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

[fifs2]

I can tell you people do not get it. This is not about providing coverage--it is about denying coverage. They have gotten in so deep there is no way to pay what has been "entitled" by a bankrupt country. This always always happens with socialism. We don't want to admit that there is no free lunch for us, but history shows it is true.

I worked in Israel about 13 years ago for a short time. I roomed with an R.N. from England, hired on contract by the Israeli military. I took advantage of her knowledge (as I always try to do when I have that opportunity) and asked what she thought of socialized medicine. Her answer: It is legalized euthanasia. She proceeded to give me chapter and verse of what she had seen and even experienced. That was my first warning. But that was England. That could never happen in America.

A few years later a friend in the U.S. warned me to never leave my parent alone in medical care for a minute. Have someone with them checking what is given them at all times because they are offing the elderly and the extremely ill.

I didn't believe that. Yes, there is an occasional nurse who does that, I thought, but not likely it would happen.

I was wrong. I was stupid like most Americans. I was in Argentina renewing my residency. My mother, who lived for years in an apartment on a creek in a facility in Florida, had taken ill and been moved to a room where she could get better care by hospice. Because I was in Argentina, a friend stopped in to check on Mom and I paid someone else to do that also. Just another friend, that's all. My mother died before I could get back. I was notified she had taken sick but it took me a few days and when I got back she was gone.

The friend told me they had put her on morphine and she had watched the nurse take her pulse as she gave the morphine. She thought they had killed Mom. I did not believe it.

Until a few more years later a nurse told me about going to work for hospice and being told to put an elderly man on morphine. She refused and told them she was not going to put a man who was not in pain on morphine. They let her go the next morning.

Then another friend figured out that they had offed her elderly mother (hospitalized with MRSA) and when her dad took sick with the same and was hospitalized, she had a cot brought to his room and would not leave. Finally someone told her in anger, she was denying her father a dignified death. She said, "My father is not going to die" and she got an ambulance to move him. She never left his bed during that time. That was 5 years ago and he is still alive. Last I knew he had a girlfriend and still had his draft horses. I think he is failing more now and that may no longer be the case. If you have a compelling reason, I think I could get either of these women to talk with you.

They were the ones who convinced me--finally--the dumb, stupid, incredulous American who just did NOT think that could happen. I didn't think people could be that evil. Little did I know! They can be even worse!

First it is dishonest to take money from a fellow American, that he did not agree to, to give it to me. It is stealing and that doesn't change just because I get a politician to do it for me "legally." There is no spout where the money comes out. The government has nothing to give you but what it has taken away from someone else.

One of the most unfair things I know of is the way our young families are being taxed to pay for our SOCIAL SECURITY. When I started working, the SS deduction from my pay was a pittance. Now it is bigger than the income tax. All this "stuff" we are being given is impoverishing someone else. The politicians who get elected by promising free stuff they will buy with OPM, stole the money from the SS trust fund as politicians will ALWAYS do with large amounts of money. So now we are robbing our young families. Yes, I paid it in for years. Yes I am entitled to it. But our young families did not steal that money. The politicians did and we were foolish enough to trust them enough to invest our money in their care. If you make stupid investments it is not okay to expect someone else to pay.

We need to get real and not be blinded because we want something for free. It is right for us to help each other and families to help each other, but not to steal to enhance our own lives. You can all disagree with that and I would fight for your right to disagree. I am, after all, from a genuine American heritage. I am proud of my heritage but not of what we have become.

In a sense Americans (I mean North, not South) deserve what is in store for them and what is already taking place. When you are willing to steal from each other, there are consequences. One evil brings on another. I do believe in helping the helpless, voluntarily. That's how it was when I was a young woman. We did not have these socialist programs. We had charities, the churches helped people, neighbors helped each other (there was a LOT more caring among neighbors before the government got into the act) and families helped each other, there were free county hospitals (similar to those in Argentina--but they were not federal, they were local). Often three generations lived in the same home. In fact--usually. We took care of our own. When my mother was moved from her apartment my impulse was to take her out. My son said Mom, you can go every day and see her and then go home. Little did we know. I would change it if I could, but a word to the wise is sufficient.What I pass on here might make a difference in someone's life. I know I will get flack for posting this, but my hope is that it will be helpful to someone. You can't oppose evil if you don't even realize it exists.

I do not care how desperately you want to believe it--there is no free lunch. You might think you're getting it for free, but in the end, you are paying more than you had any idea.

The partisanship of these debates makes me sick to my stomach. The death of democracy is written in the vitriol and misrepresentation of political fanatics who prefer winning an argument to solving the problem. Socialized medicine is euthanasia? Arlean, you're a smart woman - please stop listening to rumour and myth and look around? Do you really believe all or most of the elderly on social medical programs in Scandinavia, UK etc are on a plan to euthanize them? My 82 yr old step-father suffered a massive heart attack earlier this year at home and the ambulance crew worked for a long time to resuscitate him and take him to ICR for a period of long recovery. He's been at home now well and active for 4 months and recently had both his cataracts operated too. He's like a new man. My mother, an angina suffer of 81 with great medical support, leads the weekly aerobics class at her local church. This year the British media reported of some elderly patients being placed on a "death pathway" i.e the nightmare you envisage but really that's the tip of the iceberg. Those rare cases of poor medical care (of babies as much as of the elderly) do nothing to serve a logical argument of why not to change the US system. People are dying under the current US system as much as they will under any new system, the aim is for full coverage and it is a valid one. I doubt Obamacare will make it however as Washington as much as the UK is terminally ill and it will take a major world crisis to save us from the type of disgusting people who claim to govern today. Posh, rich idiots who have no concept of empathy never mind reality governing the masses. I'll now withdraw and let the Republicans versus the Democrats continue the futile argument.

 

[ElQueso]

Subject is complex/debated enough already between Americans but "socialized" does not mean that we'll call each other comrade & the Red Army tanks will soon parade in the city.

It's of course not black & white. Being poor or middle class, I'd prefer to get sick in France. Being rich with a very rare disease, I'll likely prefer to pay to get treated in the US.

In France, we live longer than in the US (OK, many reasons to that: if we need to go buy bread at the corner, we'll walk while an American will rather take his car = obesity, etc.).

I guess we can learn from both systems. In France, the main problem right now is chasing fraud + promoting the use of cheaper drugs which have the same effect (France is a golden market for pharmaceutical companies).

Frenchie, I like a lot of what you are saying here. But I do want to make a comment about "socialized" vs communism or even fascism.

To you Europeans, socialized medicine and many other services seems like something you all pretty much decided on together. I have no beef with that at all, and there are some pros and cons, without a doubt. I do not think that your medical system is the reason you live longer than Americans, but as you pointed out is probably related more to sedentary vs active lifestyles, obesity, etc. Possibly even down to more natural food products vs more engineered products (though I'm not an opponent to engineered food, simply because the world cannot possibly feed itself off of naturally-grown food. However, even corn [as an example], in its natural state, isn't terribly healthy for humans because we didn't evolve eating it - came in the agricultural revolution later).

I don't want to debate the benefits of socialism vs capitalism, that's not what's important to me and I don't think is the point.

Socialism is absolutely fine as a political system when that is what the people want. In the US, socalism is becoming more fashionable because people want less responsibility and the government is giving it to them to keep those in power where they feel they belong. I've gone from times when people were relatively happy and very much 100% capitalism (when I was young) to times when people feel that everyone else has a responsibility to see to their happiness.

When something like the abomination that Obama put out there comes around, it is forcing more socialism on a country that doesn't necessarily embrace it because people really believe in helping out their fellow man, but rather lick their lips in anticipation of what they will get "for free." And the majority of people in the US don't want socialized medince - they just want the system fixed and were hoping against hope that Obama had the right idea with his proposals.

I see a difference between forced socialism (no better than a Red revolution) and a society as a whole deciding that that is what they want.

BTW - I liked being a middle-class American as related to getting healthcare. I didn't like how much I had to pay for insurance, but then I didn't have to pay for insurance to go see a doctor for a runny nose either, so I bought a "catastrophic" policy to pay for big things (which even included broken bones). The policy had a large deductible, but $5000 isn't going to send anyone to the poor house (as a middle-class American), and most institutions had payment plans to cover expenses not covered by insurance.

At least in Houston and Austin in Texas, we had hundreds of cheap clinics where you could go see a doctor to get antibiotics (if you needed them, as an example). I didn't need a huge policy to pay for my medication - generic brand medicines were so much cheaper than brand-name medicines and did just as well. There is not that much of a problem for non-serious issues in the States as there is for on-going, long-term procedures, surgeries and some preventive medicine. In my opinion.

 

[nicoenarg]

To make this more relevant to Argentina...

I think the best reason now to be an expat in Argentina is the fact that midterm elections are over and the queen is back and healthy. Now we can all congregate around the tv set and listen to her soothing voice while being enchanted by her beautiful botoxy face.

Now, isn't that grand?!

Who's with me?!

...

...

Anyone?

 

[steveinbsas]

That's a great question. I wonder how many children of libertarians I have had to help educate with my tax dollars.

My dad was the local high school principal from when I was one year old until I was 14.

It was the first high school in the USA that cost over a MILLION DOLLARS and it was a WPA project.

When I was still a teenager I told my parents I did not believe in "public" education and to force some to pay for the education of others was a violation of their rights.

My mom asked me why.

I told her that public education would necessarily teach the supremacy of the state and that rights applied to actions, not things.

She then asked me who I thought gave me those rights.

I know she thought that the government gives the people their rights.

I also knew that she was a Christian, so I gave her the answer I knew she would not dispute, "God."

It doesn't matter if rights are derived from God....or from nature.

They are not derived from government.

Government has no rights...only the power granted by the people.

And when too much power is either granted to or usurped by the the government,

It is the responsibility of the people to throw off the restraints of tyranny.

And that's why the Tea Party exists today.

 

[ElQueso]

That's a great question. I wonder how many children of libertarians I have had to help educate with my tax dollars.

You know, at one point in my business we were doing poorly and were actually thinking about looking for government work, even though both me and my ex-partner are Libertarians and abhor the thought of living off the government tit. We decided not to, to uphold our principles. However, I can understand the desire of people to take advantage of other people's "largesse" (that is, the largesse of taking from others to give to yet others) when it exists, another reason to not have that "largesse" to begin with.

Having had three kids in the current "nationalized" public school system, and having been through a completely different school system a few decades earlier, I can state categorically that the government has made a mess of the school system at all levels.

However, people who think we should all share the costs (and decisions) of everything brought that about, and brought about the necessity of everyone, down to people who never even had kids, of paying for all primary education. If you think someone living in the system and taking advantage of things that person is paying into is a bad thing...well, I don't have an argument against your opinion, but I can guarantee you that a true Libertarian would be tickled pink to send his kids to a school of his choice that's paid for either by him or his community (school districts, at least in Houston and its suburbs, actually consist of many very different communities and within the city it's even worse) and is not forced into things like Zero Tolerance (I have some direct experience with one of my kids with this extreme stupidity that is forced forced on everyone because teachers and administrators can't be held responsible) and a curriculum forced onto local schools nationally in the hopes of raising poor schools as well.

The public school system in the States is still far, far ahead of what I've seen of both public and private schools here, but that's not saying much!

Just because you paid into something that people don't want and yet still take advantage of doesn't mean they wouldn't embrace something very different, "con ganas".

I could go longer on this, but to tell the truth, I've written too much today and need to get some work done!

 

[ElQueso]

The partisanship of these debates makes me sick to my stomach. The death of democracy is written in the vitriol and misrepresentation of political fanatics who prefer winning an argument to solving the problem...I'll now withdraw and let the Republicans versus the Democrats continue the futile argument.

Ok, had to write a little more

First, the partisanship you are seeing is directly related to a two-party system and not necessarily to democracy itself. (in my opinion). If the US had a parliamentary system, I think things would be less divided.

Another reason there is so much partisanship NOW in particular is that both of the two parties in the States are trying to do things that are actually quite big changes in one gulp.

Bush led us into a huge lessening of freedoms, backed mostly by Republicans, early in his administration by using the horror of 9/11/2001 to grab a bunch of governmental powers and continue to use that, a war in Afghanistan and other lies to invade Iraq and deal with something his father maybe should have dealt with ten years before, or should have dealt with during his time in the CIA by not creating Hussein to begin with.

Obama leads us into more socialistic tendencies than either the people are ready for, or will ever want, and using a lot of the same "us or them" tactics to get what he wants.

The difference between what Obama and Bush did is that Bush had the nation behind him for awhile after the 9/11 attacks and Obama doesn't. He only has his die-hard supporters now, but from the beginning he was making friendly statements (openness, transparency, working with everyone, etc) while doing quite the opposite in actions, like forcing through Obama care to begin with, the way he did it and the complete lack of compromise he shows just like he accuses the other side of doing.

"Us against them." Our leaders are doing it to us, pulling the strings, and everyone is jumping without thinking things all the way through, while spouting back the same things their chosen leader says. The "leaders" are taking advantage of people's beliefs and leading them down the aisle of their mutual idealistic religion and making sure they sit on one side or the other, never mixing. Then they each get up on their pulpit and preach their own fire and brimstone while one side laughs and the other cheers, at turns alternating.

It's ridiculous and one of the best reasons I can see to be living in Argentina right now. As screwed up as Argentina is, they are inefficient and pretty much only affect themselves and their region, a limited number of souls.

I don't think there are any good places in the world to be if your eyes are open and you're not rich and limited in where you can work, but there are lesser evils if you have some luck and the balls to do it.

Fifs, it makes me sick too But I'm neither Republican nor Democrat, and in fact never in my life have ever registered with any party or voted a party line. There is some good and bad in that last, but I vote for the person, never the party. I was once a Proud American (though never obnoxious about it!), hell I wanted to be a naval aviator but I get hit by a hockey stick when I was sixteen and scared my eyeball a little bit and I couldn't fly. But as I got older and moved from laborer (from digging ditches, driving a truck, changing oil in a pit underneath cars all day), to designer/draftsman, to job site superintendent erecting large buildings, to a programmer, to a manager of software development, to a business owner who had some means, to losing his business working on rebuilding it, through being married young and stupid and having kids and living a near-hellish life with a woman who was an example of evil incarnate itself, to meeting the love of my life and living in a foreign country where a lot of the above happened as well, and above all, having extremely little help along the way, nothing much more than support from friends and family at times but in the great majority having to do it all myself, I've come to a conclusion:

We are each individually responsible for our own actions and individually and collectively for actions of those who act in our name, and responsible for how we react to the actions of others upon ourselves individually and collectively.

We should all live with maybe the most important item of the Hippocratic Oath: First do no harm.

To me, that means not wrecking something that's already wrecked by putting something worse and less-thought-out on top of it because it affects a lot of people, but if it happens fight the matter itself before it does more harm. Find and punish the individuals that are behind a mass murder, but don't use that as a pretext to invade other countries and lessen the already diminishing civil liberties of a large portion of the population of your own country and the rest of the world and make life even more a living hell for countless millions around the world in the name of "freedom."

We're all screwed up and we're all trying to spread the memes that have spread to us and taken hold, and I think mine are important so I have to keep pushing them. Peacefully and with logic and mild argument.

 

[steveinbsas]

We should all live with maybe the most important item of the Hippocratic Oath: First do no harm.

To me, that means not wrecking something that's already wrecked by putting something worse and less-thought-out on top of it because it affects a lot of people, but if it happens fight the matter itself before it does more harm.

For about 85% of Americans the system was not wrecked before the ACA was enacted.

This included individuals like me who had low cost catastrophic insurance and could also go to a private neighborhood clinic in Chicago and receive care, paying on a scale based on my income.

And yes, lets fight the matter before it does more harm...and the system is wrecked for everyone...

...except those who are in power or granted "exceptions" (aka special favors) from them,

 

[ajoknoblauch]

Neither did a decent percentage of Democrats (which is growing daily)! That's what's wrong with the political situation in the US today, a lot of hyperbole on both sides that has little to do with reality. And even if it WERE just the Republicans who would not have supported it - how does that give the right to half of the country to insist on something the other half doesn't want? People forget what governments are actually for and use their collective force to force others into situations that they don't believe in and then complain when the others fight.

What cracks me up is no one seems to remember that the Democrats passed the bill IN SPITE OF the Republicans. The only reason they wouldn't have been to pass something grander (like universal, completely socialist healthcare) is because they would have lost completely the moderate support IN THEIR OWN PARTY!!!! What does that say about the plan and the desire of a true majority of the American people? Universal healthcare isn't for us, at least at this time.

As I've mentioned before, why did Obama have to sneak the health care reform in without sending it back to the Senate to be revised and made better? Because the Democrats knew that they had a very thin line as it was, everyone was voting down party lines (and the Democrats had to make a LOT of compromises within their own party just to get what was presented approved, and they still didn't have every Democrat) and Kennedy died and the people from Kennedy's own state voted a Republican into his office, after decades of strong Democratic support, in the middle of this debate about Obama Care. Literally right in the middle.

What was it Nancy Pelosi said about passing the bill to begin with? “We’ll go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, we’ll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in but we're going to get health care reform passed for the America people." Democrats (and not a small amount of Republicans) didn't like Bush's forceful manner when he was in the White House, but somehow the Democrats are seen as the party that will solve all, so it's ok to use force. What hypocrisy!.

Even in the first moments of this political smoke and mirrors game, when a very large percentage of Americans were at the very least uncertain of this bill, she's saying she's going to do it for the American people, and basically in whatever manner it takes. Apparently so many people have forgotten what the democratic process in a republic is supposed to do.

I can't say this enough - one side should never win. Never. (I'm talking about politically within a country - not revolutions, for example) It should take compromises and coalitions, which is made very difficult in the American two-party system which can allow for large swings in one direction or another at times. There was no general compromise leading up to ACA - the only compromise happened within the Democratic part itself.

The process should have prevented something like Obama Care from coming into existence and allowed something that actually reforms the country's healthcare system to take its place, although it would take more time to hammer out something that would work and both sides could agree on. It's one of the reasons I love it when the government can't get anything done - they pass stupidity!! Not because they are stupid, but because they are greedy, ambitious and will do anything to see their names behind some grand piece of legislation that they can twist in whatever fashion they want.

If half the freaking country (or even close) doesn't want something - what possible right does that give the other half to force gigantic measures through with lies, half-truths and sheer backroom dealing of the Chicago type, like happened with Obama's (obviously to a large percentage of us) failed plan?

The ends never justify the means. The means defines the end itself. Only people with no regard for what other people believe in override that basic tenement, and usually do it "for the good of others."

What really, really, really cracks me up is that no one in politics that has any serious power is interested in really fixing things - but the people think they do! They are interested in protecting and augmenting their own power and leaving monuments behind to show off their "greatness". They fool so many people with their promises - and they do it over and over and over and over and over again and the people just keep on taking it. Because it's "us against them."

Nancy Pelosi, one of the biggest instruments in getting Obama Care passed, is nothing but a power monger, like all the others, and her statements should bear that out, but those who are "on her side" don't even really think about what her words mean...obviously she's fighting the "good fight" and that's good enough for them. Forget true fairness, compassion and equality for everyone, that doesn't interest anyone when they want their own agenda pushed on to everyone else.

I know there are things that both sides (regular people) in the States don't like about the existing healthcare system. Pre-existing conditions is a major one. Why not work on ways to figure out how to fix what is actually screwed up instead of planting some massive monument to hubris like the ACA? Obama wants to be seen like F. Roosevelt with his New Deal or Johnson with his Great Society? Good for him - but true greatness doesn't come from doing whatever it takes to hoodwink and large portion of the population. It comes from true vision and idealism.

When will the people of the freaking world stop contributing to the megalomania that pervades those who would rule us?

The R's are not half the country. They're a rapidly declining faction hiding away in their own little "gated communities" as they self-segregate and commit political suicide.

 

[ElQueso]

For about 85% of Americans the system was not wrecked before the ACA was enacted.

This included individuals like me who had low cost catastrophic insurance and could also go to a private neighborhood clinic in Chicago and receive care, paying on a scale based on my income.

And yes, lets fight the matter before it does more harm...and the system is wrecked for everyone...

...except those who are in power or granted "exceptions" (aka special favors) from them,

I don't know about the system not being wrecked.

Part of the problem is the very people who want more and more with their coverage and were thinking that Obama was going to give high-end, all encompassing free or inexpensive care. Although you and I both had catastrophic coverages and used inexpensive clinics for routine stuff, I can remember being a part of those who worked for corporate America and got those benefits. It felt nice going to a doctor and paying $10 to see him and paying another $15 to get prescription medicine.

I remember the time when it changed for me - I was making about $5K a month in the 90s, living in a very nice upper middle-class neighborhood, but with three kids things started to feel cramped. I looked at my paycheck stub one day and thought about how much I was paying for those services. Straight out of my take-home pay was $250. On top of that, the Company was paying $650. That's $900 more dollars that could have gone in my pocket! Ok, when I started looking at catastrophic policies it turned out that it would have only been another $650, but hey - that's a lot of money - to me anyway, in the course of a month or putting into savings!

Part of the problem is the decades-long creeping of fees and services to justify those fees, which don't really pay for the increases services but are much more than they are worth. The feeling more and more often that people have, even middle-class and up people, that it's nice to get something for free without even realizing how much they are paying for what they get for "free".

Until that is fixed, we're going to continue to have more abominations like ACA. And people who believe ACA is going to be in anyway better than the system that currently exists have been hoodwinked.

You're right about those in power and those who are granted exceptions (not like that's the only thing you're right about ) - that's true in so many cases now as the politicians had done some time ago what the doctors have only managed to really accomplish in the last 3-4 decades - they made themselves minor gods long ago. Or perhaps Dukes and Counts and Kings...

 

[ElQueso]

The R's are not half the country. They're a rapidly declining faction hiding away in their own little "gated communities" as they self-segregate and commit political suicide.

Keep believing that at your own peril and the peril of the country nd maybe even a goodly portion of the rest of the world. And ignore the rest of us who are not trying to commit economic suicide as well, while you're at it.

Ah, to believe I have all the answers and would force everyone else to my will without their consent for the "good of all"...

I think my new motto will be "First, do no harm." Think about it, exactly what it means to a doctor and why, not just the words themselves.