The Republicans… they HAVE slid into madness. A process that in my personal view started as early as Reagan. (With extremist people like Jerry Falwell and the like being an influence on him being elected. And most certainly in mobilizing the religious right as a voting block around that time, bringing their perfidious influence into politics.) And that all that nonsense reached it’s half-fascist/half-stupid apex with Bush Jr. And lets face it… Obama getting elected has not stopped this trend at all! And the Republicans don’t show ANY signs of changing their ways. (On the contrary!)

They are still the pro-torture, pro-illegal war, pro-banana-republic, anti-science, anti-non-white, anti-homosexuals, anti poor and so forth and what not party, and if you look at their newschannels and reporters… well it’s not a pretty picture. In fact… people like Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and so forth… If their not nuts, then their carrying on in the spirit of Joseph Goebbels, if you ask me. Fact is… an attack on the crazies in the right by now IS an attack on the Republicans as a whole. Because they, as a party, embraced these crazies.

And whilst that may seem like partizan talk… but I’m the last person to cheer on the Dems either (actually as a European Socialist, I will honestly admit a strong dislike of the American way of doing things (Which I see as a people firmly under the jackboot of the wealthy and somehow proud of it.), although I also don’t think this way of doing things is in the average American’s favour, and I think many Americans would be better served with a more European style of living. (Even if they don’t know it and seem to think it will do something horrible to them.). Now I DO think the Dems have the better idea’s, but I also think THEY consistently show themselves to be way to willing to capitulate to the Republicans, rather then standing up for their plans. The Dems have some good ideas but they are all to often… WEAK, and then don’t get these idea’s done. Plus some Dems seem to actually be moderate Republicans (Who no doubt would not fit in with the extremist ACTUAL Republicans, but which are nonetheless not true liberals.) Now this Democratic weakness is preferable to Republican insanity, but that isn’t an endorsement of said weakness.

@Larsson – Yes, I know the US spends the most on health care, and that is part of the problem. Much of this excess cost comes from mismanaged government programs and only work to prove my point. ***U.S. government programs do not reduce costs, they increase them.*** Again, as I have said before, nearly all of America’s low rankings in health related measurements come from greater social problems within a small but distinct portion of this nation’s population. Again, I do think that everyone should have access to affordable health care, and there should be programs to assist those with financial needs. (It would have been nice when I got socked with a 6,000 dollar bill for being flown by helicopter from State College, PA to Baltimore, MD. Instead it went on my credit card with 16.9% interest.) So sure if you want to split hairs, you may call it a basic human right.

But when you hold the UN up as an example, I chuckle. This is the same organization whose General Assembly just named Castro a “World Hero of Solidarity.” He was honored along with some other dubious world leaders. http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=342574&CategoryId=14919

As for the level of nastiness in American politics…check this out. Maybe the US needs to bring back dueling. http://reason.com/blog/show/136036.html#comments

Benjamin

This is really OT, but interesting anyway:

@ Benjamin:

Regardless of how you want to describe your nation’s “safety net” it still leads to an increase in health care costs.

Huh? Reportedly US spends 2-4 times more on health care than those nations who have basic care for all. (IIRC, something like ~ 17 % vs ~ 5 % of GDP.)

Presumably the difference in costs for US vs the world is because in US there isn’t any universal health care system that tries to keep costs under control?!

And of course medical care is a human right. From the UN “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”:

“Article 25.

* (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
* (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection. [My bold.]”

It’s a declaration that US signed 1948. It isn’t a treaty, but the inability to grant all its citizens human rights doesn’t reflect well on US.

Regardless of how you want to describe your nation’s “safety net” it still leads to an increase in health care costs

and

What you’ll see is again, increased taxes

Health cost are market driven and most services get cheaper over time. What doesn’t is labour – doctors, nurses and other health professionals. Do you know how we pay for our health care? We have a tax or levy of 1.5% of our taxable income. Low income income earners do not pay the levy. If you earn above a certain threshold and you have no private insurance you pay another 1%. As far as increased taxes go our taxes have been coming down for 30 years. Do you think the US can’t do this?

If price controls are put in place than innovation and R&D suffers

The only price control in effect is one all big business try and get away with every now and again – anti competitive cartels. We have a great deal of innovation in this country. One of the first H1N1 vaccines was developed here.

Health care as human right does not imply free clinics with thousands of poor people queuing up. A major proportion of all the GPs (family doctors) operate what is essentially a free clinic. Crikey this morning I wandered into my local docs office and had a skin cancer burned off with liquid nitrogen, a diabetes blood test and a general check up that cost nothing, nix, nada, niente. I signed a medicare form that acknowledges I had treatment and walked out. So 1.5% of my income goes to pay for “free” health care. At least we know what part of our taxes goes to pay for it. Do you know how much of your taxes end up in Iraq? (Actually some of our tax money goes to Afghanistan too not to mention the blood cost).

You imply that a government run health care system automatically adds another layer of bureacracy and time wasting

No I don’t. We don’t have to wait for bureaucracy at all. Treatment comes first from the doctor of your choice. Paperwork is secondary and even then, as I mentioned earlier, it can be as little as the time it takes to sign your name. That is it.

My point about Europeans using the US system is that they don’t have to and probably don’t except when the US might have developed some new treatment that could be some time from being spreading around the world. But that could work both ways too.

One of the good things about our Australian system is that we have Reciprocal Health Care Agreements with countries like the UK, Italy and Norway meaning we can get medical assistance in those countries too. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have travel insurance but it something else you don’t have to worry about. Unlike the States where we have to make sure we have a high level of travel insurance coverage in case we get hit by a bus.

Benjamin

By the way, I think the sort of discussion we are having here is *exactly* the sort of discussion that should be happening in your country, rather than the orchestrated nonsense, exaggeration, outright lies, slanders and other lunacies currently going on. I’d like to think that people like you and [a US equivalent of] I could sit down, come up with an agreed set of goals and then debate how best to implement those goals. When it comes down to it, I suspect you’d like as much as anyone to see everyone getting medical care who needed it, but might debate how possible that is, how much compromise has to be made between availability of resources and need, mechanisms for supplying that need effectively, the balance of impact on existing private companies and the people they employ against the benefits of fewer uninsured and the employment created by a new system, the morality of impact against corporate profits and shareholders against the morality of people’s health and methods of preventing bureacracy creep and governemental or political interference in a system that should probably mostly run itself.

The US media need to sensationalise this and focus on the extremists for the sake of entertainment, ratings and the eyeballs-on-adverts revenue is doing the US people no service at all, in my opinion.

You said: No, you you didn’t call me a retard yet .. I spoke too soon.

Response: Huh? Clearly you are a [more than average] intelligent person … and [IMHO] you are clearly someone in need of a hug.

You said: The Democ.rats Bush=Hitler même is absolutely well documented. No wiggling out of it.

Response: No wiggling … none what-so-ever … you said that Moveon.org had a meme regarding a Bush=Hitler connection. This is an ongoing falsehood that you side-stepped in several posts … IMHO, you know it is a falsehood … regardless, it plays so keep harping on it while conflating fringe-lunatic leftists beliefs… personally, I find this manner of discourse “propaganda ret large”. And, this makes you someone I would not want as a co-US citizen … this type of discourse works well but is indicative off one harboring sociopathic tendencies.

You said: Your pedigree of WWII molestation by Socialists is admirable. Mine is similar to yours but add to it the lost of all teeth due to malnutrition in “work camps” and, some limbs lost in actual combat.

Response: Given the style of your prose … I am dubious … that said, if it is true: my condolences.

You said: No, no shame. I am not sure if you are being pompous or, condescending or, sanctimonious or, holier-than-thou … To me Stalin and Hitler were peas in a pod.

Response: IMHO, a 5th option … a reality-based, pragmatic [right leaning] centrist calling a troll to the carpet for being a reprobate. Referencing the most abominable political figures in the last hundred years as equivocal to current US politicians that want to bring the same govt mandated health care that most of the leading nations on this planet already have.

As you have appeared to state, you have no shame for what and how you have posted here … personally, I am ashamed that you have an opinion that anyone in the world can read.

You sir, are not a retard … you sir are a troll.

I think despite the ill sounding rhetoric coming from both sides is just a product of how importantly they view the health care issue. The same occurs when debating schools, because children are involved. Despite how vile some of it sounds it doesn’t bug me, unless actual violence occurs. The press and its readers love the sensational stories. Would it be a better world if we were all polite little sheep with nary a complaint? No. It would be a more boring world run by despots. I say bitch and complain all you want. Its your right and duty.

I also understand that statistics can be manipulated and interpreted many different ways. I don’t know which country truly has the world’s best health care. It probably depends on a many differing factors and how the measurements are done. I just know that the government has made total messes of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. So there is no way I want them having yet more control of our nation’s health care.

I’m glad you’ve had a chance to visit the U.S. I too meant no slight when I said it sounded as if you had not visited America. I spent some time in Darlington and then in London and really enjoyed the experience.

Benjamin

Did you notice that giant whooshing sound just now. That was a point the size of the Hindenburg sailing right over your head.

As was directly stated the phrase “reality-based community” was used originally by members of the Bush team as an insult. It is used today by those it was originally applied to not as some sort of arrogant declaration that we have a monopoly on reality, but as a means of differentiating ourselves from those who would consider calling someone or something “reality-based” to be an insult.

I have been to the US, on many occasions, and my sister is married to a New Yorker. Please don’t take my comments as being anti-American; if anything it’s the other way round. You guys are better people than this; surely you can’t feel that normal, working men and women should get into a situation where they have to choose between food and medicine, or who in the family gets health care, or worry about where their insulin is coming from, or lose their entire retirements, savings and homes just because they got sick or some drunk driver ran them over? With as you rightly say some of the best hospitals in the world, some of the most advanced research and development and more money than anyone else, why does that still happen?

I certainly know that Americans can be greatly generous people. People everywhere – from Iowa to Iran – are mostly just people, mostly good, a few bad, and the vast majority wanting to live their lives happily. However, I have usually found that Americans will be generous and caring personally but don’t translate that onto a large scale – they will happily give charity but don’t philosophically like the idea of paying the same money into a system that prevents the need for that charity. Health care is a good example – they’ll pay a thousand dollars to help a poor family down the road, but not a thousand dollars to a govenment funded health care system that looks after that poor family and others like them. Charity seems to be a more personal thing for Americans. That doesn’t mean that you’re not a charitable people, just that your focus is different.

As I said before, the best of US health care probably is the best in the world – for those who can afford it. It doesn’t mean that the average US health care is the best.

I’d like to see a bit more on those cancer recovery and other statistics – I saw a set of them once, but the figures I saw were a clear example of how to mislead with statistics. They were the statistics for those who (a) had health care, (b) had been approved for treatment, and (c) had completed their treatments. Do you have statistics for cancer recovery that includes all 300 million Americans? I suspect that the UK has brilliant cancer recovery statistics as well if you pick your data set carefully – say members of Parliament and those earning over £5M pounds annually. I suspect if you include cancer recovery rates for those who have no health insurance and those who are turned down for treatment by insurance companies due to pre-existing conditions or restrictions in coverage, the numbers would look a little different.

As for the health care as a human right, it’s kind of hard to explain how we see it. When we hear of a free health care clinic that has thousands queuing up to use it, because they don’t get any care otherwise, we would automatically assume that you were talking about sub-Saharan Africa. The fact that it happens in the US is suprising to us – it would be like hearing about areas or states where the police do not go, places run by warlords who recruit child soldiers. Our world view includes health care in the same category as drinking water or the right to travel.

Finally, one of my main points is that *how* a system is organised and run is more important than any social philosophy or political theory behind it. In the real world, labels like “socialist” don’t necessarily mean much anyway. You imply that a government run health care system automatically adds another layer of bureacracy and time wasting. It certainly could do; it doesn’t have to. How it’s done is more important that who does it. A good example is the recent case of my mother. She suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome. She went to her GP (general practicioner, basically a family doctor), who sent her to a specialist, who confirmed it was carpal tunnel and arranged for surgery a couple of weeks later. She had her surgery and came home and is now recovering. She has to go back in a few weeks to have bandages removed and a check-up. Fairly straightforward, and I suspect the medical process in the US would not be much different. The difference is that the biggest single piece of bureacracy she had to do was to phone the doctor’s receptionist to make an appointment. That’s it. No paperwork. She didn’t have to go to a government bureacrat to get approval. She didn’t have to go to a private insurance company to get approval. She didn’t have to involve herself in any way with the costs of the process. The only people she dealt with were medical people plus the receptionist at the doctor’s and at the hospital, and that was simple and straightforward.

I’ll admit that it would be hard to convert to such a system in the US. One dislike I have for your administrators, particularly the Democrats, is that they really, really do seem to love their paperwork and their bureacracies. Nothing seems possible without setting up another half-dozen agencies and another three layers of management. Heck, successive US governments took half-a-dozen intelligence agencies, centralised them into the CIA, then created another half-dozen, then added Homeland Security to have responsibility… how many different competing intelligence agencies do they need? Your tax forms are ridiculous – just how complex and how much work should something as simple as income tax be? So in this respect, I certainly understand and partially agree with your more libertarian reaction to this much make-work nonsense.

I would suggest again, however, that whether a system is funded by government, a private co-operative foundation, a group of charitable billionaires or private companies hoping for profit, the source of that funding and the philosophy behind it is less important to the result than how that system is organised and run.

Comparing the cost of consumer electronics to health care is not a “Ridiculous analogy”. Inferring that a hands-on service industry will be able to relocate overseas to reduce cost in a free market is a far more ridiculous assertion. I have yet to see a robot, either autonomous or tele-operated perform more than the most simple of surgical procedures and given that “bed side manner” and “face-to-face interaction” are extremely important in health care there is no viable way a hospital could move overseas. Though there are many people worldwide who travel abroad to find better and cheaper health care, and many of these people come to the US.

I stand corrected on the issue of measuring infant death rates, though many Asian countries are suspected of fudging the data concerning the deaths of female infants. But nearly all of the discrepancies in infant mortality rates are due to high premature birth rates amongst African-Americans. Before anyone gets their dander up this is not a racist statement but a fact. Even correcting for teen pregnancies and other societal problems African-Americans have a premature birth rate nearly twice the national average. When 12% of the population has an exceptionally high premature birth rate, and premature babies die at a much higher rate than babies brought to full term, than the national infant mortality rate will suffer. Even with increased awareness and effort to do something about said premature births the cause is not well known.

As for wealthy Europeans using American health care…I don’t know. Though I would imagine it comes down to a cost to benefit situation. Are gaining a few extra years of life for a cancer patient worth spending tens of thousands of dollars and living away from your family? Probably not. Regardless, it still all comes down to simple economics.

Benjamin

That’s NOT how it works here in the US.

If you decide as a physician to accept Medicare/Medicaid patients (esp Medicaid) you have to accept the fees set by the government, which are often ridiculously low. You are not allowed to bill for the balance of the fees. The physician is “stuck,” not the patient. Hence, there are many doctors who simply choose not to accept patients with only this type of insurance coverage.

So what? That doesn’t make the current situation okay. You’d think that commenters would be, y’know, adults, but apparently they’re just children screaming “But Billy’s mom let him do it!” Apparently the old lesson of “If Billy jumped off a bridge, would you, too?” has not yet been learned.

Sure it was, it was in the first paragraph or so…”A group of folks is very concerned about a speech of his today, because he’s talking to schoolkids. And hey, didn’t Hitler talk to kids…? That’s about as good as their logic gets.”

So Phil disagrees with a subset of all people who disagree with Obama (i.e. those that likened him to Hitler), and that’s the same in your mind as disagreeing with anyone who disagrees with Obama?

Is that really what you are saying?

I think the best summation of this rather weird debate, from an outside perspective, was by Nomen Publicus @48.

Phil, your critical thinking, obvious fascination with science and good sense of humour is what brings me back here again and again. That being said, I miss the Q&A videos, will there be time for some more of those, in between the fundie bashings?

To compare Bush because of Abu Graib to these evil mass murderers of history is patently absurd and self-refuting. But who remembers these calumnies now? I do.

For two decades I was Democrat, until 1996, when an elder ex-Democrat who led the House Counsel to impeach then President Richard Nixon, Jerome Zeifman, explained that a young staffer named Hillary Rodham [nee Clinton] manufactured evidence against Nixon. She was outed by fellow staffers of good conscience. With Zeifman’s prescient recommendations, I watched her husbands deserved impeachment unfold.

(And yes, a retired federal judge ultimately suspended Bill Clinton’s license to practice law for lying to a federal judge in a court proceeding. In other words, the ABA disciplined him for perjury-while in the highest office in the land, no less.)

After the 2004 election, virtually ALL convictions for election fraud were against Democrats. How can anyone of good conscience be one? I don’t know. But I have become a committed Anti-Democrat because of the extremism Democrats showed that year.

As an atheist, Democrats today have far too much “religion” to rule sanely. This especially includes the marxist Obama, whose obvious retromingent Alinski-ism forced me to vote Republican for president for the first time in my life. We have Obama to thank for impoverishing our progeny and bringing Chicago style smearing and thuggery to DC

Out of 400 some August townhalls centered on Obamacare, there were 10 documented assaults (and lesser “crimes” like shoving). Eyewitness, video, and police reports show that 7 out of all 10 were by union thugs or Obama supporters against opponents. (SOURCE: instapundit, 10 Sept) I am not surprised–are you?

As such, the crazies’ voices are effectively amplified and the fringe ends up being heard all too clearly. Sad.