Almost everyone wants good healthcare, or at least they will once they discover their formerly young and seemingly invincible bodies have stopped cooperating. Our extreme opposing views about its access range from private plans that only the wealthy can afford, to free socialized governmental distribution for all.
I have struggled with the health care socialized/private issue for a long time. I am now much more against it. We have a perverse system in the US where private entities will capitalize off the public subsidies. The ambulance company will not turn away the ingrown toenail patients if they know they will be paid. I very much doubt Denmark or Sweden experience this issue. They are an example of a decentralized small-scale socialized system that cannot be scaled. A woman who did housekeeping for me came to this country for her daughter to get heart surgery. Her son injured his knee in soccer and received MRIs, etc. for something most of us, a generation ago, would have just used ice and rest. I liked this woman and she was on her way to becoming a citizen. But I knew then - 20 years ago - this was not sustainable. It is wealth distribution not by kindness but by force. I think of the medical industrial complex every time I am in the grocery store. I would say in the average store only 20% of the items are good for one's health. At the local farmer's market, the volunteers pedal and try to ramp up the number of shoppers with gifts, etc. I told them instead of giveaways, why not subsidize the gas for the farmers to come to the market? With gas well past $5.00 in LA, that would help them and allow them to price their healthy items in a more competitive framework.
There are so many layers to health and healthcare that it's impossible to keep up. And yes, the "medical industrial complex" does us no favors. Though I must say, much of our preventative health (like food choices, as you pointed out) is decided by us, and many of us are failing miserably. I know adults who still eat like toddlers, and they wonder why they feel like crap all the time... But I digress.
I think that many on the left who push for socialized medicine have mistakenly convinced themselves that those who oppose it are all evil Republicans who want the poor to die off. In fact, almost everyone would love to experience a healthcare system that works for everybody - they just don't all choose to overlook all the shortcomings of the systems available so far.
There's a reason that doctor quality and motivation has fallen, and that those who can afford it who live in countries with socialized medicine often eschew it and travel to the US for important care.
Ron Paul has changed my mind about this position. I felt heartless that I didn't want socialized medicine. And an Israeli/Canadian friend would wax poetically about how wonderful their systems were. Well, the tyrannical approach to Covid disabused that notion. I just read in Children's Health Defense that Brazil will mandate Covid vaxxes for babies 6 months and up and if you refuse, you won't get your guaranteed income allotment and other social services. That is so frightening but I see it here. You destroy the economy for the many, then distribute people's money - which is taxes - and then demand compliance. I was reading an article in Spectator citing the re-emergence of a two class system in the UK which they attribute to Covid lockdowns. That is a lie. It only accelerated it.
Yes, my impression is that people in the nations that nationalized healthcare are having second thoughts, as might have been expected. It was said that Mussolini made the trains run on time, at first. Then they didn't. Then eventually there pretty much were no trains.
A telling fact about the nationalization of healthcare is that Republicans ran for years on a platform of repealing Obamacare, and they won. Then when they got the votes in Congress to repeal Obamacare, they simply didn't do it.
I have struggled with the health care socialized/private issue for a long time. I am now much more against it. We have a perverse system in the US where private entities will capitalize off the public subsidies. The ambulance company will not turn away the ingrown toenail patients if they know they will be paid. I very much doubt Denmark or Sweden experience this issue. They are an example of a decentralized small-scale socialized system that cannot be scaled. A woman who did housekeeping for me came to this country for her daughter to get heart surgery. Her son injured his knee in soccer and received MRIs, etc. for something most of us, a generation ago, would have just used ice and rest. I liked this woman and she was on her way to becoming a citizen. But I knew then - 20 years ago - this was not sustainable. It is wealth distribution not by kindness but by force. I think of the medical industrial complex every time I am in the grocery store. I would say in the average store only 20% of the items are good for one's health. At the local farmer's market, the volunteers pedal and try to ramp up the number of shoppers with gifts, etc. I told them instead of giveaways, why not subsidize the gas for the farmers to come to the market? With gas well past $5.00 in LA, that would help them and allow them to price their healthy items in a more competitive framework.
There are so many layers to health and healthcare that it's impossible to keep up. And yes, the "medical industrial complex" does us no favors. Though I must say, much of our preventative health (like food choices, as you pointed out) is decided by us, and many of us are failing miserably. I know adults who still eat like toddlers, and they wonder why they feel like crap all the time... But I digress.
I think that many on the left who push for socialized medicine have mistakenly convinced themselves that those who oppose it are all evil Republicans who want the poor to die off. In fact, almost everyone would love to experience a healthcare system that works for everybody - they just don't all choose to overlook all the shortcomings of the systems available so far.
There's a reason that doctor quality and motivation has fallen, and that those who can afford it who live in countries with socialized medicine often eschew it and travel to the US for important care.
Thanks for responding K.E. ZL
Ron Paul has changed my mind about this position. I felt heartless that I didn't want socialized medicine. And an Israeli/Canadian friend would wax poetically about how wonderful their systems were. Well, the tyrannical approach to Covid disabused that notion. I just read in Children's Health Defense that Brazil will mandate Covid vaxxes for babies 6 months and up and if you refuse, you won't get your guaranteed income allotment and other social services. That is so frightening but I see it here. You destroy the economy for the many, then distribute people's money - which is taxes - and then demand compliance. I was reading an article in Spectator citing the re-emergence of a two class system in the UK which they attribute to Covid lockdowns. That is a lie. It only accelerated it.
Yes, my impression is that people in the nations that nationalized healthcare are having second thoughts, as might have been expected. It was said that Mussolini made the trains run on time, at first. Then they didn't. Then eventually there pretty much were no trains.
A telling fact about the nationalization of healthcare is that Republicans ran for years on a platform of repealing Obamacare, and they won. Then when they got the votes in Congress to repeal Obamacare, they simply didn't do it.
I guess that's whey the call it the "Uniparty".
Whether you're a Republican or not, you can't deny that it's often a party of bluster without results. Thanks R.F. ZL