To understand Obama's vision of socialized health care all you need to do is look northward to Canada. This is what will happen in the United States if we allow socialized medicine to take root here: Permission required from the government to get surgery, waiting your turn in line perhaps for months on end, then finally asking for permission to go to the US for surgery after which if it is denied you go anyway. But don't expect to get reimbursed by government.
YOU SHOULD HAVE WAITED YOUR TURN LIKE A GOOD BOY - and taken your chances with death.
This is a must see youtube video - click on the link below.
http://www.rationalmind.net/2008/02/08/a-short-course-in-brain-surgery/
2 comments:
Just,
What about poor people?
I mean, where do our rights begin and end? You say one who's well-to-do should be entitled to receiving a greater share of our health-care resources, but one who's poor shouldn't be entitled to some minimum? I don't think it's a tenable assertion, that we live in anything resembling a meritocracy, so I hear your "objective" proposition for distributing our healthcare resources as just another subjective centralized distribution--one based upon an accident of birth (being born in a financially advantageous situation.)
I've read your (and A.R.'s) assertion that this so-called "capitalism" (though I suspect Adam Smith would probably say our corporate-concentrated system has more in common with the "mercantilism" of his day) creates a better situation for the poor.
That does not seem a defensible position to me. Your example of the US cannot be used to defend your assertion, as you cannot eliminate contributing factors. Indeed, the rise of the US may probably have more to do with some combination of our natural Autarchy (which our corporate system has squandered to the benefit of the few,) the rise of industrialization amidst the backdrop of two victorious world-wars (which kept other well-positioned players from capitalizing on emerging technologies,) "socialized" education, work programs, infrastructure investment and vast resources open to exploitation. When I look at the greatest generation, I wonder what they would have accomplished without the educational benefits given to veterans--most men I know of that generation utilized that nasty "socialism" and lifted their family's standard of living....
No, a better "laboratory" for demonstrating the effects of our modern Friedultra-centralized economic policy on the poor would be the third world or China, or the former Soviet countries, or the "third world."
At the very best, it seems the "standard of living" increases hailed in those places is extremely subjective. As someone who has chosen not to own a TV or buy food high-carbon-footprint corporate foods or use many of the modern "conveniences," I guess my "standard of living" would be very low by the common criteria....
And yet, my voluntary "poverty" was undertaken to raise my standard of living. I don't much participate in "the economy" as it would be defined by the IMF, but my economic activities have a more profound impact on the people in my community.
And at the worst, this "economic freedom" seems to come at the expense of other freedoms. Naomi Klein makes a fairly compelling argument that Democracy and people's choice for self-governance is often pushed aside in favor of "economic freedom" for a very slender minority. Even in the US, our governmental policy has been to pressure farmers off of their farms, for example, in order to increase an industrial labor bass. Those farmers had no right to chose whether or not they participated in the corporatized economy. And we gave up our right to local control over our food resources, health, security, nutrition and our American way of life.
It seems to me a truly "objective" stand on the economy would favor a rational pragmatic stance with REAL LOCALIZED CAPITALISM and its enhanced competition and diversity at its basis. No more of this religious corporatism, where feeding the beat is its own subjective reward. And do not doubt that it's a religion. You're constant use of the dismissive and fallacious ad hominem "socialism" and "communism" which appear throughout your page look suspiciously like dogma to me. I'll have none of that dogma. We should have socialism on a small scale where it works best, such as education. And we should have a healthy not-for-profit sector, where a profit motive may be unsavory--such as health care, where they system benefits from sick people. And finally, we might have to tolerate the occasional mistakes of a well-educated electorate in a truly democratic society. But I do not doubt that the mechanisms of a real capitalist free-market would be able to correct those mistakes as they come. And if we have a slightly slower burn of the economy with a truly raised "standard of living" (truly raised because people will have the freedom to chose) then I will accept that as well. In a truly objective world view, the "heat" of the economy is only a subjective measure, after all....
Oh, and I forgot to say thank you for your blog. Though I disagree, your well-stated posts provide an excellent opportunity for discussion and exploration.... And it is such an important discussion to have. How can we find the truth if we don't have all this out? Unfortunately, the perspective you voice is one that's too often dismissed or stigmatized....
Anyway, good work, and apologies for the very hasty typing and typos.
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