Why don't Americans have universal healthcare?
Dude relax. You went into bashing mode above (partly justified, partly over the line in my opinion) so I was just trying to lighten it up a bit - perhaps worth double checking the tone of a message if you're uncertain before railing on someone. But thanks for calling me stupid, I look forward to meeting you in person sometime. Have a great day.
Bob R.
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That is so truely scary holy shit... i am all over this topics link and this Eric pianka guy ... Eric R. Pianka fan page? http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Evaranus/obit.htmlHighDemonslayer wrote: Devious, evil people like that almost always know better than to
get up at the podium and specifically call for killing 3 billion people.
Except this guy: http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_200 ... index.html
You might not expect a horrendously painful ,and agonizing virus be the proposed solution.
Nor would you expect a vigorous, standing ovation from the crowd.
Now that i think of it, i bet that crowd was filled with health-care officials from across the country, lol
Bottom third of this long long loooong ass story on Pianka they even mention Forrest M. Mims that had seemingly witnessed this speech and as they say on the webpage.. misinterpreted it.
there was also a link there
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/Controversy.html
i am still sorta reading through this stuff but it is so interesting at the moment i had to repost what highdemonslayer just mentioned on a whim.
Conspiracy? or Misinterpretation!?
*__* Marcus D. W-H. *__*
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Blue_turnip
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I don't think he was the only one to think that the tone of your post was extremely sarcastic, and much deserving of a good 'railing'.Rieferman wrote:Dude relax. You went into bashing mode above (partly justified, partly over the line in my opinion) so I was just trying to lighten it up a bit - perhaps worth double checking the tone of a message if you're uncertain before railing on someone. But thanks for calling me stupid, I look forward to meeting you in person sometime. Have a great day.
Don't bother trying to 'lighten up' conversations anyway. The discussion forum is solely for kicking each others asses while simulatenously voicing your opinions. It's the mosh pit of modified.
Oliver Adams
Blue turnip, so true, so true. This area is even noted as potentially a "SCARY" place to enter, so I should have known better. I PM'd Jeremy to explain that in person, my comment would have been with a wink and a nudge. I'll take responsibility for the flame.
Off to research a bunch of reasons why Australia sucks. (kidding)
Off to research a bunch of reasons why Australia sucks. (kidding)
Bob R.
Ok, finally had a chance to research this topic more. Found one site particularly helpful (plus, being from CT originally, the link caught my eye): http://cthealth.server101.com/the_case_ ... states.htm
Here are some basic sum up points (mostly backs up with others have stated already):
Stats about systems used elsewhere in the world:
"28 industrialized nations have single payer universal health care systems, while 1 (Germany) has a multipayer universal health care system like President Clinton proposed for the United States."
(I was interested to remember this proposal from Clinton.. had slipped my mind)
In response to the myth that US has best healthcare system:
"The United States ranks poorly relative to other industrialized nations in health care despite having the best trained health care providers and the best medical infrastructure of any industrialized nation"
In response to myth that universal system would be too costly:
"The United States spends at least 40% more per capita on health care than any other industrialized country with universal health care"
and
"The costs of health care in Canada as a % of GNP, which were identical to the United States when Canada changed to a single payer, universal health care system in 1971, have increased at a rate much lower than the United States, despite the US economy being much stronger than Canada’s."
In response to "universal healthcare = socialized medicine"
"Single payer universal health care is not socialized medicine. It is health care payment system, not a health care delivery system. Health care providers would be in fee for service practice, and would not be employees of the government, which would be socialized medicine. Single payer health care is not socialized medicine, any more than the public funding of education is socialized education, or the public funding of the defense industry is socialized defense."
And I thought this was particularly interesting:
"Overall Answer to the questions Why doesn’t the US have single payer universal health care when single payer universal health care is the most efficient, most democratic and most equitable means to deliver health care? Why does the United States remain wedded to an inefficient, autocratic and immoral system that makes health care accessible to the wealthy and not the poor when a vast majority of citizens want it to be a right of citizenship?
Conclusion: Corporations are able to buy politicians through our campaign finance system and control the media to convince people that corporate health care is democratic, represents freedom, and is the most efficient system for delivering health care"
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Sadly, if you go to the link and read the "what can we do about it" section, you'll understand why change is probably not right around the corner.
Here are some basic sum up points (mostly backs up with others have stated already):
Stats about systems used elsewhere in the world:
"28 industrialized nations have single payer universal health care systems, while 1 (Germany) has a multipayer universal health care system like President Clinton proposed for the United States."
(I was interested to remember this proposal from Clinton.. had slipped my mind)
In response to the myth that US has best healthcare system:
"The United States ranks poorly relative to other industrialized nations in health care despite having the best trained health care providers and the best medical infrastructure of any industrialized nation"
In response to myth that universal system would be too costly:
"The United States spends at least 40% more per capita on health care than any other industrialized country with universal health care"
and
"The costs of health care in Canada as a % of GNP, which were identical to the United States when Canada changed to a single payer, universal health care system in 1971, have increased at a rate much lower than the United States, despite the US economy being much stronger than Canada’s."
In response to "universal healthcare = socialized medicine"
"Single payer universal health care is not socialized medicine. It is health care payment system, not a health care delivery system. Health care providers would be in fee for service practice, and would not be employees of the government, which would be socialized medicine. Single payer health care is not socialized medicine, any more than the public funding of education is socialized education, or the public funding of the defense industry is socialized defense."
And I thought this was particularly interesting:
"Overall Answer to the questions Why doesn’t the US have single payer universal health care when single payer universal health care is the most efficient, most democratic and most equitable means to deliver health care? Why does the United States remain wedded to an inefficient, autocratic and immoral system that makes health care accessible to the wealthy and not the poor when a vast majority of citizens want it to be a right of citizenship?
Conclusion: Corporations are able to buy politicians through our campaign finance system and control the media to convince people that corporate health care is democratic, represents freedom, and is the most efficient system for delivering health care"
------------
Sadly, if you go to the link and read the "what can we do about it" section, you'll understand why change is probably not right around the corner.
Bob R.
If you want me to write up a list of all the bad things about Australia, I would be happy to oblige. This isn't a topic about Australia, it's a topic about America. I'm not a nationalist, in fact I'm anti-nationalism, and I'm happy to criticise any nation.
Ken is right; Australia is the second fattest country in the world. We also produce the 8th highest amount of greenhouse gasses per person in the world. We are the second highest producer of garbage (per person) in the world. While the UN sanctions against Iraq were occurring, we ignored them, and paid bribes to Saddam Hussein so that he would buy our wheat. We have the highest rate of animal extinctions in the world. 1 third of all mammal extinctions in the last 200 years have occurred in Australia. We blatantly ignore human rights and international law in our treatment of asylum seekers and in who we sell nuclear waste to. Our indigenous people have a life expectancy 17 years less than overall national average. Non Aboriginal people have the 9th highest life expectancy in the world (despite being the second fattest; gee, wonder if the reason for the difference is our health care?), while Indigenous Australians would be ranked 160th in the world. We have the highest reported rate of assault in the developed world. We went to war in Iraq only to maintain our strong alliance with the US. We practice the same kind of imperialism the US employs globally in the Asia Pacific region. We are stealing oil from East Timor; one of the poorest countries in the world.
There's probably more I could mention. I hope that makes people happy. It obviously has nothing to do with the topic at all.
I attacked the US because of the false assessment that the reason the US doesn't have universal healthcare is because people are greedy. While I agree somewhat with that assessment, it's clear that people are less greedy in the rest of the developed world.
It's surprising to see which people are nationalists, and can't deal with having their own country attacked without having to attack the other persons country. I can only guess that you haven't thought much about nationalism, and its purpose.
Ken is right; Australia is the second fattest country in the world. We also produce the 8th highest amount of greenhouse gasses per person in the world. We are the second highest producer of garbage (per person) in the world. While the UN sanctions against Iraq were occurring, we ignored them, and paid bribes to Saddam Hussein so that he would buy our wheat. We have the highest rate of animal extinctions in the world. 1 third of all mammal extinctions in the last 200 years have occurred in Australia. We blatantly ignore human rights and international law in our treatment of asylum seekers and in who we sell nuclear waste to. Our indigenous people have a life expectancy 17 years less than overall national average. Non Aboriginal people have the 9th highest life expectancy in the world (despite being the second fattest; gee, wonder if the reason for the difference is our health care?), while Indigenous Australians would be ranked 160th in the world. We have the highest reported rate of assault in the developed world. We went to war in Iraq only to maintain our strong alliance with the US. We practice the same kind of imperialism the US employs globally in the Asia Pacific region. We are stealing oil from East Timor; one of the poorest countries in the world.
There's probably more I could mention. I hope that makes people happy. It obviously has nothing to do with the topic at all.
I attacked the US because of the false assessment that the reason the US doesn't have universal healthcare is because people are greedy. While I agree somewhat with that assessment, it's clear that people are less greedy in the rest of the developed world.
It's surprising to see which people are nationalists, and can't deal with having their own country attacked without having to attack the other persons country. I can only guess that you haven't thought much about nationalism, and its purpose.
Sorry, I made an error. We blatantly disregard international law in who we sell nuclear material too; not nuclear waste. We actually have very little nuclear waste, because we don't have any nuclear power plants (apart from a scientific testing one in the middle of our biggest city). It should also be pointed out that the international law regarding refugees and their human rights that we blatantly ignore is a document that we wrote. So we wrote the laws, expect everybody else to follow them, don't follow them ourselves.
Just to address this a little more specifically;C-Fan wrote:Oooh...take that America!Jeremy wrote: You're the fattest country in the world, ... It is America that is greedy, and you're fat and dying younger because of it.
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Hey, does anybody happen to know what is the second fattest nation in the world?
Australia is the second fattest country in the world. Babies born today in Australia have the 9th highest life expectancy in the world.
The US is very slightly fatter than Australia. Babies born today in the US have the 44th highest life expectancy in the world.
What accounts for the difference? Is it our medical system or some other reason?
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Switch Kicker
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Source?Jeremy wrote:Just to address this a little more specifically;C-Fan wrote:Oooh...take that America!Jeremy wrote: You're the fattest country in the world, ... It is America that is greedy, and you're fat and dying younger because of it.
.
Hey, does anybody happen to know what is the second fattest nation in the world?
Australia is the second fattest country in the world. Babies born today in Australia have the 9th highest life expectancy in the world.
The US is very slightly fatter than Australia. Babies born today in the US have the 44th highest life expectancy in the world.
What accounts for the difference? Is it our medical system or some other reason?
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Switch Kicker
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Sorry to jump in like that, but I know that's not true.
The US is number 38 on the list of international life expectancy.
And Australia's number 5.
As for infant mortality rate, the Republic of Malta holds the number 9 slot, and the US is 41. Which is 6.37/1000. A whole whopping 1.5 more than Australia. That's just a statistic. And that gap is way to small to be able to blame the health care. At least to blame it completely on the healthcare.
And Australia's number 19, not 9.
And our life expectancy is as high as it is BECAUSE of our health care. There are many many things that contribute to life expectancy. 46 million people in the US smoke, that's 41.9%. Over 4,000 teens die in car accidents each year. Over 8,000 teens are killed in homicides each year. Just over 4,000 teen suicides each year. 22,000 total homicides, 31,000 suicides each year.
We actually have the best health care in the world for cancer, and many many other fields. Our government just really fuckin' sucks as making it available to a much larger populace. But it's because of our health care that our 525,000 deaths (30%, number one killer in the US), will be down to 500,000 this year. The number declines each and every year. And I'm honestly just too god damn tired to look up any information on cancer. Because I actually don't know how that battle's going. However, I do know that my mom has Lymphoma and Melanoma, and she's survived Breast Cancer and Lung Cancer along with another one that I don't remember the name of... it was caused by birth control though a long time ago... The tumor was apparently the size of a a soft ball, and it was wrapped around on of her ovaries. And her Lymphoma and Melanoma will be treated and gone within the next 6 months. And her chemotherapy won't make her lose her hair either.
And we wouldn't have 500,000 heart related deaths if we didn't have 46 million god damn smokers. And cancer probably wouldn't be the seconds largest killer in our country. Without cigarettes, our death % would literally be chopped in half. Fuckin' smokers.
This abrupt post kind of made a turn in tone... but I'm still gonna post it, so, yeah.
<.<
>.>
*Clicks submit*
The US is number 38 on the list of international life expectancy.
And Australia's number 5.
As for infant mortality rate, the Republic of Malta holds the number 9 slot, and the US is 41. Which is 6.37/1000. A whole whopping 1.5 more than Australia. That's just a statistic. And that gap is way to small to be able to blame the health care. At least to blame it completely on the healthcare.
And Australia's number 19, not 9.
And our life expectancy is as high as it is BECAUSE of our health care. There are many many things that contribute to life expectancy. 46 million people in the US smoke, that's 41.9%. Over 4,000 teens die in car accidents each year. Over 8,000 teens are killed in homicides each year. Just over 4,000 teen suicides each year. 22,000 total homicides, 31,000 suicides each year.
We actually have the best health care in the world for cancer, and many many other fields. Our government just really fuckin' sucks as making it available to a much larger populace. But it's because of our health care that our 525,000 deaths (30%, number one killer in the US), will be down to 500,000 this year. The number declines each and every year. And I'm honestly just too god damn tired to look up any information on cancer. Because I actually don't know how that battle's going. However, I do know that my mom has Lymphoma and Melanoma, and she's survived Breast Cancer and Lung Cancer along with another one that I don't remember the name of... it was caused by birth control though a long time ago... The tumor was apparently the size of a a soft ball, and it was wrapped around on of her ovaries. And her Lymphoma and Melanoma will be treated and gone within the next 6 months. And her chemotherapy won't make her lose her hair either.
And we wouldn't have 500,000 heart related deaths if we didn't have 46 million god damn smokers. And cancer probably wouldn't be the seconds largest killer in our country. Without cigarettes, our death % would literally be chopped in half. Fuckin' smokers.
This abrupt post kind of made a turn in tone... but I'm still gonna post it, so, yeah.
<.<
>.>
*Clicks submit*
My source was the CIA Factbook; updated 14th of June 2007.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_l ... population
Note that I was quoting life expectancy at birth; which is different to general life expectancy.
You asked me for sources. What are you sources?
And by the way; most of the statistics you quoted are completely meaningless to the debate. All those figures about smoking rates etc; you need to show that they're higher than the rest of the world for those to be at all relevant. You haven't even attempted to do that.
You also make the mistake of assuming that small differences are not very important. Australia's infant mortality rate might be 0.15% lower than the US' (I'm assuming your claims are correct); but we're talking about populations of millions of people. 0.15% of 300,000,000 is a lot of people.
Australia only has a life expectancy from birth of about 3-4 years more than the US. This doesn't sound like much, but you're talking about the average over millions of people. The more people you have in each sample, the closer they should be to the same. The fact that they're not the same demonstrates some clear differences somewhere, and an average of 3 to 4 years over 300,000,000 samples is a huge difference in something with natural distribution (like age).
As usual Fred, you've put forward a meaningless argument full of irrelevant statements.
Even if my life expectancy figures were incorrect (which seems unlikely, given the source), the figures you gave are so similar that my argument doesn't change at all.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_l ... population
Note that I was quoting life expectancy at birth; which is different to general life expectancy.
You asked me for sources. What are you sources?
And by the way; most of the statistics you quoted are completely meaningless to the debate. All those figures about smoking rates etc; you need to show that they're higher than the rest of the world for those to be at all relevant. You haven't even attempted to do that.
You also make the mistake of assuming that small differences are not very important. Australia's infant mortality rate might be 0.15% lower than the US' (I'm assuming your claims are correct); but we're talking about populations of millions of people. 0.15% of 300,000,000 is a lot of people.
Australia only has a life expectancy from birth of about 3-4 years more than the US. This doesn't sound like much, but you're talking about the average over millions of people. The more people you have in each sample, the closer they should be to the same. The fact that they're not the same demonstrates some clear differences somewhere, and an average of 3 to 4 years over 300,000,000 samples is a huge difference in something with natural distribution (like age).
As usual Fred, you've put forward a meaningless argument full of irrelevant statements.
Even if my life expectancy figures were incorrect (which seems unlikely, given the source), the figures you gave are so similar that my argument doesn't change at all.
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Switch Kicker
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Wikipedia and links leading to sources outside of wikipedia. Look it up yourself. This isn't a high school assignment.
And I couldn't find Australia's smoking statistics on a whim, so I didn't bother. And don't need to bother, because if you care enough, you'll look it up yourself. I'm sure you, and Australian, would have much better luck finding it than me.
And there's a huge difference between 19 and 9.
As for that whole, "0.15% lower than the US' (I'm assuming your claims are correct); but we're talking about populations of millions of people." deal. That's wrong too.
We're talking about comparison, not individual statistics. Australia's infant mortality rate being 4.56/1000. That's .456% With a population of 21 million, that's 95,760. The US at 6.37 with the 300 million population, is only 1,911,000. Yeah, looks like a big number. But punch in .637% by 21 million, and it's only 133,770. A whopping difference of 38,010. That gap of 1.8%, as I said, does not make a big difference at all. The only reason the individual rates are so different, is because our population is 14.3 times higher than yours.
And don't sit there and try to insult my argument. It's much better than any other argument I've ever had with you. And you're a real asshole, but I'm sure you've already read that somewhere.
But another reason I didn't think I needed to list Australia's smoking statistics, is because it's kind of hard to have more smokers than America, when the US smoking population is higher than the Australian population.
And I couldn't find Australia's smoking statistics on a whim, so I didn't bother. And don't need to bother, because if you care enough, you'll look it up yourself. I'm sure you, and Australian, would have much better luck finding it than me.
And there's a huge difference between 19 and 9.
As for that whole, "0.15% lower than the US' (I'm assuming your claims are correct); but we're talking about populations of millions of people." deal. That's wrong too.
We're talking about comparison, not individual statistics. Australia's infant mortality rate being 4.56/1000. That's .456% With a population of 21 million, that's 95,760. The US at 6.37 with the 300 million population, is only 1,911,000. Yeah, looks like a big number. But punch in .637% by 21 million, and it's only 133,770. A whopping difference of 38,010. That gap of 1.8%, as I said, does not make a big difference at all. The only reason the individual rates are so different, is because our population is 14.3 times higher than yours.
And don't sit there and try to insult my argument. It's much better than any other argument I've ever had with you. And you're a real asshole, but I'm sure you've already read that somewhere.
But another reason I didn't think I needed to list Australia's smoking statistics, is because it's kind of hard to have more smokers than America, when the US smoking population is higher than the Australian population.
Sorry, what does the difference between 19 and 9 have to do with anything. I have never commented on Australia's infant mortality. I explicitly said that our "life expectancy from birth" ranked as 9th. "Life Expectancy From Birth" is not infant mortality. Life expectancy from birth is the life expectancy of people born today on the assumption that health standards remain the same; as opposed to "life expectancy" which is the average age that people die at right now.
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But all three things are effected by health care, they're all very very closely related. You're not making a point when you tell me the life expectancy from birth, and life expectancy. Because both are completely effected by the health care we have right now.Jeremy wrote:Sorry, what does the difference between 19 and 9 have to do with anything. I have never commented on Australia's infant mortality. I explicitly said that our "life expectancy from birth" ranked as 9th. "Life Expectancy From Birth" is not infant mortality. Life expectancy from birth is the life expectancy of people born today on the assumption that health standards remain the same; as opposed to "life expectancy" which is the average age that people die at right now.
And Australia's 19th, not 9th. That's what it has to do with.
Sorry; can you please show me where Australia is listed with a Life expectancy at birth at 19th in the world.
You sited wikipedia;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... expectancy
This page, which has the same figures as you gave puts Australia at 5th for Life expectancy at birth. It also states that it's figures are from 2006.
My source
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_l ... population
Comes from the June 2007 CIA world fact book. It is not surprising that the results have slightly changed over a year and a half.
Neither of these sources claim that Australia is 19th in the world.
I DID NOT TALK ABOUT INFANT MORTALITY Infant mortality is the number of babies under a particular age who die. An infant mortality of 6.4/1000 means that 6.4 babies die in every 1000. This is completely different to life expectancy from birth which is an extrapolation of how old people born now are going to live to. There are a number of factors in infant mortality statistics that vary from country to country. For example a number of countries exclude babies born with a very high risk of dying from their infant mortality statistics. Other countries do not. This means that it can only be used as a very general method of looking at human development and health, so it's not used for comparing nations very often.
So let me ask again; What is Australia 19th at? Can you provide a source for this? Does it have anything to do with what I've argued?
You sited wikipedia;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... expectancy
This page, which has the same figures as you gave puts Australia at 5th for Life expectancy at birth. It also states that it's figures are from 2006.
My source
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_l ... population
Comes from the June 2007 CIA world fact book. It is not surprising that the results have slightly changed over a year and a half.
Neither of these sources claim that Australia is 19th in the world.
I DID NOT TALK ABOUT INFANT MORTALITY Infant mortality is the number of babies under a particular age who die. An infant mortality of 6.4/1000 means that 6.4 babies die in every 1000. This is completely different to life expectancy from birth which is an extrapolation of how old people born now are going to live to. There are a number of factors in infant mortality statistics that vary from country to country. For example a number of countries exclude babies born with a very high risk of dying from their infant mortality statistics. Other countries do not. This means that it can only be used as a very general method of looking at human development and health, so it's not used for comparing nations very often.
So let me ask again; What is Australia 19th at? Can you provide a source for this? Does it have anything to do with what I've argued?
I use wikipedia as a source all the time; but just like with "nation master" - I find the source that they give and quote that as my actual source. Had I got my life expectancy at birth figures from wikipedia, I would have quoted the 2006 United Nations World Populations Prospects report as my source. I think Wikipedia actually is fairly accurate, it just has a bad rep, so you're better off quoting the sources used for the wikipedia facts, rather than wikipedia.
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