Obama on single-payer health care...

[hippifried]

Call it whatever you like, but a single payer system is the way to go. All these other schemes & scams are just trying to sell you an insurance policy.

I don't see any reason that the insurance industry should be running the nation's healthcare system. Insurance is a hedge bet.

I don't see any reason that healthcare shouldn't be integrated into the national infrastructure. We did it with transportation, communications, education, the electrical grid, etc...

It's long past time to get over all this stupid red-baiting & get back to the business of making life a little better for out progeny. We're a society. We socialize. That's what societies do. We shouldn't be worshiping economic philosophies. Damn Birchers are worse than any of the commies they whine about.

[arnie666]

I do not understand why the yanks refer to a national health system as socialised. It is normally the people against it who refer to it this way trying to give the impression that it is the first step to a socialist country. I myself am a right wing conservative member of the monday club (far right of the conservative party) and I can count on my hand the people there who don't want a national health care system for every British citizen. We might differ with other parties on how it should be implemented but the basic idea to me is a sign of a modern civilised country.

I like America in fact I think now it does things better than we do on many issues, the main one being the idea of self improvement that any man or woman can get right to the top no matter who he is or what skin colour something I don't think will happen in the UK for many years. I like their views on gun ownership , and I do envy them on their ability to still excecute dirty criminal scum. But this issue I think they should follow us or at least look at other models of health care because it just seems unreal what that health care system is like.Britains is not perfect but I think it is 100 percent better than yours. No talking about the Doctors or Hospitals which there are some first rate ones in the states ,just the system.

[SarahG]

And, too, socialized medicine exists in the military.

BAD example. The VA is a national disgrace. If that's what health care will be like with an American NHS program, then we're destined for a very very rough road ahead.

PLEASE tell me you don't actually want the entire country using basically a bigger version of the VA for ALL their health care? Would you want your family to use such below-par health care?

Nice logic. It sure worked well for GM and Ford didn't it? Toyota (the Inferior competitor) has waltzed past Ford and will soon permanently pass GM as the largest carmaker in the world. Toyota adapted to circumstances, Detroit didn't.

Funny, you omitted how much trouble the Japanese car companies are having right now as well. Not as bad, but things are far from perfect for them.

I don't see any reason that healthcare shouldn't be integrated into the national infrastructure. We did it with transportation, communications, education, the electrical grid, etc...

Ouch, if our public schooling system is what we have to look forward to as far as expectations go for an America NHS, we're in a lot of trouble. I take issue to a lot of your examples.

-Electric grid worked fine when nationalized, when it was being taken seriously. But, nationalization was a response to a problem that never existed in the first place. Electric companies were fairly competent for decades before nationalization.

-Public schooling... surely you are joking? Sure, it's better than nothing, and it is better than religious institutions having a monopoly on education... but our public schools make the DMV look like the definition of efficiency Significant portions of our schools have a 50% or higher drop out rate, a disturbing amount of those have as high as 75%! Think of that for a minute, for every 4 kids that go in some of these districts, MAYBE, on a good day- 2 will graduate! All children left behind essentially proves that we're only capable (or willing?) to put bandaids & ducttape on hemorrhaging wounds... meanwhile our schools are now more segregated than at any moment in our nation's history since the civil right's movement, and something like 60% of those minority dominated schools are the worst funded ones....

-Public transit? Maybe there was a time when we were good at making those post roads that justified judicial review... but the reality of today is that our roadway infrastructure was designed & built decades ago, and in most cases are dangerously unable to coupe with their modern traffic use, dangerously unmaintained, and dangerously encourage the bumper to bumper grid lock that causes air quality problems. Some states are looking at selling off roadways to private or foreign institutions to become toll roads, because we're so inadequate in handling their care, expansion, and funding.

[hippifried]

You don't know what you're talking about.

As a babyboomer, I'm a member of the first generation of Americans expected to advance my education past the elementary level, just because I'm an American. My father was considered an educated man because he made it all the way through the 8th grade. His father would hire the local wizard each year to tell him how much grain was in his bins. He didn't know how to do the math. He could read & write to an extent, & count his money. That's all he needed.

We take education for granted, as if it's always been there. We're a literate country now, & each generation is better educated than the last. This bullshit that the schools are all fucked up because some kids drop out of high school, or don't know who the 40th President was, is just a lame excuse for cutting funding. We can do better & we can do more, but all this hogwash that public education is a failure is just that.

As for segregation: Modern schools aren't segregated. People just go to school where they live. The schools reflect the demographics. It ain't the same as having the white school & the negro school a block apart, with rules that force separation. It's going to take a few more generations to change those demographics. Racial demography in the society at large is not controlled by the school system.

The electrical grid isn't nationalized. Whatever gave you that idea? Oh wait. Are you one of those ideologues that thinks that if there's any government involvement, it must be socialism? Education isn't nationalized either.

The feds built the interstate highway system in 30 years. The US highway system is still there. You can still get your kicks on route 66. It's just that a large portion of it is I-40 now. I'm not sure which interstate/s take you north from OKC to Chicago, via St Louis & Joplin.

Nearly every road in the US, paved or not, was built & is maintained by some government entity. So are the systems that bring water to your tap, pipe out your waste & treat it so it doesn't contaminate your drinking water, & dispose of your trash. Everything you do is dependent on a national infrastructure system, regardless of who controls the various parts.

The problem with the healthcare system is that it's in the control of the insurance industry. Why? It's all gotten totally out of control. Prices & premiums have gone through the roof. Why? Oh there's lots of excuses & finger pointing, but the reality is that the insurance industry is out of their league. There's 300 million people here. With any downturn in the economy, people can't afford premiums that outstrip their mortgage payment. The payees get hosed too, because the providers raise their prices to cover the cost of uninsured people who have nowhere else to go but the ER. Everybody's looking for deep pockets to stick their hands into. The only thing the government can control is what they pay for directly, & they're forced to pay "market price". It's gotten so convoluted that more & more doctors won't even take cash anymore. Somebody needs to step in & take charge. There was a single payer plan on the table back in '93-'94. The insurance companies, hospital associations, AMA, etc..., convinced the public & the Congress that they were better equiped to run the industry if the government would just stay out of the way. They've had another 15 years & the initial payers have taken it on the chin. Insurance is a hedge bet. They can't deal with this. They've completely screwed it up & it's going to take an army of accountants to even start to straighten it all out. 99% of what goes on in the ER can be handled at a clinic for a tenth the cost or less. It all goes down from there. Insurance companies have gotten even more bloated & bureaucratic than government, & they're only accountable to their shareholders. At least the government is open to scrutiny.

[SarahG]

As a babyboomer, I'm a member of the first generation of Americans expected to advance my education past the elementary level, just because I'm an American. My father was considered an educated man because he made it all the way through the 8th grade. His father would hire the local wizard each year to tell him how much grain was in his bins. He didn't know how to do the math. He could read & write to an extent, & count his money. That's all he needed.

Only the working class would have seen 8th grade as "educated" even back then. Just because your father didn't finish high school doesn't mean that is characteristic of America's professional-class of the time.

The middle class had embraced secondary education long before the 30s-40s, and certainly were graduating above the 8th grade. In fact by the mid 30s Richmond begun an experiment aimed at tweaking public education programs & durations, randomly split their schools up so that some students went through a modern K-12 program, some went through an accelerated 1-11 program and at the end both groups were tested to see how graduates compared. The drop out rates, and standardized test findings both showed that the two programs produced essentially equivalent groups of students... a program that would have been laughable if "8th grade was sufficient".

We take education for granted, as if it's always been there. We're a literate country now, & each generation is better educated than the last.

Bullshit. America used to dominate technical and scientific fields, graduated more scientists and engineers than any other country. Today we have to import them from other countries because we simply don't have the graduates to fill our domestic needs.

This bullshit that the schools are all fucked up because some kids drop out of high school, or don't know who the 40th President was, is just a lame excuse for cutting funding. We can do better & we can do more, but all this hogwash that public education is a failure is just that.

Gee, the next time I see a newspaper article showing a district with a 75% drop out rate, I should go find the principle and shake his hand for the successful institution of learning that he's running. How could anyone consider a district with a 75% drop out rate to be anything BUT a failure?

The electrical grid isn't nationalized. Whatever gave you that idea?

Before you say I don't know what I am talking about, you really should go read some history books and see the history of our grid.

Education isn't nationalized either.

No, I never said it was nationalized. I said it was socialized (surely you know the difference?).

At least the government is open to scrutiny.

You mean "in theory". Until the VA is fixed and functioning properly, the idea that the feds could "fix health care for the entire country" is absurd. All we've done is close VA hospitals and slash funding whenever the budget gets tight (like to pay for a never-ending war in Iraq). If what flies at the VA passes as the model of American health care, and that's the most respected/prestigious demographic in the country, then how do you think health care is going to go for groups that don't have that degree of respect?

If you think the feds can handle socialized health care, fine- prove it by showing a federal health care program similar to NHS that has been tweaked to operate sufficiently. Simply has not happened yet in this country.

Maybe there will be a day when we'll have a half-way decent VA program and be ready for American-NHS, but that day surely isn't today.

[trish]

America used to dominate technical and scientific fields, graduated more scientists and engineers than any other country.

Only for a brief period starting after World War II when a number of prominent European scientific leaders took up residence in the U.S. for obvious reasons. When government got a load of the atomic bomb, funding for science and science education skyrocketed. Still Russia beat us into Earth orbit. That scared more money and effort into science education and we experience a brief period of scientific brilliance and dominance. Eventually the federal government retreated from it’s commitments to education and at the same time placed uncountable unfunded mandates on public schools. Even State support of public schools has dwindled. In most States the bulk of K-12 is funded on the back of local property owners. Wealthy districts have excellent schools and excellent retention. Poor districts predictably suffer. Children in poorer districts cannot afford the benefits of private education. A thousand dollar voucher makes life a little easier for a wealthy family to send their progeny to a prestigious private, but it doesn't begin to cover the costs. Public education and true commitment on the part of state and federal goverment is the only solution.

[dave252]

what bothers me most is that some of you want the goverment, the same people who have fucked up every social program there is, run our healthcare. lets see, social security will be bankrupt soon, so that tax will be raised, our public schools dont teach, but teachers, at least where i live are doing awfully well. welfare, medicare, workmans comp are all filled up with corruption and fraud with no accountability. every single one of these programs have turned into a huge beaurocrisy that we have to pay for. sure lets put the politicians in charge of this one too. thats why they dont pay into social security, because they have thier own tax payer funded retirement that makes them millionaires when they retire. they have thier own taxpayer funded healthcare that not 1 dime comes out thier pockets. yup, these are the guys i want to control my life. hey, why get a job and succeed when the goverment will provide all the basics needs of life? why not run for public office and get these perks yourself? or is that to much work? why are the insurance companies making such profits? i'll tell you why, because the politicians you want to run the healthcare system are being paid not to change it. my advice to you is to take care of yourself. or are you to stupid or lazy to do it?

[trish]

Social security was doing just fine until some of you assholes out there elected officials who don’t believe in social security. Medicare is tremendously popular and successful. As I said above, the public schools in wealthy districts are among the best in the world. In districts where parents have jobs and families aren’t on the move, teachers in fact are able to teach quite well. You already admit private insurance isn't working. They're bilking us all and the government has been unwilling to step in. Why? Because there are assholes in government who don't believe in governing. But hey, if you don’t like assholes fucking up YOUR government and YOUR programs don't get rid of the programs. Ever hear the baby and the bath water? Try electing people who believe in those programs. The viability of public schools, public infrastructure, public health and public healthcare has been proven over and over again at various times in this nation and in other western nations.

[SarahG]

Public education and true commitment on the part of state and federal goverment is the only solution.

Exactly. I am sure there will be a day where the feds could handle a national NHS program, but if we can't handle stuff as basic as the VA system or public schools- I have very little reason to be optimistic about universal health care under today's environment.

You have to be able to walk before you can run, and the feds simple refuse to, in practice, commit themselves to the few things that they have socialized. Saying something is socialized is not in and of itself a criticism, I have nothing against socialized education... what I have a problem with is socializing education and then only pretending to be committed to those programs. Why is that such a problem? That should be self explanatory.

Even more problematic is the idea that showcasing the failures of our schooling system is just an excuse for increasing spending. There are real, tangible, important problems in our schooling system (we have a schooling system, not an education system- an important difference). We need the spending for our schools, its taking that funding away that got us in this shit-hole to begin with.

[SarahG]

Medicare is tremendously popular and successful.

Is the bar really that low? Medicare shows just how much our politicians would use government health care to cater to special interest groups. Remember the prescription drug plan that was passed a few years back? I do, I actually read (er, started to) the massive multiple phonebook-thick program. The politicians didn't even bother to write the law for that one, the special interest groups did. There wasn't a politician in the country that knew a paragraph of what that bill entailed... if that's what we have to look forward to for NHS, I am genuinely concerned.

Medicare is NOT the closest our government has to NHS. The VA system is the closest we have to NHS, yet no one wants to talk about that because it would be admitting that our politicians refuse to give a shit about veterans... and if we accept that at face value, it means they certainly won't give a shit about anyone else.

Sure, we can blame the politicians all we want for "ruining programs" but, those politicians are in office for a reason... they're who we keep electing into offices. Until we show that we can handle 1- electing into office politicians who actually care about these programs, 2- actually put our money where our words are and fix these existing programs then there is no reason at all to pretend that American NHS would be any different from the VA (or any other government program that has been butchered by neocon officials).

To say nothing of what would happen to NHS-coverage for socially volatile issues when neocons get into office. Suppose we get American NHS in 2010. What do you think would happen to the coverage of stuff like reproductive rights, fertility rights, and std treatments once the conservatives take control of DC again? The other big elephant in the room is that the return of conservative dominance in DC is a matter of when, not if.