What the fuck are you talking about?  I don’t care if most of the “us” use the WHO system.  The United States doesn’t.  So it doesn’t mean jack shit if all of Europe uses the WHO system.  The US doesn’t and since it doesn’t comparing its infant mortality rate with that of countries that do use it is worthless.  I’ll try to use numbers to explain this.

If there are 100 births, the United States will use all 100 births in its numbers.  Other countries would knock off the bottom 10, so they are only using 90 of the births in its numbers.

I didn’t say anything about any country hiding its statistics you simplistic fool.  I’m saying that the statistics are gathered differently.

That is not evidence, that is just you talking again isn’t it.

Because I’m not repeating what I’ve already provided for you.  You didn’t bother to pay attention the first time, either go back and get it or don’t bother.  But to say I didn’t give it to you, when I did, makes you either ignorant or a liar.

Err, doesn’t that mean it provides the right?

No.  I can get a lawyer separate from any action taken by the government.  The right is not provided, it is ensured because the government is forbidden from taking that right AWAY.

You know what, I give up with you and Buzzion, you are both soo stupendously stupid that arguing with you is utterly pointless.

The more you invent my positions and then knock down the straw men, the more you will find that it is in fact pointless.  I have tried to get you back on point but that has proven to not be a priority for you.  So whether you discuss what we are actually saying or if you just give up and go away, I will very happily welcome an end to the pointless nature of your arguing.

The enshrining of the right is to prevent your government taking your money and then refusing care

Unless you smoke, then it is okay for the government to take your money and refuse care.

Either way, you continue to present the idea that the government should start up some universal, federally-funded program, and then make it illegal for the government to end such a program.  That is not how rights work in America.  We did not set up a network of public defenders and then say, okay, now that we have the Federal Lawyering System, it’s against the law to tell people they can’t have a lawyer.  That is not how rights work in America.

And in the interest of avoiding “lol u am st00pid” responses, feel free to substitute “refuse care” for “end the program” as it suits you.  Either way, I don’t think it’s stupid to question a system where by a person can defraud the system with no checks on the legitimacy of the medical claim.

Either way, I don’t think it’s stupid to question a system where by a person can defraud the system with no checks on the legitimacy of the medical claim.

What?

You will have to expand on this point, because I am wondering what you are talking about, because it would require several people, including doctors and nurses to work together in a major undertaking to actually defraud a socialised medicine system.

On a side not, that was quite a difficult sentence to construct.  The operative word to use in the sentence “to work together in a major [ ... ] “ is ‘operation’ but its too medical, so I thought I would use a different word...so I used undertaking, which is synonymous with death.  Get thee to a punnery.

Sethery I am still interested, in case you missed it on the last page, in whether you are against Social Medicine in Principle or not.

Also w0rf just to re-iterate.

Just because you said it earlier, that doesn’t make it a fact. You actually have to provide some evidence, and you saying it earlier, isn’t evidence.

You can’t claim that you have provided evidence, just cause you said the same thing two pages ago.  You actually have to supply some real evidence.

You will have to expand on this point, because I am wondering what you are talking about

I am talking about someone getting “treatment” which they do not need.  I didn’t know medical fraud was a mystery to you.

because it would require several people, including doctors and nurses to work together in a major undertaking to actually defraud a socialised medicine system.

No it wouldn’t, it would require one lying “patient” and a system whereby you are NOT ALLOWED TO REFUSE CARE.

Just because you said it earlier, that doesn’t make it a fact.

I provided my facts previously.  I never claimed to have made “say-so” claims previously and expect you to accept them as fact.  That has been YOUR stated position.  Once again, you accuse me of the sins that you in fact are committing.

My facts are on the record.  Your ignorance is not my problem.  For you to demand evidence (which I have already provided and in several cases cited for your reference) is laughable considering you have yet to provide anything to back up your own claims.  You seem much more interested in pretending I’m committing all of YOUR fallacies than actually going back, taking something I’ve written, absorbing it, and responding to it.  To whit: I responded to pretty much every point in your last several posts to me, and you just blew by all of them without comment, other than one that you didn’t understand, in favor of claiming “wah wah wah you need evidence’.  Go read.

You can’t claim that you have provided evidence, just cause you said the same thing two pages ago.  You actually have to supply some real evidence.

That’s hysterical coming from you.

Seriously people, you’re arguing higher social issues with a fish.

Londoner,

I have quoted exactly where I got your position on free healthcare.  I was very clear in the first post that I was talking about free healthcare.  Your reply expressed a position on free healthcare.  Most, if not all, of my subsequent replies referred explicitly to free healthcare.  There is no way that you could not know that I was arguing about free healthcare.  Finally, you participated in every exchange about free healthcare by defending the position I was opposing.  And now you’re not just trying to move the goalposts, you’re trying to change the game from American football to lawn darts.  Sure, there’s still grass involved, but everything else became retroactively irrelevant to you somehow.

So I take it we at least agree (now) that there is no right (whether a natural right or granted by the American government) to FREE healthcare.

Now about my take on socialized medicine.  Before I can give an absolute answer we need to delineate exactly what the “principle” is behind “socialized medicine”.  I’ll let you define it, but don’t be vague like you were with “enshrined rights”.  Be specific.  I don’t want to waste another few days.

I will give you a few aspects of my position up front.  I’m not against reasonable government health and safety regulations.  I’m not against a safety net for those who can’t afford it.  I will say that nobody should die due to inability to pay for services.  And when I say “nobody”, I mean citizens, residents, tourists, hell even illegal immigrants.  And I’d be willing to back those minimum services with my taxpayer money.  But I don’t think the government has an obligation to provide comfort to everybody.

I do support free, complete, lifetime coverage, to one group of people (off the top of my head):  veterans.  They were willing to sacrifice their life for this country.  It’s difficult to imagine qantifying any way to reimburse them for the risks they took, but not having to worry about healthcare costs is appropriate.

Do be very clear here:  what defines the “principle” behind “socialized medicine”?

You have been claiming since page 5 that you “proved” your point with evidence, all you have said for 4 pages is...I have proved that, check my posts!

So I did, you started refering to your previous post on page 5, so I went back and I found it, and this is what I found.

‘The companies that make medicine will not be able to do so as well as they do now.’

Conjecture - not evidence.

‘My view, quite simply, is that the more responsibility the government takes for our well-being, the less freedom that individuals have to control their own fate, for good or ill.  So my ideal for a free society is by maximizing our personal freedoms by minimizing government intervention’

Conjecture - not evidence.

‘And traditionally, the government has been relatively poor stewards of tax monies, meaning that a nationalized plan will either cost us twice as much or provide half the coverage, due to bureaucratic waste.’

Conjecture - not evidence.

‘Once the government has that money, it becomes the one who decides how to spend it on your health care.  That means that the doctors you see and the treatment you receive are on the good graces of people who have no vested interest in your household, your family, your situation.’

Conjecture - not evidence.

‘There has been discussion on the boards that, in England, there has been talk of banning tobacco.  In particular, barring the impractical “solution” of prohibition, a longtime Brit board member has postulated that the government is taking steps to “squeeze” the market out instead.  They say that tobacco is bad (and they’re probably right), but not so bad that it’s worth shutting down the industry, apparently.  So instead they are using social engineering tactics to try and condition people not to smoke.’

Conjecture - not evidence.

‘But what happens when the government decides that fattening foods are draining tax dollars?  Or sugars?  Or caffeine?  What happens when chiropractic care becomes prohibitively expensive because people are spending too much time in their chairs arguing on the Internet?  What other forms of social conditioning will be mandated by the government to meet their bottom line?’

Conjecture - not evidence.

‘the more security we seek from a government source, the more personal freedoms we give up to achieve that.’

Conjecture - not evidence.

You have proved absolutely nothing, you have provided absolutely no facts or statistics in anyway.

You made 6 paragraphs of complete and utter conjecture without offering one specific piece of information to prove any of your claims.

Then you spent the next 6 pages claiming you had already provied all your evidence and all your proof.

You sir, are an unmitigated wanker!

You have proved absolutely nothing, you have provided absolutely no facts or statistics in anyway.

Neither have you.  Although I guess proving you’re really dumb counts for something.

Watching Londoner reminds me of the old saying: “Never wrestle with a pig.  You just get dirty and the pig likes it.”

None of that was the evidence I was talking about.  Most of those are my opinions about government, which is why they say things like “MY VIEW IS X”.

Genius.

I have stated several examples of federal inefficiency.  I gave you a link to go check out the efficiency of charities yourself.

You have the reasoning capacity of a potted plant.  All your huffing and puffing means about 1% as much to me as if you actually tried to communicate.

So I take it we at least agree (now) that there is no right (whether a natural right or granted by the American government) to FREE healthcare.

I never said a right existed.

I said you could make it a right, thus making sure that the government couldn’t refuse treatment, as a poster expressed some concern in that area, in the terms of ‘care’ which means it is required, we taking that as a given now right?

Now about my take on socialized medicine.  Before I can give an absolute answer we need to delineate exactly what the “principle” is behind “socialized medicine”.  I’ll let you define it.

Well I will let the dictionary define it.

“A government-regulated system for providing health care for all by means of subsidies derived from taxation.”

That is the principle behind it.  If you mean how will it work in practice, that is a massive question.  One I have just spent about an hour or so contemplating.

I can’t see a way of doing it without decimating the HMOs.  There is just no way of providing care for all without hitting them hard.  The best you can do is help them diversify by having what we call in the UK PFI’s.  Private Finance Iniatives.  This is basically private companies running publically owned utilities, like our Railways...not a great success story, I grant you, but that was because it was done for all the wrong reasons.  I could go into them but it would just bore you, take my word for it.

Done for the right reasons, having private companies run public utilities can be a good idea.  You get private sector knowledge and expertise and you can also work some competition into your system.

That won’t stop a massive shrinking of the industry tho, with a lot of companies being bought up by the larger few and those taking on government contracts to survive.  With a small amount of private business to a few companies and people to profit from.

The practice of moving to a socialised health care system, would be a shock to the American system, it would have a large impact in the short term, the long term gains are worth it though.

As to the rest of your post, the problem I see is that health needs so much more then a saftey net. There is such a thing as preventative medicine. Routine, regular check ups, to catch things before they become a problem.

These are not provided by a saftey net.

"Except he just gave a speech calling once again for nationalized health care.”

Fact.

“Health care is particularly perilous because it has tendrils that extend into many different aspects of everyday life.”

Simply stating the obvious.  Many things affect your health, from your eating habits to your exercise, the type of work you do, the amount of sleep you get, heredity, environment… is this a point that you honestly contest?

“Once the government has that money, it becomes the one who decides how to spend it on your health care.”

Simply stating the obvious.  A government program is run by the protocols set by the government.  It enacts that program with the tax dollars it appropriates.  Therefore, the money is spent in keeping with those protocols.  If you are saying that you can call up Parliament today and tell them to build a rail that runs to your house, because that’s how you want to spend your tax dollars, tell me now and I will concede this point as incorrect.

“Incidentally, Moore is so committed to free speech and fostering criticism of his work that he took the forums off his own site years ago.”

Fact.

From Huffington: “Moore wants his fellow Americans to seize this moment when health care will be publicized to demand that the state governments and Congress enact a universal, single-payer system“

From PNHP.org: “In the case of health care, a single-payer system would be setup such that one entity—a government run organization—would collect all health care fees, and pay out all health care costs.”

CITED QUOTES.

“Charitynavigator.org.  Go there, and see comparisons between different American charities, and their performance evaluations.  Then come back and tell me that government-run programs achieve a NINETY-PERCENT payout rate of funds appropriated for those programs.”

Provided a link for you to investigate private charities for yourself.  All you have to do is show me that the gov’t gives you a 90% return on allappropriated monies and I’m wrong.

“Actually, the bulk of these services (fire, police, etc) are provided by local and sometimes state governments, not federal.”

Fact.

“The modern public library system in the US owes its present state to Andrew Carnegie’s $50m contribution to starting up new libraries (that’s $500m+ in today money), and they are about 90% funded by local taxes.”

Fact.

“Many HMOs operate at a loss.  I worked for Anthem BC/BS for about a year, and they were consistently posting losses at that time.  You want to look at profits, try pharmeceuticals.”

Fact.

“I also believe that means 260 million Americans HAVE healthcare.”

Fact.

“He HAD the money to help his wife.  He HAD the money to keep the site up.  Moore cut a check TWO YEARS after his request for help went out, and it was because his ISP host was SCAMMING HIM. “

Fact.

“Depending on who’s doing your survey, the US is somewhere in the 20’s on life expectancy, in the high 30’s on overall health system performance, and in the low 70’s on “level of health”, whatever that means.”

Fact.

“In AMERICA, people are not turned down based on income.  They simply have to go to the ER for emergencies, or a free clinic for less-pressing issues.”

Fact.  You may not like the level of coverage provided, but it’s an accurate statement.

“- JimK in particular has agreed with Moore in principle on certain issues
- JimK has expressed gratitude for Moore’s offer of money, disingenuous as it was”

Facts.

“We already have such a system here in America.  It’s called Medicare, Medicaid, SSDI, etc.  A portion of our health care is managed by the government, for the elderly, disabled and destitute, and the rest is left to the private individuals.  This is not the same as a UNIVERSAL, SINGLE-PAYER SYSTEM.  Neither is your idealized social/private hybrid, which is not what Moore has been advocating.”

Fact.

http://www.freemedicinefoundation.com/

The United States Federal Government provides tax breaks and other incentives to encourage pharmaceutical sponsors that provide prescription drugs for free or low cost.

As a nationwide patient-advocacy organization founded by volunteers in the early nineties, Free Medicine Foundation links patients to free or very low-cost prescription plans available to eliminate or substantially reduce their prescription meds cost. Many sponsors have pledged that no patient in need should go without coverage and evaluate needs on a case-by-case basis.

With each medication the income criteria varies from below the poverty level up to $39,200 for individuals, $52,800 for couples, and as high as $80,000 for a family of four. Once a patient is approved, brand-name free medicines arrive in two to three weeks, dispensed either directly to the patient, or a coupon is given to take to a local pharmacy or through the doctor’s office.  These programs can provide a lifetime supply of free medication.

CITED QUOTATION

“I wonder why people keep coming here trumpeting the magnificence of Cuba’s health care system.  Michael Moore’s OWN MOVIE shows that the US is more highly ranked.”

Fact.

“I seem to recall that the US government ran ad campaigns regarding the release of state quarters, and of our newly-designed paper money, and even to encourage people to get on food stamps, in recent years.  This on top of all the PSAs they release and/or sponsor.  Yes, you do have an advertising budget.”

Fact.  And it’s just a drop in the bucket of federal spending on ads.

“our country has been deficit-spending almost every year for the last half-century.  We’ve been BORROWING from our SOCIAL SECURITY monies, which is supposed to be off the general ledger, since the Johnson administration.  These days that borrowing is in the hundreds of billions.  Just the interest on federal debt is something like a quarter of its budget.”

Fact.  Fact.  Fact.  Fact.

“What I’m getting at, is that we are a lesser example of America’s poor individual money management.  People rack up ridiculous amounts of consumer debt and when something like this happens, they have no capacity to pay for the things that matter.”

Fact.  2/3 of the American economy exists only on paper, because of all the credit/debt being shuffled around.

“In a global market, the price of crude is driven by the supply and demand around the world, not just in our own nation.”

Fact.

“First of all, the police force is a local control, not a federal program.”

Fact (a repeated one, to boot).

“It is currently down about 20% over the last few months.”

Fact.

“Food stamps have been around for decades.”

Fact.

“Public Service Announcements DO NOT exist only to introduce new things.”

Fact.

“Regular citizens pay higher prices for medicines in order to support the lost revenue on medicines given away at low prices or for free through other programs.”

Fact.  Your $10 prescriptions for the same medicine we get at a higher cost proves that without my even trying.

Also, you’re welcome.

“You have a right to a fair trial apart from the government’s providence.”

Fact.

What were you saying again, about me not supporting my points?

Simply stating the obvious.  Many things affect your health, from your eating habits to your exercise, the type of work you do, the amount of sleep you get, heredity, environment… is this a point that you honestly contest?

It isn’t a matter of the obvious, it is a matter of you showing a sinister side of this.  The implication in your statement, by using such words as perilous, is that it is dangerous.

You have not proven this.

The worst part is, if the government wanted that information, they could just take it from the private companies who hold that information on you.  Health Care requires you to share some information about yourself.  That is the simple and obvious fact, you have far from proven anything is perilous about it.

“Once the government has that money, it becomes the one who decides how to spend it on your health care.”

No the Government does not decide how to treat you, your doctor decides how to treat you, the government just pays the bill.

Provided a link for you to investigate private charities for yourself.  All you have to do is show me that the gov’t gives you a 90% return on allappropriated monies and I’m wrong.

Again this does not prove your point.  You take from it the ‘evidence’ that the Government wastes money, but it proves nothing of the sort.  It proves that Charities do not.

Government run schemes face difficulties that are not encountered by Charities, too numerous to mention, but I am sure you will ask me to anyway.

“Actually, the bulk of these services (fire, police, etc) are provided by local and sometimes state governments, not federal.”

Fact.

Utterly irrelevent and I feel somewhat contrived.

Isn’t your system a pyramid? If something is Federal, it is State wide.  So if you have a rule at the top, it runs all the way down to county level.  So if the rule is at a Federal Level, the States have to abide by it.

our country has been deficit-spending almost every year for the last half-century.  We’ve been BORROWING from our SOCIAL SECURITY monies, which is supposed to be off the general ledger, since the Johnson administration.  These days that borrowing is in the hundreds of billions.  Just the interest on federal debt is something like a quarter of its budget.”

Fact.  Fact.  Fact.  Fact.

Also irrelevent. irrelevent. irrelevent. irrelevent.

You could afford a war in Iraq when all of this was still true.

“Many HMOs operate at a loss.  I worked for Anthem BC/BS for about a year, and they were consistently posting losses at that time.  You want to look at profits, try pharmeceuticals.”

Your anecdotal recollections are hardly worthy of being stamped Fact, who do you think you are some authority or something, you are a random 4 letter name on the internet, just because you say something, doesn’t make it a fact.

My god that made me laugh out loud honestly, I mean come on, I have a right go at you about you stating something doesn’t make it a fact, that you actually need evidence to present something as a fact, and you come back with something you said, with nothing more then a story about your previous life and you stamp with “FACT!”

I can hardly contain my laughter.

OK, I’m making an executive call here.  No more debating Londoner on this thread (or any other if you value your time).

He has ruined a couple of really good comment threads, and hes NEVER, EVER going to admit his intentional misdirections, his logic chasms (I’d call them holes, but...they’re bigger), he’ll never admit he is out of his depth.  He won’t stop attributing his own biases and shortcomings to others. 

The conversation can never move forward.

Stop.  No more replying to him here.  He’s ruined this thread enough for one lifetime.  No Mas!