The Best Reason Now To Be An Expat In Argentina...

[internationalguy]

As long as they don't think the government should be accountable for it's mistakes...

apparently Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS Scandal, ACA roll out mess and lies... all of those aren't enough to show some sort of shame. That being said there have been a lot of serious democrats that have admitted without saying it that all those things are a shame and that Holder should be home at best.

 

[steveinbsas]

This gaff might have been a slip of the tongue:

http://www.dailymail...y-enrolled.html

But it also could be an example of someone who is a pathological liar: An individual who not only "makes up" so much stuff on the cuff that he isn't capable of catching himself in order to correct his own "misspeaks" and may actually believe his own lies...someone who is "constitutionally incapable of being honest" with himself, not to mention everyone else.

And now the lie that got Obama reelected has been exposed:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/18/if-these-claims-by-reliable-sources-are-proven-true-the-obama-administration-will-be-dealing-with-another-huge-scandal/

 

[ElQueso]

I think it's hilarious that think that ObamaCare could be equated with universal healthcare coming to the States.

As most things political in the US, ObamaCare is a big bunch of crap sitting on top of a bunch more crap and will never accomplish what Obama and his far-left supporters wanted to begin with.

In some ways, I admire Argentina's health care system, but only in some. Mostly I admire the private system, though, and not the public. Although, the public system has some advantages to be sure.

As many of you know from reading what I've written over the years on this board, I have a Paraguayan wife who is a member of an extended Paraguayan family. About half of her family lives here in Buenos Aires, all legal residents who work hard at gainfully-employed jobs, working in the white and paying their taxes, etc. Two of her brothers have had children and one of her sisters. I've seen the insides of a couple of public hospitals here (for prenatal, natal, and emergency care), and while they get treatment, it's not exactly cheap (for them) and certainly doesn't even approach comfortable in either accommodations or in the manner in which they are treated by the medical staff.

I went to see the wife and baby of the first brother who had a kid here and was a bit shocked at the public hospital to tell the truth. It was a multi-story building with no working elevators. Extremely unmaintained and quite dirty. There was one gurney operator who only worked days (the brother and his wife came at night - the woman in the beginnings of labor had to climb 5 flights of stairs). Nurses very few and far between and the person interred in the hospital had to make arrangements for their own food and changes of clothes, sheets, etc. While some medications were provided by the hospital while staying there, medicines once released had to be purchased and depending on the ailment, can be quite expensive (or even can't be found due to Cristina's wonderful import restrictions!), particularly for someone making around $2500 pesos a month for a family of (newly) three.

That hit one of our recently-born nephews who came into this world with a minor heart defect. That was a merry chase as first the mother and father were told the baby was going to die (with no preparation from the doctor, just came right out and threw it in their faces and didn't explain why except to say the baby had a heart problem), then for the following two days the baby was shuttled between 4 different hospitals, the prognosis gradually getting better as they found experts who knew what they were doing. The baby was fine, spent a month in the hospital, but needed continuing medication in her first six months of life. The only way they could afford this was for us to buy it for them. I honestly don't know what would happen if we hadn't been here.

Another of her brothers has a cleft pallet and was basically completely denied service, as the doctor put it, because he's Paraguayan and a drain on the system. Yeah, that's what my wife was told when she accompanied him to the hospital over weeks to try to get some treatment he needed. It's funny that he's a hard worker at 19, works in the white and pays all of his taxes, unlike many Argentinos.

However, I'm 51 and pay for health insurance for 4 of us (two adults, my wife quite a bit younger than me, and my wife's two teenage sisters) and it costs me about 2500 pesos a month at Hospital Aleman. At the blue rate that's about $250 USD a month. Not a bad deal, as far as I'm concerned. And HA is not the highest level private hospital. However, I find it to be well-run, with doctors who have a bedside manner and will explain thngs to you. If you don't speak Spanish, a large number of the medical staff speak English.

The problem in the States, as someone mentioned previously, is the large amount of medical lobbyists and organizations (insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, AMA, etc) that cause most of the problems with medical costs in the States. Somewhere starting back in the 50's, gaining force in the 60's and 70's, people became convinced that they had to buy policies just to go see a doctor for a sneeze as a part of the offerings of medical insurance.

My grandmother used to talk about her health care in the 50's - the doctor would come to her house and treat her, often leaving with her as a part of the treatment whatever medication she needed. His fee was $2 plus the medicine, which was also cheap. In the early 60's the bank at which she worked started offering health care to their employees (fully paid for) and she enrolled. The next time the doctor came to see her (still did house calls), she tried to pay (not completely understanding the insurance and how it worked at the time) and the doctor told her "no, the insurance company will take care of it." He did leave behind a bill that she had to submit (at the time the doctor's offices weren't so caught up in the horrible amount of compliance paperwork now required) for $5. Same service, but more than double the price.

Nothing is black and white, often no one thing has a clear impact, but the medical industry in the US has become so twisted that under it's current state, there is not one single thing that anyone (even Obama!) can do short of completely revamping a lot of laws and requirements and other things that will ever get anything like what Obama promised. I honestly don't know if Obama really thought he was doing good but was so clueless about reality that he (and his advisers and supporters) didn't realize it was impossible, or possibly he knew exactly what he was doing and is hoping for a complete collapse of the medical infrastructure and the need for the government to then step in and force the change down everyone's throat.

I can guarantee you that the poor in the States, right now, get better medical care than the poor in Argentina. Is that good enough? No, I don't think so. But Obama's way is not the right way and it will be proven out as time goes on - I believe it inevitable.

People complained about Bush and forcing things like a coupe of wars and the PATRIOT Act down people's throats, but because they like Obama they have no problem with the way Obama Care was forced through to begin with (against a sizable objection which is just getting bigger and bigger) and seem to swallow hook, line and sinker, even in the face of a horrible start (quite unlike what was promised, and the government giving companies and others special privileges to delay starting it, but not the individual) that he is somehow actually on the right track.

If you want universal health care, shoot for that. Personally, I'm a Libertarian (don't ever call me a Republican! I think both parties in the US are corrupt and care only for their power and will do anything, including lying and cheating, to get their end) and believe that WITH regulation where really needed, true competition on all levels will bring prices down. But enough of this stupidity of half-assed political games to keep things the same or make them worse. If something's worth doing, then for f__k's sake do it right.

I can understand the desire and will of the people to have a "right" to health care, particularly in this day and age of technology where we are not just talking about saving lives but also extending them seriously. But if you're going to do it, again, do it right - half-assed steps only make matters worse, as we're starting to see with Obama Care. The Constitution doesn't give us any such "right" - but if you think it was left out erroneously (who could have seen the medical care crisis looming ahead, 230-some years ago after all?) then let's amend the Constitution as has been done many times in the past and do it the right way. It wasn't done that way, or with a consensus of any other sort, because there were TOO MANY PEOPLE who didn't agree with either the legislation itself, or with the concept of universal health care to begin with. With such a large amount of people in opposition (whether you believe they are wrong or not), forcing Obama Care through is absolutely tyranny.

There are many reasons I like living in Argentina, even with a lot of the crap that goes along with it. Obama Care is just one of many of the reasons to me, who doesn't believe in a tyranny of a slight majority (at best!), to not live in the US. To me, the US is too big and impacts too many countries around the world, including its very own citizens, like a bull in a china shop.

Argentina has its own brand of tyranny, but they are so inefficient that to someone who doesn't depend on work at peso prices it's almost laughable (almost). Unfortunately, as tied into Argentine society as I am now, my heart breaks to also see the people here broken down under the weight of their own government. And what's even worse is knowing that all of my Paraguayan relatives, who come from a country with NO opportunities, are actually much better off here economically than where they come from. Including health care and education. But what they, as poor residents of Argentina get, is still inferior to what's available to the poor in the US right now, individual horror/scare stories aside.

 

[camberiu]

I shit you not.

"Father arrested for trying to pick up his children on foot rather than in a vehicle"

http://youtu.be/szvvAA5II58

 

[sleslie23]

I can guarantee you that the poor in the States, right now, get better medical care than the poor in Argentina. Is that good enough? No, I don't think so. But Obama's way is not the right way and it will be proven out as time goes on - I believe it inevitable.

I think that's a pretty broad statement that is hard to back up. There are numerous stories of people dying due to lack of care in the US. Here is an article that gives a pretty good summary:

http://www.texasobserver.org/a-galveston-med-student-describes-life-and-death-in-the-safety-net/

Also, your anecdote about the public hospitals, while I'm sure is 100% true, is still just an anecdote. I have personal, first-hand experience of public hospitals here and while the facilities may be somewhat worn, the care was excellent. Likewise, I know several people who work in public hospitals within Capital Federal and their experiences are nothing like you describe.

I agree 100% with your assessment of the "Affordable Care" Act.

 

[steveinbsas]

It is important to understand the difference between a government based on individual rights (with the purpose of protecting individual freedom to act as once chooses) versus a government based on collectivism (in which the freedom to act is subordinated to "someone else's" idea of the public good):



"We have two opposing views as to how America should be governed. The Progressive - Wilsonian view that the people need an administrator to guide and care for them through their time on earth verses the self cleansing liberty to take risks and work to create a better life for oneself with the possibility of doing all of the right things and still failing.

Which side has the IDIOTs supporting it? IDIOT = In Denial Intentionally Obscuring TRUTH from oneself. My goal in this blog is to seek the answer to that question by posing questions or to state my observations and invite challenges to my perception of reality. It is not that difficult to observe objective measurements such as job participation, the U6 unemployment figure, economic freedom index, percentage of the population needing assistance, or other indices. I feel that it is our duty to study what is happening in the world as well as in America, vet the information, analyze it and choose to support what is best for US.

It is my perspective that we have an American Puppet Class and the Puppet String Media are a few of the strings animating the supporters of the Collective which is some from each of big business, big union, politicians and some very wealthy/influential individuals or groups. Psy Ops - Propaganda evolved into what we call marketing and the team loyalty no matter what the cost to America or those who follow is explainable, to my way of thinking, only by attributing it to indoctrination.

Thomas Jefferson pointed out the need for an informed electorate - "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." (as cited in Padover, 1939, p. 89) ". . . whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right." (as cited in Padover, 1939, p. 88).

It amazes me that well intentioned, intelligent people will support those who would repeat what has happened throughout history and condemn their own children to a cursed life. Collectivist - Central Planning, no matter the name is paid for with diminished liberty and results in the worst cases in millions of deaths such as the Russians taking the farms from the "land owners" in the name of doing good for the people. People throughout history have observed the nature of humans who would be master over their fellow humans.

The creation of or taking advantage of a crisis is far from a new strategy. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C. S. Lewis “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” -- William Pitt the younger, British Prime Minister (1783-1801, 1804-06) during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. 1759-1806 “When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices.

Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.” -- Frederick Bastiat. Ayn Rand left Russia during the Communist Revolution and she showed US what life could be like were we to allow it to happen in America in Atlas Shrugged. Her Directive 10-289 sounds like much of what I see our legislators producing in order to meet the needs of a crisis for the "good" of the people.


Source: http://rossabh.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/compliance-death-by-1000-paper-cuts/

 

[ElQueso]

I think that's a pretty broad statement that is hard to back up. There are numerous stories of people dying due to lack of care in the US. Here is an article that gives a pretty good summary:

http://www.texasobse...the-safety-net/

Well, the link is a bunch of anecdotes as well, including one link to another article (italic bold emphasis in both quotes are mine):

"Among those consequences are the deaths of the poor. As Howard Brody, director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities, has shown, 9,000 Texans per year will die needlessly as a result of our failure to expand Medicaid. However, because dying patients are often too sick, exhausted and wracked with pain to protest, UTMB and states like Texas aren’t forced to reckon with the consequences of their policy decisions."

The link in the article takes you to another article on the same site titled "Rick Perry’s Refusal to Expand Texas’ Medicaid Program Could Result In Thousands of Deaths."

Now, there are a lot of things to wonder about in the first statement. It may not be popular to talk about it, and Republicans often accuse Democrats of embracing this, but how many of those people would die no matter what is done? I am sure that it is more than the same sort of group taken from group of ensured people with money and no insurance problems. Although I wonder how many deaths will happen as a result of Obama Care and now tens of millions of people without policies.

Also, how much hype is in that article, using its anecdotes as a basis? I mistrust it because of the certainty versus the possibility expressed in the second article. Not that there is much doubt that it will have an impact, but again, they are playing loosely with some nice round numbers to scare some people.

I am not in favor of Death Boards or anything like that and I think it is decent to treat people that are dying in the best manner possible. Sometimes that best manner possible isn't as much as most people would like. Personally, I would prefer to contribute in some fashion to a charity (I help personally in other ways other than the sick and dying, we all have our niches, as it should be - not one size fits all) rather than have the population at large decide where my money goes in an impersonal and really uncontrolled manner, but if it's going to go somewhere, I'd rather it be spent wisely. That's not happening now, and pumping more money at the problem isn't going to resolve it at this point - it's going to sink us all.

But let's consider some of this "best manner possible." Doctors make a butt load of money overall. Probably those that help the poor much less than those who treat the richer people who have some money and better (even have) insurance. Unfortunately, it's the richer doctors who end up making the biggest policy. There's a lot of different scales, but many of those doctors retire from practice and end up working for various companies in the medical profession and make even more money. And who can blame them? The AMA has such a tight squeeze on what kind of legislation is passed related to who can do what as a doctor, mingled in with the insurance regulations and everything else, that doctoring has been taken beyond the guy who used to see my grandmother at her house and really know her and care about her health, to a get-them-through-the-door-as-quick-as-we-can so we can charge the living crap our of the majority of the patient's insurance companies to cover costs and make a money. And who can blame them for wanting to make money? Hell, they have such a large amount of debt to pay off from years of usually very expensive school.

My point related to the "dying poor" is that the doctors themselves have great responsibility for the mess in which the medical industry finds itself in the States.

As far as the poor getting better medical care in the States - I didn't say the situation was great, just that the poor there get better medical attention than they do here. And I stand by my statement on that (see my comments below as well related to the state of health care for the poor here).

There was a point in the article that people were having to take two hour drives to get to the hospital for treatments. What do you think a poor person here has to do when they go to the hospital for something serious? Instead of being driven in the car by a relative, they are helped on a bus or a train, often smashed in amongst groups of passengers. They wait as much as a day to get treated. They are shuttled around from one hospital to another and they do eventually get treated, but I don't think they are treated overall as well, although I admit things like cancer may be different here (I'm not really sure, don't know anyone who's gone through a threatening terminal illness).

The article mentions that the US requirement is that hospitals must stabilize a patient. I'm betting that many more times than not, the hospital treats emergencies, rather losing a little bit of money (relatively, and not counting profit i.e., [markup]) than being sued. Longer term treatments seem to be where the biggest problem is, like cancer. And any treatment that does happen is charged on the person who can't afford it, no doubt.

As I said, not great, with a whole lot of room for improvement - somehow. As agreed on, not Obama Care.

Also, your anecdote about the public hospitals, while I'm sure is 100% true, is still just an anecdote. I have personal, first-hand experience of public hospitals here and while the facilities may be somewhat worn, the care was excellent. Likewise, I know several people who work in public hospitals within Capital Federal and their experiences are nothing like you describe.

I don't know where you live, and what hospitals you go to, but they vary WILDLY in different parts of the city and Gran Buenos Aires. There's a great public hospital in Recoleta, for example. I know a guy who lives out in Ramos Mejía and swears by the hospital out there. Of course, he's never had anything terribly serious (no strokes, heart attacks, etc, though he broke a bone a couple of years ago, don't remember which one).

Many of the worst hospitals are easier accessible by the poor here. And maybe a lot of my experience is based on the Paraguayan perspective here. Upper and middle class Argentinos and foreigners, I believe, get better treatment than the poor do. I've seen a whole lot of prejudice (which in some of its extremes is downright racism) against Paraguayans here - I've been the direct witness of more than one situation involving my family and heard about quite a few more. Again, anecdotes, but what else do we have to really go on other than our experience, when we've had it?

In every case that I know of, when someone goes to a public hospital, they've had to buy their medications and treatments that they didn't get at the hospital during their stay. One of my wife's sister-in-laws has a two-year old girl that is under-sized. She spent weeks upon weeks going to different hospitals, seeing different doctors, having all kinds of tests done, and all the prescriptions given were bought by her. The girl was never hospitalized. Maybe the good ones, like the one in Recoleta, have pharmacies available where prescriptions can be filled. Again with the Paraguayan perspective, many of the Paraguayans who come here are indeed quite ignorant and maybe they were not taking advantage of something they could be taking advantage of. In fact, many of them don't realize they can get treated for free at first - it sure as hell ain't that way in Paraguay (I've got a couple of absolute horror stories about the most fundamental ignorance possible, like when a family watches one of their own die slowly in their own shack without trying more than a witch doctor - I swear).

In Texas (where I lived for about 30 years of my life) things are a bit cheaper, probably even medical care. I've lived among the poor, in the 5th ward in Houston. There are many free and cheap clinics available, at least throughout Houston. The people I knew there got better medical treatment than the people I know who are poor here.

Do the poor get good enough treatment in the States - no way. Do they get better than they get here, on the whole? In my opinion absolutely.

Also in my opinion, nationalized health care isn't the way to go either. I believe there are ways to bring the level of health costs down to a fraction of what it is now, making it more affordable for everyone, and even making Medicaid able to support those who truly can't pay for themselves - leaving enough room for those who use it to really be taken care of when necessary. The problem is, it will never happen because as the US slides into more and more economic problems the very people who hold power over how the system is run will not change it - they will hold on to their power to the last drop...and beyond, I'm sure.

And BTW - why don't we call back the majority of the troops from around the world and stop paying out so much money to everyone to blackmail them into this or that scheme and use some of that money (and pay our debts and bank the rest!!!) to help the poor receive better health care? I could live with that.

 

[arlean]

Whew, if I don't look at this for a few days I can't catch up with you smart people! But I will comment on Internationalguy's comment.

He either touched on the truth or maybe was just close to it. I know some think that oil was the motive, but when Saddam said he would not take the U. S. dollar any more for his oil, two of the financial analsts I subscribe to said that he was not long for this world. The banksters will never allow that. They have control of the printing presses and they won't give that up easily. They were right. Our precious men who shed their blood had no idea they were doing it for the banksters. Someone told them they were defending their country. Their hearts were in the right place I think and some have paid a terrible price. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0h?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0

 

[steveinbsas]

It looks like six weeks was enough for this gal to see how well Obamacare would work for her...after being a poster girl for the plan (please note the use of the word "forced" in the story):

"A single mom from Washington State who was cited by President Obama as an Affordable Care Act success story now says she’ll go uninsured and calls the program a “treadmill of bureaucracy.”
Washington State Wirereports that Jessica Sanford, 48, discovered that she is no longer eligible for a large subsidy that would have lowered her monthly premium to $169 per month. Instead, Sanford would now be forced to pay nearly four times as much, $621, for coverage.
Sanford told the paper she believes the government should shut down the entire healthcare.gov site until the site’s issues are resolved. “In my opinion they ought to shut it down and just get all of it straightened out.”
That's a complete 180 from what Sanford thought she was signing up for last month when Obama touted her as an Affordable Care Act success story."


Source: http://news.yahoo.co...-225839697.html

 

[steveinbsas]

One more quote from the link in my previous post:

“This is it. I'm not getting insurance," Sanford told CNN. "That's where it stands right now unless they fix it."

The "fix" will be more and more control and regulation....much more.

A little socialism is never enough.

If HC is elected in 2016 she can resurrect the Clinton plan of 1993.


Under that plan private health care will be criminalized and doctors will be told where and how to practice medicine.

Ayn Rand was afraid Medicare would lead to the "enslavement " of doctors.

It didn't.

But the Progressives haven't given up.

And many doctors will not comply.


And the quality of health care in the USA will get worse, not better.