US Representative Shot

[Randsbeik]

>bring down costs
>universal healthcare

pick one


also, healthcare is expensive as hell because of the shitloads of regulation in place like IP laws and licensing. The customer is pretty detached from the actual determinants of price.

How do we do it, one wonders? Why are our costs so much lower... And yet... We have universal care... Could it be, just maybe, I'm going to throw this revolutionary idea out there, but hear me out:
When the entire nation is governed by one healthcare apparatus, that apparatus has a very powerful negotiating position with doctors' unions and pharmaceutical companies, and can therefore bring down costs exponentially?

It's a crazy idea, never been tried. I'm talking science-fiction right now, but... Maybe?

As for regulations and licensing, I won't deny the power of medical patenting in bringing costs up, but we have far more regulations, far cheaper healthcare, and universal care. How is this possible?

Any industry taken out of the private sector ends up being metaphorically bound and gagged and subjected to government wastefulness, inefficiency, corruption, and control. The government really doesn't care about cost or service quality. It also takes away customer choice; instead of being able to customize their plan and adjust their costs, they're now stuck being covered with a one-size-fits-all system. Also, how far does this system extend? Is it basic operations only, or do I have to subsidize the consequences of somebody's diet consisting of nothing but garbage, too?

You could argue that European nations can do it well, but it's hardly self-sustaining. It always seems to work well at first (see Venezuela), but then you realize that these countries are in massive debt and don't have massive military expenditure like the US. Then, it's either curb expenditure, or raise taxes through the ceiling.

I'll top it off with what will probably go in one ear and out the other: I don't care; it isn't my job to provide for someone else I don't even know.

[The American Commonwealth]

Man I'm trying to be civil here, meet me half way, please.

I don't believe I've been anything less than civil. I am simply assuring you the right to gloat in our faces when we go broke because we funded our Social Security. Which will occur, I said facetiously, right after the Rapture. Suggesting that it will... Never occur, or at least not in a very long, long, long time.

Okay. Whatever. I'm just trying to end the conversation without further anger or name-calling on either side.

[Zanera]

Newsflash: France was on the winning side in both world wars.

Newsflash: Both wars were won after America joined. WWII was won after the occupation of France by the Nazis.

I wouldn't overplay our roles since we seemed to be initially reluctant in both wars.

[Olerand]

How do we do it, one wonders? Why are our costs so much lower... And yet... We have universal care... Could it be, just maybe, I'm going to throw this revolutionary idea out there, but hear me out:
When the entire nation is governed by one healthcare apparatus, that apparatus has a very powerful negotiating position with doctors' unions and pharmaceutical companies, and can therefore bring down costs exponentially?

It's a crazy idea, never been tried. I'm talking science-fiction right now, but... Maybe?

As for regulations and licensing, I won't deny the power of medical patenting in bringing costs up, but we have far more regulations, far cheaper healthcare, and universal care. How is this possible?

Any industry taken out of the private sector ends up being metaphorically bound and gagged and subjected to government wastefulness, inefficiency, corruption, and control. The government really doesn't care about cost or service quality. It also takes away customer choice; instead of being able to customize their plan and adjust their costs, they're now stuck being covered with a one-size-fits-all system. Also, how far does this system extend? Is it basic operations only, or do I have to subsidize the consequences of somebody's diet consisting of nothing but garbage, too?

You could argue that European nations can do it well, but it's hardly self-sustaining. It always seems to work well at first (see Venezuela), but then you realize that these countries are in massive debt and don't have massive military expenditure like the US. Then, it's either curb expenditure, or raise taxes through the ceiling.

I'll top it off with what will probably go in one ear and out the other: I don't care; it isn't my job to provide for someone else I don't even know.

So... All of our experiences, me in France, and the other posters from Britain, Germany, Canada etc. all just... Don't matter? You know best because of... Venezuela and your ideological beliefs?

OK, anyway...

Though you do applaud you for owning up to the American right's only religion today, Mammonism, and unfettered greed, selfishness and otherness. Many will deny these qualities, and I admire your willingness and ability to own up to them.

[The American Commonwealth]

Newsflash: Both wars were won after America joined. WWII was won after the occupation of France by the Nazis.

I wouldn't overplay our roles since we seemed to be initially reluctant in both wars.

Well ya. But can you really blame us? We didn't see them as our fight until the Germans and Japanese made it our fight.

[Mavorpen]

Did you finish that Google search yet? I'm interested in what you came up with.

0/10

Didn't come up with anything, I take it.

[Nulla Bellum]

Newsflash: Both wars were won after America joined. WWII was won after the occupation of France by the Nazis.

I wouldn't overplay our roles since we seemed to be initially reluctant in both wars.

Understandibly, as Europeans haven't gone 20 years without making war on other Europeans since Philip of Macedon. And nearly 50 of those wars have been since World War 2.

But Americans are violent, yo.

[Olerand]

Newsflash: France was on the winning side in both world wars.

Newsflash: Both wars were won after America joined. WWII was won after the occupation of France by the Nazis.

A very tired argument that I have dealt with before, I will link you to the discussion if you are interested in knowing why you have not "saved us". Again, another myth born out of provincialism.

And I mean this civilly, I never intended to come off as rude or aggressive. I am simply naturally, and true to stereotype, passive-aggressive.

[Nulla Bellum]

0/10

Didn't come up with anything, I take it.

0/10

Redeem yourself already.

[Zanera]

I wouldn't overplay our roles since we seemed to be initially reluctant in both wars.

Well ya. But can you really blame us? We didn't see them as our fight until the Germans and Japanese made it our fight.

We went to war because it was suddenly in our interests.

[Olerand]

Well ya. But can you really blame us? We didn't see them as our fight until the Germans and Japanese made it our fight.

We went to war because it was suddenly in our interests.

You were attacked. You were forced into the war. Germany even declared war on America before America did the opposite, just to force your hand even more. You were more than content to sit it out otherwise, as you had been doing for two bloody years.

[Mavorpen]

Didn't come up with anything, I take it.

0/10

Redeem yourself already.

So you did? Tell me what you got then.

[Randsbeik]

Any industry taken out of the private sector ends up being metaphorically bound and gagged and subjected to government wastefulness, inefficiency, corruption, and control. The government really doesn't care about cost or service quality. It also takes away customer choice; instead of being able to customize their plan and adjust their costs, they're now stuck being covered with a one-size-fits-all system. Also, how far does this system extend? Is it basic operations only, or do I have to subsidize the consequences of somebody's diet consisting of nothing but garbage, too?

You could argue that European nations can do it well, but it's hardly self-sustaining. It always seems to work well at first (see Venezuela), but then you realize that these countries are in massive debt and don't have massive military expenditure like the US. Then, it's either curb expenditure, or raise taxes through the ceiling.

I'll top it off with what will probably go in one ear and out the other: I don't care; it isn't my job to provide for someone else I don't even know.

So... All of our experiences, me in France, and the other posters from Britain, Germany, Canada etc. all just... Don't matter? You know best because of... Venezuela and your ideological beliefs?

OK, anyway...

Though you do applaud you for owning up to the American right's only religion today, Mammonism, and unfettered greed, selfishness and otherness. Many will deny these qualities, and I admire your willingness and ability to own up to them.

I don't claim to know best, and at the end of the day, it doesn't really affect me how other people in other countries manage their medical care. All I really can do is use reasoning to predict what's going to happen, and it sure as shit doesn't look pleasant. The only thing I for sure don't want is for this system to infect (no pun intended) America.

People in other countries usually have varying experiences with their healthcare system. You have Canadians who extol their system, and those who died in the queue. It isn't that I don't pay attention to the positive accounts because of confirmation bias; it's just that I have to balance them out with the negative ones. Even I'll admit that it isn't universal suffering in single-payer or widespread jubilation in private management. It's just that, logically, full privatization of healthcare (not the grotesque hybrid we 'muricans have) usually leads to more freedom and a higher quality of care. Even for the poor, there are options like lodge practice (or were, before the feds clamped down on it).

The part about "greedy rightists" is mostly just fluff but I'll respond anyway. I'm not against helping and generousness as a principle. I help family and friends in need, and take note of the problems of the people close to me. But my compassion is very limited, and I have none to spare for people I don't even know.

[Olerand]

So... All of our experiences, me in France, and the other posters from Britain, Germany, Canada etc. all just... Don't matter? You know best because of... Venezuela and your ideological beliefs?

OK, anyway...

Though you do applaud you for owning up to the American right's only religion today, Mammonism, and unfettered greed, selfishness and otherness. Many will deny these qualities, and I admire your willingness and ability to own up to them.

I don't claim to know best, and at the end of the day, it doesn't really affect me how other people in other countries manage their medical care. All I really can do is use reasoning to predict what's going to happen, and it sure as shit doesn't look pleasant.(1) The only thing I for sure don't want is for this system to infect (no pun intended) America.

People in other countries usually have varying experiences with their healthcare system. (2) You have Canadians who extol their system, and those who died in the queue. It isn't that I don't pay attention to the positive accounts because of confirmation bias; it's just that I have to balance them out with the negative ones. Even I'll admit that it isn't universal suffering in single-payer or widespread jubilation in private management. (3) It's just that, logically, full privatization of healthcare (not the grotesque hybrid we 'muricans have) usually leads to more freedom and a higher quality of care. (4) Even for the poor, there are options like lodge practice (or were, before the feds clamped down on it).

The part about "greedy rightists" is mostly just fluff but I'll respond anyway. I'm not against helping and generousness as a principle. I help family and friends in need, and take note of the problems of the people close to me. (5) But my compassion is very limited, and I have none to spare for people I don't even know.

1- I am sure you don't. As you do not seek the best system that provides the best outcome for all, but one that will simply not force you to "pay for someone else". It's a different understanding, a different paradigm, and one of the main reasons why America and its right-wing are nowhere near the center.
2- Polls, and Canadian politics, suggest far more of the first than the latter. Outside of Americans spreading this idea, and a few disgruntled Canadian libertarians, I have actually never heard any Canadian complain about their healthcare system and want it privatized, and I have spent quite a lot of time all around Québec.
3- Something that has never been proven, while the opposite has.
4- Like the best cure, death.
5- A belief far from the "center-right", and one that is light-years away from anything even remotely mainstream in the rest of the developed world. Hell, even our radicals aren't this radical.

[Nulla Bellum]

0/10

Redeem yourself already.

So you did? Tell me what you got then.

I'm glad not all fools can induce suffering.

Perhaps it's the Yiddish? Your No True Leftist fallacy isn't a schtick?

[Zanera]

We went to war because it was suddenly in our interests.

You were attacked. You were forced into the war. Germany even declared war on America before America did the opposite, just to force your hand even more. You were more than content to sit it out otherwise, as you had been doing for two bloody years.

Pearl Harbor was definitely all-in. WWI was more vague.

[Olerand]

You were attacked. You were forced into the war. Germany even declared war on America before America did the opposite, just to force your hand even more. You were more than content to sit it out otherwise, as you had been doing for two bloody years.

Pearl Harbor was definitely all-in. WWI was more vague.

Uhm... Germany promised Mexico all of the American south-west if Mexico would launch a surprise attack against America. Pretty important casus belli right there.

EDIT: Oh, and German U-boats kept sinking your civilian ships.

[Randsbeik]

I don't claim to know best, and at the end of the day, it doesn't really affect me how other people in other countries manage their medical care. All I really can do is use reasoning to predict what's going to happen, and it sure as shit doesn't look pleasant.(1) The only thing I for sure don't want is for this system to infect (no pun intended) America.

People in other countries usually have varying experiences with their healthcare system. (2) You have Canadians who extol their system, and those who died in the queue. It isn't that I don't pay attention to the positive accounts because of confirmation bias; it's just that I have to balance them out with the negative ones. Even I'll admit that it isn't universal suffering in single-payer or widespread jubilation in private management. (3) It's just that, logically, full privatization of healthcare (not the grotesque hybrid we 'muricans have) usually leads to more freedom and a higher quality of care. (4) Even for the poor, there are options like lodge practice (or were, before the feds clamped down on it).

The part about "greedy rightists" is mostly just fluff but I'll respond anyway. I'm not against helping and generousness as a principle. I help family and friends in need, and take note of the problems of the people close to me. (5) But my compassion is very limited, and I have none to spare for people I don't even know.

1- I am sure you don't. As you do not seek the best system that provides the best outcome for all, but one that will simply not force you to "pay for someone else". It's a different understanding, a different paradigm, and one of the main reasons why America and its right-wing are nowhere near the center.
2- Polls, and Canadian politics, suggest far more of the first than the latter. Outside of Americans spreading this idea, and a few disgruntled Canadian libertarians, I have actually never heard any Canadian complain about their healthcare system and want it privatized, and I have spent quite a lot of time all around Québec.
3- Something that has never been proven, while the opposite has.
4- Like the best cure, death.
5- A belief far from the "center-right", and one that is light-years away from anything even remotely mainstream in the rest of the developed world. Hell, even our radicals aren't this radical.

1.) "Best outcome for all" means little unless you're referring to the system that results in the most satisfied people. You know, free-market healthcare.

2.) I never mentioned anything about prevalence, and I'll take it with a grain of salt that most Canadians probably do have a positive opinion on their healthcare. Numbers don't negate criticism.

3.) Yeah, despite cheap treatment in the days before America's bureaucracy caught up with it doesn't prove possible market success, and short-term benefits and disasters like Soviet healthcare don't mean that single-payer can fail.

4.) Are you implying I'm advocating for the mass execution of the poor?

5.) I never claimed to be centrist. I used to be, but then I got sick of it when lefties had to mess with my damn vidya. Be glad I'm not Chris Cantwell.

[Olerand]

1- I am sure you don't. As you do not seek the best system that provides the best outcome for all, but one that will simply not force you to "pay for someone else". It's a different understanding, a different paradigm, and one of the main reasons why America and its right-wing are nowhere near the center.
2- Polls, and Canadian politics, suggest far more of the first than the latter. Outside of Americans spreading this idea, and a few disgruntled Canadian libertarians, I have actually never heard any Canadian complain about their healthcare system and want it privatized, and I have spent quite a lot of time all around Québec.
3- Something that has never been proven, while the opposite has.
4- Like the best cure, death.
5- A belief far from the "center-right", and one that is light-years away from anything even remotely mainstream in the rest of the developed world. Hell, even our radicals aren't this radical.

1.) "Best outcome for all" means little unless you're referring to the system that results in the most satisfied people. You know, free-market healthcare.

2.) I never mentioned anything about prevalence, and I'll take it with a grain of salt that most Canadians probably do have a positive opinion on their healthcare. Numbers don't negate criticism.

3.) Yeah, despite cheap treatment in the days before America's bureaucracy caught up with it doesn't prove possible market success, and short-term benefits and disasters like Soviet healthcare don't mean that single-payer can fail.

4.) Are you implying I'm advocating for the mass execution of the poor?

5.) I never claimed to be centrist. I used to be, but then I got sick of it when lefties had to mess with my damn vidya. Be glad I'm not Chris Cantwell.

1- An assertion again proven nowhere. Disproven everywhere.

2- Of course, no system is perfect. But some are objectively better than others, as all of us who have universal care know when we look at America.

3- Actually, Soviet healthcare was very successful, especially with the meager means it had. Post-Soviet, non-Baltic States' healthcare pale in comparison.

4- No, I am stating that the ultimate outcome of your healthcare preference, and America's current healthcare system, is the death of the poor. Whether you desire that, I do not know, it will occur and it is occurring.

5- True, this was a comment directed towards others more than yourself. But to Americans in general, and right-wingers in particular, which I assume you are both.

[Nulla Bellum]

Pearl Harbor was definitely all-in. WWI was more vague.

Uhm... Germany promised Mexico all of the American south-west if Mexico would launch a surprise attack against America. Pretty important casus belli right there.

EDIT: Oh, and German U-boats kept sinking your civilian ships.

...that carried arms and equipment to Britain...

[Olerand]

Uhm... Germany promised Mexico all of the American south-west if Mexico would launch a surprise attack against America. Pretty important casus belli right there.

EDIT: Oh, and German U-boats kept sinking your civilian ships.

...that carried arms and equipment to Britain...

Officially non-military ships. So, sinking civilian ships, including at least one cruise liner. All of a neutral country that was after all, making a sale.

[Zanera]

Pearl Harbor was definitely all-in. WWI was more vague.

Uhm... Germany promised Mexico all of the American south-west if Mexico would launch a surprise attack against America. Pretty important casus belli right there.

EDIT: Oh, and German U-boats kept sinking your civilian ships.

Just one outrage after another. Have to get tired of it eventually.

[Cannot think of a name]

If I wasn't lazy I'd try and map how a thread about the shooting of a member of the House of Representatives became a pissing contest about who 'won' WWII.

[Randsbeik]

1.) "Best outcome for all" means little unless you're referring to the system that results in the most satisfied people. You know, free-market healthcare.

2.) I never mentioned anything about prevalence, and I'll take it with a grain of salt that most Canadians probably do have a positive opinion on their healthcare. Numbers don't negate criticism.

3.) Yeah, despite cheap treatment in the days before America's bureaucracy caught up with it doesn't prove possible market success, and short-term benefits and disasters like Soviet healthcare don't mean that single-payer can fail.

4.) Are you implying I'm advocating for the mass execution of the poor?

5.) I never claimed to be centrist. I used to be, but then I got sick of it when lefties had to mess with my damn vidya. Be glad I'm not Chris Cantwell.

1- An assertion again proven nowhere. Disproven everywhere.

2- Of course, no system is perfect. But some are objectively better than others, as all of us who have universal care know when we look at America.

3- Actually, Soviet healthcare was very successful, especially with the meager means it had. Post-Soviet, non-Baltic States' healthcare pale in comparison.

4- No, I am stating that the ultimate outcome of your healthcare preference, and America's current healthcare system, is the death of the poor. Whether you desire that, I do not know, it will occur and it is occurring.

5- True, this was a comment directed towards others more than yourself. But to Americans in general, and right-wingers in particular, which I assume you are both.

1.) "Disproven" how, exactly?

2.) For the last time, America is not free-market healthcare. It's regulated in and out the ass.

3.) By the end, many hospitals didn't even have piped water and were about as hygienic as a sewer rat in Tijuana. Technology was behind that of America's, and equipment was scarce to begin with. Also, doctor wages were ass.

4.) Mine and America's current system? I'll say it again. America's healthcare system is garbage. It resembles nothing close to my ideal system.

5.) Right and right.

[Nulla Bellum]

...that carried arms and equipment to Britain...

Officially non-military ships. So, sinking civilian ships, including at least one cruise liner. All of a neutral country that was after all, making a sale.

Speaking of sales, what if Europe had to pay for establishing its health care system?