I don't care if you don't write a check, or hand over a credit card or some bills when you take receipt of health service, it's not $#@! free and you know it isn't (I suspect you are choosing a specific context in order to make the statement).

Even if healthcare should be free it won't be because the people who provide health services and the gadgets and chemicals who contribute to health services have their own needs + individual agendas to pursue happiness.

I'm not bringing this up to debate who or how many should have their money confiscated to pay for health care and to what extent. I'm bringing it up because I'm tired of hearing that people who are against expanded government provided health care are just "miseducated" (and usually accused of much worse) while there is little concern about the "miseducated" perception that government provided healthcare is "free".

Fine. Free at the point of use and subsidised to the certain extent by the government. And as a consequence of us all paying through our taxation, spreading the cost throughout society, rather than dumping it on YOU when you weren't able to cover your own health insurance. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of the UK version of universal health care versus the US model. That's not my point. And fair enough if you want to say that people are misrepresenting the cost as completely free.

But you can't deny that the idea of collective health care within the UK is being completely misrepresented within the US in a way which literally sends my head spinning. That's why it's in the politics section.

And to reiterate, even if it's something I and the rest of the taxpayers have covered for since I started paying tax in the UK, the point is, we have not had to personally pay any bills for those costs arising from our son being born with a deformed ear. We've had no bills through the door for extremely specialist support.

VoxOrion wrote:.... I'm tired of hearing that people who are against expanded government provided health care are just "miseducated" (and usually accused of much worse) while there is little concern about the "miseducated" perception that government provided healthcare is "free".

Given your fatigue, you should husband your energy and expend more of it corresponding with leaders of the political apparatus guiding the opposition you mention. Advise them that their way of expressing their concerns reveals to one and all that they are basically assheads.

But I appreciate the difficulty you'd have finding anyone identifiable as a leader of that band just now.

Scarcity of all material things, & time, means nothing in people's daily lives is free. So people choose, or not, among uses of stuff and time. When they do that less optimally than they can, they quite often recognize it - feel it - before they take a hard look and actually know it. I believe Americans feel (and many know) we've been doing health care foolishly for quite some time. I believe they understand that it's not how much we're investing on health care, but how foolishly we're investing it, that's the big issue. I believe they understand that by rearranging what we do with respect to health care we can get more health for everyone out of the same amount of investment (spending, for those who feel health is automatic, and buttressing it an obligatory but ultimately wasteful use of resources). I believe they understand the difference between a need to give big changes careful deliberation and tactical lying about minor aspects of proposals for doing health care differently.

I believe that if I could have composed a few sentences as concise as Wizlah has below concerning issues fundamental to reshaping US health care, I would have saved many paragraphs of rambling. How does he do that?

Wizlah wrote:It has a tendency (like many UK state bodies) to isolate spending decisions from the wider context of user care in the interest of economic efficiency, with the result that it has an excellent record on surgery, less so on care of the patient and facilities.

So, yeah, dumbasses have won the day by calling consultations for advance directives death panels many of us are likely to have the fun choice of trying to figure out what your parents (unconscious and in the final stage of life) would have wanted if they had done the necessary work while they were still of sound mind and body. Good job, assholes. The provision has been stripped from the bill.

I think this goes beyond the health care reform bill--it now seems that pro-life means you support every conceivable medical intervention no matter what in order to prolong life as long as physically possible. "Get more tubes in grandma!"

You want to die at home in peace, surrounded maybe by family? Tough shit. We're gonna see to it that you are going to die (because you will, you know, no matter what Palin and Dobson say) in an institution, surrounded by machines, stripped of every last ounce of dignity, while your life savings are depleted for this "care".

Wizlah wrote:Fine. Free at the point of use and subsidised to the certain extent by the government. And as a consequence of us all paying through our taxation, spreading the cost throughout society, rather than dumping it on YOU when you weren't able to cover your own health insurance. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of the UK version of universal health care versus the US model. That's not my point. And fair enough if you want to say that people are misrepresenting the cost as completely free.

But you can't deny that the idea of collective health care within the UK is being completely misrepresented within the US in a way which literally sends my head spinning. That's why it's in the politics section.

And to reiterate, even if it's something I and the rest of the taxpayers have covered for since I started paying tax in the UK, the point is, we have not had to personally pay any bills for those costs arising from our son being born with a deformed ear. We've had no bills through the door for extremely specialist support.

Three things that are sure to make me lose respect for whatever else you say:

using "I could care less" when you mean "I couldn't care less"
incorrectly using "less" instead of "fewer"
explicitly saying "literally" for something that is meant figuratively

Honestly, (and I am three-quarters serious when I say this), the biggest problem with health care is the lack of death panels. We should have a policy in this country that if you are unlikely to live more than six months no matter what is done, then you should be given unlimited pain medication but no expensive procedures. We spend far too much money on people in the last weeks of their lives. Eliminate much of this expense and the other problems become much more solvable.

When my grandfather was in his 20's he got tuberculosis and was put in a home to basically live out his final days and die. They gave him no shot. Instead he lived until he was in his late 60's, had three daughters, six grandkids, and drank like a fish. RIP Pop Connelly

ashton wrote:

Wizlah wrote:Fine. Free at the point of use and subsidised to the certain extent by the government. And as a consequence of us all paying through our taxation, spreading the cost throughout society, rather than dumping it on YOU when you weren't able to cover your own health insurance. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of the UK version of universal health care versus the US model. That's not my point. And fair enough if you want to say that people are misrepresenting the cost as completely free.

But you can't deny that the idea of collective health care within the UK is being completely misrepresented within the US in a way which literally sends my head spinning. That's why it's in the politics section.

And to reiterate, even if it's something I and the rest of the taxpayers have covered for since I started paying tax in the UK, the point is, we have not had to personally pay any bills for those costs arising from our son being born with a deformed ear. We've had no bills through the door for extremely specialist support.

Three things that are sure to make me lose respect for whatever else you say:

using "I could care less" when you mean "I couldn't care less"
incorrectly using "less" instead of "fewer"
explicitly saying "literally" for something that is meant figuratively

who cares bro

ashton wrote:But you can't deny that the idea of collective health care within the UK is being completely misrepresented within the US in a way which literally sends my head spinning. That's why it's in the politics section.

explicitly saying "literally" for something that is meant figuratively

I'm dizzy with the audacity of the claims in the face of their inaccuracy and what seems to be wilful disregard of the nature of the service provided. True, it did not literally send me spinning, but I can assure you I feel like I've been going round in circles all morning, and it's very hard to see straight.

Woody wrote:When my grandfather was in his 20's he got tuberculosis and was put in a home to basically live out his final days and die. They gave him no shot. Instead he lived until he was in his late 60's, had three daughters, six grandkids, and drank like a fish. RIP Pop Connelly

But this is irrelevant to advance directives. Advance directives make it possible for individuals to make their own decisions about the end of their life rather than putting the burden on their children.

Shutup Paul I was just telling a story about my fightin irish poppop

There's an awesome pic of my grandfather at about 8 with his brothers and other kids with pints in their hands after getting out of a mine in Ireland

You should seriously have that poster-sized on your wall. Frankly I'm jealous

Yeah, I gotta scan that thing in before it gets lost.

He died at 87 after 40 years of smoking, and 80 of whiskey every day. Lived 25 years longer than he was supposed to after heart surgery in 1984

ashton wrote:explicitly saying "literally" for something that is meant figuratively

Apteryx feathers. I'll have you know that Wiz is the beneficiary of a socialized medicine neck transplant, so his head revolves like a weathervane in a tornado.

Seriously, if you & so many others are gonna dwell on i-dots & t-crosses, we're not gonna get any meaningful health reform and you'll have to die a conventional death from me pummeling you to giblets in frustration.

ashton wrote:

Wizlah wrote:Fine. Free at the point of use and subsidised to the certain extent by the government. And as a consequence of us all paying through our taxation, spreading the cost throughout society, rather than dumping it on YOU when you weren't able to cover your own health insurance. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of the UK version of universal health care versus the US model. That's not my point. And fair enough if you want to say that people are misrepresenting the cost as completely free.

But you can't deny that the idea of collective health care within the UK is being completely misrepresented within the US in a way which literally sends my head spinning. That's why it's in the politics section.

And to reiterate, even if it's something I and the rest of the taxpayers have covered for since I started paying tax in the UK, the point is, we have not had to personally pay any bills for those costs arising from our son being born with a deformed ear. We've had no bills through the door for extremely specialist support.

Three things that are sure to make me lose respect for whatever else you say:

using "I could care less" when you mean "I couldn't care less"
incorrectly using "less" instead of "fewer"
explicitly saying "literally" for something that is meant figuratively

Is this a joke or are you just an insufferable douchebag?

i literally could care fewer

since this thread's at 50 pages, a suggestion for the next politics thread: it should have "obama death panels" in there somewhere