re: Poli Board - Get your poop together Atlanta

Plenty of people in the UK like their healthcare system. Younger people mostly don't because they don't need it then, but the older they get the more they understand how expensive medicine is and helpful it can be. I talked to a taxi driver that was about to get a 50k pound knee replacement for free and he kinda had to explain the good and bad of that sort of system. It turns into a game of "yeah, but" debating the two healthcare systems. I wouldn't want full on socialized HC but theres something to be said when a box of tissues in a hospital is 75$ on the bill I guess.

quote:

---

The term conservative literally means the opposite of progressive. I kid you not.

---

Both liberals and conservatives want what's best for society. The divide occurs with the definition of "best".

Conservatives push towards their ideals and then want to stay put, believing that you can't improve on what is already the best way to live life. The liberals are constantly changing and want to take what conservatives have and move away, supposedly "forward". Conservatives understand that moving away from ideal is actually regressive, not progressive, and so we go around and around, arguing about the definition of "best" from two completely different view points.

quote:

---

Assuming that's a typo "want what's best"? Otherwise can't make sense of that sentence. (already edited before I submitted: )

---

Yep, definitely a typo. Thanks for catching it

quote:

---

This one is still coming across a little slanted, whether intentional or not. Specifically, if you are indicating that the bolded text is fact rather than "conservative opinion", then in and of itself you're indicating that status quo can't be improved and that progressives are inherently "missing the point".

---

I'm a Conservative and I'm sure it does come across as slanted. It was from the POV of a Conservative whereas we believe that once you get it "right", changing it makes it worse. To us, that's considered regressive, not progressive. Liberals look at the Conservative way of life and think it's backwards or whatever term they want to use, and think it needs to be improved to be the way they want it. Therefore, to liberals, moving away from Conservatism is "progressive" and moving forward in the right direction. To move "back" to Conservatism is actually regressive to the liberal. That's why it's an argument that won't be won one way or the other because both sides talk past each other.

quote:

---

I would disagree that all people want what is best for society by and large. More realistically, people act in a way that incentivizes them. If best for myself means I get to keep more money then that's fine. If best for myself means that I feel better that all people are provided for at the most base level, then that's fine as well... either way people typically will default to operating in a manner in which they are incentivized to behave.

---

I could meet you half way: I think people don't always consider why they are acting the way they are acting. I believe liberals typically act and vote in ways that are "beneficial" to society only because it makes themselves feel good, thus they are acting selfishly while thinking they are doing what's best for everyone else. That theory is consistent with why liberals are so generous with other people's tax dollars but typically don't give much from their own pockets.

Conservatives, likewise, are thinking about themselves and think that what's best for themselves must be what's best for everyone else (society) by application. Conservatives want everyone to be free to decide how to live and how to spend their money because that will apply to themselves. Even Capitalism (which is the economic system Conservatives typically subscribe to) is based on the notion that greed and selfishness are actually beneficial to others out of necessity.

quote:

---

If conservatives truly want what is best for *society*, then why does so much proposed conservative legislation offer little to no benefit for households that make less than $100k annually (roughly 75% of households). The result of "trickle down" policies was a wider income disparity between the ultra-rich and the poorest individuals and a shrinking middle class, rather than truly benefitting everyone. Similarly, we've seen poorly designed "progressive" legislation that offered very little tangible benefit to the majority of households in the country. We've historically seen both successful conservative and progressive policies help rebound from recessions, so it seems pretty clear there is no one size fits all approach. No one is always right and no one is always wrong... I say all this as someone who certainly will benefit personally from most proposed conservative legislation that would involve tax cuts, but in many cases I don't actually believe that the proposed legislation is in the best interest of society at large.

---

Conservatives usually favor economic legislation that is mroe positive and provides more economic freedom for everyone, and that freedom often dis-proportionality benefits those that already have wealth, though it is helpful to all people who wish to spend their money as they wish.

Liberals, on the other hand, take more of a punitive or destructive view of economics, wherein they want to tear down the rich and give their money to the poor rather than encouraging the poor to build themselves up. This view often does center around the poor, but Conservatives like myself don't agree that it is beneficial in the long run because it incentivizes poverty and discourages wealth or work that leads to more wealth accumulation.

Big pharma and their lobbyists seem to be some of the most powerful

quote:

---

Can't attest to it personally, but I've got colleagues in Australia that indicate that their setup around healthcare is fairly solid, in that they have single payer with employer provided supplemental insurance (also available to individuals if desired) on top which helps to bridge the gap of some of the single payer complaints compared to the current US system. Their taxes are also incredibly high and their minimum wage is as well, though - which has coincidentally led to one of the highest COL factors globally, at least in Sydney proper where they have the highest concentration of population.

---

Lots of stuff is doable if you don't spend a trillion (literally) dollars a year on military+foreign aid+interest on accumulated debt.

Countries like Australia and Sweden don't spend much on military because America is World Police; they don't have to maintain militaries.

Balance the budget, then we can talk about more social programs and I will even entertain an argument for single payer healthcare.



Edit to add--- we can't even pay for healthcare for children and poor people.. medicare and medicaid are unsustainable as of now. What makes anyone think we can take on single payer for everyone?

I agree with your post but, truly, universal care is the way to go.

Per capita, we spend $8,233 per year on health costs here in the US. Canada? $4,495. UK? $3,433. Sweden? $3,758.

Yet, our mortality rate is higher and our life expectancy is MUCH lower. Life expectancy in the US is 79.3....Canada 82.2, UK 81.2, Sweden 82.4. The average subscriber to the NHS in the UK lives 2 years longer than your average American and pays 50% LESS in healthcare costs per year. Greater than 50% less paid out in Sweden and they live 3 years longer! Our rate of infant deaths (mortality rate) is 57th in the world, lagging far behind other Westernized nations, rating similarly to Russia, Kuwait, and Chile.

But Socialism...

We also spend way more providing unnecessary 'care' at the end of a lot of patients' lives instead of focusing on a more prominent hospice role and that results in lots of extra spending as well. Some studies show as much as 25% of Medicare spending is during the last year of life. Those other countries aren't so big on that.

quote:

---

We Atlantans are not really that interested in what a coastal plainsman thinks.

---

<----------grew up not far from where the article discusses...like until I was in my 20's...moved to South Georgia while serving my country and ended up liking it better...because of what I saw "changing" up north...you seek to make me look like an inbred backwoods sister fricker every time you get the chance....its quite humorous given that I'm actually pretty familiar about the very area in question here...can you truly say that of where I live...without making dumbass comments like the above quoted?

quote:

---

People would be alarmed if they knew how much that type of stuff happens. There are patients who go to the ED so often for stuff like that everyone there knows them by name as soon as they see them. And guess where those costs end up spread out to

---

I look at a good bit of data on this kind of stuff for my job. There are people who go to the ER 20-25 times a year, and each one of those visits costs 5-10x as much as a similar trip to urgent care or the primary care physician.

Other big cost issues are terminal patient care and high cost medications. Pharmacy reps wine and dine doctors who then prescribe the latest and greatest medications without regard for how much they cost or whether the patient can actually pay. Patients don't know enough to ask about generics that could be just as good at a fraction of the price. Terminal patient care is hard to address because it's a very emotional issue, obviously.