A Dangerous Man

Matt,
As you can imagine we are watching your elections almost as closely as you are. From our perspective, the choices are indeed poor. The devil you don’t know, vs. the devil you don’t want to know.

It is unfortunate the America appears to creeping farther and farther into an isolationist cacoon, while unilaterally declaring itself the moral compass of the world.

I look forward to your enlightend comments in the upcoming months. Your primaries seem to last almost as long as the terms of office!

M

Hello, I’m interested in a link exchange with your site. Ours is www.mmocrunch.com. Please let me know if your interested.

Mike just won’t give up, will he.

What is with all the objection to waterboarding? As an interrogation technique it is very effective in making the subject believe that he is about to drown without doing any lasting physical harm. On top of that it has saved lives by getting information about Al-Quida from KSM. On top of that, CIA proffesionals are subject to it themselves during training to understand how it works. If we are willing to do it on our own side as a form of training, I don’t see how it could possibly be that bad. In my mind, I would rather have one terrorist waterboarded then a number of journalists and soldiers beheaded on camera for propaganda purposes anyday.

I think it’s apparent that Rudy didn’t mean it the way you are taking it. He said that it depends on how it’s done, for one thing. How it’s done is independent of who does it. Anything could be torturous if done with torture in mind. Yes, he also said that it depends on who does it, but I don’t think he meant “which side” does it. He meant it depends on the mental health and viewpoints, etc etc of the individual performing it. He’s trying to say that waterboarding may be considered torture and may not depending on the particular circumstances of the incident. As far as Rudy for a president, he did wonders with New York City. As someone who frequents the city, I love him for what he’s done. Far more scary is Hilary who wants to tax us into oblivion and socialize everything. What a nightmare!

Well, I’m off to my scary socialised free doctors appointment here in Vancouver. Man it’s terrible that I don’t have to pay for this. Must be terrible for our economy - with our dollar being only worth $1.04 right now.

Matt,
Right now, they behead us. On TV. They make videos of us. Do they do that to us because we waterboard them? No, they do that because they hate us and want us to die and suffer and think that their god wants them to make us suffer and die. I don’t see how our position on interrogation is any different. And, on a side note, terrorists are not protected by the Geneva conventions. They are explicitly excluded because they do not wear uniforms, fight for a state or carry arms openly in full view. I’m sure we would use different interrogation techniques on a standard Iraqi soldier during the invasion who was acting under orders from a superior then we would use on some guy strapping bombs onto young men and sending them onto busses or into markets.

Matt,
Do you mean to say thier is no difference between killing an armed combatant on the battlefield in a matter of defence and killing an unarmed prisoner who is unable to defend themselves or capable of threatening you in any way?

Gene
I hope your ‘free’ trip to the doctor doesn’t involve something that puts you in one of our famous Canadian queues…which would be just about any procedure.

I just got my pay slip yesterday; let me assure you that someone is paying for your health care.

From Wikipedia- “total healthcare spending is 14.6% of GDP in the US vs. 10% in Canada. Canadians receive comparable care and some figures such as life expectancy and infant mortality are better in Canada.” There are queues in the US too for most people with regular incomes and obviously many people excluded as a result of the health insurance system. Although our system could be better, it’s countries in Scandinavia I envy more than the US. My point isn’t that Canada is better - I like the US - it was more that many conservative Americans insist that private is always better than public. In healthcare, the statictics are saying that the socialized Canadian medical system is working better AND it’s way more efficient than the US system - even with it’s problems.

Matt
It is a shame that you have decided not to touch political subjects in the future. You are an intelligent person and a good debate opponent. The biggest problem in America now is the knee jerk screaming from one side at the other without any thought or intellectual honesty. Add in personal attacks when the opponent disagrees with your ideas and you have what we have today. We need to go back to the days of Lincoln-Douglas where debates lasted hours and debaters get more then 60 seconds to answer plus 30 second rebuttals…..

Gene,

Where did you get the facts that Canadian health care is better than US? The primary reason why infant mortality (and life expectancy) are better in Canada is because US hospitals count pre-mature infant death as death, where in most other countries that is not counted.

I would say Canadian socialized health care is not as good as US, because:
1. one of my friends is from Canada and he told me the lines are just too long in there, in US with $20 you can check with a doctor any time (if you have a job, if you don’t have job US hospitals are still required to treat u)

2. There was a recent ruling in Canada that allowed people to pay for private health care (because the socialized health care just aren’t working). I heard one example of a guy who won lotto but have to wait to die because the line to the hospital is too long (some sort of cancer), and Canadian law prohibit people using private health care (now ruled out by their court system).

3. The truly socialized health care can be found in communist countries. I am from one of them, and the low pay rate combined with long working hours is not attracting bright minds to that field. The worst thing is, because people want to live better, doctors starts to demand payments privately from patients. It became a strange system where on the surface you pay cheap health care, but under it heavy price must be paid to get better care. Doctors uses all sort of tricks to get money, including prescribe very expensive medicinals to patients, even if there are better and cheaper alts.

I don’t like posting long lines of stuff at this late hour, but it pains me to see people who are young and naive that tries to bring ideas such as socialized health care to every country, thinking that it is better, but ignore the fact that it is already failed in so many places.

“Where did you get the facts that Canadian health care is better than US?” Well, my quote was from Wikipedia - I believe that was obvious from my original post.

“one of my friends is from Canada and he told me” - Umm, You were questioning my sources?

“but ignore the fact that it is already failed in so many places.” I’m not ignoring your point, I just think your wrong. Socialized medicine has failed in some places, just as the private system has failed in some places. It’s not fair to compare Canada’s system to one from Eastern Europe or Cuba, just like it’s not fair to compare the US system to a private system from Africa.

“The truly socialized health care can be found in communist countries.” That’s very true. Canada is a blended system of public and private, with a fair number of private diagnostic facilities. Canada tends to be more public than private, however much of Western Europe also uses public health care systems that are blended with private systems to some degree. I think that’s the best approach. I didn’t plan on making this a Canada / US health debate. It was this comment that I was responding too - “Far more scary is Hilary who wants to tax us into oblivion and socialize everything. What a nightmare! ” If I’m reading between the lines, this comment is about Hilary’s health plan. I don’t think what she’s proposing is crazy. It’s just what the rest of the industrialized world outside of the US is doing.

Gene
Yes I am questioning your sources, not for the reasons that I don’t believe you, but for the reasons that I need to know if your sources are fair in comparison (for example, counts pre-mature babies or not).

Also I agree in every society, there should be some form of government assisted health care for the working poor, as long as the community can afford it without impact on living standards. But that assistant should be done on the state and local level, simply because when the money is local, they treat it more carefully. Government just like companies, the bigger they are, the less efficient they are, and the higher above, the less they care (that applies to all people). So the bigger the healhcare, the lesser you get out of it.

So here is my observation:
When people struggle with money (competing for business), they are more effective. But when they fight for power (politics), they waste resources and easily corruptible. So that is why usually free capitalist countries usually doing better than socialist/communist ones, because in a free capitalist country, for people to became corrupt, they have to use money to buy power first, then corrupt on power, while in socialist/communist countries, they use power and became corrupt, means one less step to became corrupt.

Well put Panda.

“When people struggle with money (competing for business), they are more effective. ” Listen, I’m a capitalist and business owner. I believe in free enterprise and Canada is very definitly a capitalist nation. I’m interested in what works, not in ideology. I get “it’s private, therefore it’s more efficient ideology.” It’s usually true. However, you would probably agree that fire and police departments make sense as a public function. That wasn’t the case in the 1800s.

Total healthcare spending is 14.6% of GDP in the US vs. 10% in Canada. (I already said that) and the Canadian system covers everyone. The STATISTICS are saying that in health care public is more efficient than private. The US system of private insurance creates more buracracy than the Canadian government run system. Health care is one of those areas, like fire departments, where a public system is in the best interest of your citizens.

One more issue I have with your argument, when you use far left socialist or communist countries as examples you take the debate to an idealogical extreme. Can we get beyond the old 70s retoric? Having some public government run services doesn’t make you a socialist country - or the US would be considered socialist. We are talking about shades of grey here, not black and white. Fundamentally, both health care systems work well most of the time and both have huge problems with buracracy. Neither system has major issues around corruption.

On the Police and Fire Department front:
Where I live, our police force is purchased by the community we live in and is directly accountable to our board of directors. We have hired and fired multiple contractors and eventually created our own. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if the federal government got involved in it. Our fire departments are private, run by volunteers and recieve public support buy sending out mailers, standing on street corners and running bake sales. Again, not funded by the federal government.

I think the problem is that most people don’t realize who isn’t covered by health care right now. Most people are covered by health care in America. Most through healthcare they purchase through thier employment (or family members employment). The poor are covered by Medicare and SCHIP. The only people not covered right now are usually between 20 and 30 and can afford health insurance, but they would rather have a bigger apartment and cable TV. And I don’t think the government should change the way we do things for a bunch of 20 somethings too cheap to take care of themselves.

It scares the hell out of me that one day I might be told that I have cancer and I’ll have to wait in a queue to see a doctor or be told that the treatment I need is only available in Thailand. In Canada, if you don’t want to wait, you can just come visit America.
I can’t imagine writing a letter like “Dear Senator Johnson, my son is very ill and all the oncologysts have a 3 month waiting list. Please help me”
In America, it used to be that each of us was a rugged individualist, each providing for themselves and thier families. I don’t know when we got it in our minds that we have rights to free health care or 40 hour work weeks or a minimum wage, but none of those things are in our constitution and should not be provided by the government.

You’ll get no argument from me regarding which level of government should be doing this, but are you telling me that the US private insurance system is efficient? In one system you pay the goverment in taxes to cover your medical needs, in the other you pay a private insurance company that doesn’t neccessarily have your best interests in mind and will use any excuse not to pay.

There are waiting lists here, but they are not nearly as bad as they are made out to be. I had to wait about 10 days on my last two referals to a specialist from my GP. (ear nose and throat specialist and dermatologist)

I’m much more confident that I will get treatment in Canada than I would be were I in the US. The horror stories from health insurance companies in the US scare me as much as the line ups in Canada scare you. With insurance companies, it’s not just about line ups, it’s about whether you will get treatment at all.

“The biggest problem in America now is the knee jerk screaming from one side at the other without any thought or intellectual honesty.” That was a fun debate Doogal, even if it went way off topic. I hope it met your standards.

Sorry Matt we are messing up your board, but I just can’t resist to post

Communist vs Capitalist is not clique, the debate was over about only about 20 years ago, yet people are starting to forget. It is so funny to see that Russia, China, Vietnam and all the eastern European countries firmly discarded socialism, yet people in US, Western EU starting to pushing for it.

History is our best teacher. Long time ago God lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land. There was no king and Israelites do as they wish. However enemies from all sides keep turning on them, so instead of depending on them selfs or God, Israelites want a king to lead them. So God asks: “Do you really want a King? He will treat you badly, take half of harvests etc, are you sure?”. The Israelites said “Yes, we are weak, give us a king to lead us please”. So there comes a chain of Kings, some good some bad but more bad ones than good ones, and leads the destruction of Israel.

Don’t depend on kings or governments to help us. The government is only as good as each individuates. Why anyone would think the politicians are better at managing us? Both insurance executives and government officials can be selfish, but if insurance executives mismanages his company, he losses his source of supporting himself. If a government official mismanages, he got voted down (or if he is good, he will hide it) but nothing too serious. This fundamental difference determines statistically, private industry will have better chance of out performing government agencies, mainly because of the former is better motivated.

One really good example is pork spending. every year X billion dollars are spend on pork, basically free money given to politicians supporters. Just think about how many $$ will be spend under the cover of health care?

“Communist vs Capitalist is not clique, the debate was over about only about 20 years ago, yet people are starting to forget. ”

WowPanda, Pointing at something and calling it Communist doesn’t make it communist. Didn’t we learn that lesson from Joseph McCarthy and Edward R Murrow? My dad, who escaped from Hungary in 56, would find it very funny that someone called me a communist or a socialist. Come on, give me a break, this is about health care, not the cold war. You quote no stats, no sources, accuse me of not being transparent with my sources, use anecdotal evidence based on hearsay. You position is based entirely on ideology, not on any facts or figures and then call me a communist when all else fails? Ok, I’m done.

Hows GH3 coming Matt?

Gene,
I am not trying to accuse you of anything, I come into US with a mind similar to a communists or progressives, but the facts I see changed me to believe that free enterprise is the way to go.

I am simply saying that your source on infant mortality is not consistent on it’s counting methods, and after 30 to 40 years of implementing, most former or current communist countries have found their way of central control (on the market, health care, etc) are not working, and are turning around.

You can call my position is based on ideology, which is the more government, the worse. But the facts are rather clear. Can you deny that south Korea is better than north? Taiwan’s economy is better than China (at least when China is under tight communist control), even thought they have the similar culture and same people? And can’t you see the role the US government played that are slowly drowning the US economy (for example, the auto industry)? I am just trying to show you the logical relations between them. Let’s stop here so you can calm down

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” — Thomas Paine

-Gene

I wholeheaqrtedly agree that the proper comparison for Canadian health care is not the U.S. but Europe, particularly Scandinavia.

But, as you know, thats not how political discourse about health care works in Canada. The slightest mention of ANY changes towards a more efficient mixed system brings a flood of silly commentary about the U.S.– as if its either the current setup or full privatization.

“I had to wait about 10 days on my last two referals to a specialist from my GP. (ear nose and throat specialist and dermatologist)”

My last referal took 47 days [I just got in last friday]. The one before that was roughly 2 months. British Columbia seems better that Ontario.

That’s also something our friends from south of the border may not know. Although there is national legislation, health care is a provincial responsibility; Ontario is different from Quebec etc etc.

You always have to pay *something* for a doctors visits. If they were free we’d be dropping in every friday to get an MRI on the toe we stubbed. Demand exceeds supply so there has to be something to regulate it. The US system uses $$ and the Canadian system uses time.

The reason Canadians tend to get worried about mixing the two is that they rightly understand that if there is finite capacity and if $$ lets you move up the queue, those without $$ will be facing longer waits. Mixed systems proponents will respond by stating that more $$ would be used to increase capacity, so, depending on the price, a mixed system could reduce wait times. Ie, consider the OLPC program where to buy a laptop you have to give a laptop. If a $$ based emergency visit was priced to pay for itself and a wait-queued visit, people paying to jump the line will actually reduce the line length.

Of course, most people are way too cynical to believe any $$ would actually be spent on increasing capacity. And they are likely right. After all, those $$ come from the same pockets the “free” trips are paid from, so it can only reduce time if the total GDP spent on healthcare was to rise. Which, if we were willing to do, could be achieved right now in the pure wait time scenario.

Finally, as to why you’d want to forcibly insure clueless 20-30 year olds who “just want a bigger TV”? That’s easy to answer. They are the entrepreneurs that are supposed to create the Next Big Thing. What is the biggest risk an entrepreneur faces? Getting sick. They aren’t skipping health insurance to get the TV - they are skipping it to eat while they try to push through their great idea. I want them to fail because their idea was unworthy, not because they rolled an expensive illness. Any innovation loving capitalist should be all over full healthcare.

(Also, if that truly is the only uncovered demographic, what are you waiting for? That is by far the CHEAPEST demographic to insure.)

Mumei,

Excellent point about $$ vs wait time. It is largely true about $ would actually be spent on increasing capacity.

However there is one point that could break the $$ vs wait time balance. That is, humans in general are industrials and tends to go for the free stuff. So in this case, everyone is paying their share of Medicare money, and if you don’t use the service, it is wasted. This will create the situation where most people trying to take advantage of the free system, but the system can’t handle it. For example, if I cut my finger, I can either wrap it up in my home or go to a hospital. Since the hospital and ambulance is free, why not go there? This is true for most socialized systems, where people will try to take advantage of it.

And the worst is, because people are industrials, they will find ways to convert their paid tax into real money. The ways are, people could fraud doctors to get free drags and sale it, they could wait in line and sale their waiting position to others. Just take a look at the US prohibition era, if people want to do something, there is no way government can prevent it.

And lastly, I think government can be good enough to compete with private business (insurance company in our case), at small local level. That is because at local level, the voters feels the pain directly if the government did something wrong. For example, if your mayor want to spend your tax money to build a bridge to no where, you will be angry and throw him out right away. However if US government give 1 billion to Alaska and they build a bridge to no where, no one cares.

That said, if we want universal health care paid and maintained by the local government (at town level), that might be a good idea. Paid and maintained by the central government? No way.

Yeesh Matt, get it right. It’s not torture, it’s “freedom tickles.”

“For example, if I cut my finger, I can either wrap it up in my home or go to a hospital. Since the hospital and ambulance is free, why not go there?”

Because, as I pointed out, Free as in $ is not Free as in Time. If you show up in emergency with anything that won’t kill you in the next two hours, you *will* wait at least two hours. The fear of a long wait in the emergency department serves the same purpose as the fear of a large bill from visiting the emergency department. (Interestingly enough this also means that the poor, to whom time is worth less $, “pay” less than the rich)

Your point about people trying to “convert” their tax into $$ is accurate. However, it applies equally to people trying to “convert” their private health insurance into $$, so really isn’t a comment on either system.

1. You are right, people will be turned away from hospitals if wait time is too long, so it is not much of an issue. I guess the only advantage private system has is degree of freedom you have. It is relatively less pain to pay $20 copay than wait for 2 days (i.e. you have more freedom in spend your own money than government spent it for you).

2. it is much easier to watch over a few thousand insurance companies than millions of individuals trying to defraud a system.
Also if a insurance company trying to defraud the insurer, people will sue, will take action. If a politician waste tax $ to build a bridge to no where, nothing will happen.

But, if insurance companies are screwing over the customer (either the doctor or the patient in this case) they will lose business by the customer going to another company or the doctor no longer accepting that insurance. What happens when the state declares that doctors are to make x dollars? They go to a free country to make 2x dollars. Imagine trying to find an OB/GYN then….

I am not saying everything private is good. I am just trying to show why universal health care any many government programs are bad.

For example, Enron. The company is badly managed, defrauded its shareholders, and it went out of businses, its leaders jailed/fined. There is one less bad company in the world, life goes on. As long as you didn’t put all your eggs in one basket (buy all Enron stocks), you should be OK.

Most of the time if some government run agency got a bad mistake, there are usually little or no punishment, and sometimes even got more money (i.e public school systems, social security etc).

Me too, I am almost libertarian. Also it is very true about military-industrial complex, but now it might be best called political industrial complex, because as the US government gets bigger, the military spending is rapidly been surpassed by other spendings, such as social security and port spending.

As you said above, government is “fundamentally incapable of actually exercising meaningful regulation over most industries”, so increase government is not the real solution. Good thing is the marriage of money and power in a democracy is temporary, because wealth changes hands (there is a saying in China that wealth does not pass 3 generations), it is the size of the government that is always increasing.

A recent talk with a friend from Canada, I discovered that now Canadian health care system is also not free. Apparently to save the system, the Canadian government is forced to imposes fees on its “free” system.

Basically my friend is trying to check out which countries is cheaper right now, basically what he said is the difference is not big but in US the service is a bit better.

I will imagine that is the future of any nationalized health care. Initially it is free under a huge tax burden, and later will go bankrupt and need to be charged, and because it is under no competition pressure, the service will be worse.