cheaper" health care to people would increase the likelihood of doctor related errors (marginal benefit being zero), will cost more (since people will consume more health care), but we likely won't see any net positive effects (marginal benefit being zero again). Aside from that, there would be the usual government bureaucracy which will most likely cost more than in the private sector. Current private health care workers would also be disenfranchised.

When saying whether a policy is a good idea or a bad one, you can't just look at from one perspective (in your case, you only pay attention to the "receivers" of this health care, and not who pays for this or how, and you seem to overestimate the positive benefits of health care).

Your argument also says essentially that if you think the government can provide something cheaper than the private sector, it should do so regardless if there is a market failure or not. The logical conclusion of this line of thought would lead you to Communism most likely. Aside from that, saying "the government can do X cheaper" is not a good reason for the government to get involved or take over an industry, at the very least you would need some sort of market failure argument for that (and even there is one, it still does not necessarily mean the government needs to get involved). As for subsidizing an activity such as health care, you'd need a story to the market failure one, but say subsidizing is needed to encourage some positive externality (which with health care, there aren't too many positive ones that would justify such a large cost).

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=4WywqmrgFeI&watch_response[/youtube]

our quality of health care is miuch worse off than others. Japan is a socialist country and they have overall better quality. We spend more than other countries and yet it is the same quality as that of japan or europe. Why not subsidizer if the outcome is the same or even better?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publicly-f ... efficiency