So we are doomed to have people living in this country who will never be able to have health care? We never have full employment so there will always be people who cannot afford care, the mentally ill, infirm, or crippled people should just resign themselves to a lack of care? We, as a nation, should accept that we have throw-away people and that's just too bad, but we can't afford to care for them. It sort of seems to me that anyone accepting this view of our country should be foursquare in favor of physician assissted suicide because there are going to be people suffering with no way to alleviate their pain.
This is a fundamental difference between you and me. And generally the left and the right.
You seek a solution. We seek the best possible compromise. You seek Utopia. We seek the best possible outcome. You fundamentally believe that all problems can be fixed, and thus eliminated. We believe that problems are inherent to humans, and can not be fixed, but marginalized.
Are there people in Canada, the UK, or Cuba that do not get health care? Yes, many in fact. So many, that they pay money to get health care in other countries.
So the question is, which is the best trade off? In Canada, champion figure skater Audrey Williams, needed hip replacement surgery. She waited for two years, with cancellation after cancellation. After waiting two years in pain, without mobility, she finely flew to the US, and got the surgery she needed. To this day, the universal US average wait time is roughly 2 weeks for such surgeries.
So let's consider this together. Which is the best compromise? A US patient that get's healed and back to work, and returns to mobility in 2 weeks, but has a rather expensive hospital bill... or...
A Canadian patient who suffers in pain, without mobility for nearly 2 years, and ends up paying for it by going to the US, anyway?
Which is the better compromise?
As for finding a "solution" to the problem, obviously the solution in Canada is for thousands to receive no care, and sit on waiting lists. And many people do die on waiting lists. It's a very common thing. Consider this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEq64W0_wUI
Lindsey McCreith would likely have died waiting for his surgery, if he had not gone to the US for care. Does this sound like the solution you had in mind? Of course not. Yet that is the outcome of the system you seem to support.
It's funny how this kind of reasoning never applies to money for war.
By war, I assume you mean military defense of the nation. Defense of the nation benefits everyone, whether they agree or realize it or not.
I guess I'd be more convinced if human well-being wasn't always the first thing on the chopping block. You noted several countries that have problems with health care, but worse than ours? Sweden, Norway, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium?
If you got cancer, which country would give you the best chance are survival? Yes, you might get a large doctor bill, but at least you wouldn't wait on a list until you died. In his book Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell details how in the UK the story came out of a 14 year old girl who got a breast implant on government funding, at the same time another lady with breast cancer, died on a waiting list for surgery.
This image copied poorly. Yellow is US. Green is Europe. It's Prostrate, Bladder, Breast and Uterine. In all cases. If you got cancer, where would you want to be treated?
I guess I'm just naive, it seems to me that a rich America should be able to feed, clothe, and care for our own citizens, fix our infrastructure, educate our children, and take care of the environment that produces our food, water, and clean air. Silly me.
Perhaps not naive, but missing a key point. Namely that there is a reason America is the richest nation on Earth. There's a reason we are as wealthy as we are. The answer is freedom, and capitalism, and free-market principals. The answer is systemic. It's the system you put in place, that determines outcome.
When you put in place socialistic principals, the system fails. As it has done everywhere. When you put in capitalism, you end up with India being the largest provider of medical tourism. People from the US even go there because unrestrained capitalism has lead to reduced cost through competition.
Is this problem unsolvable? Should we just stop talking about it? Medical care for everybody is a physical impossibility on Earth? Or do you have a suggestion?
It is impossible. Not to say there are not some reforms needed, but universal care will undoubtedly result in poor and low quality care for only the few, just as it has done in every country in which it's tried. In fact, government run health care here in the US has shown the exact same problems that it has internationally.
For example, being ignored by hospital staff.
Canadian Man Dies After 34-Hour Emergency Room Wait
That's a product of socialized medicine. Remember, when government is paying the bill, you are no longer a customer. You are just another problem they have to deal with. So they treat you just like that, a problem they have to begrudgingly deal with. But US Health Care has problems too you say? Yes you are right.
Dallas Man Dies After Waiting 15 Hours In ER
So the same problems do happen here... but there's something you should know. Parkland Hospital where this happened....
is a Government run hospital. It is not surprising, and even expected, that socialized hospitals here suffer the same problems that socialized hospitals everywhere do.
Again... socialism fails. Parkland, like it's Canadian counter parts, are socialized. They don't see you as a valued customer, and they treat you that way. If this had been a private hospital where every patient is a valued customer, key to the survival of the company, he would have been seen quickly, and taken care of immediately. Repeat customers are the bread and butter of any company.
