What if Michael Moore had not made "Sicko"?

[JoeTheJuggler]

"The French government's decision to tie medical care to legal status has cut off about 400,000 illegal immigrants from access to treatment." August 4, 2005

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/197745/france_illegal_immigrants_lose_health_care_under_new_law/

How did M&M miss this tidbit?

This has nothing to do with the point I was making in the part of my post you quoted.

 

[dann]

No, actually I was thinking of the accounts in this:
http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

And I can add a few more:
http://www.finlay-online.com/tomasromay/darsi7.htm "Cuban Doctor Pays A High Price for Truth"
http://www.netforcuba.org/english/InfoCuba-EN/HealthCare/MedicalApartheid.htm
http://www.nowpublic.com/ouch_visiting_cuban_hospital "Ouch!!!! Visiting a Cuban Hospital"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25_RgM1jHeo "Cuba Healthcare, the Hospitals Michael Moore won't show 1"

Yes, a lot of alleged anecdotal evidence.

No, I'm saying that you don't seem to understand that the difference in infant mortality rate depends on what Cuba defines as a stillbirth compared to what the US defines as a stillbirth.

And what I’m asking you is: Are you trying to imply that the infant mortality rate of Cuba isn’t low?

I'm looking forward to that.

Good, I'm glad we have that established.

That Cuba, in spite of the US blockade is doing much better than most third-world countries? Anytime! (Your quotation technique is still excellent!)

ROTFLOL! You do have the rhetoric down, don't you.

You are not familiar with the concepts of colonialism and imperialism? How come I’m not surprised …

Let's look at Japan and Germany. These were countries whose infrastructure and economies were thoroughly destroyed in WW2, along with tens of millions of dead. They didn't become the economic powerhouses they are today by emulating the type of system that Castro forced on Cuba. Or look at Israel. Here's a country that started out as nothing but desert shortly after WW2. And today it's per capita GDP is three times that of Cuba. Economic systems like Cuba's have consequences.

Yes, one consequence is that they don’t receive anything similar to the Marshall help given to the countries that the USA wanted to use in its (successful) fight against the other superpower after WW2. On the contrary: Even after the enemy, the Soviet Union, gave up and adopted capitalism, Cuba is still exposed to the US blockade, terrorism planned on US soil etc.

You are not a liberal? Really? How would you describe yourself then?

I just did! Are you blind?

No, I'm saying you don't seem to appreciate that infant mortality is measured differently in the US and Cuba. Hence, claims that Cuba's infant mortality is less than the US' are bogus.

And what I’m asking you is: Are you trying to imply that the infant mortality rate of Cuba isn’t low?

Actually, I've posted quite a bit of useful information on the actual health care situation in Cuba but you've chosen to ignore it. So I thought that pointing out how few Cubans are happy with their personal freedom might have more impact on you. Apparently not.

It has a lot of impact on me, but maybe you are not familiar with the theme of this thread …
The ”useful information” so far consists mainly of anecdotal evidence and a total disregard of actual studies.

As for your gallup poll that indicates Cuban's are happy with their health care system, I can't help but wonder if there was a minder present during those 1000 in-person interviews on which the poll was based? Afterall, Human Rights Watch says that doctors are monitored by "minders" and minders do seem to show up when foreigners are present. Pollsters admit that the Cuban's fear the government and worry about monitors. For example,

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8009114/Another-“Special-Period”-in-Cuba-How-Citizens-View-Their

Why is it suddenly ”my” gallup poll? I thought that it was Wikipedia’s …
Two things in your link are certainly true:
1) That Cubans fear ”another ”Special Period” of economic hardship, following two hurricanes in 2008 that increased food shortages and intensified their struggle to survive.”
2) ”most Cubans want more money and a better economic situation; they are not thinking about freedom.”
Talking to ordinary Cubans my impression is the same: They’re complaining about their wages. For the same reason they would like to go to Canada or Europe. But they usually add something along the lines of: ’But if the Americans ever come here, I’ll grab a gun and fight them.’

And note this from the above survey's methodology section:

So what was the methodology in selecting the 1000 people to interview in the survey you cited? How many other people refused to be interviewed and perhaps they refused because they feared government reprisal if they showed their discontent? How many didn't trust people claiming to be "pollsters"? That might skew the results, wouldn't it?

Just to show you how difficult it is to conduct reliable polls in Cuba given it's totalitarian government, look at what this organization had to do in conducting their polls:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-11-18-cubapoll_N.htm

So did the gallup organization do something similar? Apparently not. This is from the above link:

Well well ... what do you know.

Furthermore, the interviews in your gallup poll were only conducted with people in the two largest cities. They did not interview in rural areas. Wonder if that might skew the results? After all, a quarter of the population lives in rural areas and as we know from other communist countries, there is often a big difference in the quality of medical services offered urban (especially people living in the nation's Capital) and rural areas. I wonder if the rural population is as enamored with the health care system? If not, then that might dramatically shift the results of the gallup survey. Right?

I think that a Gallup poll of urban areas of Latin America would have been skewered if it had chosen to focus instead on rural areas when in Cuba.
”CID-Gallup president Carlos Denton said interviewers did not request government permission to carry out the poll and that Cuban officials did not interfere with their work. As a precaution, however, the survey teams sent out their results every night over the internet and burned the individual questionnaires.”

Now why would you engage in a untrue and personal attack like that? Of course I'm saddened that life is going to get even harder for Cuba's citizens. But then perhaps that's the result of living under communism ... and note that your article says Cuba's dictatorship has no plans to change that.

Well, you obviously enjoy being able to report hardships for the Cubans, including smilies – and no wonder, since even the devastating effects of natural disasters like hurricanes – in spite of Cuba’s excellent way of dealing with those – are reinterpreted by you as ”the result of living under communism”.

Here, some more information for our readers:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA557_Cuban_Health_Care.html

And by all means, I hope readers will read the entire link.

Yes, they really ought to read the entire link from Ryan Balis from the conservative think tank National Center for Public Policy Research. It’s such a credible source!

 

[Cicero]

This is a misrepresentation ! Have you read the article at all ?
It should be

"The French government's decision to tie FREE medical care to legal status has cut off about 400,000 illegal immigrants from access to FREE treatment."

Nobody is denied medical care and treatment in France, no matter how poor they are. But the people that do not pay taxes in order to support the system have now been excluded for enjoying the systeem of FREE healthcare.

But do tell, how much chance does an illegal, homeless immigrant with almost no income has in the US of getting a health care insurance ?

Nobody is denied emergency medical care in the U.S. including illegal aliens. But if France's free medical care is reserved for taxpayers, how do the non-tax payers, people with out any source of income, get medical attention? Do these people have to wash hospital dishes before being given treatment?

 

[Almo]

You're perfectly clear; you desperately want to avoid discussing the perfectly relevant fact that a documentary about UHC was made by an obese man with looming health problems.

I don't think it's relevant. He's RICH and will have no problem securing healthcare.

 

[firecoins]

Sicko and Michae Moore are irrelevant.

 

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
They are dying in UHC paradises. Even faster than here. Is that not a fact?

Well if you'd like to point to a "UHC paradise" we can see if the statistic show that or not.

OK. Let's look at the UK (Rolfe insists that's a UHC paradise) and look at cancer survival rates (those have to do with living longer).

The following (from http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2007/10/closer-look-at-cancer-survival-rates.html ) is the 5 year survival rate for all types of cancer in the US and various UHC countries:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5aAsxFJOe...k/s1600-h/five-year-cancer-survival-rates.JPG

The rate in the US for women is 62.9% and for men it's 66.3%.

The rate in the UK for women is 52.7% and for men it's 44.8%.

In other words, cancer victims on average live longer in the US than in the UK.

Here's another source that's been posted before. According to the 2007 Lancet Oncology study

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1230/72/32239/why-government-health-insurance-good-only-some.html

Cancer treatment and survival statistics for sixteen different types of cancers in Europe and the United States shows:
- The United States leads the world in treating breast and prostate cancers.
- Women with breast cancer have a 14% higher survival rate in the United States than in Europe.
- Men with prostate cancer have a 28% higher survival rate in the USA than in Europe
- Men in the United States have a 66% five-year survival for sixteen types of cancer, but in Europe it is only 47% five-year survival.
- American women have a 63% chance of living five years after a cancer diagnoses, compared to 56% for European women.
- There is a 90% survival rate in the USA for five cancers – breast, prostate, thyroid, testicular and melanoma. In Europe, only ONE, testicular cancer, has a 90% survival rate.

As you can see, the UK survival rates are even less than the median European survival rates ... and the European rates are significantly less than US rates.

Here's another source that confirms that:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_cost_of_free_government_he_1.html

The CONCORD study published in 2008 found that the five-year survival rate for cancer (adjusted for other causes of death) is much higher in the United States than in Europe (e.g., 91.9% vs. 57.1% for prostate cancer, 83.9% vs. 73% for breast cancer, 60.1% vs. 46.8% for men with colon cancer, and 60.1 vs. 48.4% for women with colon cancer). The United Kingdom, which has had government-run health care since 1948, has survival rates lower than those for Europe as a whole.

Let's look at 10 year survival rates. Here's the latest for prostate cancer in the US:

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/c...the_key_statistics_for_prostate_cancer_36.asp

According to the most recent data, for all men with prostate cancer, the relative 5-year survival rate is nearly 100% and the relative 10-year survival rate is 91%. The 15-year relative survival rate is 76%. Keep in mind that 5-year survival rates are based on patients diagnosed and first treated more than 5 years ago, and 10-year survival rates are based on patients diagnosed more than 10 years ago.

Here's the British data: http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/prostate/survival/ . Their 10 year survival rate for patients diagnosed 10 years ago (1999) is no more than 55% (because that's what they say it was for a 2000 diagnosis).

91% for the US compared to 55% for the UK. As you can see, the US's rate is significantly higher ... where prostate cancer is concerned.

How about the 10 year rates for other types of cancer?

According to this from 2007: http://www.pharmacyeurope.net/defau...e=UKcancersurvivalratedoubles&article.id=3274

10-year survival rate for all types of cancer has hit 46.2% in England and Wales.

Now compare that to the US. This source (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12387961 ) says

The 1973-98 database of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) programme of the US National Cancer Institute was analysed by period analysis. FINDINGS: Estimates of 5-year, 10-year, 15-year, and 20-year relative survival rates for all types of cancer were 63%, 57%, 53%, and 51%, respectively, by period analysis.

In other words, the 10 year survival rate for cancer in the US was already 10 percentage points higher than the current rate in the UK, 10 years ago. The current 10 year US survival rate is even higher. In fact, the 20 year US survival rate for all types of cancer was higher in the US 10 years ago than it currently is in the UK, despite their claims of improvement.

Are you convinced now? You should be.

 

[BeAChooser]

Apparently Cubans longevity bothers you

No, but the way they got to that longevity does. I guess loss of freedoms doesn't bother YOU.

Truth it, you really do want to avoid facing the fact that non-health system related factors can influence life expectancy and that might be the ONLY reason that Cuba's life expectancy isn't near the bottom of the list right now. As recent scientific studies have discovered, a low calorie diet (like Cuba's) could add a decade to a life compared to a high calorie diet (like in the US). Perhaps the reason Cuban and US life expectancy is only a year or two apart is due to the US health system keeping people alive despite the much higher rate of obesity in the US.

I consider it a spectacular success that Cubans in the Special Period were able to turn around agriculture in order to feed themselves!

But they don't feed themselves. As wikipedia pointed out, Cuban agriculture STILL only produces 20 percent of the food they eat and 30% of the calories they consume, despite *employing* 20 percent (other sources say it's more) of the labor force. I don't call that a success at all.

Look at Israel. Surrounded by enemies. Hated and boycotted by at least half the world's population. Living in a desert as opposed to the tropical paradise of Cuba. Yet, Israel manages to produce about 70 percent of the food it consumes, and still exports 20 percent of what it produces (http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+Abo...+Israel-+Israel-s+Agriculture+in+the+21st.htm ). And they manage to do this despite being hit by thousands of terrorist attacks each year.

By the way, do you include illegal migrant farm workers from Mexico or other Latin American countries in the 2% of the population generating 8% of the GDP?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5250150

March 7, 2006

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has grown to nearly 12 million, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center. Pew says that illegal immigrants make up nearly five percent of the labor force. About 20 percent of that population works in construction, and four percent is employed in agriculture.

Four percent of 12 million means about half a million (including women and children) are employed in agriculture. About two percent of US population works in agriculture. With a population of 300 million, that's 6 million. So less than 10 percent of farm labor in the US is made up of illegal immigrants. Don't think you actually proved anything.

Sounds like a huge success, something to be really proud of!

Yes, it is a huge success. And even the illegal migrants benefit. Which is why they flock here by the millions. And we even provide them free health care. Does Denmark do the same for their illegals?

 

[BeAChooser]

Yes, a lot of alleged anecdotal evidence.

Quote:
No, I'm saying that you don't seem to understand that the difference in infant mortality rate depends on what Cuba defines as a stillbirth compared to what the US defines as a stillbirth.

And what I’m asking you is: Are you trying to imply that the infant mortality rate of Cuba isn’t low?

Not as low at the US' rate, if "stillborn" were given the same definition when determining both rates.

Good, I'm glad we have that established.

That Cuba, in spite of the US blockade is doing much better than most third-world countries?

I think what I wrote was perfectly clear as to what I was saying we had established. Don't try to put words in my mouth.

Cuba's system has resulted in a per capita GDP that is a fraction of that in countries that aren't communist and that were in even worse shape than Cuba about the time Castro took over. Cuba's communist regime has squandered the opportunity for Cuba to be more than what it now is, thanks to the communist party's *guidance*. When you say Cuba is doing much better than most third world countries, which countries are you referring to? Let's see if you are really comparing apples to apples? Are they ones with the type of economic and political system we have or are they also communist/socialist controlled dictatorships? Are they ones with comparable land area and resources to Cuba? Are they ones racked by HIV and internecine warfare? Are they ones struggling against with drug cartels?

In fact, I was incorrect earlier when I listed Cuba's per capita GDP as $9500. It's not. This source (http://www.worldfactsandfigures.com/gdp_country_desc.php ) indicates it was $2800 in 2004 ... 155th place in the world. Here's a book from 2006 (http://books.google.com/books?id=H-...esult&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=&f=false ) that lists the per capita GDP of various Latin American countries. It states Cuba's per capita GDP is $2600 and indicates only Honduras' is lower ... at $2500. This source (http://www.nationmaster.com/country/cu-cuba ) lists the per capita GDP as $2863.

According to http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article14619 , in 1950 (before Castro took over) Cuba's per capita GDP was 7th highest amongst the 47 countries that made up Latin America and the Carribean. The source indicates that Cuba is now the third poorest country in Latin America and only Nicaragua (also communist controlled) and Haiti rank lower. In just two generations under Fidel, Cuba fell from being one of the more prosperous to one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Here's another source for the above study: http://rrp.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/37/3/311?ck=nck .

Here's another source that agrees with the above conclusion: http://www.lanuevacuba.com/archivo/bert-corzo-1eng.htm . It notes that in 1958 (the year before Castro came to power) the per capita GDP of Cuba was $356, in comparison to Chile ($360), Costa Rica ($230), Spain ($180) and Mexico ($284). Forty years later ... in 2000, Cuba's per capita GDP is listed as $1,700 compared to Chile ($10,100), Costa Rica ($6,700), Spain ($18,000) and Mexico ($9,100).

Here's still another source on this topic:

http://www.newsmax.com/international/fidel_castro/2008/03/27/83428.html

In 1957, Cuba’s real income per capita (national income divided by population) was $378, or fourth in Latin America, according to Eric Baklanoff, a research professor emeritus at the University of Alabama. Today, Cuba ranks as the fifth-poorest country in Latin America measured by purchasing-power-parity (PPP) per capita GDP, according to an analysis of CIA and IMF data for 2007.

... snip ...

Cuba’s high rate of 24 cars per 1,000 inhabitants in 1958 continued at the very same level through 1998, while Japan in the same period went from four to 251 per 1,000, according to Jose Azel, director of the Cuba Business Roundtable at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.

... snip ...

In 1959, Cuba ranked third in Latin America in telephones per capita, according to British historian Hugh Thomas. Today, Cuba ranks sixth from the bottom, according to an analysis of 2006 data from the International Telecommunications Union.

In short, Cuba is an economic basket case of Castro's making. One can only wonder what Cuba would now have achieved had it not been for Castro and the communist policies his *revolution* brought into being. As http://www.lanuevacuba.com/archivo/bert-corzo-1eng.htm notes "it would be reasonable to assume that between 1958 and 2000, Cuba’s economy should have growth along the same parameters of the countries included in this study. This economic growth would have happened under any type of government, except under Castro’s tyrannical regime. The difference among the results shown here and those of Castro’s tyranny can be attributed to the catastrophic results of it over the Cuban economy."

You are not familiar with the concepts of colonialism and imperialism? How come I’m not surprised …

You and William Ayres.

Yes, one consequence is that they don’t receive anything similar to the Marshall help given to the countries that the USA wanted to use in its (successful) fight against the other superpower after WW2.

Cry me a river. If you insist on being friends with communist dictatorships that are inimical to our way of life and very existence (remember that "we will bury you"?), you can expect to pay a price even if that price is not getting the same helping hand from America that democracies like post-WW2 Germany, Japan and Israel enjoyed and still enjoy. And you would be a fool to think that help is the only thing that played a roll in turning those countries from nothing into economic powerhouses over the same period that Cuba became one of the poorest.

Quote:
You are not a liberal? Really? How would you describe yourself then?

I just did! Are you blind?

No, I think the description you've given is that of a communist. Right?

Why is it suddenly ”my” gallup poll?

You're the one who introduced it to this thread. Man up. And that would include actually addressing the issues I raised, rather than just ignoring them and re-spewing communist propaganda.

But they usually add something along the lines of: ’But if the Americans ever come here, I’ll grab a gun and fight them.’

Which of course explains why between 1960 and 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled Cuba for the US. Which explains why during the 1980s, another 100,000 fled the country for the US risking the hazards of the open ocean on small boats to do it. Which explains why Cubans continue to arrive in the US on small boats of all kinds with little more than the shirts on their backs. Because life under the Castro brothers is so wonderful ...

I think that a Gallup poll of urban areas of Latin America would have been skewered if it had chosen to focus instead on rural areas when in Cuba.

I wasn't suggesting that. Just that the rural areas be properly represented in the poll. And since the rural areas have 25% of the population, 25% percent of those polled should have come from rural areas. Then if rural areas are more negative about Cuba's medical services (as I suspect they have reason to be), that 25% would have significantly affected the results of the poll.

You also ignored my questions. What was the methodology in selecting the 1000 people to interview in the survey? How many people refused to be interviewed and couldn't their refusal be due to fear of government reprisal if they showed their discontent? How many didn't trust people claiming to be "pollsters" and responded as if they were government watchdogs? How do you explain that the Gallop poll reported only 39% of Cubans disapproved of Cuba's leadership, but an IRI poll that just picked folks at random on the street throughout most of the country and surreptitiously interviewed them found that 79% disapproved of Cuba's leadership? Don't ignore these questions ... answer them.

Well, you obviously enjoy being able to report hardships for the Cubans, including smilies

No, I don't. But they are a fact of life. And smilies have nothing to do with their situation, but with yours during this debate.

Yes, they really ought to read the entire link from Ryan Balis from the conservative think tank National Center for Public Policy Research. It’s such a credible source!

What specifically in that article are you claiming is a lie? The part I quoted about the letter from 18 exiled cuban doctors? Are you claiming that the National Center for Public Policy Research made that up out of whole cloth?

 

[Rolfe]

I wonder if we should request a split thread for the Cuba discussion. It's not completely off topic to the film, but right now it seems to have taken over way beyond its importance. For example, the main point of that sequence was the allegation that some people who were injured in the rescue and cleanup efforts at the Twin Towers were finding it difficult to access healthcare, while at the same time the US authorities boast about the great healthcare the terrorist prisoners are getting in Camp Delta.

We seem to have completely lost sight of this issue.

Rolfe.

 

[Matthew Best]

Pretty convincing statistics about what an "economic basket case" Cuba is.

Which makes their achievement in supplying health care so successfully all the more impressive!

 

[Rolfe]

That's round about where I'd got to, and I think probably about what Moore was getting at - to certain definitions of "so successfully".

As I said, I recall watching a documentary about Cuban healthcare which had nothing to do with Moore and nothing to do with comparisons with any other country. The entire point was how much they were managing to achieve with so very little - not that any of us would actually want to be relying on it. I remember a lot was to do with the primary care provision, something about a doctor in every street (maybe I'm wrong) and a lot of improvisation.

Coincidentally, while I was posting on the thread a couple of days ago, an item came on TV about Cuban agriculture (or possibly horticulture, it seemed to be market gardens). The point was made that Cuba was left stranded after the fall of the USSR with no imported food and an enormous acreage dedicated to sugar canes. So they junked the sugar canes and started growing staple vegetables and so on. I remember a clip of people cutting cabbages growing in bright red earth. The conclusion was that these methods wouldn't work for us because they were very labour-intensive, but if you absolutely had to live off your own land it showed what you could do.

Moore seems to have miscalculated with his Cuban sequence, not because he was blatantly dishonest in my opinion (though I don't know how much the Cuban doctors tried to over-state the capabilities of their system), but because it seems to allow every discussion of the film to be hijacked by a bunch of people hell-bent on doing nothing but show that Cuba is an economic basket case. Which nobody is seriously disputing.

Maybe somebody should have told George Alagiah that he shouldn't have featured Cuba on The Future of Food because it proves he is a dishonest propagandist and negates and invalidates everything else he said in the hour-long programme.

Is it right that the USA should provide terrorists with free, high-quality healthcare, while their own citizens can't access similar?

Rolfe.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Here's another reason we need some pretty drastic health insurance regulations.

This supplemental memo (pdf) summarizing the findings of the House committee's investigation of rescission reads about like a transcript of Sicko.

It's deplorable that people can dutifully pay their premiums for years, even decades, and then basically be cancelled when they get seriously (expensively) sick.

 

[Rolfe]

That Congressional hearing made the main news here in Britain, just before the whole Obamacare story started. I remember seeing several items about it, including film of the three executives just saying "no" when asked if they would stop recissons except in cases of deliberate misrepresentation.

I wasn't quite clear on the provenance, and when I brought it up in other threads, my recollection was challenged and many of the right-wing posters seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. However, what I saw on the BBC was factual reporting of exactly that hearing in June.

I remember more details about the woman with breast cancer who was denied coverage. I don't think it was quite as reported in the article. She was interviewed by the BBC and said (between sobs) that when the insurance company got her medical records they found that her dermatologist had pencilled ?pre-cancerous? in his initial notes on her skin complaint. In fact the skin complaint turned out to be nothing more than acne. However, the insurance company declared that because of that pencilled query, she was not covered for the pre-existing condition of cancer.

It was a factual news interview, but she was crying on camera, very upset, and it was just about as emotional as anything on Sicko. I simply can't see why Moore is being castigated for showing people upset when that's the simple fact of their situation.

They also interviewed the sister of the man who died of lymphosarcoma after treatment was denied because unrelated items were found in his medical notes that he hadn't disclosed on his initial application - because he didn't know about them. She was crying too, and said that it was acknowledged by all parties that her brother didn't know about the gall stones or the aneurism (which his doctor had just noted to keep a watching brief on) and that they had nothing at all to do with the lymphosarcoma, but the insurance company still refused to fund his care.

As I watched Sicko not long after seeing that news coverage, I was conflating some of the stories. In fact the congressional hearing ones are even more shocking than Moore's, and there were just as many tears on camera.

Rolfe.

 

[Cicero]

How do the unemployed/non-tax paying souls get health care in France if they are required to pay out of pocket for it?

 

[Rolfe]

It's deplorable that people can dutifully pay their premiums for years, even decades, and then basically be cancelled when they get seriously (expensively) sick.

This is why I like the British system. I pay in when I'm earning well, which is probably when I don't need it so much. But then when I do need it, maybe when I'm too sick to be earning so well, it's there for me.

I think this is something some US posters don't consider when they rail against the idea of "paying for someone else's care". They are taking a vertical view of the situation - that right now they're well and paying in, and somebody else is sick and taking out. However, a horizontal view is probably a better way of looking at it.

The NHS looked after my mother when I was in utero. The NHS delivered me. The NHS gave me vitamins and baby milk and two doses of the first Salk polio vaccine. It strapped up my sprained ankles and supported my fallen arches and filled the cavities in my baby teeth. It even gave me UV radiation treatment and antibiotics for my teenage acne. During that time I contributed a pittance. How much tax do you pay on a handful of pocket money?

Then I grew up and I got a lot of education (and the state paid for that too, and my board and lodging while I got two degrees but that's not on-topic), and in the end the investment paid off and I started earning money. I went on earning money when I became a partner in my own business. And I paid taxes. Funnily enough, during this time I didn't take much out of the system at all. A week in hospital with pneumonia, though.

At this point, I could shout and swear about paying for other people's healthcare. But to do so would be to ignore everything that was spent on me when I was a child. And also to ignore what was then being spent on my elderly parents, and is still being spent on my mother. If it wasn't for the NHS, I'd be way out of pocket trying to keep her in eye operations and pelvic floor surgery and her regular medication.

And seeing how much healthcare many of my elderly relatives are consuming (joint replacements, diabetes control, cancer surgery, the list is endless), also concentrates the mind. These things haven't all happened once they'd passed 65 either.

Maybe I've paid off my childhood care by now. Maybe I'm putting money into the bank for later, to save myself being a burden to younger family members when I need these things.

The insurance system is monstrously unjust in that policy-holders can pay in for decades when they don't need it, then be cut off without a penny if they lose coverage (say because they change jobs) the day before they get something expensive.

I can't understand the ideology that rejects the benefits of all this for what seems to me to be no more than political posturing.

Rolfe.

 

[Cicero]

This is why I like the British system. I pay in when I'm earning well, which is probably when I don't need it so much. But then when I do need it, maybe when I'm too sick to be earning so well, it's there for me.

I think this is something some US posters don't consider when they rail against the idea of "paying for someone else's care". They are taking a vertical view of the situation - that right now they're well and paying in, and somebody else is sick and taking out. However, a horizontal view is probably a better way of looking at it.

The NHS looked after my mother when I was in utero. The NHS delivered me. The NHS gave me vitamins and baby milk and two doses of the first Salk polio vaccine. It strapped up my sprained ankles and supported my fallen arches and filled the cavities in my baby teeth. It even gave me UV radiation treatment and antibiotics for my teenage acne. During that time I contributed a pittance. How much tax do you pay on a handful of pocket money?

Then I grew up and I got a lot of education (and the state paid for that too, and my board and lodging while I got two degrees but that's not on-topic), and in the end the investment paid off and I started earning money. I went on earning money when I became a partner in my own business. And I paid taxes. Funnily enough, during this time I didn't take much out of the system at all. A week in hospital with pneumonia, though.

At this point, I could shout and swear about paying for other people's healthcare. But to do so would be to ignore everything that was spent on me when I was a child. And also to ignore what was then being spent on my elderly parents, and is still being spent on my mother. If it wasn't for the NHS, I'd be way out of pocket trying to keep her in eye operations and pelvic floor surgery and her regular medication.

And seeing how much healthcare many of my elderly relatives are consuming (joint replacements, diabetes control, cancer surgery, the list is endless), also concentrates the mind. These things haven't all happened once they'd passed 65 either.

Maybe I've paid off my childhood care by now. Maybe I'm putting money into the bank for later, to save myself being a burden to younger family members when I need these things.

The insurance system is monstrously unjust in that policy-holders can pay in for decades when they don't need it, then be cut off without a penny if they lose coverage (say because they change jobs) the day before they get something expensive.

I can't understand the ideology that rejects the benefits of all this for what seems to me to be no more than political posturing.

Rolfe.

The U.S. had a tradition of being a tough country to survive on your own. FDR changed that some what with Social Security. But the basic philosophy of not wanting, needing, a government safety net from cradle to grave isn't necessarily "political posturing," rather it is the essence of the American rugged individualism spirit. Many would prefer to not join the ranks of other countries that have abandoned this principle.

 

[Rolfe]

I can't understand the ideology that rejects the benefits of all this for what seems to me to be no more than political posturing.

The U.S. had a tradition of being a tough country to survive on your own. FDR changed that some what with Social Security. But the basic philosophy of not wanting, needing, a government safety net from cradle to grave isn't necessarily "political posturing," rather it is the essence of the American rugged individualism spirit. Many would prefer to not join the ranks of other countries that have abandoned this principle.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Such ideology would be fine if it worked. However, Sicko presented a lot of people for whom it wasn't working. Not because they hadn't tried to survive on their own, but because the deck was stacked against them. The congressional hearing on recission presented a lot more where they came from.

I don't believe the USA in the past was a hard, uncaring, tough, rugged, individualistic society. I believe it was particularly good at helping each other out. At everyone pitching in to help those who'd ended up on the wrong end of the stacked deck.

This was more practical 200 years ago. Needs were less, partly because less was available. Nobody needs to find the wherewithall to fund an MRI scan when MRI scans haven't been invented.

Cicero, can you pay for the care of everyone who needs care nowadays? Of course you can't. Would you rather see them suffer and die without care, or have an organised system to make sure they get it?

Rolfe.

 

[Cicero]

Rolfe.

What does an "oldroll" smiley indicate?

 

[Policenaut]

And then you all pay for it anyway, but through the nose. Hmm, that sounds just great.

I'm not saying it's great. It's just the way it is. It is my understanding that nothing is mentioned about illegal immigrants getting health care in any of the bills. I do remember hearing that an amendment to one of the bills saying plainly that illegal immigrants should be excluded was voted down though. So it seems vague as to if illegal immigrants would be covered in whatever constitutes the final bill.