Human Garbage Gets Justice

[ajoknoblauch]

ejoct en argentina : Please tell me why I am wrong.

Because you persist in reductionism?

 

[thorsten]

ejoct en argentina : Please tell me why I am wrong.

You actually presume that there are reverse economies of scale in health care?

 

[Gringoboy]

This stopped being entertaining pages ago.

 

[mikic007]

ejoct en argentina : Please tell me why I am wrong.

Because bigger systems per capita are always cheaper. And about concensus, you would be surprised, how hard is to make anything in small countries. Village is still not a country. "problem" with USA health care is, that most of people don't want it, because they are satisfied with how is now. And I'm OK with that, since I don't live there...

 

[ElQueso]

Actually, Scandinavian countries, as an example (since the subject of national homogeneity in relation to things like health care are brought up), are much more homogenous than the US ever thought of being. That may be changing somewhat nowadays as more people like those who can move from poorer EU countries to Scandinavian countries via being members of the European Union change the demographics - and those countries actually are finding themselves in a differing boat nowadays as a result. I have a Norwegian friend who lives here. He complains quite a bit to what is happening to Oslo in particular as a result.

Of course, Norway has a population of around 5 million people. Harris County, in Texas, where I come from (Houston occupying most of the county) has around 4.4 million residents. That's just one county in one state. The whole of Texas has nearly 30 million residents, roughly almost 3/4 the size of all of Argentina's population.

It is much easier to come to consensus on big things when your population is small and homogenous. Or, like many countries in Europe, where people have been thinking in terms of social safety nets and health care for everyone for a long time. Of course, about an equal number of people I've known or talked to from countries like Canada, the UK, Norway and France are pretty much split down the middle as to whether or not they think their health systems are all they're cracked up to be. A lot of their opinions depend on the seriousness of the illnesses they have had to deal with.

Trying to force a wildly diverse and large population like the US into a one-size-fits-all mode is not the best, nor smartest, thing to do in my opinion. I think it's a shame that the US federal government has become so powerful that it tries to do exactly that - fit all of its citizens into the same shoe. I don't understand why the states themselves couldn't resolve those problems and let people who have like desires and needs get together and solve things on a local level. If the federal US government wasn't so strong and trying to export its particular system all over the world, whether it fits or not, whether the people want it or not, I'd probably not have become a libertarian.

And Norway, being small and homogenous when it counted, was able to pretty much figure out what to do with all that North Sea oil that is helping to pay for their healthcare system. Yes, they were a small population with a huge money resource who did something smart with their money.

And as far as bigger systems per capita being less expensive - not at all. If you are a big company buying in bulk, absolutely for sure this statement is correct (or should be). But unfortunately, we are not talking about a company who must run efficiently or answer to its shareholders. We are talking about a federal government of a fairly huge country.

In this situation, you have an enormous number of people fighting to have money spent for what they think everyone needs. Health care is a fairly recent "requirement", but unfortunately while we also seem to have the requirement to export "democracy" to places that wouldn't know what to do with it if it fell into their laps. Our military expenditures are incredibly huge. Our foreign aid expenditures, to try to bribe countries to see things our way are incredibly huge. Not to mention ever cause that requires federal money that legislators can glom onto to make their constituents happy, pork projects, etc.

We are so far in debt it will take decades to get ourselves out of debt, best case scenarios and something unexpected coming along to change things notwithstanding. This is one of the reasons that I thought Obama's health care legislation is one of the worst things we could have done at this time. If we wanted national health care as a country, we should have found things to cut (like, immediately foreign aid and military expenditures) instead of doing something half-assed like Obama's plan. but of course we couldn't come to a consensus because there are too many differing opinions as to how we should spend the large sums of money we are borrowing. It's going to be expensive to those who work, pay taxes and contribute to those who will benefit from it, but in the long run it won't improve healthcare for the majority of Americans - in my opinion. Instead, it will be another government program that works for some people but not for a lot of others and who knows what other knock-down effects we will see.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Actually, Scandinavian countries, as an example (since the subject of national homogeneity in relation to things like health care are brought up), are much more homogenous than the US ever thought of being. That may be changing somewhat nowadays as more people like those who can move from poorer EU countries to Scandinavian countries via being members of the European Union change the demographics - and those countries actually are finding themselves in a differing boat nowadays as a result. I have a Norwegian friend who lives here. He complains quite a bit to what is happening to Oslo in particular as a result.

Of course, Norway has a population of around 5 million people. Harris County, in Texas, where I come from (Houston occupying most of the county) has around 4.4 million residents. That's just one county in one state. The whole of Texas has nearly 30 million residents, roughly almost 3/4 the size of all of Argentina's population.

And Norway, being small and homogenous when it counted, was able to pretty much figure out what to do with all that North Sea oil that is helping to pay for their healthcare system. Yes, they were a small population with a huge money resource who did something smart with their money.

We are so far in debt it will take decades to get ourselves out of debt, best case scenarios and something unexpected coming along to change things. This is one of the reasons that I thought Obama's health care legislation is one of the worst things we could have done at this time. If we wanted national health care as a country, we should have found things to cut (like, immediately foreign aid and military expenditures) instead of doing something half-assed like Obama's plan. but of course we couldn't come to a consensus because there are too many differeing opinions as to how we should spend the large sums of money we are borrowing. It's going to be expensive to those who work, pay taxes and contribute to those who will benefit from it, but in the long run it won't improve healthcare for the majority of Americans - in my opinion. Instead, it will be another government program that works for some people but not for a lot of others and who knows what other knock-down effects we will see.

Norway is not a member of the European Union, for what that's worth.

The ACA is imperfect, but it has already improved health care for at least 15 million US citizens: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/26/opinion/paul-krugman-hooray-for-the-aca.html. The reason it hasn't done more is that obstructionist Republican governors prefer to let their poorer constituents get sick and die.

 

[ElQueso]

Norway is not a member of the European Union, for what that's worth.

I stand corrected. My friend was complaining about the number of immigrants that were coming from the EU and I reckon I didn't even realize they weren't a part of it.

 

[ben]

I stand corrected. My friend was complaining about the number of immigrants that were coming from the EU and I reckon I didn't even realize they weren't a part of it.

It isn't part of the EU, but it is part of the Schengen Area and as such foreigners and certainly other European citizens can enter (and remain?) at will.

 

[ghost]

Norway is not a member of the European Union, for what that's worth.

The ACA is imperfect, but it has already improved health care for at least 15 million US citizens: http://www.nytimes.c...r-the-aca.html. The reason it hasn't done more is that obstructionist Republican governors prefer to let their poorer constituents get sick and die.

You mean like the Republican Governor of Florida who was indited for the largest Medicare fraud in history and took the 5th amendment 75 times went on to spend 400 million to buy the office and now rejects ACA. Argentina's corruption can't hold a candle to this guy.
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/mar/03/florida-democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/

 

[ajoknoblauch]

You mean like the Republican Governor of Florida who was indited for the largest Medicare fraud in history and took the 5th amendment 75 times went on to spend 400 million to buy the office and now rejects ACA. Argentina's corruption can't hold a candle to this guy.
http://www.politifac...t-medicare-fra/

Scott even looks truly slimy, but he's hardly unique among the R's.