Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

[Uno]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

Here is a good paper describing the legal monoply in the USA, similar can be said of medical and financial worlds.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...ract_id=191908

Until Joe The Plumber re-learns what capitalism is, they will continue to vote for these huge integrated corporate monopolies as if they are "capitalism".

and as usual Greenspan see the problems but his solution to creating a "free market" in legal and medical services does not address the underlying structural problems - sound familiar?

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-...r-lawyers.html

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

I think I WOULD be surprised. Because if government can provide health care services better than the free market ...

Travel. Live abroad. I absolutely guarantee….You’d be surprised. You’d be scratching your head and writing home and thinking holy shit, sure am glad I got in a car wreck in Canada and not in the US!

I’m talking epiphany.

There's nothing special about health care...

Absolute codswallop from someone who has never been really sick or seen their parents $ 800,000 wiped out in a year.

[Master Shake]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

British society is disappearing rapidly. Teenage pregnancy, dependency on government spending (outside the South East, the state accounts for more than 60 percent of the economy), the incredible decline in the quality of schools, rampant drug abuse and rapidly increasing crime levels - it portends the end of a great nation.

Take away "British" and it could apply to the US as well.

Also, you left out the demographic nightmare taking place. In Britain, the influx and higher birthrates of Third World Muslims; in the US of Latin American and other Third World Peasantry.

[Scot]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

That's a too easily biased way to assess differences.

If one wished to be serious about comparing different health care systems I would suggest comparing outcomes. How do national statistics such as infant mortality rates and other objective indicators compare between different national populations? That sort of thing.

But is the infant mortality rate, for example, really a function of the health care system?

The healthiest babies in the United States are born to Hispanic parents and the most unhealthy to African-Americans. Are those outcomes the product of the health care system? Doubtful.

And what about the rate of heart disease? Is that a function of the health care system or a function of the walkability of cities or a function of diet?

Americans also tend to suffer from depression less often than Europeans. That's a mental health issue. Does universal health care cause more depression? Unlikely.

There's also the question of just what statistic ought to be minimized or maximized. What's important? With the economic crisis, for example, should health care be directed so that it maximizes GDP or the average length of life. Should the state be in the business at all of directing the allocation of scarce health care resources and implicitly deciding who lives and dies?

The introduction of a mechanical procedure or calculation may create the appearance of objectivity, but the choice of an analytic tool is itself subjective.

[hayekvindicated]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

My Brother dropped down with a Brain hemerage in 1980, the NHS operated on him for 6 hours, they put it right. I had my mum in a few times.........they sorted her.

Service, not bad to be honest.............trouble is this IS the high water mark. We simply can't afford the system we have. Labour confused Service ind with wealth creation..........not the same thing.

Mike

Mike,

There's no shortage of extremely competent people in the NHS. The problem lies in the administration (or lack thereof). Also, that was 1980! A family friend worked for the NHS in the 1960s. He said back then the NHS was probably the best healthcare system on earth. Today that would clearly not be the case.

Some years ago, I was discussing this with an American friend who's father is a radiologist in the US. My friend was living in Europe at the time. He gave me an example of a NHS radiologist who missed a 10 kilo tumour in a patient's gut. In the US, that would have been the end of his career. Here the guy got transferred from one hospital to another and carried on merrily. When my friend read the story in the press he told his father about it. His dad was utterly incredulous at hearing about this incident.

I find this discussion about healthcare systems quite interesting. No one seems to have mentioned Singapore or Japan - those countries have world class healthcare at a fraction of the cost of US healthcare but they don't have socialised medicine.

[hayekvindicated]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

Take away "British" and it could apply to the US as well.

Also, you left out the demographic nightmare taking place. In Britain, the influx and higher birthrates of Third World Muslims; in the US of Latin American and other Third World Peasantry.

Demographically, there are some interesting trends here. Aside from the immigration trend, another trend that no one seems to notice is that even among white Brits, the bulk of population growth is now occurring in that segment of the population which is dependent on government handouts and which suffers from all the signs of societal breakdown that we talk about. In London, for example, it is not uncommon to find welfare mothers with three or four kids living off the state.

Among the well educated middle class Brits, birth rates would be a lot lot lower than the national average. There is also a significant outflow of skilled educated Brits out of the country - to all sorts of places (my friend had a funny saying that the Brits in Hong Kong are more British than the British themselves). The end result is that even without the immigration problem and the ghetto-isation of British cities, there is a huge demographic problem developing. The ghetto-isation and the religious/racial polarisation will make it a whole lot worse.

[Guest]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

Right on, derelict54. You tell it like it is.

Certain things are not better privatized, take Friedman and your Chicago degree and go start talking to our domestic airline captains and ask them what deregulation has done for that industry. ... Oh and contrary to Special Interest Propaganda our system fails in comparison to other countries ... While yes, we are on the cutting edge in certain highly specialized medicine, I believe with a universal plus one system ... maybe we can save a million people from dying in the next 10 years.

[vanvaley1]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

1. Try to open a hospital without joining the MD / Big Pharma / FDA club?

See how long before you are thrown into jail. The "alternative" medicine industry has been making some in roads to this monopoly and I try and take advantage of preventative medicine as much as possible.

2. Try to open a law office without joining the bar?

See how long before you are thrown into jail. A few people have tried to provide "alternative" legal services but I believe they are not making much process.

3. Try to start an alternative financial system, currency market?

See how long before you are shut down. A few people have tried and continue to try. Support them if you consider yourself an American.

I hate the "industrial complex" word but there needs to be some new term for this "corrupt corporatism" - mafia - it is not socialist, not communist, not fascist, and not capitalist. Its not liberal and its not conservative.

I think naming it properly would help people identify it and so change it.

Otherwise you get into the US political labeling war of liberals, conservatives, socialism, blah blah ... and nothing ever changes.

I call the folks running the present system the arsehole class. So...I guess it can be named arseholism?

[hayekvindicated]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

I call the folks running the present system the arsehole class. So...I guess it can be named arseholism?

Medical tourism could dramatically reduce costs once it really takes off.

[labasta]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

I'm with Uno here.

There's nothing free market about the US health system. It's a cash cow.

IMO, the two alternatives of private or socialised medicine is NOT the argument. It's a bogus choice put to you by the government.

It's a bit like the Republicans or Democrats. Who do you choose? The war/petroleum party or the pharmaceutical party? Both of them are the financial party. Wow, what choice.

If Western medicine were based on the free market, then it would cost very little. The trouble is, everyone (industry) jumps on the cash wagon, from pharma boys, lawyers, insurance companies, manufacturers of all descriptions. It's supporting the mortgages of salesmen selling a widget for a widget for a widget of part of a cat scan machine etc. The customer has to pay for all of this.

In a true free private system, the customer would not be able to pay for such an industrial behemoth so it is socialised making it even more of a cash cow for the companies getting the contracts. There's only one customer (the government). Easy money.

Now, what really needs to happen is for the medical industry to get much much smaller and much more efficient. This would naturally happen if it existed in a very open and free market. The med industry would have to lose a lot of money. That's the problem right there.


On a side note, I know the black market goes on in Germany. I was speaking to a neuro surgeon at a golf club near Koeln in 2003. He was very drunk and told me all about the black market in surgery. There is the insurance price and the cash in hand price (about a third as much). He was quoting me examples of different proceddures. He got a few turks in with no insurance but just paid cash in hand.

Think about that: a third of the price just without the behemoth cash cow of the insurance industry, with no other industry leaving the medical INDUSTRY (let's call it what it really is).

Think how much less it would cost again if cheap (non propriety) medical procedures were used that were not solely based on drugs. If electrical and herbal medicine was used in the situations (especially) were these types of medicine are more effective.

Think how much cheaper it would be if the US didn't have "sue-itis" and a corrupt legal system.

That my friends is the problem to solve, not "insurance" or "government" medicine.

That is the REAL reason the democrats want complusory insurance for you. It's not for your benefit. It's all about the money, as it always is.

[cjppjc]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

Demographically, there are some interesting trends here. Aside from the immigration trend, another trend that no one seems to notice is that even among white Brits, the bulk of population growth is now occurring in that segment of the population which is dependent on government handouts and which suffers from all the signs of societal breakdown that we talk about. In London, for example, it is not uncommon to find welfare mothers with three or four kids living off the state.

Among the well educated middle class Brits, birth rates would be a lot lot lower than the national average. There is also a significant outflow of skilled educated Brits out of the country - to all sorts of places (my friend had a funny saying that the Brits in Hong Kong are more British than the British themselves). The end result is that even without the immigration problem and the ghetto-isation of British cities, there is a huge demographic problem developing. The ghetto-isation and the religious/racial polarisation will make it a whole lot worse.

I don't know if this has been discussed on other boards. I believe the reason for most of the immagration is to continue the Ponzi scheme. Keep the pyramid base large. The fact that the bottom of the base is not contributing up the pyramid is. Wellll...... Just another problem our fearless leaders can let the next generation deal with.

I cry for the future

[Master Shake]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

Demographically, there are some interesting trends here. Aside from the immigration trend, another trend that no one seems to notice is that even among white Brits, the bulk of population growth is now occurring in that segment of the population which is dependent on government handouts and which suffers from all the signs of societal breakdown that we talk about. In London, for example, it is not uncommon to find welfare mothers with three or four kids living off the state.

Among the well educated middle class Brits, birth rates would be a lot lot lower than the national average. There is also a significant outflow of skilled educated Brits out of the country - to all sorts of places (my friend had a funny saying that the Brits in Hong Kong are more British than the British themselves). The end result is that even without the immigration problem and the ghetto-isation of British cities, there is a huge demographic problem developing. The ghetto-isation and the religious/racial polarisation will make it a whole lot worse.

You should rent the movie Idiocracy. It's pretty funny, but more than a little unsettling because you can almost see it happening before your eyes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

[sunskyfan]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

If I were an alien and looked at the way we set priorities I would have to chuckle at a species that thinks that a metric that measures the value of bubble gum or a porn magazine could somehow also measure the value of a heart transplant or a vacination. People, we are going to have to start thinking bigger and smarter as we design Civilization 2.0 than we are now if we are going to survive and prosper.

[labasta]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

You should rent the movie Idiocracy. It's pretty funny, but more than a little unsettling because you can almost see it happening before your eyes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

Quite.

It can be scarier than a regular horror flick when seen in that mind. You actually can see it happening around you.

I think there would be a reset of civilization before we got that far down the line though.

It's funny that my grandparents generation (and definitely the one before them) had a lot of kids, as a few children (or the mothers) died at child birth. Everyone had a load of kids. Now, it seems to be only a certain social class (don't want to sound too politically incorrect here).


Reminds me of something similar someone told me about how there should be much fewer physically brave people (especially men) around these days as most of them would have been wiped out in WW1 (and a few in WW2) before they could reproduce.

It seems to link in to what an old fella said to me after coming home from WW2 (he was a British commando which had a ridiculously high casualty rate). He said that he joined the police force after the war, but found out that the current policemen were all corrupt as only the "dregs" of society were running the police force during the war. It was nothing like what it was before.

I sometimes wonder if this could be a cause of a weakening of civilization. I like to call it the "weasel effect".

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

Not long ago I found a bill my grandfather paid for an in-patient surgery in the late 1940s. He spent two days in the hospital and had no insurance. Total bill? $25.

Maybe because we had universal healthcare back then?

I have no idea what you're talking about. There was never a universal healthcare system in the U.S. My grandfather did not have health insurance; he just paid the bill himself.

Don't ever bring this argument to this forum again.

Um, who appointed you the authority on who is allowed to bring up which arguments?

Maybe if you addressed my argument I wouldn't need to bring it up again. Let me restate it again: what makes health care different than food, shelter, clothing, or any other service that people need to buy?

You stated: "Yes I believe in free markets, but within a neighborhood, maybe a country, but not the world over."

OK we have both health care providers and food providers in our country. Why should health care be socialized and food not?

Food is grown by people who evaluate the market's demands, learn the skills required to grow food, invest in buying raw materials, do work, bring the resulting product to market to sell to interested customers who choose among various alternatives to find the option that best suits their needs. Providers must compete to attract customers, yielding a whole range of options - cheap basic quality all the way up to luxury quality. For those who can't afford food, government provides vouchers (food stamps) so they can go into the private marketplace and buy food. Government doesn't set up farms and supermarkets to produce food for those who can't afford it.

Medical care is provided by people who evaluate the market's demands, learn the skills required to heal people, invest in getting a medical education or in medical technology development, do work, and provide the resulting services and goods to sell to customers who need the service.

But because health care is something we only need occasionally instead of every day like food, we pay insurance - a set amount periodically - to cover the cost when we need it. Various insurers compete to sell us this coverage so we can choose the option we like best.

I can't see any logical difference between health care and food production or shelter or clothing production or anything else except national defense and a couple other governmental functions like law and road right-of-ways that involve things that can't be handled on an individual manner.

So rather than arguing about how some people don't have insurance and thus die - which may make a case for government providing health care vouchers in the way they provide food stamps, to be spent in the health care free market - could you explain to me exactly how health care is different than all the other things we agree work best in a free market?



In response to your comment about airline pilots not liking deregulation: I'm not familiar with that industry or the issues related to regulation/deregulation so I can't comment in an informed way on it. But off the top of my head it would not surprise me if people who worked in an industry who were protected from the discipline of the free market would find it less desireable to compete. I'm guessing it's pretty comfortable having government keep the prices of your service artificially high.