Cynical Nation

I don't see what the one thing has to do with the other? The universal health is one thing and a lack of facilities are another. Can you bridge that gap for me and demonstrate in a non-speculative way how one causes the other? There is a shortage of nurses in the US, but I don't see how a privatized system causes that either.

It's basic economics, really. When you have a finite supply of something, and there is no mechanism for curtailing demand (e.g., higher prices), rationing is the expected result.

The Canadian Health Care System is far from perfect. On the other hand, it is completelely unacceptable to have millions of hard-working Americans uninsured. I think the best system is in England. Where they have 2 parallel systems. One with socialized medicine and the other private. At least it seems that everyone gets care there and noone is complaining like in Canada.

I'm old enough to remember when the vast majority of Americans had no health insurance except Blue Cross and Blue Shield (paid for by themselves) which only covered extraordinary medical expenses. Somehow the country got along just fine without universal, employer or government provided, healthcare.

I worked in the insurance industry in the '80s when the percentage of Americans with general health insurance broke 50% for the first time. I clearly recall Senator Kennedy burning with rage because insurance companies (like the one I worked for) didn't want to establish HMOs and had to be coerced into that business with legislation. That was about when the whole system started going to hell.

> I clearly recall Senator Kennedy burning with rage because insurance companies (like the one I worked for) didn't want to establish HMOs....

That's because Ted Kennedy is an asshole.

>It's basic economics, really. When you have a finite supply of something, and there is no mechanism for curtailing demand (e.g., higher prices), rationing is the expected result.

OK, fine, you're right.

How is this an argument against national health care?

Does our current 'system' result in less 'rationing'?

Hey Barry,
Do me a favor. Call anyone else you want an asshole except Ted Kennedy :) He is my very favorite senator and a great democratic leader.

> He is my very favorite senator and a great democratic leader.

That's mighty sad, Blue.

Nationalized or Universal Health Care, or more aptly, "Socialized Medicine," ALWAYS results in rationed care because medical skills and resources are finite and valuable and when a government attempts to GIVE a value away for free, it immediately encounters what is called "the tragedy of the commons," - suddenly everyone can't get enough of this "free thing," resulting in rampant overuse and ultimately in rationing.

That's not only why "socialized medicine" doesn't work, it's why socialism itself doesn't work!

"Hey Barry,
Do me a favor. Call anyone else you want an asshole except Ted Kennedy :) He is my very favorite senator and a great democratic leader." (BW)

Your FAVORITE?!

Based on what???

I mean, off the top of my head I can't think of a single major achievement advanced by Ted Kennedy. That is, unless you want to be cruel and claim that he did once eradicate at least one future Liberal, when he drove that car off of that bridge...

And I don't accept that as any kind of "achievement," do you?

At least JFK was a rabid anti-Communist and big time tax cutter (bigger than Reagan even), and Robert was not only anti-Mob, but, if possible, even more rabidly anti-Communist than John. Hell, RFK served on Joe "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy's anti-Communist commission, along side of Roy Cohn.

Damn, poor Teddy doesn't even have the guts to take on that mantle and try and purge the "Communists" (today's hard Left) out of his beloved Democratic Party.

Now, if he'd do that, I'd consider THAT a major achievement!

But so far, zip.

JMK,
You have no idea what you are talking about. If Robert Kennedy was alive today, he will be the leader of the left wing of the democratic party. He was to the left of Dean, Kerry and pretty much any senator of today.

Ted Kennedy is a great senator for many reasons. He is the soul of the democratic party. He is the liberal tradition and one of the most intelligent senators of all times. I know the right hates him, but I dont care. That why I am a (very liberal)democrat and not a republican.

> He is the liberal tradition and one of the most intelligent senators of all times.

Robert F Kennedy proudly served with Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn in the 1950s going after Communists via the HUAC.

RFK & JFK both reviled any and ALL Communists and Communist sympathizers.

It was for that reason that RFK rightly lobbied Hoover's FBI to wiretap MLK because of suspected Communist associations.

If you doubt any of that, read up on them both (JFK & RFK). But don't attempt to re-write history because you don't like the reality of your Party's former icons.

BTW, RFK's suspicions of MLK were very well founded. Just one example of why his suspicions were sound, was that Hunter Pitts Odell (an avowed Communist) was a key King advisor and a prominent speechwriter for King at the time.

As for JFK, he slashed income tax rates with a greater ferocity than even Ronald Reagan did, though the upper rates were much higher back then.

Now both those guys were still not "Conservative enough" for folks like my Dad, a two tour Naval vet (1943 - 1951) and a hard-working fireman who worked his way up through the ranks of the FDNY, working in the riot torn Brownsville & East New York sections of Brooklyn from the mid-sixties (as Capt of L-107) through the mid-seventies (as a Battalion Chief in the 44th Bttn).

My Dad despised JFK for, among other things, his failure to support the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba that his administration helped plan and set in motion, and though he shared the same vehement anti-Communist zeal that both RFK & JFK exhibited, he felt they were still "out of step" with the views and values of most working Americans," with many of their other positions.

It's highly unlikely that either JFK, or RFK would be Democrats today.

Like Ronald Reagan (a JFK Democrat in the early 1960's), it's more than likely that their views would've followed an evolution similar to Reagan's - from Moderate Democrats (which all three were in the 1960s)) to Conservatives (by 1976).

If Ted Kennedy shared ANY of his brother's core beliefs he'd right now be purging the Democratic Party of the hard Left and favoring a Gingrich styled reduction in the size & scope of government, as well as big across the board income tax cuts.

Yes, to paraphrase Lloyd Benson, "I remember JFK (though I was a real little kid), and Ted Kennedy is NO JFK, that's for damn sure."

"He (RFK) was to the left of Dean, Kerry and pretty much any senator of today." (BW)

Only if you consider "Left" to mean vehemently anti-Communist and in favor of lower taxes and government getting out of the way of small and medium sized businesses!

I must admit, I'm unfamiliar with that particular definition of "Leftist," though I once heard Libya's Qadaffi say that he was a "Socialist," and then went on to define "Socialist" as, "Like a Reagan or Thatcher" - in other words, a "Supply Sider."

An interesting bit of verbal legerdemain, so it's possible that by "Left of Kerry, Dean and all," you actually mean vehemently anti-Communist (anti-Left) and an economic Supply Sider.

In that case, we'll have to come to better define our terms, as we CANNOT re-define either RFK or JFK - their records are there for everyone to see.

Robert F Kennedy proudly served with Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn in the 1950s going after Communists via the HUAC.

JMK,
Thats an ourageous statement. RFK had nothing to do with McCarthism (brrrr) and the antidemocratic actions of the far right at the time.

Also are you still thinking of communism? Where have you been? We are in year 2006. That threat is gone. The right has hard time attacking the Kennedys, as JFK was probably the best president of the century and RFK would have been even better. So the right has decided to pretend that the Kennedys were "conservative democrats". Hell no. The Kennedy were ultra-liberal. Especially RFK. Dont invent history and dont manufacture facts. Like Joe McCarthy was doing in the 50s :)

> ...JFK was probably the best president of the century...

Really? What parts of JFK's administration did you like the most? The wiretapping of Martin Luther King? The beginning of the war in Vietnam? Tax cuts for the rich? The Bay of Pigs disaster? Please elaborate.

The Bay of Pigs disaster :)

P.S. I dont think JFK ever wiretapped MLK. The tax cuts then were appropriate. And, although JFK sent first troops in Vietnam, his brother (RFK) was planning to pull out if he won the election. But he was assasinated.

> I dont think JFK ever wiretapped MLK..

Oh wait, you're right! It was his attorney general, RFK, whom you said would have been an even better president.

Thats not true Barry. As Adam would say, please provide some evidence for your statements :)

> Thats not true Barry.

You're kidding, right? Might I suggest a refresher course in recent American history?

You can start with this article from "The Atlantic." It begins:

On October 10, 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy committed what is widely viewed as one of the most ignominious acts in modern American history: he authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to begin wiretapping the telephones of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

"Thats an ourageous statement. RFK had nothing to do with McCarthism (brrrr) and the antidemocratic actions of the far right at the time." (BlueWind)

Let me help you out here, BW. It's an easy to find fact that Robert Kennedy served with Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.

Take this, for instance, from the online encylopedia Wikpedia; "By reason of seniority, in 1953 McCarthy became chair of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and its Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as chief counsel and Robert Kennedy as assistant counsel to the subcommittee."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_McCarthy

RFK, like his brother John, was a vehement anti-COMMUNIST through the 1950s & 1960s and it's people like him who made "Communism" a word as filthy as "Nazism."

Nothing at all "outrageous" about that.

Glad you're here though. Ironically enough, the school system must be slipping in its attempts to teach "recent American history" as you politely refer to it.

JMK

"Also are you still thinking of communism? Where have you been? We are in year 2006. That threat is gone. The right has hard time attacking the Kennedys, as JFK was probably the best president of the century and RFK would have been even better. So the right has decided to pretend that the Kennedys were "conservative democrats". Hell no. The Kennedy were ultra-liberal. Especially RFK. Dont invent history and dont manufacture facts. Like Joe McCarthy was doing in the 50s :)" (BW)

Sorry to burst your bubble Blue, but BOTH JFK & RFK were, as I said, rabidly anti-Communist. Which is also a part of the historical record and was very relevent at that time - EVERY true Liberal stood up, in favor of the Communists here and fought for their right to "political freedom."

Every single Liberal of that day...but NOT the Kennedy's!

It's thanks to people like them that Communism in all its forms, from "Progressivism," to "Socialism" and even "Liberalism" (the "L-word") have become dirty words, scorned by virtually everyone, at least every sensible person today.

And yes, RFK, as LBJ's Attorney General lobbied the Hoover led FBI to wiretap MLK.

That ALSO is part of the historical record.

RFK and JFK were NOTHING like the pathetically Liberal Teddy Kennedy.

JFK slashed income tax rates ACROSS the board - what Liberal nutcases deride as "tax cuts for the rich" now-a-days.

Both were rabid and reactionary anti-Communists. I begrudgingly respect that, though every self-respecting Liberal/Leftist today should despise them for it.

Still, when all is said and done, JFK was actually one of the least effective Presidents of the 20th Century.

He presided over the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, got us deeper into Vietnam (though he often complained about our fighting Communism 5,000 miles away while it exists 90 miles off our shores).

He did nothing while Soviet Tanks mowed down peaceful Hungarian students merely speaking out for freedom.

Under his watch, the Soviets erected the Iron Curtain and sealed off East Germany with the Berlin Wall - again JFK did nothing, when it turns out the Soviets bluffed the U.S. all the while aware they wanted no real confrontation with America.

The sole shining moment of JFK's Presidency was his facing down Kruschev over the Cuban Missle crisis.

Nope, JFK wasn't even a good President, let alone a "great one."

Again, ALL of this is part of the historical record.

Read it and accept the truth...or ask Mal. He may well remember more than I.

JMK

"The Bay of Pigs disaster :)

P.S. I dont think JFK ever wiretapped MLK. The tax cuts then were appropriate. And, although JFK sent first troops in Vietnam, his brother (RFK) was planning to pull out if he won the election. But he was assasinated."

The Bay of Pigs fiasco was a disgrace for JFK!

He set up the invasion, trained the anti-Castro Cubans and then pulled the rug out from under them at the 11th hour.

Scumbag move, by what many perceived as a "preppy President" who was completely out of touch with reality.

"Only a rich kid would even think you could walk away from a street fight," was what many people said at the time.

The wiretaps?!

OK, Barry covered that.

But RFK served as Attorney General in his brother's administration from January 1961 until his resignation on September 3, 1964 (10 months into LBJ's tenure), and lobbied Hoover under BOTH administrations to monitor MLK.

As I said, his suspicions were well founded. Look up Hunter Pitts Odell, who was one of a number of Communists advising MLK.

JFK DID NOT send in the FIRST U.S. troops to Vietnam (Eisenhauer did), but during JFK's tenure that fight was ratcheted up.

And if the across the board income tax rate cuts were appropriate under JFK, they are even MORE appropriate today!

Bush's Cap Gains cuts actually resulted in INCREASED Cap Gains revenues over the projected revenues based on the old rates projections.

JFK was a Supply Sider, so is G W Bush.

I'd like to see someone actually SHRINK government revenues and starve off a huge part of this federal beast.

I think Blue has left the building, JMK.

Well, I'm sure you all had very important points to make, but I am far too lazy to read all of them. Sorry.

But I did want to add this:
In the United States, over 85 percent of health care expenses are paid for by insurance companies or governments. This is one of the highest rates of insulation in the world (based on OECD health data, but this particular table is not available on line). Even in Canada, the percent of health care costs paid out of pocket is slightly higher than in the United States. Americans' high rate of insulation, combined with the abundant availability of trained specialists and the latest equipment, accounts for the high level of health care spending in this country.

Emphasis added by me.

People talk about health insurance as if in America we didn't have any government-provided medicare at all.

But if you combine the number of people who have insurance with the number of people that the government provides for, then, as the above article says, you find that fewer people pay out of pocket here than do in Canada.

Booyah.

Barry and JMK,
You can not change a basic fact. RFK was liberal, in fact ultra-liberal. He was a champion for human rights and he strongly believed in social justice. He was also cleary an anti-war democrat and he was definitely going to pull out of Vietnam if he wsa elected. If he really served under McCarthy when he was young, that means nothing. RFK was very very liberal and a real democrat. If you dont believe me, look at his younger brother (my very favorite senator of today).

I dont have time to go and pull out his speeches, but I will do so in the near future and will post some excepts that will force you to agree that he was ultra-liberal.

P.S. I am still in the building :)

If you want to call a rabidly anti-Communist - a "Joe McCarthy anti-Communist," and a guy who obviously believed in his brother John's Supply-Side views, the righteousness of war against "a sovereign nation that was no direct threat to us" (both Kennedy's supported the war in Vietnam AND the invasion of Communist Cuba) and the efficacy of domestic spying, even on domestic-to-domestic calls between U.S. citizens (something that even G W Bush apparently doesn't - the current NSA only wiretaps domestic-to-international and international-to-domestic calls between citizens and targeted foreign portals) an "ultra-Liberal," than Ronald Reagan, Barry N Johnson and even myself (for the most part) can also be called "ultra-Liberals" using that same definition.

Of course that would make those opposed to the current NSA wiretaps, Supply-Side economics and war against nations that support terror but haven't directly attacked us (ie. Iraq) something far more extreme than "ultra-Liberals" - radical anti-Americans comes to mind.

RFK took on the same stance that both Humphrey and Nixon did, vis-a-vis Vietnam - all of them promised to end it and get us out.

In fact, RFK & Nixon BOTH campaigned on "peace with honor," meaning "peace through victory."

Nixon won big, proving that even back then, most Americans trusted Republicans more, whenever national security was a major concern.

P.S.

Please don't "rationalize" a person's (RFK's) actions just because they surprise you and go against your initial view of them.

Robert Kennedy willingly and knowingly took that postion along side Roy Cohn and with Joe McCarthy BECAUSE the Kennedy's Poppa Joe, JFK & RFK were ALL rabidly anti-Communist (as MOST Americans were/are)...and that was an extremely "UN-Liberal stance at that time.

Like I said, I respect that in them, but neither RFK, nor JFK were honorable men....yes, they were both more "honorable" than Teddy, but that's sadly not saying much of anying.

"...if you combine the number of people who have insurance with the number of people that the government provides for, then, as the above article says, you find that fewer people pay out of pocket here than do in Canada." (Adam)

Very true, Adam.

And thanks for getting us back on topic.

One of the problems with American health care is that we're already far too insulated from the real costs of health care.

People who pay only insurance co-pays, or do nothing more than flash a Medicaid card, etc., THINK they're getting "Free" or low-cost health care, not realizing they're paying a lot more in taxes that pay for the government subsidies to the health care complex.

Milton Friedman has long argued that health care, like ANY service or skill, is only as valuable as the value the market puts on it.

If doctors had to charge the "going rate," sans insurance, etc, they couldn't charge any more than what their given market (locale) would bear.

Fact is, as recent as the mid-1960s doctors in the U.S. still made house calls and charged $10 or $15 per visit (appx $150 to $200 per visit today adj for inflation)...and our health care was second to none.

Since that time, we've moved steadily away from the market model and the quality of our health care has decreased as the ACTUAL cost has skyrocketed!

The ONLY thing that the English & Canadian systems have over us right now, is more rationed care.

JMK, do you ever get the feeling that this whole "We're big liberals, wink wink" routine was kind of an inside joke that Bobby and Jack never let Teddy in on?

The place I've been going for mammography for the last five years now has an 11-MONTH WAIT for mammography because so many facilities in the area have closed. The reason they're closing? "Not profitable."

I guess only when women are sick with breast cancer and preferably die, is it "profitable". Then both hospitals AND funeral homes get money.

"JMK, do you ever get the feeling that this whole "We're big liberals, wink wink" routine was kind of an inside joke that Bobby and Jack never let Teddy in on?" (BNJ)

Well, either THAT, or it has to be chalked up to the evolving definition of words/terms.

Ronald Reagan was a Kennedy Democrat in the 1960s and pretty much stayed one throughout his life - a tax cutting, Supply-Sider and a rabid anti-Communist.

Only by 1976, he was no longer a "Kennedy (Liberal?) Democrat," he was a "Conservative Republican."

What might that be called?

Ideological erosion?

Jill, "profit" is so much more than just a "dirty word."

The increasing control over American health by the "bean counters" at both the insurance companies and the HMOs have eroded the viability/PROFITABILITY of health care.

When doctors can no longer earn the remuneration their skills warrant because of increased Malpractice premiums amidst shrinking payouts from health insurers and HMOs, many simply choose to move to other career choices.

Tens of thousands of doctors have left medicine in recent years because of just such reasons.

Kind of puts the LIE to the "health care is a RIGHT," viewpoint, doesn't it?

You see?

Say person-X is a trained physician, a gifted heart surgeon, at that and the country desperately NEEDS heart surgeons, but the government over-regulates health care to such an extent that person-X can no longer make the $500,000/year (post expenses) or more for his services he used to, but now makes less than half that - what is person-X to do?

Well, if person-X is a bright person, as anyone who gets through Medical School probably is, then person-X will most likely look for a career choice that will maintain the highest quality lifestyle that person's skills can attain.

Some will move into other forms of medicine, like plastic surgery, or internal diagnostics, where Malpractice Premiums may be lower, to some form of health care consulting, or even to other fields, like finance, etc.

Now a person who doesn't understand what LIBERTY is and why it's so important may naively (and sarcastically) ask, "So, the "good doctor" is just going to go out and earn more money and leave all those who need heart surgery in the lurch?"

EXACTLY RIGHT!

And why not?

Person-X has an inalienable (God-given) RIGHT to do what he/she wants with his/her life.

We, the people DON'T have A RIGHT (God-given, or otherwise) to cost-effective, quality heart surgery.

You and I cannot have a "RIGHT" to a commodity, produced by others without first championing "the people's right" or the government's right to Chattel Slavery over the producers.

And since we can't give to government any powers we do not ourselves possess, we cannot give the government the right to enslave others for our own benefit.

See? Anyone who'd support a government forcing person-X into continuing to be a heart surgeon no matter what, obviously believes in Chattel Slavery, no different than those who fought for the right of some to keep black slaves, over a century ago (ironically enough, Karl Marx supported the enslavement of blacks...just an interesting side note).

So OUR government COULD NOT force person-X to remain a heart surgeon because of that silly little thing called "The Bill of Rights" (the first Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution). The U.S. government could only try and make inducements or provide incentives, like, for instance, "Heart surgeons pay no federal income tax," and "The taxpayers will pay a portion of their Malpracticve Insurance," things like that...BUT such things, AGAIN, only wind up masking the real price/cost of health care and provides a "benefits imbalance" that would seem to violate the right to equal protection under the law to all people, as some people (those needing heart surgery, in this instance) would benefit greatly from this added overall cost and many (all those wh never need heart surgery) would not beneft at all.

We really need a return to form of Market-based health care.