Patriotism! ... and health care ...?

[downwithpants]

eva-fan, the thing about human behavior is that it is naturally motivated by profit. it is the way our brains are wired. people make decisions by looking at each option and asking, "how much am i gaining, how much do i need to invest/lose, what's the best?" if health care systems are given a steady stream of income and all they need to do is meet government standards, employees will do as little as possible just to get the job done. they would not need to control their costs as long as it is covered under the public funding. this would severely degrade the quality of health care. even though the system isn't operating for profit, the people are. this is a bit cynical, as there are many healthcare workers who are motivated by the wellbeing of their patients. however, it's important to further incentivize the goal of patient wellness.

kenisama, there are people who can easily afford health insurance, but are denied by insurers because of previous medical conditions.

[godix]

The government would be creating Permanent jobs regularly as more towns are created and will need local hospitals, not fucking temporary ones like they did with the stimulus bill-shit.

There are plenty of jobs in the health care industry already. There's a chronic shortage of nurses for example, even now in middle of the recession. For whatever reason Americans have chosen not to work in that field, at least not enough to actually meet it's needs. The government doesn't need to make jobs in the health care industry.

Have you even looked at the perspective from my angle or "argument" i stated earlier from my opinion? Ultimately the goal of it was to cut costs at the source instead of relying on something so far from being dependable as competition. There are alot of benefits to it that you may have not noticed, "economically"

Not to go off on an essay, but there are four broad categories of people spending money. First is they spend their own money for themselves, in that case they value both cost and desire. If you want a PS3 you'll shop around to get a good deal but you won't settle for a used PS1 just because it's cheaper. The second is they spend their own money for other people. In that case, they value cost buy not desire. If your dad doesn't like the tie you give him for fathers day then no big deal, but you wanna make sure that it's cheap. The third is to spend other peoples money on yourself. You get what you desire and who gives a damn about the costs? Come on up to my mansion and we'll have food fights with caviar and give away Rolls Royces, after all *I* don't gotta pay for it. Then the final category is spending other peoples money on other people. In which case people don't value cost or desire. If someone gets poor treatment from a hospital then it's sad, but it doesn't really affect me so oh well. If someone gets an unneeded operation that costs millions of dollars then sure that's a waste, but it isn't my money so who cares? Almost all government spending is in that final category. In theory, moving health care to the first category instead of the final one would help control costs and do better at providing what people want/need.

Was more or less responding to your personal attack.

No no, I wasn't personally attacking you this time. If I were, it would contain a lot more curse words and deviant sex references. A personal attack is 'You're an ass munching uncle fucker who would jack off over pics of two year olds sucking cock if only you could find your fucking dick among the pubic hair.' OTOH saying 'You don't understand economics well' is an honest opinion, and perhaps a statement of fact.

[kenisama]

kenisama, there are people who can easily afford health insurance, but are denied by insurers because of previous medical conditions.

Don't mean to sound antipathetic but unfortunately these people do not make up the majority. Which is really in question here, what's best for everyone, not just a few. Don't get me wrong, I do feel there are things that could and should change for the better, but a government option to overhaul the entire system? Sounds like you want to break something that's already broken.

Oh and guy07... thnx a bunch, I didn't want to get started up on this thread, but you created a monster

[guy07]

eva-fan, the thing about human behavior is that it is naturally motivated by profit. it is the way our brains are wired. people make decisions by looking at each option and asking, "how much am i gaining, how much do i need to invest/lose, what's the best?"

I always do what makes me/other people happy. There goes that theory. But I'm weird like that, I'm never really motivated by profit or gain.

And I have not created a monster. I have created a form of entertainment for myself by dropping some meat between a few lions. Well, also it's always good for people to see/try to understand other peoples views and opinions. We never really learn a lot in these threads, but hell, this is more interesting than playing the caption the avatar game when people don't change their fucking avatars ...

[kenisama]

We never really learn a lot in these threads, but hell, this is more interesting than playing the caption the avatar game when people don't change their fucking avatars ...

lol, gotcha and duly noted me = guilty

[CodeZTM]

Ok. Did nobody pay attention to the /thread comment I made a few pages back?

I knewwwww this was coming.

Good going guy.

Also, while not wanting to sound like a selfish bastard, I hope uni health care goes through [in some form at least] because I will be without my parental insurance in 2 years, and my arthritis medication costs nearly 1000 bucks without it. Did I also mention having a pre-existing condition like I do pretty much guarantees I'm up the river without a paddle getting any sort of insurance without sky high charges if any at all. So even though I have worked hard and will get a job with good pay my entire life, I'll still be screwed by the insurance companies. Please ignore this tiny message, as I have no will to argue this.

[Garylisk]

This thread wins for the shitstorm. I applaud OP for dropping this bomb and then going to bed. Fucking brilliant.

[downwithpants]

I always do what makes me/other people happy. There goes that theory. But I'm weird like that, I'm never really motivated by profit or gain.

you do act for profit. happiness is what you're trying to gain. that's pretty much how all people are.

[guy07]

I always do what makes me/other people happy. There goes that theory. But I'm weird like that, I'm never really motivated by profit or gain.

you do act for profit. happiness is what you're trying to gain. that's pretty much how all people are.

Im pretty sure he meant profit in the financial sense .... but i could be mistaken. I guess you could interpret happiness to be a form of profit.
Also, where's oto? He wanted to talk about the canadian health care system i thought ..

[Otohiko]

Also, where's oto? He wanted to talk about the canadian health care system i thought ..

Me?

I think I said a whole bunch of things about it before. I think comparisons between the US and the Canadian system always end up in the US public health debate, with the pro- and anti- sides always saying that either Canada is better or worse than the US currently. The fact is that Canada is really neither worse nor better than the US at the moment - it's just different. What this REALLY means is that the Canadian system is seriously flawed, much like the US', just in different ways. Generally, Canada has much better primary care (although it's far from problem-free - tell that to my parents who can't get a family doctor, even though it's supposedly a 'right' in the Canadian system) and for certain basic types of urgent care we're much better as well. I really can't complain about my emergency care when I broke my elbow - in the US that surgery would've run me thousands of dollars, if I could afford it at all. But I was lucky, I wound up in a good hospital and was treated well, immediately and for free. On the other hand resources in Canadian hospitals are far from equal everywhere - I was told that I was lucky to be at the hospital where I was, since if I'd gone to one closer to home I would've had to wait months for the surgery. The wait times in Canada for many critical procedures are atrocious. Especially in cancer diagnosis and treatment, these delays are near-criminal. Not everything is free in the system, either, and many critical procedures also actually cost a lot of money. In short, Canada's system, by and large, works - but rather inefficiently. It is not worth what we are paying for it as taxpayers, but we don't have choice as it stands under the current political situation. By the way, not only politics are to blame for it. I don't know if I can wholeheartedly go after doctors in general and there are many fine examples of them - but the profession is overpaid and far from made up of uniformly effective caregivers. The near-bottomless public-fund "feeder" attracts a lot of parasites to the system and frankly the healthcare profession in Canada is not far from a mafia-type structure. In Canada everyone goes after politicians as the source of the problem, but the fact is that the profession is itself deeply flawed and at least partially corrupt (and likewise partially incompetent). I'm actually sometimes skeptical when they say that our healthcare is underfunded - it's not underfunded. It's just that the fuckers in white suits (and their retinue of bureaucrats) are pretty much overpaid, if we go by the overall system performance as an indication, and we don't want to talk about that because they're the ones cutting us up when we get in trouble...

I am however all for socialized healthcare, but Canada is really not the greatest example of it. Many places in Europe have the formula down much, much better. The US debate keeps referring to Canada's flawed system as a point of reference, when in fact healthcare systems like those in, I don't know, France or Israel, put both the US and Canada deep, deep in shame. Statistics reflect this.