Socialized medicine and competition

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  • Osborne Russell
    Senior Member
    • Mar 2006
    • 27154

    Socialized medicine and competition

    Sounds like oil and water to me.

    If there is a government system that doesn't cover all or a substantial portion of the population, say 70%, then it will be in substantial competition with private providers. Not just for the luxury stuff. There's no reason not to have private providers of luxury stuff -- is there?

    Anyway, over time, the "competive government system" will either win the competition or not.

    If it wins, you have socialized medicine.

    If it loses, what do you have?

    So what's the point of anything less than socialized medicine, with private providers of luxury stuff?
    Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf.

    Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (2017)​
  • George Roberts
    Banned
    • Nov 1999
    • 6617

    #2
    Re: Socialized medicine and competition

    Originally posted by Osborne Russell
    So what's the point of anything less than socialized medicine, with private providers of luxury stuff?
    I am starting to think we should get the government out of health care completely.

    No licensing of doctors, no state or federal restrictions on who can write health insurance, no testing of drugs.

    Comment

    • Andrew Craig-Bennett
      Who?
      • Aug 1999
      • 28468

      #3
      Re: Socialized medicine and competition

      Originally posted by George Roberts
      I am starting to think we should get the government out of health care completely.

      No licensing of doctors, no state or federal restrictions on who can write health insurance, no testing of drugs.
      But why stop there?

      Take the Government out of licensing pilots and certificating aircraft, out of regulating and allocating radio frequencies, out of road traffic regulation, out of food and hygene regulation, out of weights and measures and of course out of education, and think of the money you would save in taxes.
      IMAGINES VEL NON FUERINT

      Comment

      • Keith Wilson
        Trying to be reasonable
        • Oct 1999
        • 64122

        #4
        Re: Socialized medicine and competition

        No licensing of doctors, no state or federal restrictions on who can write health insurance, no testing of drugs.
        Well that's one way to do it.

        Doctor Anastasius Mountebank's patented Snake Oil Elixir, anyone?

        Last edited by Keith Wilson; 09-02-2009, 01:10 PM.
        "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations,
        for nature cannot be fooled."

        Richard Feynman

        Comment

        • paladin
          Senior Senior Member
          • Dec 2000
          • 26476

          #5
          Re: Socialized medicine and competition

          well I ain't agonna tell you how far back my radio and pilots licenses go but they weren't issued by the FAA or department of transport.......
          Wakan Tanka Kici Un
          ..a bad day sailing is a heckuva lot better than the best day at work.....
          Fighting Illegal immigration since 1492....
          Live your life so that whenever you lose, you're ahead."
          "If you live life right, death is a joke as far as fear is concerned."

          Comment

          • Bruce Hooke
            Senior Member
            • Mar 2000
            • 14297

            #6
            Re: Socialized medicine and competition

            The post office seems to maintain a fairly good level of competition with FedEx and UPS when it comes to mailing packages. I mail stuff pretty regularly and find that it is important to check each one if I want the best rates, which means that nobody is clearly winning out over the others.

            That said, it does seem to me that to get the best health care for our money spent we would do best with everyone under a government plan and the private insurance industry just there to provide "luxury care" but I don't see that happening and I am not even sure it would be a good idea to have it happen all at once given the number of people it would put out of work and the number of companies it would likely put out of business. Incremental (but real) change is usually better than revolutionary change.

            Comment

            • Shang
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2000
              • 10021

              #7
              Re: Socialized medicine and competition

              Originally posted by paladin
              well I ain't agonna tell you how far back my radio and pilots licenses go but they weren't issued by the FAA or department of transport.......
              ...and they were signed by Guiseppe Marconi and Orville Wright.

              Comment

              • Keith Wilson
                Trying to be reasonable
                • Oct 1999
                • 64122

                #8
                Re: Socialized medicine and competition

                ...and they were signed by Guiseppe Marconi and Orville Wright.
                Otto Lilienthal.
                "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations,
                for nature cannot be fooled."

                Richard Feynman

                Comment

                • Harry Miller
                  Senior Member
                  • Mar 2003
                  • 2137

                  #9
                  Re: Socialized medicine and competition

                  Originally posted by George Roberts
                  I am starting to think we should get the government out of health care completely.

                  No licensing of doctors, no state or federal restrictions on who can write health insurance, no testing of drugs.
                  The most compelling arguement I've seen for a National Health Care system. This might even change Donn and High C's minds.

                  Comment

                  • Ian McColgin
                    Senior Member
                    • Apr 1999
                    • 51646

                    #10
                    Re: Socialized medicine and competition

                    One thing that amazes me is the US confusion, deliberate on the part of knowledgable right wingers who want to manipulate the less knowledgable, about "socialism."

                    Socialism is an economic theory, not a political system. So one can have democratic socialism or dictatorial socialism. Point is, it means government ownership of the means of production.

                    We have lots of things are are anywhere on the scale from socialized to not. Take roads, mostly owned by some level of government but almost always built (at great profit) by private contractors and maintained by a mix of private contractors and public employees. Water departments, municiple electric or gas departments and such are closer to services that are more or less socialized. The armed forces were essentially socialized foreign policy power, at least till their power was diluted with over-paid contractors leaving us with a sort of lemon socialism (privatize the profitable, socialize the expensive) in that sphere.

                    Even were we to have a single payer system, it's not socialism. Look at our existing single payer medical systems - Medicare and Medicade. Not socialism. And the advantage of single payer is that it leaves in tact the many alternative private institutions that compete to provide health care from various solo practices, group practices, HMOs, hospitals, etc etc. One of many ways in which we have the advantages of competition and diversity.

                    But wait, no single payer. If anything, some sort of public option to provide a competative bench-mark and a payer (not vendor) of last resort.

                    Nothing on the table even remotely resembles socialized medicine. The right wing claim is a complete fabrication.

                    Socialized medicine is a system where the government owns the medical practice and the physicians, nurses, etc. are simply non-owner workers.

                    Comment

                    • George Roberts
                      Banned
                      • Nov 1999
                      • 6617

                      #11
                      Re: Socialized medicine and competition

                      Socialism is an economic theory, not a political system. Point is, it means government ownership of the means of production.

                      (I quibble with the use of the words ownership and production.)

                      The economic theory of health care is that those who are able to pay for more than their needs pay for those who are not able to pay for their needs. That appears to be socialism.

                      ---

                      The important thing is that Mr. Obama will take to the TV and tell us all HIS plan. Then we can determine if we want it or not.

                      (I guess the original plan was for Mr. Obama to work his magic during the reconciliation of the House and Senate bills - in private.)

                      Comment

                      • Ian McColgin
                        Senior Member
                        • Apr 1999
                        • 51646

                        #12
                        Re: Socialized medicine and competition

                        Insurance, whether health or fire or whatever, is an economic subsystem in which people pool money to pay out on otherwise unaffordable catastrophies which (if the insurer is to remain solvent) will affect but a portion of the insured population.

                        But even those here who despise insurance and, if they've a modicum of responsibility, self-insure, understand that insurance is not socialism. Even mandated insurance, as in auto, is not socialism. Even state-run assumed risk pools are not socialism.

                        There's a reason we have a language with words that have definitions. It's to prevent idiosyncratic definitions that allow people to lable something they don't like with an unrelated term that they think will cause others to dislike whatever it is.

                        In the case of health reform, the purely private insurance industry has utterly warped the allocation of health care dollars, especially diverting much of it away from actual health care. In the US tradition of not being too radical, all the options on the table and even the big off-table option of "single payer" are simply insurance reform.

                        And that ain't socialism. To the bloated bovines of the insurance industry and their right wing synchophants, it's worse than socialism, it's reform, accountability, honor.

                        Comment

                        • Brian Palmer
                          Amateur wood butcher
                          • Sep 2003
                          • 4072

                          #13
                          Re: Socialized medicine and competition

                          Originally posted by George Roberts
                          The economic theory of health care is that those who are able to pay for more than their needs pay for those who are not able to pay for their needs. That appears to be socialism.
                          Actually, that appears to be the economic basis for insurance, whether it is auto, home, or health.

                          I pay for sink hole insurance, hoping that I never need it (I am now paying for more than my current needs). Other people also buy sink hole insurance and also pay for more than their current needs.

                          If a sink hole opens up and swallows my house (which actually happened not more than 100 yards from where I am now sitting),
                          then my insurance company will cover the cost of filling the hole and building a new house (a cost/need for which I could not pay out of pocket without much hardship). The insurance company (those socialists!) can do this because lots of other people also bought sink hole insurance (more socialists!).

                          Brian

                          Comment

                          • ccmanuals
                            Son of a Guineaman
                            • Dec 2001
                            • 13318

                            #14
                            Re: Socialized medicine and competition

                            Originally posted by George Roberts
                            Socialism is an economic theory, not a political system. Point is, it means government ownership of the means of production.

                            (I quibble with the use of the words ownership and production.)

                            The economic theory of health care is that those who are able to pay for more than their needs pay for those who are not able to pay for their needs. That appears to be socialism.

                            ---

                            The important thing is that Mr. Obama will take to the TV and tell us all HIS plan. Then we can determine if we want it or not.

                            (I guess the original plan was for Mr. Obama to work his magic during the reconciliation of the House and Senate bills - in private.)
                            I think that was determined back in November when the President received a mandate from the people that this is what they wanted. The rest is just paper work.
                            Tom

                            "Leave the gun, take the cannolis"

                            Comment

                            • Rapelapente
                              French Schooner
                              • Mar 2006
                              • 1410

                              #15
                              Re: Socialized medicine and competition

                              View from Europe the US debate about public health care seems weird.
                              The questions are:
                              - Are you happy with the current system?
                              - Are you sure to afford a health insurance all your life long ?
                              - Is your health level same as it is in modern countries with public health care?
                              - Are you sure public health insurance costs more ?
                              Can you answer yes to all?

                              In most European country we have the private/public system at the same time, and we have the choice between them. The competition still exists.
                              In France we spend about 8% of global interior production (sorry for the aproximative translation) for health care. I've been told you spend 11or 12 % for it.

                              And beside this, no-one is left with no treatment according to the cost, either in public or private hospital.
                              It works.
                              And satisfy 99% of people.
                              It's not a question of socialism, I'm definitely not socialist.
                              It's just about considering that the country's richness has to allow keeping people safer, happyer, whatever they earn, in respect of human beeing.
                              Last edited by Rapelapente; 09-03-2009, 03:14 PM.
                              Gerard.
                              SCHOONER FOR EVER, GOELETTE A PERPETE

                              http://www.goelette-anthea.fr

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