How Would You Have The Health Service Run?

[Dune Dx]

I stopped posting on this site a while ago but I remeber that no one ever discussed what a goverment should do all it ever was was this ideology says this which makes it better than this one bla bla. which was interesting for a while but now its got a little bit boring because simply who cares who runs the country as long as they run it well

[Dune Dx]

Oh yeah my views at the moment about a health service is that it should become privatised so you have lots of companies competing to be the best and when you need to go to the hospital the goverment would pay for you, so basickly the people still pay for the health service through taxes but it will be a better health service because of the competion between the health companies.

I dont know what the rest of your views are but please tell me and if you have any ideas on how to improve it please post them.

[Hate Is Art]

Free, decent health service for all regardless of money. No private health service at all.

Same goes for schools.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

So, you're in favor of the free market?
*sigh*

Please remove that image of Che Guevara from your avatar before my ulcer starts acting up again.

Just looking at your signature, all I see is one contradiction after the other!
First you say that you don't condone communism, then you say that it works, then you say that it doesn't work... what the fuck are saying?!

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by The Arcadian [email protected] 4 2004, 07:34 PM
Free, decent health service for all regardless of money.
Who pays the doctors ?

[commiecrusader]

I have never given much thought to how a health service would be run in a communist nation.

I guess the same way as everything else, people do it as their job and then treatments are administered as required, same as food production etc.


Who pays the doctors ?
In a Communist nation, no one gets paid. In a free, state-run health service, the government pays. Admittedly the people pay indirectly through taxes but you get what I mean.

[Commie Girl]

Free, Universal Health Care is necessary in any decent, civilized Country...

[redstar2000]

Oh yeah my views at the moment about a health service is that it should become privatised so you have lots of companies competing to be the best and when you need to go to the hospital the government would pay for you, so basically the people still pay for the health service through taxes but it will be a better health service because of the competition between the health companies.

The problem with this "semi-capitalist" solution is that there's little evidence that competition in the market place does produce "better service".

This is particularly true in areas where the consumer is unlikely to possess the relevant information to make an "informed choice"...even if that information exists.

Doctors, hospitals, health plans and drug companies churn out a ton of advertising these days...what are you supposed to believe?

Even official statistics are unreliable. In some states, hospitals are required to report the deaths of their patients...and it's possible to say that if you enter hospital A for treatment, your chances of survival are markedly better than if you enter hospital B.

But is the reason for that due to the fact that hospital A has better doctors and nurses, more modern technology, watches drug dosages more carefully, etc. than hospital B?

Or is it due to the fact that hospital A simply won't admit the patients at greatest risk of dying...while hospital B admits anyone who's sick?

Thus hospital B "looks worse" by the numbers because they take the sickest patients, the ones most likely to die.

See the problem?

So what looks like a "competitive environment" actually isn't...because without the consumer being able to make an "informed choice", the "competitors" have no incentive to "provide a better service".

All they need do to capture "market share" is lie in a really convincing way.

Look at Windows©.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by Commie [email protected] 4 2004, 10:00 PM
Free, Universal Health Care is necessary in any decent, civilized Country...
No decent, civilised country takes money from people without their consent and spends it to the benefit of others without the owner's consent.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2004, 10:03 PM

The problem with this "semi-capitalist" solution is that there's little evidence that competition in the market place does produce "better service".
The companies providing it can be held accountable by the marketplace for poor performance. A nationalized helathcare system is unaccoutable, runs on stolen money and is free, thus begging to be abused.

Which do you think is going to provide a better service ?

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2004, 09:38 PM
Admittedly the people pay indirectly through taxes but you get what I mean.
I think that's the problem. The people who pay are not usually the primary recipients.

[Dune Dx]

Redstar surely you can get round that problem by having the goverment force hospitals to accept patients.

Also people just because the health service would be run by private business doesnt mean it wouldnt be free. Just like with a nationalised health service you pay for it through taxes so when you go to hospital the goverment pays the private companies to admit you.

I was also talking about this in any state not just communist... not that I think a communist state is possible but thats off topic

[Dune Dx]

oh yeah and my signature is meant to be full of contradictions ... i have no real reason for that

[Hate Is Art]

No decent, civilised country takes money from people without their consent and spends it to the benefit of others without the owner's consent.

Is this like the rhetoric that having a set minimum wage creates joblessness and the free market helps poor countries get out of poverty?

[Osman Ghazi]

No decent, civilised country takes money from people without their consent and spends it to the benefit of others without the owner's consent.

Again, are you drunk?

You are talking about every single country that has ever existed. I'll admit, most of them weren't decent or civilized, but every single nation without exception has taxed some or all of its citizenry.

[LSD]

he companies providing it can be held accountable by the marketplace for poor performance. A nationalized helathcare system is unaccoutable, runs on stolen money and is free, thus begging to be abused.

um.. Professor. you do realize that practically every industrialized country on earth has a public health care system of some sort. These are capitalist "market" states but they've realized that if they're citizen's start dying.... it doesn't look so good.

...but the US has the best system in the world!! And people don't have to pay so much!!!

Originally posted by World Health [email protected] 21 June 2000
The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds.

Oh, wow, so it sucks and it's expensive... yeah... "greatest in the world".

[commiecrusader]

The problem with this "semi-capitalist" solution is that there's little evidence that competition in the market place does produce "better service".
Good point Red. Look at how supposedly competitive pharmaceutical companies rape everyone with their prices. I had to pay £8 in UK pounds for a small tube of eccezma cream made by the greediest of these companies.... GlaxoSmithKline :angry:


No decent, civilised country takes money from people without their consent and spends it to the benefit of others without the owner's consent.
Selfish, greedy, capitalist perspective.


The companies providing it can be held accountable by the marketplace for poor performance. A nationalized helathcare system is unaccoutable, runs on stolen money and is free, thus begging to be abused.

Which do you think is going to provide a better service ?
Private if both exist. However if a nation is run solely on nationalized healthcare, then eveyone's money can be put into the one service, so it will improve greatly. You forget that private healthcare is run for a profit, whereas nationalised ones aren't, so every penny put in is used on healthcare, provided there isn't too much beaurocracy.


I think that's the problem. The people who pay are not usually the primary recipients.
Everyone pays. And just cos the rich people pay more isn't a bad thing, it's good. It means those who can't otherwise afford treatment are subsidised.

[cubist]

higher tax for the wealthy would surely be exactly what you are looking for then.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by The Arcadian [email protected] 5 2004, 05:53 PM
Is this like the rhetoric that having a set minimum wage creates joblessness and the free market helps poor countries get out of poverty?
It's what's known as reality. You might have come by it sometime.

[Professor Moneybags]

um.. Professor. you do realize that practically every industrialized country on earth has a public health care system of some sort.

Appeal to popularity.


These are capitalist "market" states but they've realized that if they're citizen's start dying.... it doesn't look so good.

Legalized theft doesn't look too good either. Do you think that people are going to go without healthcare just bacause the government doesn't provide it ?

------------------------------------



Good point Red. Look at how supposedly competitive pharmaceutical companies rape everyone with their prices.

Not the subtitle : "stop the rhetoric". Rape implies force. You are not being forced.


Selfish, greedy, capitalist perspective.

Are you are denying that's what happens ? We can go into more detail if you want.


Private if both exist. However if a nation is run solely on nationalized healthcare, then eveyone's money can be put into the one service, so it will improve greatly.

Yeah right. Like you see happening today. Where does this money come from ?


You forget that private healthcare is run for a profit, whereas nationalised ones aren't, so every penny put in is used on healthcare, provided there isn't too much beaurocracy.

That's part of the problem.


Everyone pays. And just cos the rich people pay more isn't a bad thing, it's good. It means those who can't otherwise afford treatment are subsidised.

It means that stealing from certain people is acceptable, and recieving stolen goods is acceptable, providing you belong to a certain group. Does that mean it's okay for me to ransack your house if it benefits some poor African ?

[Dune Dx]

Private if both exist. However if a nation is run solely on nationalized healthcare, then eveyone's money can be put into the one service, so it will improve greatly. You forget that private healthcare is run for a profit, whereas nationalised ones aren't, so every penny put in is used on healthcare, provided there isn't too much beaurocracy.

What are you talking about? the Brittish health service is completely nationalised all the money is going into one service and we have people dieing because nurses and doctors are not washing their hands! If we have private health firms competing for customers where are the customers going to go? To the place where people are dieing of curable diseases? Or the place where people are being treated? Hence health firms will compete to be the better health firm. this idea that the corperations are out to get you is becoming a bit extreme.

[Exploited Class]

Let's see, we have a socialized military and it is considered the best in the world.

We have a socialized mail system and it is also one of the best in the world.

It seems the only things socialized that are bad in America are the ones that people want to privatize.

Schools and Social Security being the top one. Which I have always felt were managed poorly with the hopes of them being so bad they try to privitize them.

As with the military, where they are privitazing it, it sucks ass, plain and simple. This is the first ware that they have been privitazing and contracting the military out and it is a complete disaster.

I don't know why we can have a socialized military force and everybody thinks it is number one but when we say socialized medicine everybody freaks out. As far as theft is concerned, I'll turn that argument around that me paying for a 400+ billion dollar military is theft.

The American system could easily go soft socialized medicine right now and be very succesful. Anybody who doesn't think Americans can provide the best and cost effective health system, why do you hate America so much? Do you hate America so much that you think we are failures?

You could make a flat rate fee at the hospitals and then make them free in a course of a generation. If it was free right now to mail a letter, do you think everybody would immediatly just go out and mail a thousand letters? No, except buisnesses, they are the only people that would abuse that.

[LSD]

Legalized theft doesn't look too good either. Do you think that people are going to go without healthcare just bacause the government doesn't provide it ?

Millions of Americans are.


Appeal to popularity.

Appeal to sanity.

I notice you didn't touch the fact that your great private system is the most expensive in the world while being only 37th despite the US having almost twice the GDP of most of the top 10.

[Exploited Class]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid [email protected] 6 2004, 05:00 PM

Millions of Americans are.
Yeah I think it is what 30 to 50 Million?

I can't keep up with the figures because the numbered of uninsured people are growing that fast.

A good question is, how many people in your country have to forgo healthcare before you admit it is broken?

Is it half?
Or 3/4th?

Maybe we should just rasie the cost of healthcare so that only people who make 200,000+ a year can afford it. It is going there anyway right?

Right now the American healthcare system and the public are saying, "fuck em if they can't afford to get hurt or sick. They don't deserve to be healthy like 1/2 of us. If there aren't enough 50,000 a year jobs out there for them to afford healthcare, then too bad. We don't need them anyway, it is cheaper to replace them as people in society."

*LSD I am not directing this at you, just following up and expanding on your previous comment*

[redstar2000]

Arnold Bans Cheaper Imported Drugs From Canada (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29550)

Cappies :wub: the "free market"...sometimes. :lol:

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2004, 03:33 PM
Cappies :wub: the "free market"...sometimes. :lol:

:redstar2000:

What are you *****ing about ? Why are you adovcating buying cheap drugs from other countries ? Nothing like good old Arnie employing some economic interventionism to protect jobs and stopping the exploitation of underpaid Canadians.

You've proven one thing, Redstar : Socialists love socialism sometimes :rolleyes: .

[LSD]

What are you *****ing about ? Why are you adovcating buying cheap drugs from other countries ?

Isn't that how the "market" is supposed to work?

You know, competition drives the price down until aggregrate supply and demand reach an equilibrium point...


stopping the exploitation of underpaid Canadians.

um...we really don't mind...really.

[Professor Moneybags]

Millions of Americans are.

Because...?


Appeal to sanity.

Appeal to popularity. i.e. mob rule. You don't understand why that is wrong, do you ?


I notice you didn't touch the fact that your great private system is the most expensive in the world

Is that relative ? Probably. You reds aren't too bright when it comes to economics. The "less than one dollar a day" tirades we keep hearing are a more than adequate demonstration of that.


while being only 37th despite the US having almost twice the GDP of most of the top 10.

37th in what ?

[Professor Moneybags]

Maybe we should just rasie the cost of healthcare so that only people who make 200,000+ a year can afford it. It is going there anyway right?

Do you think that there's someone in an office somewhere just sitting there, arbitarily deciding the price of healthcare will be and refusing to lower it because he's "stingy" and "hates the poor". I would certainly believe you if you said yes. Doctors need to be paid. Drugs need to be bought. Declaring them to be "free" means one of two things :

- The doctors and drugs companies will be enslaved.

- The taxpayer will be forced (enslaved) to pay for it.

There is no difference; both entail institutionalizing slavery. But you don't seem to have a problem with that, though, do you ?

[LSD]

Appeal to popularity. i.e. mob rule. You don't understand why that is wrong, do you ?

You don't consider it at all relevent to study what other countries have done in regards to health?

What, the US must stand alone?

Sure, the fact that the US is alone on this issue in an of itself does not indicate that it is wrong, but it certainly does indicate that further study on this issue is warrented.


Is that relative ? Probably. You reds aren't too bright when it comes to economics. The "less than one dollar a day" tirades we keep hearing are a more than adequate demonstration of that.

37th in what ?

*cough* "The state of public health is critical to U.S. economic performance and national security. The United States spends more of its GDP on healthcare than any other country, yet ranks 37th out of 191 countries in healthcare performance" *cough*

(http://www.ndu.edu/icaf/industry/IS2001/health.htm)


- The doctors and drugs companies will be enslaved.

Ah yes, I recall the last time I saw my doctor he was chained to the bed and begged me to free him, but I just laughed HAHA for I am a socialist and hate medicine...


- The taxpayer will be forced (enslaved) to pay for it.

There is no difference; both entail institutionalizing slavery. But you don't seem to have a problem with that, though, do you ?

Wow. That's....amazing.....

So....I'm enslaved...really...strange that I...never....noticed...... *turning and backing away slowly*

[Dune Dx]

Excuse my ignorance but I nothing about health care in America can someone just tell what happens .... (please make it understandable not some strange rhethoric)


To who ever replies thank you!

[LSD]

In the United States all health care is effectively private.

This means that people must pay for their own surgery, checkups, etc... typically people will pay for "health insurance" which means they pay an annual fee so that in the event they fall ill their bills will be paid. This insurance is quite expensive, however, and it only covers select procedures.

Approximately 40 million Americans are unable or unwilling to pay for such insurance and are therefore effectively unable to recieve medical care.

[commiecrusader]

Originally posted by Professor [email protected] 6 2004, 03:07 PM
Not the subtitle : "stop the rhetoric". Rape implies force. You are not being forced.
Ok fine whatever. But you can't deny the fact that the price of treatment and drugs is artificially high, as is the price of most things in a capitalist system. And if I want to treat my ecezma or whatever, then you do need to use the drugs, unless you want to use some other treatment that relies on the placebo effect.


Yeah right. Like you see happening today. Where does this money come from ?
No. I don't see it happening today... BECAUSE THERE ARE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS IN PLACE.


It means that stealing from certain people is acceptable, and recieving stolen goods is acceptable, providing you belong to a certain group. Does that mean it's okay for me to ransack your house if it benefits some poor African ?
Increased taxation on the rich isn't theft in my opinion. It is redistribution of wealth, rich people don't need all that money. Poor people could do with a bit more.

[commiecrusader]

Originally posted by Dune [email protected] 6 2004, 07:47 PM
Private if both exist. However if a nation is run solely on nationalized healthcare, then eveyone's money can be put into the one service, so it will improve greatly. You forget that private healthcare is run for a profit, whereas nationalised ones aren't, so every penny put in is used on healthcare, provided there isn't too much beaurocracy.

What are you talking about? the Brittish health service is completely nationalised all the money is going into one service and we have people dieing because nurses and doctors are not washing their hands! If we have private health firms competing for customers where are the customers going to go? To the place where people are dieing of curable diseases? Or the place where people are being treated? Hence health firms will compete to be the better health firm. this idea that the corperations are out to get you is becoming a bit extreme.
Do you even live in the UK? If you do I don't know how you come to your conclusion. Whilst the NHS might be state run, there are still private healthcare companies, lots of them. What the fuck do you think BUPA is? I'm not saying 'corporations are out to get you', but the point is funding for healthcare is still split between private and public, therefore public healthcare suffers.

[Professor Moneybags]

You don't consider it at all relevent to study what other countries have done in regards to health?

What, the US must stand alone?


Right or wrong does not involve sitting and watching what other people or countries are doing.


*cough* "The state of public health is critical to U.S. economic performance and national security. The United States spends more of its GDP on healthcare than any other country, yet ranks 37th out of 191 countries in healthcare performance" *cough*

How is "performance" decided ? Your link doesn't say.


Ah yes, I recall the last time I saw my doctor he was chained to the bed and begged me to free him, but I just laughed HAHA for I am a socialist and hate medicine...

Well you see, if you have a "right to healthcare", then someone has to provide you with it. If a particular doctor does not want to, then it's tough, because he's being forced to provide you with it by law. You can even demand that he works for free.

What do we call someone who is forced to work, by law, for no pay ? There's a word beginning with "S" that describes that sort of person...I can't quite recall what it is though...

(On a side note : I don't recall the last time I saw a worker chained to his desk. It doesn't stop you talking about "wage-slavery" though, does it ?)


Wow. That's....amazing.....

So....I'm enslaved...really...strange that I...never....noticed......

Stop paying for nationalized healthcare and you'll find out.

[Professor Moneybags]

Ok fine whatever. But you can't deny the fact that the price of treatment and drugs is artificially high, as is the price of most things in a capitalist system.

No price can be artificially high under capitalism- there would just be the market price and that's it. The only way prices can really be manipulated is through government intervention. (What we have nowadays is a sort of "pretend market".)


Increased taxation on the rich isn't theft in my opinion. It is redistribution of wealth,

Which is another way of saying theft. Just as "ethnic cleansing" is another way of saying "genocide".


rich people don't need all that money. Poor people could do with a bit more.

Not the point. Not the point at all.

[LSD]

Well you see, if you have a "right to healthcare", then someone has to provide you with it. If a particular doctor does not want to, then it's tough, because he's being forced to provide you with it by law. You can even demand that he works for free.

What??

I do have a "right to healthcare" the law says I do!!!

If a doctor doesn't want to work, he doesn't get paid becasue he's not working.


Stop paying for nationalized healthcare and you'll find out.

Find what out?

That I'm enslaved??

How does that work?

[LSD]

No price can be artificially high under capitalism- there would just be the market price and that's it. The only way prices can really be manipulated is through government intervention. (What we have nowadays is a sort of "pretend market".)

How about monoplies or oligarchic arangements?

I guess you could call that the "market price" but it's an "artificially high" one too.

[Professor Moneybags]

What??

I do have a "right to healthcare" the law says I do!!!

If a doctor doesn't want to work, he doesn't get paid becasue he's not working.

So you don't have a right to health care, then; A doctor can simply refuse to treat you and neither you or the law would be able to force him to.


Find what out?

That I'm enslaved??

How does that work?

Well, there's this organisation called the "police" (you might have heard of them on TV). They were first invented with the intention of protecting people, but nowadays they're almost indistinguishable from the SS. You see, if you don't pay your taxes, the (socialist) government invents some stupid notion that you're initiating force against it by refusing to pay for other people's healthcare, which then results in these police people coming to your house and taking the money by force (usually accompanied by a prison sentence, or a bullet through the head). This a similar situation to a slave who refuses to work for his master and is whipped or beaten until he complies.

[LSD]

So you don't have a right to health care, then; A doctor can simply refuse to treat you and neither you or the law would be able to force him to.

So...I'd go to a different doctor.

You're arguing that I don't have a right to something merely because events could theoretically conspire in a way that would make it impossible for me to take advantage of this right I have.

It's like saying I don't have the right to free speech if I'm mute.

Besides, I think you're misunderstanding the meaning of the word "right."

In the legal sense I have the "right" to health care becasue the law says I have "the right to health care".

The moral or social argument is far more complex, but your above example does not contribute anything. I would maintain that I do have the funamental right to health care. You have certainly not disuaded me from this position.Saying that an individual doctor could refuse to treat me says nothing about whether I should have a right to health care or not.


Well, there's this organisation called the "police" (you might have heard of them on TV). They were first invented with the intention of protecting people, but nowadays they're almost indistinguishable from the SS. You see, if you don't pay your taxes, the (socialist) government invents some stupid notion that you're initiating force against it by refusing to pay for other people's healthcare, which then results in these police people coming to your house and taking the money by force (usually accompanied by a prison sentence, or a bullet through the head). This a similar situation to a slave who refuses to work for his master and is whipped or beaten until he complies.

So the government should never be able to punish inaction, only action?

What if I neglect my children and refuse to feed or care for them? I didn't take action, so should the "police people" intervene?

Do children have a right to care in your world?