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

[Mn_Mark]

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.

Nice snark. However it doesn't answer the question: why should health care be handled any differently than any other essential good which we agree is produced best by a free market?

By choosing bubble gum and porn as your examples you seem to suggest that only inconsequential things should be left to the free market. But my question is why do we agree that other things even more crucial than health care - such as food, shelter, and clothing - are things we want the free market to produce but not health care? After all we saw what the Soviets got and the Cubans get in the way of food, shelter, and clothing in their "universal care" systems. And we agree we don't want that. But somehow health care - just another desired service provided by some people to some other people - is something that needs to be handled in some sort of socialist manner? Why? Your porn example does nothing to address that.

(As an aside I am reminded of something an immigrant woman friend of mine from Russia told me about when she first came to this country in the late 1980s. She said she went into one of our supermarkets here for the first time and stopped in her tracks and began to cry because there was so incredibly much food and so much to choose from, and she realized what kind of penury she had lived under her whole life up to then.)

[Serge_Tomiko]

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

Good point MN_Mark. What is worse about the health care debate is the average lifespan in the west really hasn't increased that much since the industrialization of agriculture and the invention of antibiotics. We spend a fortune to prolong the life of the few.

[GRG55]

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

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.

We have become conditioned to accept "health care" as equivalent to illness treatment...hospitals, invasive surgery, pharmaceuticals, "beating" cancer [or fill in your favourite disease], and so forth. In the healthiest societies this stuff should be the smallest part of the health care system.

Maybe people in the USA suffer less from depression because as a population they can afford to consume more happy pills than anyone else?

btw: I am not arguing for or against any particular method of paying for health care [public or private insurance systems], but how we should measure the effectiveness of whatever health care system we might have, or want. 60 Miinutes style docu-entertainment stuff doesn't cut it.

[llanlad2]

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

As a Brit who lived abroad for many years before returning 5 years ago I believe rumours of the UKs demise are greatly exaggerated.
Sure, economically we are down the toilet but hopefully financialism is dead and this will lead us to being productive again.
As for British society - it is not falling apart at the seams just yet, unless you want to believe every story you read in the press. A few teenagers have kids because they can't think of anything better to do- and it's the end of society. Youths get drunk and fight! Shock! Teenagers take drugs! Horror!
As for schooling, my kids actually go to the same state school I went to and the education, pastoral care, teaching and facilities are definitely better than when I was there in the 80s. Hospitals have improved after massive underinvestment in the 80s and would be better if the doctors' union/lobby weren't so powerful-they practically write their own contracts and as pointed out are impossible to sack.
Ultimately if people look at Britain and see the end of civilisation I suggest they go see some other parts of the world for a real education into what this may look like.
Despite what Jim Rogers says I reckon a multi-party, democratic (if slightly corrupt) country will do better than any one-party state in the long run. After all, great investor though he is, he recommended investing in Zimbabwe a few years back!

[Mn_Mark]

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

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.

Um, rather than suggesting that everyone who believes in the superior results of a free market travel around the world to see other systems, maybe you could just explain why they are conceptually better. It would save a lot on plane tickets.

And off the top of my head, I doubt very much that you are going to learn much as a tourist. If I traveled to Cuba I could probably see all sorts of trained doctors. Wow! That must mean that the Cuban system is superior! Cuz after all they don't charge ANYTHING down there! That HAS to be a superior system, right? I mean, just go there and LOOK at them! There they are! Lots of doctors! Must be better than our way!

But just looking at the number of doctors in Cuba - or whether you get free care for a car accident in Canada or whatever - doesn't show you all that the society has given up to get that. Government always does things less efficiently than the free market. It's in the nature of the thing - people spending other people's money are never going to spend it as wisely or well as the people who earned it.

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

Leaving aside the fact that you know nothing about what I or my family have suffered, this does nothing to address my question about what makes health care intrinsically different than anything else essential to human life that we agree works well in a free market.

We don't have a free market in health care in this country. We have a government massively subsidizing and regulating it, choking off competition from low-cost alternatives and guaranteeing a floor of payments for a growing number of people. As I pointed out, my grandfather was able to have a surgery and a stay in the hospital in the late 1940s for a total of $25. Something happened between then and now in this country that drove health care prices through the roof. I suspect it is government involvement. Just as government subsidies for higher education in the form of guaranteed student loans has driven the cost of a college degree through the roof.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the industries with some of the greatest government involvement - health care and college and K-12 education - have some of highest costs and worst performance, while industries with the least government involvement - computer hardware and software production, or other electronics, for example, come to mind - show incredible increases in capability with continually DECREASING costs year after year. I can get a thousand times faster computer for a fifth of the cost of the one I bought in 1993. In a free market, things get better and cheaper. But we spend four times as much on government-run K-12 education in real terms as we did decades ago and have worse results.

[metalman]

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

As a Brit who lived abroad for many years before returning 5 years ago I believe rumours of the UKs demise are greatly exaggerated.
Sure, economically we are down the toilet but hopefully financialism is dead and this will lead us to being productive again.
As for British society - it is not falling apart at the seams just yet, unless you want to believe every story you read in the press. A few teenagers have kids because they can't think of anything better to do- and it's the end of society. Youths get drunk and fight! Shock! Teenagers take drugs! Horror!
As for schooling, my kids actually go to the same state school I went to and the education, pastoral care, teaching and facilities are definitely better than when I was there in the 80s. Hospitals have improved after massive underinvestment in the 80s and would be better if the doctors' union/lobby weren't so powerful-they practically write their own contracts and as pointed out are impossible to sack.
Ultimately if people look at Britain and see the end of civilisation I suggest they go see some other parts of the world for a real education into what this may look like.
Despite what Jim Rogers says I reckon a multi-party, democratic (if slightly corrupt) country will do better than any one-party state in the long run. After all, great investor though he is, he recommended investing in Zimbabwe a few years back!

thank you for injected balance into this discussion. the institutions of british society... developed over centuries... that allow through a flexible political system the best ideas to finally guide economic development will keep iceland-on-thames (an accurate assessment of the nation's short term economic prospects) from devolving from into a mad-max-on-thames.

after this knock, the brits will get up, brush themselves off, and trudge to the next phase of development.

china, on the other hand, has no traditions or institutions. the chinese people believed in endless economic growth based on exports. what will they believe in after it evaporates? what will china's gov't cook up for its people once the gov't engineered economic miracle disintegrates?



this is why china keeps buying usa treasuries. consider the alternative.

[flintlock]

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

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

Bingo!. I pondered for years why a Republican President was so gung-ho about illegal aliens. Last year it came to me, Its about prolonging the ponzi scheme. More people to fill up all the homes being overbuilt. More people to buy cars, tv's , furniture, etc on credit. So what if the taxpayer picks up the tab for the difference between what they cost and what they contribute. Its a giant transfer of wealth from the taxpayers to private industry. And only those " in the club" benefitted. Sorry American middle class, you aren't a member.

[flintlock]

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

US Health Care is a government backed monopoly mascarading as a "free market"

Just like the legal system and financial system.

These quasi government backed institutions are much MORE EXPENSIVE then both nationalization AND capitalism. This is why both side's arguments make sense and ultimatly the status quo remains.

Nationalization would be an improvement over the current system.

Capitalism would be an even better improvement over the current system.

Sometimes I think we need nationalization (just like for the banks) in order to break the monopoly and then a re-privatization to get back to capitalism.

Same for the legal system and financial system.

You hit the nail on the head. Its phony free enterprise. Lawyers, health care, you name it.

I can talk about doctors who milk the system for all its worth. A medical system that doesn't really want people to get better. They treat symptoms. There's no money in curing people. Oh, unless it's cancer or heart disease. People will pay big bucks when it comes to saving their lives. But have a chronic health issue? Just take this little pill and come back to see me every month for the rest of your life. That medical profession seminar in Vegas said "recurring income" is where its at. You'll never be able to pay for that beach home by curing people.

A lot of doctors are starting to operate outside the insurance system, where they can treat patients the way they best see fit, not according to some standard set by insurance companies.

[cjppjc]

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

Bingo!. I pondered for years why a Republican President was so gung-ho about illegal aliens. Last year it came to me, Its about prolonging the ponzi scheme. More people to fill up all the homes being overbuilt. More people to buy cars, tv's , furniture, etc on credit. So what if the taxpayer picks up the tab for the difference between what they cost and what they contribute. Its a giant transfer of wealth from the taxpayers to private industry. And only those " in the club" benefitted. Sorry American middle class, you aren't a member.

I think you're right.:mad:

[Thailandnotes]

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

how to measure the effectiveness of whatever health care system we might have, or want.

For starters, The World Health Organization has a pretty good report card:

http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_select.cfm

You can select a country and see how it’s doing

It's easy to find what % of GNP a country spends to provide it citizens the above level.

I doubt very much that you are going to learn much as a tourist...maybe you could just explain why they are conceptually better

Lived and worked here most of the last 20 years. Thailand is in transition to universal healthcare, mostly there. It’s mixture of government and “free market.” Always will be everywhere for everything...food, shelter, healthcare. People fly here from all over the world for "medical vacations." And of course, the rich are subsidizing the poor which in my opinion is the way it should be.

Thailand is one of only a handful of lower-middle income countries to aim for universal healthcare. Without mandates from the government, a large % of the population would have little or no access.

[Master Shake]

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

Um, rather than suggesting that everyone who believes in the superior results of a free market travel around the world to see other systems, maybe you could just explain why they are conceptually better. It would save a lot on plane tickets.

And off the top of my head, I doubt very much that you are going to learn much as a tourist. If I traveled to Cuba I could probably see all sorts of trained doctors. Wow! That must mean that the Cuban system is superior! Cuz after all they don't charge ANYTHING down there! That HAS to be a superior system, right? I mean, just go there and LOOK at them! There they are! Lots of doctors! Must be better than our way!

But just looking at the number of doctors in Cuba - or whether you get free care for a car accident in Canada or whatever - doesn't show you all that the society has given up to get that. Government always does things less efficiently than the free market. It's in the nature of the thing - people spending other people's money are never going to spend it as wisely or well as the people who earned it.




Leaving aside the fact that you know nothing about what I or my family have suffered, this does nothing to address my question about what makes health care intrinsically different than anything else essential to human life that we agree works well in a free market.

We don't have a free market in health care in this country. We have a government massively subsidizing and regulating it, choking off competition from low-cost alternatives and guaranteeing a floor of payments for a growing number of people. As I pointed out, my grandfather was able to have a surgery and a stay in the hospital in the late 1940s for a total of $25. Something happened between then and now in this country that drove health care prices through the roof. I suspect it is government involvement. Just as government subsidies for higher education in the form of guaranteed student loans has driven the cost of a college degree through the roof.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the industries with some of the greatest government involvement - health care and college and K-12 education - have some of highest costs and worst performance, while industries with the least government involvement - computer hardware and software production, or other electronics, for example, come to mind - show incredible increases in capability with continually DECREASING costs year after year. I can get a thousand times faster computer for a fifth of the cost of the one I bought in 1993. In a free market, things get better and cheaper. But we spend four times as much on government-run K-12 education in real terms as we did decades ago and have worse results.

I've yet to see anyone answer your question.

[GRG55]

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

For starters, The World Health Organization has a pretty good report card:

http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_select.cfm

You can select a country and see how it’s doing

It's easy to find what % of GNP a country spends to provide it citizens the above level.



Lived and worked here most of the last 20 years. Thailand is in transition to universal healthcare, mostly there. It’s mixture of government and “free market.” Always will be everywhere for everything...food, shelter, healthcare. People fly here from all over the world for "medical vacations." And of course, the rich are subsidizing the poor which in my opinion is the way it should be.

Thailand is one of only a handful of lower-middle income countries to aim for universal healthcare. Without mandates from the government, a large % of the population would have little or no access.

It's nice to get some international perspective on this issue. Thanks.

I note that the objectors to "socialized" medicine don't seem to recognize that it's not a mono-chromatic, binary alternative. There are many shades of what they would label "socialized" medicine, ranging from the entire system, infrastructure and employees [doctors, nurses, etc] working for the state [Cuba?], to the other end of the spectrum where the provision of health care is entirely in private hands but the government runs a pooled insurance scheme [single payer] in place of private insurers, thus ensuring no citizen is cut off from the provision of basic medical services.

I also note a lack of understanding of the differences in economics in different sectors. Some people here seem to think that the economics of health care is no different than producing SUVs. Either they didn't take any basic economics, or they slept through the classes. The economic drivers and market dynamics of health care, agriculture, education, transportation and basic resource extraction all differ significantly one from the other, as they each differ markedly from the economics of making cars or refrigerators.

[sunskyfan]

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

I understand your point. Perhaps I made mine partially and perhaps I should have choosen different examples.

To clearify: we always assume that the Free Market is one thing in totallity. This is the driving force behind globalization in that as the Free Market becomes total efficiency becomes maximized. Right now the scope of a market is determined roughly by national bounderies and currencies et al are traded between markets. I think that we should create seperate markets akin to national bounderies centered on different parts of our economy. Perhaps there would be Health Dollars that allow the delivery of goods and services in a merket driven way within the health industry but the conversion of health dollars to say entertainment dollars would be governed to represent priorities set by democratic processes or some other mechinism.

Let me make clear that I believe Free Markets are the most efficient way or optimizing resources/services and the mapping of those resources/services. It is just that I am not sure they are the best way to set basic priorities.

[GRG55]

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 (and the U.S. has nothing like a free market in healthcare!), I see no reason not to adopt central government control/planning of all sectors of the economy.

There's nothing special about health care that somehow makes it properly the subject of government management in the way that defense is properly managed by government. The defense of a country can't be managed on a person-by-person basis. It can't be divided up. There's just defense for the whole country. So government must handle that.

And there's lots of things more important than health care. Food, for one. Without food you die in a few weeks. Why don't we have the government run all the farms and supermarkets and decide what gets grown and who gets how much? Same with other things more important than health care: clothing and shelter come to mind. Why not have government manage clothing design, production, and distribution? And housing - have government designing, building, and allocating housing...

You've apparently not noticed just how much government involvment there is in the agriculture sector of every "developed" nation on the planet? One of the most heavily subsidized sectors of the global economy, and one of the most distorted as a result. The USA and the EU being amongst the biggest abusers.

So, if it's okay to have taxpayers picking up the risk of providing crop insurance for farmers, why is not okay for the national economy to back the risk of health care insurance for all citizens?

I'm not advocating that either is desirable, but let's at least be consistent in our arguments comparing different economic sectors...

[ThePythonicCow]

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

my question about what makes health care intrinsically different than anything else essential to human life that we agree works well in a free market

Health care is lumpier, scarier, easier to manipulate by the power hungry.

This does not explain why it should be nationalized, just why it commonly is nationalized, even if subversively as in the United States. Affairs that everyone deals in day to day, with a good tolerance for variability in supply, are more difficult to capture central control thereof.