Clement Attlee was not a good Prime Minister. Discuss.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

That's pretty much the norm for peacetime leaders of the late 1940s from any given nation.

I am aware that the US had a President called Harry Truman, but for all I know about his achievements he might as well have been replaced with a mop.

[kentonio]

You must not understand it or know anything about it. The status quo is untenable, and medicare and medicaid are unraveling. The Ryan plan would prevent that. It's not an option between Ryan's plan and the current system, because the current system will not be around in 20 years regardless.

Except even the Democrats have said they are willing to look at ways to improve the system, however destroying it is not a way to improve the system.

The Ryan plan makes two major changes: Rich people don't get as much in benefits, and it establishes a cap on how much people can spend by implementing a voucher system. This is necessary. You can't have unlimited medical spending. At least with a voucher system people will make more intelligent decisions about what medical care they actually need.

Right think about this for a moment: Ryan wants to give people a $15,000 a year voucher to cover their costs, a nursing home can cost $300-400 a day. What 'intelligent decision' do you recommend an elderly sick person should make once they have spent their yearly voucher after a little more than a month?

[Felch]

Maybe restrain nursing home costs. Did it ever occur to you that they "cost" 300-400 a day because they're paid for by the government?

[kentonio]

Ok, how about a life saving treatment that costs $3000 a month? How do you restrain the costs of that? How about someone who has a couple of accidents in a year?

Not only is setting a cap figure on treatment morally disgusting, $15,000 is insanely low and all estimates are that after a few years it'll be worth considerable less than it already is.

[kentonio]

Maybe restrain nursing home costs. Did it ever occur to you that they "cost" 300-400 a day because they're paid for by the government?

Oh and on a wider point, why is it that whenever medical care is discussed by Americans it always seems to turn around to how its somehow the governments fault that its so expensive? How come all of us third world nations who have universal healthcare pay far less per capita than your for profit healthcare system?

[Felch]

Life saving for whom? Some old biddy who's only got another couple years to live anyways? If it's to help some little kid with leukemia, that'd be different. Old people aren't a good investment. They're just waiting around to see what eventually does kill them.

[Felch]

Oh and on a wider point, why is it that whenever medical care is discussed by Americans it always seems to turn around to how its somehow the governments fault that its so expensive? How come all of us third world nations who have universal healthcare pay far less per capita than your for profit healthcare system?

Out health care system is a mess, but more half measures aren't the solution.

[kentonio]

Out health care system is a mess, but more half measures aren't the solution.

No you're quite right, a universal system is clearly the logical solution.

Life saving for whom? Some old biddy who's only got another couple years to live anyways? If it's to help some little kid with leukemia, that'd be different. Old people aren't a good investment. They're just waiting around to see what eventually does kill them.

So the old folks can just die if they're poor? Since when the **** was the right to life an 'investment'?

[Hauldren Collider]

Oh and on a wider point, why is it that whenever medical care is discussed by Americans it always seems to turn around to how its somehow the governments fault that its so expensive? How come all of us third world nations who have universal healthcare pay far less per capita than your for profit healthcare system?

Per-capita healthcare costs are a ridiculous statistic, and it baffles me that people actually seriously use it to determine efficiency. People in the congo pay far less than anyone in the Western world on healthcare per capita, but that's because it's largely unavailable. The per-capita cost of healthcare says NOTHING about how good the healthcare you are receiving is. The fact that we pay more for healthcare can be partially but not entirely explained by the fact that we have more money and we have better doctors. We have treatments available in the US that don't exist elsewhere in the world, including Europe and the UK.

[Hauldren Collider]

So the old folks can just die if they're poor? Since when the **** was the right to life an 'investment'?

I hate to break it to you but any equitable healthcare system has to come down to a numbers game. Who's more valuable? The old ****er who's retired and maybe can have his life extended by two years with a million dollar treatment, or thirty kids with treatable chronic illnesses whose lives can be extended by decades for the same cost? Medicare and medicaid do not distinguish between the two.

[kentonio]

Per-capita healthcare costs are a ridiculous statistic, and it baffles me that people actually seriously use it to determine efficiency. People in the congo pay far less than anyone in the Western world on healthcare per capita, but that's because it's largely unavailable. The per-capita cost of healthcare says NOTHING about how good the healthcare you are receiving is.

Which is why people also tend to refer to the matching statistics that show that the US receives a poor standard of healthcare in return for that high cost.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/...65M0SU20100623

The fact that we pay more for healthcare can be partially but not entirely explained by the fact that we have more money and we have better doctors. We have treatments available in the US that don't exist elsewhere in the world, including Europe and the UK.

The simple truth about America is that if you're wealthy you can have the best healthcare in the world. If you are not wealthy you are likely to be ****ed in a way that is unthinkable in other first world nations. Incidentally anti-universal healthcare people tend to ignore the fact that we also have private healthcare options for anyone who wants to pay for them.

I hate to break it to you but any equitable healthcare system has to come down to a numbers game. Who's more valuable? The old ****er who's retired and maybe can have his life extended by two years with a million dollar treatment, or thirty kids with treatable chronic illnesses whose lives can be extended by decades for the same cost? Medicare and medicaid do not distinguish between the two.

Funny how when Obamacare was being debated the right was so quick to scream bare faced lies about 'death panels', yet now apparently its all a 'numbers game' and judging who can live or die is perfectly ok?

You've never looked more like an ignorant child than right now when you write off the lives of the elderly as somehow worthless.

Oh and don't try and paint it as a choice between saving the old or saving children, most of us live in countries where doing both is seem as the only moral option.

[Hauldren Collider]

Funny how when Obamacare was being debated the right was so quick to scream bare faced lies about 'death panels', yet now apparently its all a 'numbers game' and judging who can live or die is perfectly ok?
.

The objection to the death panels was that a group of pencil pushers in Washington would be deciding what treatments were valuable and what weren't, instead of the substantially more fair and judicious method of markets.

[kentonio]

The objection to the death panels was that a group of pencil pushers in Washington would be deciding what treatments were valuable and what weren't, instead of the substantially more fair and judicious method of markets.

Please tell me that was a joke.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Unfortunately not.

[Hauldren Collider]

Does it really shock you that someone could believe that markets are an efficient way of distributing limited resources, given the vast empirical evidence that this is true?