Who are American politicians beholden to? The People? The Constitution?

[PLATO]

This speaks to the elitist nature of medical schools as well as anything I can think of. The medical training infrastructure could be up and running in very few years if there was a committment to it. Now that would be real medical reform...reasonably priced medical schools that produced three times the Doctors we have now.

[Elok]

Aren't you assuming that there's a sizable pool of people out there with the requisite skill to become doctors, lacking only the means? For all I know there could be, but that's one field where you really shouldn't skimp on applicant quality. Possibly some of that happens already though, IDK.

[DinoDoc]

This speaks to the elitist nature of medical schools as well as anything I can think of.

I for one would like an elitist bastard to be the one treating me.

[regexcellent]

Since your medical school education will serve you for the rest of your life it makes sense to be paying for it over the course of your life.

[Guynemer]

If you want the total cost of medical care to go down, you must have A) more health care providers, and B) pay them a lot less. There are no other options.

Some of us don't make a lot of money to begin with, despite serving an "underserved population".

So, either don't complain about medical costs, or open up a ****ton more schools while forgiving med school loans. Or, alternatively, GTFO.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Aren't you assuming that there's a sizable pool of people out there with the requisite skill to become doctors, lacking only the means? For all I know there could be, but that's one field where you really shouldn't skimp on applicant quality. Possibly some of that happens already though, IDK.

Med schools typically have a selection rate of about 20-25% of qualified applicants in any given year. One would also assume that many people who might qualify and be interested in the profession don't even apply due to the low acceptance rates, massive debt and other dissuading factors. Similar situations apply to veterinary school. The constraint is in the schools themselves and their capacity.

[Straybow]

Yes, America already has basic levels of socialism, they are just underfunded, woefully inefficient and badly coordinated, because dumb hicks like you vote against the very concept of them existing, so instead of funding them to an efficient level and the national conversation being about what works and what doesnt, they are constantly having to fight to even provide basic levels of service.

The reverse is true. We have found that our programs are overfunded and wasteful. Unfortunately, the programs themselves are administered on the state level. Only a few governors had the cojones to undertake reform, even after early successes in Michigan and somewhere else I can't remember.

There is not a single council estate in Britain that comes even close to the worst ghettos in America, not one.

The reason this is idiotic is because you create a system where the further down the ladder people start, the harder it is for them to achieve anything. You take some rich kid like HC growing up in a safe, well fed household with plenty of familial support and it's not difficult for that kid to make something of themselves. They have little or no other obligations other than to study and all the help they need to do so. Then take a ghetto kid who is underfed on ****ty artificial foods, lives in an area where the walk to school each day is a test of survival, where the classes are full of misbehaving violent kids and a home where they have no money for any kind of support, no parental encouragement to achieve and no experience of anything better. For that kid to make anything of themselves is a Herculean effort which is why so many fewer of them ever do make it.

The council estates are undoubtedly better than the worst ghettos. Congratulations, quite an achievement. But those kids are still stuck in dead end lives. British crappy parents in tidy council estates are no better than American ones in ghettos. But because their poverty is just a smidge less awful you feel you've helped them, somehow.

Socialism is about trying to ensure that everyone has a fair chance at life, rather than the money and opportunity always rising up to an increasingly small elite while everyone else stays at the bottom. You may dream of a future where the privileged live in gated communities while the dirty masses rot in squalor, but to us that kind of dystopian future is the stuff of nightmares.

You give them low-cost housing, a free college education if they have the test scores, and have done for most of a century. Somehow the poverty rate is still dreadful, 17-22% in the latest figures. The percentages of British children being raised in poverty is even worse, 21-28%. This is something to celebrate?

Greece is a backwater second world nation in a highly volatile corner of the world which has been a mess for generations. Pointing at it and going 'Look, that's what socialism does!' is so mindnumbingly stupid that it's not worth dignifying with a response. It's like pointing at a tramp wearing a red sweater and going 'Look, that's what wearing a red sweater does to you!'.

Yes, it is the perfect example. Greece was doing what everyone like you says to do, only without the underlying private sector strength to support it. NHS promises services without the private economic growth to support the aging population. People have to wait years for elective surgeries because of rationed care.

Actually England does have a pretty bad history to point back on, our citizens spent generations living in urban ghettos in horrible conditions working for a pittance with many ending up decaying in the poorhouses. Environments full of crime, rape, murder, rampant alcoholism and addiction. It was the early industrial age, and you know what solved that? Here's a clue, it wasn't industry and business suddenly growing a conscience.

Actually, industry and business did grow a conscience. Men like Winston Churchill grew up in privilege afforded by the wealth of the industrial revolution and fought for better working conditions, women's suffrage, etc. He's the one who said if you're twenty and not a liberal you haven't a heart, and if you're forty and not a conservative you haven't a brain. Modern criminal science was a major factor in reducing crime rates in the 20th century, since you no longer needed eyewitness testimony to catch the criminals.

Sure, we're all just brainwashed by all that free healthcare into thinking it would be better to not have it. Please explain how a poor person in that wonderful pure capitalism system you clearly wish you had would get treatment for the kidney failure you mentioned?

Yes, you are brainwashed if you think it is "free." In the real world someone with illness has many ways of finding treatment if they haven't the means. There are charities, including the many of the hospitals. But for charities to work people have to give money willingly, and then people feel indebted or despised for their poverty. Whereas if you tell them it is a right, and the government takes the money from those with means and provides a service, they're content.

The NHS provides a great service for most people, saying that it 'sucks' means that you know about as much about it as you do about Greece. ... There was a problem for a long time with waiting lists for complex procedures, but major initiatives have brought those down considerably in recent years too.

I'm not giving my opinion, I'm citing a British health care professional and regular contributor to the British Medical Journal. I'm willing to bet he knows better than your anecdotal experience of never having encountered a problem. That's like somebody in Detroit saying only 0.05% get murdered, therefore you are actually pretty safe.

The magic of the NHS is that nobody falls through the net.

They get caught in the net and have to wait until their number comes up, be it days, weeks, months, or even years. You should be thankful you have a parallel private medical sector, our bunch of socialists want to eliminate private medical insurance and practice entirely.

Considering the US has some of the best top level treatment in the world though, good on them if they can afford it. The shame is that so few Americans can either.

Even that isn't true. A large number of cases handled by leading medical organization such as the Mayo Clinics and Johns Hopkins are charity cases where the patient pays nothing.

Yep, you're an idiot. Business cares first and foremost about profit, things like responsible environmentalism come very low on their priority list. You must have missed the long, long list of US factories that got sued over the last few decades for poisoning rivers and local air.

No, I've missed nothing, and you're proving yourself to be the idiot. Companies care about profits and market value. Responsible environmentalism goes a very long way toward the latter, and in most cases reasonable safeguards and vigilance has little harm on the former.

The vast majority of cases go back decades, when most people were convinced pollutants wouldn't migrate through the ground. Because of the litigious nature of the system companies have been unwilling to volunteer for the process of admitting and cleaning up old problems. Look at BP being levied a staggering $20B for an oil spill in which the Obama administration impeded the mitigation and clean-up.

That must be why there are no profitable businesses in Britain because its all just so terrible. Our unemployment rate must be WAY higher than yours, yes?

No, I'm just saying you are ignorant about how burdensome your system really is, convinced that your health care and education and retirement is "free." And yes, except for the current crisis and a brief period after the WTC bombing killed 10% of our private sector economy, UK unemployment has been higher than US unemployment by about 2% or so for at least 4 decades.

We're quite aware of what we pay out thank you, and we do so knowing that having to pay for those things ourselves would require a far larger proportion of earnings. This is why your healthcare is so utterly ****ed, by buying our services en masse we can ensure far lower costs for all. It's called single payer, you might want to look it up.

Actually, NHS keeps costs down by paying your medical professionals far less and rationing services. You end up having to recruit more and more professionals from third world countries for whom the pay is far better than the crappy place they've left behind. We prefer to pay our medical professionals what they're worth, with the idea that it will probably result in better care.

Why exactly would I care about huge growth rates when such a vast proportion of wealth is increasingly siphoning off to a tiny, tiny minority of super rich folks? Is that going to make a family on the poverty line get their medical bills paid any easier or their rent paid on time? I know you love to imagine that that wealth trickles down, but it's a fantasy. Income inequality is a poison, and unless you do something to deal with that it really doesn't matter how much money you have coming into the country.

OK, I know it's probably a waste of time, but I'll try to explain. You wouldn't have a job if it weren't for somebody richer than you. And the fact is that you are jealous and your poisonous, hateful attitude is what drives most left-wing politics.

That super rich person you despise can't wish a fancy house out of thin air with his money. He has to pay workment to build it. Ask them if they like having jobs. That super rich person probably owns or runs a company. He hires managers who would otherwise have a lesser job in a different company if this opportunity weren't available. He hires executive secretaries who might otherwise be working as a temp with no job security. That super rich person has to have accountants to handle his taxes and other matters. He can't buy anything that somebody else hasn't produced.

You like numbers don't you, so please explain these numbers to me...
USA: 17.6% of GDP
UK: 9.6% of GDP

I already did. NHS pays medical professionals less and rations services. We would rather not do either.

[attached 2010 Commonwealth Fund chart]

My earlier citation from the BMJ contributor who knows more than you was for more recent data.

Oh and let's not forget..

A worthless statistical analysis with zero correlation to cause or mechanism of death.

[kentonio]

You give them low-cost housing, a free college education if they have the test scores, and have done for most of a century. Somehow the poverty rate is still dreadful, 17-22% in the latest figures. The percentages of British children being raised in poverty is even worse, 21-28%. This is something to celebrate?

Absolutely not, but poverty in the UK is very different from poverty in the US. In the UK everyone has healthcare including free preventative healthcare. Even if you're at the very bottom of the income ladder, if you have a minor ailment your diagnosis and treatment are completely free. How much of a difference do you imagine that makes to preventing far more expensive serious ailments? We also have free housing and food support for those on the lowest incomes of course. A child in poverty in the UK is simply not comparable to a child considered in poverty in the US.

Yes, it is the perfect example. Greece was doing what everyone like you says to do, only without the underlying private sector strength to support it. NHS promises services without the private economic growth to support the aging population. People have to wait years for elective surgeries because of rationed care.

I'm going to stop even mentioning Greece now because you've made quite enough of an idiot of yourself on the subject without mine or anyone elses help. Re the NHS however, you are as usual talking bull****. The only time you might be waiting years is if you're waiting on a donor list for organs and even then that would be pretty rare. There was a report recently that showed that parts of London still have unacceptably high waiting times. They found that..

Official figures show the longest waiting times are for treatment of nervous system illnesses, such as multiple sclerosis - with average waits of 4.5 months in London compared with 2.7 months elsewhere - and for specialised radiology treatment which has an average wait of four months in London compared with 1.72 months elsewhere.

Is this acceptable? No, not really, but it's also important to remember that those treatments are free to everyone.

Actually, industry and business did grow a conscience. Men like Winston Churchill grew up in privilege afforded by the wealth of the industrial revolution and fought for better working conditions, women's suffrage, etc. He's the one who said if you're twenty and not a liberal you haven't a heart, and if you're forty and not a conservative you haven't a brain. Modern criminal science was a major factor in reducing crime rates in the 20th century, since you no longer needed eyewitness testimony to catch the criminals.

Winston Churchill? You do understand that Churchill was a politician right? A member of that evil organization you hate so much called 'government'?

As for modern criminal science, you do realize that the police are a function of government, right?

Yes, you are brainwashed if you think it is "free." In the real world someone with illness has many ways of finding treatment if they haven't the means. There are charities, including the many of the hospitals. But for charities to work people have to give money willingly, and then people feel indebted or despised for their poverty. Whereas if you tell them it is a right, and the government takes the money from those with means and provides a service, they're content.

A national reliance on charity is pathetic quite frankly. In the real world many people do not have 'many ways' of finding treatment, under a charity based system the availability of treatment is absolutely dependant on location, current levels of giving and many more factors. So if you get sick and you aren't lucky enough to have a local charity willing to pay for treatment you should what? Shut up and die quietly?

I'm not giving my opinion, I'm citing a British health care professional and regular contributor to the British Medical Journal. I'm willing to bet he knows better than your anecdotal experience of never having encountered a problem.

Oh gosh, a heavily conservative ex-prison doctor says it, so it must be true.

They get caught in the net and have to wait until their number comes up, be it days, weeks, months, or even years.

Sure, they're caught in a net of free healthcare which usually provides high quality treatment within days/weeks, but which can take months for high complexity treatments if specialists have long waiting lists. It would surely be better if their only option was to rely on a charity deciding to fund their wildly expensive treatment that could run into the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars range. Because that would be a much more sustainable system.

No, I've missed nothing, and you're proving yourself to be the idiot. Companies care about profits and market value. Responsible environmentalism goes a very long way toward the latter, and in most cases reasonable safeguards and vigilance has little harm on the former.

This is absolutely hilarious. Maybe you should read this. As of Nov 2010 there were 1280 Superfund sites on the National Priority List. Because those chemical companies are just so environmentally responsible.

The vast majority of cases go back decades, when most people were convinced pollutants wouldn't migrate through the ground. Because of the litigious nature of the system companies have been unwilling to volunteer for the process of admitting and cleaning up old problems.

How naive are you really? Do you seriously believe the crap you're spouting?

Actually, NHS keeps costs down by paying your medical professionals far less and rationing services. You end up having to recruit more and more professionals from third world countries for whom the pay is far better than the crappy place they've left behind. We prefer to pay our medical professionals what they're worth, with the idea that it will probably result in better care.

This of course is why you have at least one American doctor on this very forum saying that the highest paid US doctors are wildly overpaid? In the UK becoming a doctor means a four year course post degree which costs a UK citizen about £3000 a year. That is paid by the NHS for years 2-4 plus they give you a bursary of I believe around £6000 a year. I assume there's some obligation to work within the NHS for a number of years afterwards, but there's probably someone here who knows far better.

Oh and as for those terribly low wages they get paid? In 2007 the average wage for a GP was £110,000. The lowest paid came in around £50,000. Those sound like poverty wages to you?

OK, I know it's probably a waste of time, but I'll try to explain. You wouldn't have a job if it weren't for somebody richer than you. And the fact is that you are jealous and your poisonous, hateful attitude is what drives most left-wing politics.

I'm not jealous or hateful towards the rich you moron, I just don't put them on a pedestal as the example that everyone should strive for at all times. Some people have a talent for making money, and good on them, it's not a skill that many people have. That does not however make them the masters of the world who everyone else must bow before. Put the top 10 businessmen in the world on an island and see how long they last when it comes to things like growing food, building shelter and treating medical injuries.

That super rich person you despise can't wish a fancy house out of thin air with his money. He has to pay workment to build it. Ask them if they like having jobs. That super rich person probably owns or runs a company. He hires managers who would otherwise have a lesser job in a different company if this opportunity weren't available. He hires executive secretaries who might otherwise be working as a temp with no job security. That super rich person has to have accountants to handle his taxes and other matters. He can't buy anything that somebody else hasn't produced.

I'm familiar with trickle down theory, it's a shame that it has been consistently proven to be bull****.

[Straybow]

Absolutely not, but poverty in the UK is very different from poverty in the US. In the UK everyone has healthcare including free preventative healthcare. Even if you're at the very bottom of the income ladder, if you have a minor ailment your diagnosis and treatment are completely free. How much of a difference do you imagine that makes to preventing far more expensive serious ailments? We also have free housing and food support for those on the lowest incomes of course. A child in poverty in the UK is simply not comparable to a child considered in poverty in the US.

Again, you presume to know more than you do. Free or very inexpensive treatment is available nearly everywhere in the US. When I lost my job and my wife had to go to the local clinic she got hundreds of dollars of meds for less than a tenth the cost. My daughter was covered by a county-wide charity. But when I'm working I don't expect somebody else to pay for my health care, I join a group of people who agree to share health care cost risks. It's called "insurance," and specifically, in my case, a health maintenance organization.

I'm going to stop even mentioning Greece now because you've made quite enough of an idiot of yourself on the subject without mine or anyone elses help.

Again, you seem to be big on insults but rather lacking any facts to back up your bluster. Again, what is it those clever Greek politicians were spending all that money on? Government programs aiding the poor, health care, building projects including the Olympic facilities, and all the other socialist panaceas that they couldn't afford?

Re the NHS however, you are as usual talking bull****. The only time you might be waiting years is if you're waiting on a donor list for organs and even then that would be pretty rare.

The case cited by Mr. Dalrymple was of a hernia patient who waited over seven years. The patient was repeatedly scheduled for surgery and then bumped for a more urgent case. So the "official wait time" wasn't seven years, he just fell victim to the rationing of resources for seven years.

Winston Churchill? You do understand that Churchill was a politician right? A member of that evil organization you hate so much called 'government'?
As for modern criminal science, you do realize that the police are a function of government, right?

Government is a necessary evil. Socialist health care is not. I don't know where you get the idea I'm against government. I'm against government assuming functions better left to private development.

A national reliance on charity is pathetic quite frankly. In the real world many people do not have 'many ways' of finding treatment, under a charity based system the availability of treatment is absolutely dependant on location, current levels of giving and many more factors. So if you get sick and you aren't lucky enough to have a local charity willing to pay for treatment you should what? Shut up and die quietly?

I'm sorry you Brits are so stingy with charity, it must truly suck to live among such people. It isn't like that in the US.

Sure, they're caught in a net of free healthcare which usually provides high quality treatment within days/weeks, but which can take months for high complexity treatments if specialists have long waiting lists. It would surely be better if their only option was to rely on a charity deciding to fund their wildly expensive treatment that could run into the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars range. Because that would be a much more sustainable system.

There are treatments your NHS won't pay for, as well. Then the victims are stuck in a country where people apparently don't give to charity.

Oh gosh, a heavily conservative ex-prison doctor says it, so it must be true.

His word is more credible than yours, unless you have something to back up your pronouncements. Dalrymple's warning is that in order to ameliorate some of the eggregious failings of the NHS your government borrowed heavily instead of spending general revenues. Thus the GDP percentage you cited doesn't accurately reflect costs, and the debt incurred was a major factor in UK's current debt crisis. As I keep telling you, your "free" health care is costing you more than you or your government care to acknowledge. His other warning is that your government is already intruding on the operational aspects of the NHS, and further loss of autonomy is all but guaranteed.

The vast majority of cases go back decades, when most people were convinced pollutants wouldn't migrate through the ground. Because of the litigious nature of the system companies have been unwilling to volunteer for the process of admitting and cleaning up old problems.

How naive are you really? Do you seriously believe the crap you're spouting?

I clicked randomly on a map to this superfund site. There was no actual migration of contaminants, even after the contamination was exposed by erosion. The property was purchased in the 1960s as a vacant, wooded lot, and thus the buried battery casings date from long before that. There was no responsible party to charge for cleanup.

This of course is why you have at least one American doctor on this very forum saying that the highest paid US doctors are wildly overpaid? In the UK becoming a doctor means a four year course post degree which costs a UK citizen about £3000 a year. That is paid by the NHS for years 2-4 plus they give you a bursary of I believe around £6000 a year. I assume there's some obligation to work within the NHS for a number of years afterwards, but there's probably someone here who knows far better.

Oh and as for those terribly low wages they get paid? In 2007 the average wage for a GP was £110,000. The lowest paid came in around £50,000. Those sound like poverty wages to you?

I didn't say it was poverty, I'm just saying it was low compared to what they could get. Of course the highest paid US doctors are "wildly overpaid." They get it by being the best in the open market. The best UK footballers are wildly overpaid, too. You'll pay them but not your doctors what the market says they are worth?

I'm not jealous or hateful towards the rich you moron ...

I'm familiar with trickle down theory, it's a shame that it has been consistently proven to be bull****.

I'm unconvinced by protestations when your language and your every argument highlight the politics of class envy. Case in point, while it has been shown that "trickle down theory" is not an actual economic model, it is an epithet hurled by demagogues and hacks whenever they're challenged by the reality that taxes slow economic growth more than the government spending helps.

Oh, and I forgot something last time. From OneFoot's chart, US per capita GDP $48,112 after 17.6% health care = $39,644 > UK per capita GDP $39,038 before 9.6% health care. You see, it doesn't matter that we pay a larger portion of GDP to health care if our GDP per capita is still better than yours. That 8% difference represents jobs and their incomes, not costs that are somehow lost to the economy.

[kentonio]

Again, you presume to know more than you do. Free or very inexpensive treatment is available nearly everywhere in the US. When I lost my job and my wife had to go to the local clinic she got hundreds of dollars of meds for less than a tenth the cost. My daughter was covered by a county-wide charity.

How do you imagine that would have worked out if you had say lived in a remote rural community? Also why is this relevant? We've been talking about your laughable ideas that socialism is inherently bad, so who exactly was paying for those clinics? Are they funded entirely through charitable donations? If so, what happens when cost exceeds donations?

But when I'm working I don't expect somebody else to pay for my health care, I join a group of people who agree to share health care cost risks. It's called "insurance," and specifically, in my case, a health maintenance organization.

Neither do we you tool, it's working people that PAY for the NHS. The only real difference between the NHS and your insurance system is that we cover everyone, and it's run on a non-profit basis.

The case cited by Mr. Dalrymple was of a hernia patient who waited over seven years. The patient was repeatedly scheduled for surgery and then bumped for a more urgent case. So the "official wait time" wasn't seven years, he just fell victim to the rationing of resources for seven years.

No he didn't. What you've done there (or rather Dalrymple has done there) is pick out one bad example and held it up as indicative of the overall system. It's exactly like me pointing to a case of an insurance company refusing to pay out on wildly unreasonable grounds leading to the death of a customer, and saying 'See insurance is evil'. It's dishonest and lazy.

Government is a necessary evil. Socialist health care is not. I don't know where you get the idea I'm against government. I'm against government assuming functions better left to private development.

Gee, maybe because you talk about it it as if it was a living evil entity instead of just a group of your fellow citizens, elected by you and your fellow citizens.

I'm sorry you Brits are so stingy with charity, it must truly suck to live among such people. It isn't like that in the US.

Seriously, that's the best comeback you have? That you yanks are so generous that no charity would ever run out of money to pay for treatments? if that's not what you're saying, then I repeat the question:

"So if you get sick and you aren't lucky enough to have a local charity willing to pay for treatment you should what? Shut up and die quietly?"

There are treatments your NHS won't pay for, as well. Then the victims are stuck in a country where people apparently don't give to charity.

The NHS has a board that determines whether new treatments are proven effective enough to prescribe (and therefore fund). The only things they won't sanction are hugely expensive experimental treatments which have not been proven effective enough. As money is finite I'm at a loss as to why you believe they should? Have US insurance companies suddenly started approving absolutely any treatment regardless of cost to all policy holders?

His word is more credible than yours, unless you have something to back up your pronouncements. Dalrymple's warning is that in order to ameliorate some of the eggregious failings of the NHS your government borrowed heavily instead of spending general revenues. Thus the GDP percentage you cited doesn't accurately reflect costs, and the debt incurred was a major factor in UK's current debt crisis. As I keep telling you, your "free" health care is costing you more than you or your government care to acknowledge. His other warning is that your government is already intruding on the operational aspects of the NHS, and further loss of autonomy is all but guaranteed.

He's an ideological warrior with an axe to grind, and is disagreed with by pretty much everyone else here. Sorry, but I really don't care what scare stories he wants to write. We've had this system for 70 odd years, we love it, and it's not going anywhere. Funnily enough Americans also love the socialized medicine systems that you have. It;s almost like there's a common theme there.

I clicked randomly on a map to this superfund site. There was no actual migration of contaminants, even after the contamination was exposed by erosion. The property was purchased in the 1960s as a vacant, wooded lot, and thus the buried battery casings date from long before that. There was no responsible party to charge for cleanup.

70% of cleanup of those sites is funded by companies that were discovered to have caused the contamination. Picking out an old case where the guilty parties were not found does not somehow make a point. Industry continues to this day to be found commiting serious environmental damage when regulation is not strong enough, the idea that they will take care of it ethically without government enforcement is just plain stupid and ignores centuries of evidence to the contrary.

I didn't say it was poverty, I'm just saying it was low compared to what they could get. Of course the highest paid US doctors are "wildly overpaid." They get it by being the best in the open market. The best UK footballers are wildly overpaid, too. You'll pay them but not your doctors what the market says they are worth?

This makes no sense, doctors here are not forced into huge debt to qualify and are then paid a high wage. In the US they can potentially make a lot more but run up lifelong debts in the process and only make the huge wages if they work in certain areas/fields. How exactly does that make your system better?

I'm unconvinced by protestations when your language and your every argument highlight the politics of class envy. Case in point, while it has been shown that "trickle down theory" is not an actual economic model, it is an epithet hurled by demagogues and hacks whenever they're challenged by the reality that taxes slow economic growth more than the government spending helps.

Aside from me obviously not caring what you think about my views, it's pretty funny that as an American you talk about 'class envy'. The difference between Europe and the US these days is that we've completely swapped places on the whole idea of class based society. Our national policies are designed to try and help everyone have a chance as succeeding in life, while yours increasingly favour the rich over the poor. America was always the nation built on social mobility, so how's that going?

According to journalist Jason DeParle
At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints. Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes. Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-e..._United_States

Oh, and I forgot something last time. From OneFoot's chart, US per capita GDP $48,112 after 17.6% health care = $39,644 > UK per capita GDP $39,038 before 9.6% health care. You see, it doesn't matter that we pay a larger portion of GDP to health care if our GDP per capita is still better than yours. That 8% difference represents jobs and their incomes, not costs that are somehow lost to the economy.

As I said before, what does it matter about per capita GDP, when your income disparity is so high? When you have 50 million without health insurance? When you have terrible levels of poverty that far exceed the other first world nations? It's about ideology, and no matter how hard you bleat about socialism, the civilized parts of the western world are not willing to allow those kinds of failings in their countries. You spend hundreds of billions on new weapon systems while 40,000 people a year die from preventable illness, and many millions suffer in poverty. **** that noise.

[molly bloom]

Men like Winston Churchill grew up in privilege afforded by the wealth of the industrial revolution and fought for better working conditions, women's suffrage, etc.

Winston Churchill 'fought' for women's suffrage ?


And better working conditions for whom, exactly ?


Could you give us a few examples of each ?

[Dauphin]

Joseph Rowntree would have been a far better choice.

[Straybow]

MB: Churchill left the conservatives and joined the liberal party because he believed in social reforms, and served as MP until going to the Admiralty. I thought he was still involved in liberal politics at the time of the suffrage vote, but perhaps not.

How do you imagine that would have worked out if you had say lived in a remote rural community? Also why is this relevant? We've been talking about your laughable ideas that socialism is inherently bad, so who exactly was paying for those clinics? Are they funded entirely through charitable donations? If so, what happens when cost exceeds donations?

We have these devices called "cars" in which we travel between places on "roads" that we've built between cities. A person in a remote rural area has to travel to do anything. My wife getting cheap medical care when I was unemployed is relevant because of the flawed argument about "50 million uninsured" having no access to medical care. For two decades I was uninsured by choice. I paid for rare doctor visits out of pocket, and over those years I saved myself tens of thousands of dollars. I had driver's insurance that covered the most likely cause of serious injury.

All 50 million uninsured have full access to health care. For those who receive surgery or emergency room care without the means to pay, hospitals and doctors can write off the expense and hours as charity or loss. Those cases typically represent about 1-2% of costs.

Neither do we you tool, it's working people that PAY for the NHS. The only real difference between the NHS and your insurance system is that we cover everyone, and it's run on a non-profit basis.

Then nobody has the option to save themselves the expense of paying it, as I did and many other young people choose to do.

Gee, maybe because you talk about it it as if it was a living evil entity instead of just a group of your fellow citizens, elected by you and your fellow citizens.

And your fellow citizens once voted for Maggie Thatcher and her conservatives in a rare period of lucid thought. I talk about government as a living entity of evil because it behaves as one. Nothing is so permanent nor so ever encroaching as a government program, no matter how stupid and wasteful it may be. The government that governs best governs least.

Seriously, that's the best comeback you have? That you yanks are so generous that no charity would ever run out of money to pay for treatments? if that's not what you're saying, then I repeat the question:

"So if you get sick and you aren't lucky enough to have a local charity willing to pay for treatment you should what? Shut up and die quietly?"

It's not unusual to have a family raising money for expensive medical procedures when an illness isn't covered by a government program, insurance, or private charity organization. You can meet them and talk to them in many cases. It is good for the soul to be personally involved. Like I said, it must suck to live among your stingy countrymen.

70% of cleanup of those sites is funded by companies that were discovered to have caused the contamination...

Blah, blah, blah. Yes, regulation is a necessary evil. What we don't do is put the EPA in charge of every aspect of business just because some might pollute. And we don't want the government in charge of everyone's healthcare just because some might fall through the cracks. We've seen how government handles the post office, veterans administration, and on the state level, the DMV and Romneycare. Our country is five times as big as the UK, and bigger than all of NW Europe and those cute little healthcare systems you like to brag on.

This makes no sense, doctors here are not forced into huge debt to qualify and are then paid a high wage. In the US they can potentially make a lot more but run up lifelong debts in the process and only make the huge wages if they work in certain areas/fields. How exactly does that make your system better?

Nor are doctors here forced into huge debt. Many get scholarships from a wide variety of sources. Some go to prestigious schools that require either deep pockets or deep debt. That is their choice. Those who incur large debts could choose to live modestly and pay those debts off quickly. Again, their choice. Why force all doctors to make the same choice just because you think they should? Why force all citizens to make the same health care choice just because you think they should?

Aside from me obviously not caring what you think about my views, it's pretty funny that as an American you talk about 'class envy'...

I only point out what is revealed in your own words. And how is it your higher upward mobility doesn't lower your poverty rate? Your statistics are suspect.

As I said before, what does it matter about per capita GDP, when your income disparity is so high? When you have 50 million without health insurance? When you have terrible levels of poverty that far exceed the other first world nations? It's about ideology, and no matter how hard you bleat about socialism, the civilized parts of the western world are not willing to allow those kinds of failings in their countries. You spend hundreds of billions on new weapon systems while 40,000 people a year die from preventable illness, and many millions suffer in poverty. **** that noise.

There you go showing off your class envy again, whining about income disparity. The US poverty rate is comparable to France and Germany, and hasn't been above 15% in almost 50 years when UK hasn't been below 15%. Obviously our income disparity (only about 2 points higher than UK) combined with GDP/C (about 20% higher) is not as bad for the poor as much as it is good for the rich.

[kentonio]

We have these devices called "cars" in which we travel between places on "roads" that we've built between cities. A person in a remote rural area has to travel to do anything.

I've talked to too many elderly Americans who are living on or below the poverty line and suffering terribly from relatively minor ailments because they can't afford to even get to treatment centres to buy into that crap.

My wife getting cheap medical care when I was unemployed is relevant because of the flawed argument about "50 million uninsured" having no access to medical care. For two decades I was uninsured by choice. I paid for rare doctor visits out of pocket, and over those years I saved myself tens of thousands of dollars.

All 50 million uninsured have full access to health care. For those who receive surgery or emergency room care without the means to pay, hospitals and doctors can write off the expense and hours as charity or loss. Those cases typically represent about 1-2% of costs.

Oh right, so you want to have healthcare, you just don't want to pay for it right?

You think emergency room care is an efficient delivery and cost method?

Then nobody has the option to save themselves the expense of paying it, as I did and many other young people choose to do.

No, no-one has the option of not paying and then expecting someone else to. Quite right.

And your fellow citizens once voted for Maggie Thatcher and her conservatives in a rare period of lucid thought. I talk about government as a living entity of evil because it behaves as one. Nothing is so permanent nor so ever encroaching as a government program, no matter how stupid and wasteful it may be. The government that governs best governs least.

Very silly. See Somalia.

It's not unusual to have a family raising money for expensive medical procedures when an illness isn't covered by a government program, insurance, or private charity organization. You can meet them and talk to them in many cases. It is good for the soul to be personally involved. Like I said, it must suck to live among your stingy countrymen.

So basically you just keep ducking the question. Ok, what happens if you don't have a family able to raise the money? Should people just shut up and die?

Blah, blah, blah. Yes, regulation is a necessary evil. What we don't do is put the EPA in charge of every aspect of business just because some might pollute. And we don't want the government in charge of everyone's healthcare just because some might fall through the cracks.

That's EXACTLY why you put government in charge of those things. Because otherwise the little guy gets screwed.

We've seen how government handles the post office, veterans administration, and on the state level, the DMV and Romneycare. Our country is five times as big as the UK, and bigger than all of NW Europe and those cute little healthcare systems you like to brag on.

So mighty America isn't capable of running its own version of a system that countries with far less resources have run fine for decades. Fair enough.

Nor are doctors here forced into huge debt.

Go talk to Guy.

Why force all citizens to make the same health care choice just because you think they should?

Healthcare is not like shopping for a car. You're not picking a treatment that's a pretty colour or will go well with your wallpaper. the idea of 'choice' in healthcare (apart from things like paying for private rooms/experimental treatments etc) is a nonsense.

I only point out what is revealed in your own words. And how is it your higher upward mobility doesn't lower your poverty rate? Your statistics are suspect.

Poverty rates in one country are not equivalent to all other countries. We have poor people, but you have poorer ones. To be homeless, hungry and without healthcare here takes real effort.

There you go showing off your class envy again, whining about income disparity.

Income disparity is hugely important and effects every man, woman and child in a country. Crime, education EVERYTHING is eventually effected. It's a poison and to shout 'class envy' when people bring it up is incredibly inane.

[Sava]

Don't bother arguing with Straybow. This moronic statement sums him up:

The government that governs best governs least.

You can't talk to people who don't live in the real world.