Patriotism = Imperialism

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Bananna wars? No really

Yes its called Capitalism.

I think this quote by Tommy Douglas refutes that:

Let's scrap this plan. Otherwise, you're going to have a situation in which some doctors will only want patients who accept extra billing, and they will be the most competent doctors and the most proficient surgeons. Thus, after a while, the people who will not accept [or cannot afford] extra billing will have to go to the less competent doctors and less competent surgeons, and you're right back where we started when we fought for Medicare. The well-to-do who can afford it will have one standard of health care, and those less fortunate will have to accept a lower standard of health care.

Surely we're not going back to a system in which the quality of care patients receive depends upon their financial capacity to pay. Any free country that talks about the democratic process and allows extra billing to become the general rule is denying the basic principles of the democratic process.

Let's not forget that the ultimate goal of Medicare must be to keep people well rather than just patching them up when they get sick. That means clinics. That means making the hospitals available for active treatment cases only, getting chronic patients out into nursing homes, carrying on home nursing programs that are much more effective, making annual checkups and immunization available to everyone. It means expanding and improving Medicare by providing pharmacare and denticare programs. It means promoting physical fitness through sports and other activities.

http://www.healthcoalition.ca/tommy.html

The availability of doctors isn't dependent on how they are forced to provide care for less money, it is dependent on the supply of doctors. Any discussion about access to health care is pointless without considering how anybody can afford it to begin with.

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Surely we're not going back to a system in which the quality of care patients receive depends upon their financial capacity to pay. Any free country that talks about the democratic process and allows extra billing to become the general rule is denying the basic principles of the democratic process.

Can't argue with that. Democracy is tyrannical mob rule. His assertion that redistribution of wealth is one of democracy's principles is highly agreeable.

Quote:

The goal of Medicare, or any government policy, is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the effect of that policy. Medicare is a miserable failure which has increased costs and reduced supply and quality. The suggestion that Medicare isn't big and onerous enough just goes to show how far removed from economic reality Tommy is.

The only way we can afford more overall health care, or anything else for that matter, is by increasing our capital base. Health care is a capital good, and training a doctor is little different than creating new lines of production. This process begins with saving so that leisure can be afforded. After all, while a doctor is being trained (or new drug being made, new hospital being built, etc.) he isn't being productive and must rely on saved capital.

Tommy's government does everything in its power to subvert this market process by taxes, embezzlement (devaluing the currency), health care restrictions (especially doctors and hospitals which accept Medicare), protectionism, and telling doctors how to run their business. I have to wonder why anybody would want to become a doctor in this environment. In fact since the creation of the AMA, the number of medical schools has been reduced to 26% while the US population has increased 284%. Is it any wonder that today it is far better to have surgery and other medical procedures done in India or Thailand? Not only is it cheaper in spite of the air travel, the quality is far superior. Heck, they still have NURSES there! I know some retirees who have retired abroad due to medical costs, in SPITE that they will lose both Medicare and SS. For those who understand the market process, this should not be surprising.

Sources

To get a clue about economics I highly suggest the concise treatise:
"Human Action" by Ludwig von Mises (preferably 1st or scholar's edition, 4th edition available online)

On Medicare there are few better sources than Congressman Ron Paul, M.D. who has often written about Medicare and its many, many effects in the industry:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul-arch.html

Good article on the ADA:
http://www.mises.org/story/1547

Article on health care abroad:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/ ... 9998.shtml

To find Ron's articles on health care, search for "medi."

This article of his for example on the benefits of declining Medicare and Medicaid:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul175.html

There are a couple more under "health."

How many people will die because they do not recieve the right care in the private system?
For example, how is a single and poor mother of 3+ children going to pay for her chidrens health care?

If insurance companies are the anwser for the above questions then what can someone do if they have a Preemie baby?

How many more die because health care is SO FRIGGIN EXPENSIVE?!?!

How can any of us afford health care in the FIRST PLACE?

And what on earth this has to do with "insurance companies" is beyond me.

You remind me of the morons complaining about oil company profits in Congress.

Getting rid of medicare and privatising ALL hospitals is going to make it even more expensive, anarkhos.

And we moan about corporate profits for a very good reason. They take everything, wreck the environment, and contribute very little to the public sector.

If I had my way, I would tax them at least 50% of their earnings.

No you don't.

The main corporation tax rate in the UK is 30%. That's a sizeable chunk of an organisations profit, but not the only contribution made to the coffers of the state. Businesses also pay 12.8% on their wage costs as NI contributions. NI's just a tax, but not called a tax, so that the proles don't get too restless when the government increase it — because the employee also pays NI, in addition to what the employer pays. On top of all this, there are also business rates that are paid to the Local Authority based on the value of the premises. There are, of course, other industry specific levies that get taken, and contributions that get made to infrastructure during expansion and development; but I don't want to complicate things.

All in all I'd guess businesses actually contribute a lot more than you think. Furthermore, many private individuals actually own shares in these companies. Anyone can do it — very egalitarian — and anybody with a job can afford to. In fact, anyone with a pension indirectly has an interest, because most pension funds invest a sizeable portion of their assets in equities. Remember, businesses are (generally) owned by shareholders — a kind of democracy where they are held accountable for their actions (more than can be said for certain organisations I could mention )

When the state starts fleecing business, they're just fleecing ordinary people like me who've never claimed a state benefit in their life, have always done their best to give an honest days work to provide for themselves, and don't wish to be a burden on others.

And that's not a dig at you, because I realise you've good reasons for not working. But try looking at it from the point of view of the rest of us.

How many people can afford $40,000 for a heart transplant?

I am talking about the poor people that are easily forgotten.
Do you have any idea how people wth low incomes can get the care they need?

The US's answer was mindless amounts of insurence companies and a complicated bureaucracy.
What is your idea to help the impoverished?

Doctors and hospitals who do not accept Medicare or Medicaid offer their services at far lower prices. That's a fact.

But don't take my word for it, do some research like I have.



Take everything?

Your fundamental problem is that you think wealth is merely redistributed and not created. Any person or company who profits by voluntary exchange has already created wealth and provided goods and services to the economy. The "public sector" on the other hand only exists through taking.

How ironic that you would tax such endeavors in the name of giving!

It's unfortunate that people frame the debate in terms of what tribute is already extracted from businesses, as though that were legitimate in the first place, or had any bearing on so-called public services.

The state doesn't provide ANYTHING! It merely redistributes wealth which subverts the only process creating such wealth to begin with.

Furthermore, the various tax rates are largely irrelevant. Indeed, the overall tax rate is irrelevant in this day and age of deficit spending. The real rate of taxation is the rate of expenditure, and taxes in themselves aren't the greatest form of market distortion the state applies.

Most economists (even neoclassical) don't seem to understand this, but you can't eat money, drive on money, or heal wounds with money. Government spending not only redirects resources to less efficient means, it subverts the economy in less obvious ways. It distorts the scarcity of goods. It reduces incentives to save and invest. It erodes the capital base.



Money taxed after the fact or cashed in as profits is the wrong focus. Businesses contribute a lot, or else nobody would voluntarily give them money IN THE FIRST PLACE!

The same reason X number of people can afford a $40,000 car.

Do you even understand how the $40,000 price comes into being?!

The point of my earlier question was to get you to consider how we can afford such things to begin with. The reason has nothing to do with nominal prices and everything to do with scarcity and productivity.



And that's Medicare! Medicare regulations have screwed everything up from top to bottom!



Redistribution makes everybody more poor. The only solution is to increase the value of their labour and productivity as a whole.

anarkhos, none of your arguements make sense.

Under your system, how would the poor be better off?

I certainly can't afford a $40,000 car!! !

"And that's Medicare! Medicare regulations have screwed everything up from top to bottom!"

Medicare is Canadian, Medicaid is US. This forum isn't to go after people for small mistakes though. (ie just to clarify)

We both agree on one thing, health. If society has a healthy population and a healthy environment to live then people will reap the rewards.

Why will corporations attempt to help the environment if they get more profits by using oil?
Why will corporations help those in poverty if they get more profits from helping the rich?