Another UHC Woo

[Travis Retriever]

Me:  "There's no reason to switch into an extreme vision of any health system, public or private, because BOTH are flawed alone."
Before the government starting meddling, we had near universal insurance coverage with the bills being about the size of the phone bills of that time.

DeadlyChinchilla:  "Because phone bills haven't gotten any bigger since then, either, apparently. *sigh*

Before the government began regulating healthcare, many people were scammed and they often DIED for stupid reasons. You want to go back to that "draw a card" style of healthcare because it was cheap? Honestly..."

According to one of your latest videos, all the problems of healthcare can be traced back to government.
I take it what he talks about isn't an exception.

[MrBogosity]

It's not an exception, but it's something that's continuing to happen even with government meddling. In fact, the way our current laws are set up CAM gets a free ride while real medicine gets stifled!

[Travis Retriever]

Speaking of Universal Health Care woos, I just had a little talk about it with my mom.  Here's what she thinks:
"It will work, it does in Canada, the UK, etc."
When I pointed out that the average wait time in those countries is about 4 months, she just said,
"Bullshit, that's just what they want us Americans to think so we don't adopt their system.  I saw a documentary showing it. We would have it like we do public fire houses, public libraries, etc, where you don't get billed for it."
Me: "Documentaries are extremely unreliable.  When you look at the actual studies done, it shows the system being terrible.  And you DO get a bill for them, it's called 'taxes'."
Mom: "Well this way some of the taxes will go to some of this stuff like Health Care that people need."
Me: "It's cheaper in the private sector though.  Most of the spending from taxes is wasteful pork.  All of the problems you talk about (she talked about employer provided health care for example being expensive) are from government.  The solution to government caused problems is NOT more government."

The sad thing is, I got her to read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson (she read about half of it), and still doesn't understand the broken window fallacy here.
I've recommended Harry Browne's Why Government Doesn't Work and Dr. Mary J. Ruwart's Book Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression (the newer versions of both books).  Hopefully, all the evidence provided in those books will set her straight.  Hazlitt convinced her that the minimum wage laws are bogosity (at least somewhat anyways) after she would go on about the "living wage".
Hopefully, these books will make it stick.
Government is the problem, NOT the solution.

[Travis Retriever]

And I later learned the "documentary" was, you guessed it:
Michael Moore's Sicko.  I'll be sure and find the CNN article debunking the crap out of that movie.  I already have the special "20/20" with John Stossel: Sick in America giving some debate about it.
Shane, when you do do a video/bogosity episode on Socialized Medicine, make sure you debunk parts of his really sick movie, for me and my mom!

[MrBogosity]

What would you (or your mom) say are the really strong arguments of that movie? Those would be the ones I'd want to give priority pwning.

[Travis Retriever]

If you really want to see Socialized Medicine woos, try JacobSpinney's video on ending public healthcare:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK8tJrlBfZA.

Ex.
I swear this guy's as snide as Widdip was...
urbanverificationist:  "If something is free the demand will increase to infinity. Take liver transplants for instance. Everyone will have a liver transplant if the cost drops to zero. Why? Because going to the hospital for surgery is like going to Disney Land. That's economics according to Jocob Spinney. " (Find the part where Jacob said this.  If not, it's a straw man and a red herring.  How does this even relate to what Jacob was talking about???)

    To which I responded:  "You're leaving out the supply side..."

         To which he responded:  "You're a cheeky little bastard. " (Considering your post was hardly parse-able, I tried my best, mah boi. :3 He seems to be a snide douche who doesn't want to have a cogent argument or discussion)

    To which Jacob responded:  "What incentive would this give to people? If I were an alcoholic, would I have more reason to quit knowing that I would have to inevitably pay for a liver transplant or would I have more reason to quit knowing that my inevitable liver transplant would be free?
If people didn't have to pay for the consequences of their own actions, wouldn't they be more inclined to take more risk than if they did have to pay for the consequences of their own actions?"

         To which urbanverificationist retorted:  "You do realize that while our vices are often our doom, the highest percentage of our nations medical spending goes toward end of life care. Most of that bill is paid for by Medicare as private Insurers consider our grandparents too big of risk. Medicare's solvency problems are a function of the fact that it takes on far greater risk than private insurers. Do you mind being taxed to help pick up the tab for the elderly? Or shall we throw them to the wolves too. ;-)"
(Blantant appeal to Emotion, Broken Window Fallacy, and ignorance of the facts.  Does he not know what our healthcare system was like BEFORE the government started meddling?  Like how in the 1960's there was 97% coverage and charity hospitals everywhere, just to scratch the bloody surface?)

              To which JacobSpinney shot back: "What's your limit? Let's say that we've developed a procedure to keep an elderly person alive indefinitely. It'll just cost $1,000 a day. Are you OK with that coming out of your paycheck? How about $10,000 a day? How about $100,000 a day? How about $1,000,000 a day? How much would you say is too much?

An old person's worst nightmare is putting debt onto their families. Yet they have no care about putting strangers like us into debt to make them stay alive longer."


I also note many of them keep flinging around blatant strawmen (saying that Jacob supports the corporate clusterfuck in the USA now), and attempts to refute that by citing bogus statistics (the Health Care ratings that put the USA's system about 20 places below Canada's and the UK's, probably from WHO) and long debunked propaganda ("Sicko").

[Lord T Hawkeye]

What would you (or your mom) say are the really strong arguments of that movie? Those would be the ones I'd want to give priority pwning.

I haven't seen it (like hell Moore is putting any more of my money in his pocket), but the big one is pointing to Canada, France and all these other countries as having the PERFECT solution and any claims that they have problems is written off as "just a conspiracy."

Seriously, I had someone claim the whole "that's just something the republicans say" to me when I talked about the problems with Canada's system and I freaking LIVE here!  How stubborn to be right can you get?

[Lord T Hawkeye]

Speak of the devil!  I just got another one who says I totally don't know what I'm talking about even though I live in the country I speak of.  -_-

Bullshit. I'm not discussing this with LTH because all his views are extremist and unrealistic but, for everyone else curious whether this is true or not, it's bullshit.

Anyone diagnosed with a life threatening illness immediately becomes priority in the eyes of Canadian healthcare. The situations in which a Canadian dies prior to receiving treatment go something like this: seventy-year-old man has a lousy hip, needs replacement. His condition is not life threatening, however, so he does not receive priority care. Man dies of entirely unrelated complications within the twenty-six weeks prior to his surgery.

Prior to receiving treatment in Canada, your need of treatment is classified as emergement, urgent , or elective. In this case, elective means still necessary and, therefore, covered by healthcare, but not going to kill you. My mom had arthroscopic knee surgery this year. That was elective. On average, Canadians wait 16 weeks for this sort of treatment. Ontario has this down to 12.5. In tiny provinces like P.E.I. and New Brunswick, it's between 25 to 27 weeks.

Cancer cases deemed "urgent", so not immediately life threatening but possibly aggressive, are treated in between 35 days and four months, which is shambolic, yes, but it does not result in patients dying prior to receiving treatment. "You'll have to wait nine weeks for surgery" is not something a patient wants to hear after being diagnosed with cancer and the cancer will have time to progress. If the progression in that time is extreme (and it will be closely monitored), the patient's case will be deemed emergent and they will receive priority treatment. Had we better resources, Canadians would all be treated for urgent needs within 26 days.

Prescription drugs are not covered by Canadian healthcare, regardless how necessary they may be in order for someone to recover or function normally. The only medication paid for by Canadian healthcare is what you receive in the hospital prior, during and after surgery. Instead, the price of prescription drugs in Canada is kept low (lots of Americans cross the border in order to buy drugs or buy them online from Canada because they're so cheap) and patients or their private insurance companies (or both in conjunction) pay.

Canada's healthcare crisis pertains to our lack of physicians and intensive care units for patients who need immediate care. People shouldn't have to be airlifted to a hospital in butt-fuck nowhere to have a baby because all the beds are in use at their local hospital and none of the patients in them are eligible for discharge. Canadian healthcare is so not perfect but privatising it would make matters significantly worse for the average Canadian. More private options would be fantastic and very beneficial to those with the insurance coverage or money to afford them. Complete privatisation would be foolish.

But no, the concept Canadians die waiting for surgery is horseshit. I say this as someone who has extensive medical problems and works in medicine, monitoring patients after their diagnoses and throughout their treatment and recovery.

Canadians don't wait for surgery?  I wonder what color the sky is in her world.

I linked John Stossel's bit on that woman in Canada who had a blocked artery that was preventing her from digesting her food.  She was starving to death and our oh so wonderful system said she had to wait several months.  She went to the US for treatment and got it.

[MrBogosity]

I remember that!

"They said it was 'elective surgery.' Well, I elected to live!"

What about the fact that there are guys who make a living getting people from Canada to the US to get health care?

[Lord T Hawkeye]

I remember that!

"They said it was 'elective surgery.' Well, I elected to live!"

What about the fact that there are guys who make a living getting people from Canada to the US to get health care?

No answer yet but no doubt it'll be the conspiracy theory argument again.

I mean seriously, it would be nice to get a real meaty counterpoint to work from but "it's all just a conspiracy"?  That's so lame I can't even debate it.  -_-