Wow, that says a lot about your favourite entertainments!

No, I'm not advocating strip tease, although I don't see much wrong with it from the woman's point of view. She could go into TV hosting, radio, arts journalism, marketing, advertising - basically anywhere where charisma, personality and contacts are more important than mere academic brilliance.



Have we? In Australia, which has both a socialised medical system and a private one, the public system will refuse treatment to people who have wilfully caused their own diseases. It's a big grey area, sure, but where it's clearly self-inflicted damage that person will go onto the waiting lists, which can be quite long. So junkies will probably miss out on transplants because there are others who can make better use of the organs.

The elderly will be preferenced behind the young because they have lived longer.

This is not because of a lack of money, but because we have a) too few qualified surgeons (despite massive demand the medical organisations refuse to train any more, presumably because they would each make less money if their skills were less rare) and we have too few organ donors (Aust. law is much stricter than US law, you can't just cut up a homeless guy and leave him in a bathtub of ice with 911 written in blood - if that's actually legal in the US ).



And yet in most measures Americans pay more for their health system than those countries with public health systems - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care#Financial_inputs_and_outcomes_compared for an annoyingly uncited graph, but you'll probably recognise the figures anyway.



In the US, sure, but most countries with socialised systems don't have such a big wealth disparity as you do. Maybe it's because we 'stifle innovation', but I don't think that's particularly accurate.

OK, we've got you using google, now let me introduce you to www.snopes.com, where you'll find this is an urban legend. Pity you base your understanding of our health care industry off of Hollywood movies!

I'd wager that Aus. and American law are pretty similar regarding organ transplants.

So, in Australia, the obese and smokers are left to die because you'd rather spend the heallth care dollars on healthy people? Hmm, sounds like your coverage is FAR WORSE than ours.

these all require a degree. the only entertainment that doesn't is a signer, a stripper or a chores girl in Vegas.


or if she is really good she can become an actress. but that is a lot of work and we already know that she isn't going to do the work.

You just proved Draginol's point in his article 'Why don't liberals start more charities?' Since there are 'social programs' in place to help these people, you don't feel obligated, or even motivated (by human kindness) to personally reach out a hand. You keep on walking, assuming that it's someone else's responsibility, namely, the taxpayer-at-large. Me? I give. I give generously. I know that alcoholism is a disease, and I know that 96% of those who go through treatment fail to be cured. There's no medical cure for the condition, and the best 'science' has to offer is a spiritual cure based on the notion that if only you believe in God sincerely enough, and believe that God will cure you, and work some program that FAILS over 90% of those who try it, you will be cured. If you aren't, well then, it's your own damned fault, right? Let me ask you this, Artysim. If a cancer patient was begging on the street, would you turn your back on them as well, feeling justified because there are government (and charity) programs to help them? Would you tell yourself that they don't really need any pain medication, because if they'd only give that pain to God they'd be ok? And since they failed at that and were kicked out of the shelter, you now owe them nothing but disdain? That's what you do when you turn your back on an alcoholic or drug addict, you know. Or perhaps you didn't know. You've touched on a crucial difference. Where you shirk your human responsibility, pushing it off on the government, I give. I don't care what they spend it on, even if it's just another bottle to get them through the night. At least it gets them through the night, which seems to be far more than what you're willing to do.

Little-whip,

My not throwing money into a person's hat on the street is not shirking personal responsibility, in fact if there are social programs that are readily available to help that person it is the most responsible thing you can do. And just so you know I do give to charity, but I donate it to an organization, NOT drop it into a hat. If you talk to anyone who works in outreach to the homeless, they will tell you the biggest no-no is to give money to people on the street directly, donate that money to a shelter or a charity organization instead. Dropping money in a hat actually encourages a person to remain homeless and can help them in their quest to buy alcohol, drugs, hairspray (which they then drain through a sock and drink) etc.

A) I already donate to charity, while many social programs receive government funding to operate shelters and the like there is always more that can be done, that much I will admit!

almost half of my paycheque goes to the government in taxes, and I'm fine with that. Out of the almost half of my income that goes to the government, some of that money will go to these government funded social programs to help others. So seeing as I'm a taxpayer I'm contributing to these programs that will take care of these people just in paying my taxes. Whoda' thunk it.

I am intimately familiar with the woes and challenges that afflict the homeless and the needy. For several years throughout college I worked the night shift in security for several downtown highrise buildings. Anyone who's worked security at nights in big buildings knows that half the job is dealing with homeless people. I would regularly find them during my patrols, trying to find a place to sleep in a stairwell or by a vent in the parkade, etc. I spent a lot of time talking to these people, getting to know their life stories. A lot of them are good human beings just like you and me and some of them got dealt a bad hand and just never quite recovered. Some of them came from another city expecting to get a job in construction and got laid off one week into the job, and couldn't afford a place to live. I wasn't mean to them nor did I ever look down on them and it was actually quite painful to listen to their stories. Several times we would find them so intoxicated from drinking mouthwash that we would have to call the ambulance for medical assistance. On more than one occasion I was assaulted when all I was doing was trying to help- I would find budy at the bottom of a stairwell in a pool of his own filth with ragged breathing, and as I'm checking for vitals he becomes conscious, sees a uniform standing over him and starts swinging!

While some of the homeless are there by pure choice, almost all are there because they have debilitating conditions that prevent them from leading any kind of normal life. Many are alcoholics, addicted to drugs, or suffer from any number of mental ailments like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, the list goes on. The # 1 thing that is in their best interest is to get them off the streets and into a shelter as soon as possible. The longer they are on the streets, the easier it will be for them to stay there as they will find ways to get money and the good spots to bunk down for the night. I used to believe heavily in giving money to these people, that it was the compassionate thing to do. Until I learned that in the downtown core a homeless person could get six full meals a day at different shelters and a bed through government funded programs (programs that I am already helping to pay for with my taxes)

At the end of the day, if you drop money into someones hat on the street, you don't know what they're going to use that money for. They are most likely not going to be using that money to try and better themselves, or buy food as they can already get food for free at a shelter. If you do give them money, you are doing what is called "enabling" their behaviour. You are encouraging and supporting them to remain on the street. One last note, in my time in security we spent a lot of time watching busy pedestrian areas around various buildings. At around 6:30 AM every morning, monday to friday, a red camaro would scream up to the curb and a ragged looking fellow would clamber out with a pair of crutches and a fake cast that he would quickly fasten around his leg. He would then spend the day panhandling out front of the building (public property so we couldn't kick him out) And let me tell you, he was a real pro. We were impressed how well he played the part of a poor guy that was down on his luck, and all the rich businessmen and women in three piece suits looked down on him with pity and threw money his way. At the end of the day around 6 pm (after most of the 9-5 crowd had gone home), the red camaro would come screaming up again, off comes the cast and he would hop in to go home with his days take. He was a professional homeless person, and made good money at it too.

And they tell you that because "fighting poverty" is big business. This is why they can build $20million homeless shelters in cities with populations of 60,000; this is why they can raise billions from the man on the street.

I've spent most of my life living among the poor, artysim, and I can tell you more than a few things about them. Yes, there are problems with addictions and other things in their lives, but those addictions and problems are often fixable if someone is personally invested in the lives of these people.

I don't usually drop coins in the beggar's hat, arty, but I don't have a blanket rule against it. I usually deal with these situations on a case by case basis.

But NEVER do I echo the immortal words of Ebenezer Scrooge from the beginning of "A Christmas Carol": "Are there no poorhouses?" Compassion, to me, means personal investment.

At the end of the day, I can only go by what people, who live in these countries, have told me.

Particularly Canadians.  Have you ever had to get surgery in Canada? If so, what kind?

Also, I am aware of the "rankings" of health care but those ratings are incredibly subjective. Why not have a ranking of "the coolest doctors".

The US does indeed spend more per capita than any other country. I don't think we were disagreeing on that.  My issue is quality of health care.  I am happy with the health care I have access to. It's fast, it's convenient, I have access to the latest medical and drug treatments, and I feel I have control over it.  I also pay a premium for it. 

The idea that I should put any of that at risk in order to support free riders is beyond me.

That's a very good summation.  I don't think we are our brother's keeper. I am responsible for myself and my family.  I also feel I have a moral duty to help those around me which I do in the form of charity and gifting.  But I'm not responsible for those people.

I don't see the government as the mechanism to help other individuals. I see voluntary charity handling that.

This is precisely what I have been getting at. Government welfare warp the concept of charity and compassion.

Liberals believe they are compassionate because they support these programs. But it isn't compassion, it's self indulgence. Political belief is not a substitute for actually doing something.

There is nothing compassionate about telling other people to pay for your beliefs.

One of the flaws with the rankings is found in infant mortality. I've linked this before, and I'm not going to link it every single time the topic is broached, but one of the reasons the infant mortality rate is so high in the United States is because infant mortality statistics are only taken when babies are born alive and die within the first year; if they are not alive at birth, they are considered stillborn.

In many countries, when a baby is born with no color, pulse, or breathing, it will be counted as stillborn. In the United States, it is not uncommon to revive the child, with mixed results. Because we are reviving babies who are by nature high risk, there is a high mortality rate among these infants that skews the results. But the end result is that many children are alive in the United States that never would have been alive in countries with socialist medicine.

At the other end of the spectrum are the elderly. How "compassionate" is it for a doctor to look an 80 year old in the eye and tell him because of his age he won't be getting a heart transplant, and that he should go home prepared to die in peace? In the United States this is so unthinkable it would be a scandal, yet in the words of at least one respondent who lives in a nation with socialized medicine:



I will be the first to admit that we do not have a perfect medical system. But I will demand that our medical system is no worse than those of other nations who deride our health care as being inferior.

This concept frightens the heck out of me.

Having the government tell me if I can have a procedure or not based on their determination of whether I deserve it or not is an anethema to me.

It would be like someone telling me I can't purchase a big screen TV because the clerk felt my living room wasn't big enough.

 

There is a reason that the United States tends to dominate emerging industries. Germany, France, etc. certainly aren't the hotbed of cutting edge innovation in human achievement these days.

A huge income disparity simply means that the economy is less regulated by the government.

I don't see it as a problem if person A makes 1000X more than I do. It doesn't hurt me one bit.

And the discussion is about health insurance in the United States.  Most Americans have health insurance already. It works well for most people.  About 5% of US citizens population doesn't have health insurance, can't easily afford it and don't quality for medicaid.

The idea of turning our working system upside down for a few percent is madness.

That pretty much sums up how I feel about my tax dollars going to the federal government.

But what liberals now want is the next step - not "we're all in this together" but to basically saddle us with parasites in the most literal sense. People who are not paying in but are free riding.

I think the Far-Left with whom you always discuss these issues gave you the impression that this is what the main-stream Dem are saying. No one is proposing to saddle the Gov with any parasites. You ignored what i said about we must FIX the system to eliminate that. And i am sure you also know full well that there is nothing perfect in this worled. I am sure if YOU look closely in your organization you will find few of those parasites, i am also sure that you always try to clip them off and If you blink for a second they will multiply and any good-run business does that ALL the time. Gov is no exception. leeches and parasites will always be there, even in charaties. That doesnt mean we give up and discard the whole idea of giving honest working people a chance to afford meaningful health care.

Even if we let the whole thing to be handled by charities as you suggest, i can assure you there will be parasites .... there is no way to "purify" our world from them.

Dont always concentrate on this point of allowing cheats and leeches and drug-addicts to drain the system. NO ONE is against ridding the system of all of them. every single one of them. If you have a magical solution to do that, you will be the most famous and popular Democrat. Honest, and i am not joking. Just say how do we do that. keep in mind they also exist at charities and all other those private organization.

A huge income disparity simply means that the economy is less regulated by the government.

It can also mean that the economy is _very_ regulated by the government. There was a huge income disparity in the Soviet Union. Most had nothing, some had a lot, one guy had an entire country, an army, and nukes.

I am translate-quoting here from a story written by Hungarian-Israeli author Ephraim Kishon:

"[A communist's wife says to her husband:] You are no real communist like the others yet. You don't have the villa or the car or the driver."

Well if you're not a monumental cheapskate you can always use the private system and pay through your teeth/buy private insurance, get your medicare discount and hope it covers it. Do you think private health insurance in the US doesn't make decisions about who gets treatment and who doesn't?



Except in solar power, where Germany leads the world (with China probably a rapidly gaining second). But you're right, France is pretty rubbish.



There's nothing stopping you from reading the Budget. Sure there are 'black' programs, but they consume a tiny portion compared to the rest of it. So long as you have a reasonable knowledge of economics and can read a complex ledger you should be fine. Or you can rely on the analysis by economic specialists that come out in newspapers/online every once in a while.

Now admittedly you don't get to choose where that money goes, but that's the same with everything you buy - if you want to pay the government to provide you police and road services, you pay what they ask and in return get a few things you might not want. But that's the package deal and, unless you want to move, they're the only game in town. If you don't want to pay tax at all move to the Cayman Islands. You're rich enough to live pretty well there.