Lion in Winter

Indeed it was not about one person - it just sort of ended up that way sadly, and I plead partial guilt. I will now leave you all alone with the shouty person. Not kicking though. I am also drawing a complete blank on the Elinor reference, being at the end of a long work day.

fatbrit

Nah! T'was definitely a pronouncement.

Eva

Please don't dismiss our forum.
Just because you ventured in here to comment on a subject,the outcome of which isn't holding up to your dogma,shouldn't scare you away.

So..Elinor
You must @ K Hepburn in the role of Henry II wife?

Eva

Well..
L.I.W. is imho,erudite,literate and informed.
Absolutely in no need of you to state her/his case.
I am a little concerned here for I do not wish to turn away LIW or indeed
you from the ME forum...we welcome constructive forensic chat...

So..even though I think you are a p.i.a @ a ' pronouncement'.
Maybe ...no forget it.........you are however:
Come to UAE and find out for yoursen

Lion in Winter

Ah, right. I had always thought she was an Eleanor. I don't really fancy being married to two kings, thanks very much, but she was quite a lady.

As for dogma, we hadn't even got there yet. We were still at the level of getting the facts straight.

Lion in Winter

Now I want to know what a p.i.a. is.

Nobody has ever said nice things like that about me on BE.

I am happy to chat in here if people don't mind a born and bred Englishwoman, now a dual British/American citizen, living mostly in the US with a strong dash of Mexican.

I don't want to intrude, I just sometimes look for new discussions, and the NHS is something I care a lot about, especially since I live with the consequences of being in a country where they try to run a service like a business.

Macca67

I've been following this thread with interest Dubliner and like some of the others I too live in the US. I have to admit you've been right on the money with most of your points about US healthcare. This other lot don't have a clue what they're talking about.

Macca67

I think it means Pain in the Arse.

Bob

The point is still the same, your infant mortality stat still means crap.

But keep digging.

Bob

You can keep digging.

You might not understand, but some people are just not going to be offered cover regardless of how much they might be willing to pay.

I know my last place that covered my insurance was paying $1500 a month for their employees for great cover. Don't see to many average people being able to afford that.

Don't forget there's co-pays, deductibles, all manner of things on top.

The NHS is funded by general taxation, so unless one lives as a hermit or is dead, they are contributing towards the service whenever they buy something. Because the NHS is there, people have the option to get private insurance as a top up, to jump queues and for a pittance.

So you can keep trotting out your view of rubbish and well, that's all it is really.

Eeyore

Well that's fine then. It's completely acceptable that in the richest country in the world, 3 out of 5 personal bankruptcies are due to medical debt (according to the American Journal of Medicine). Not in any way indicative of a systemic failure that desperately needs to be addressed.

So why is it considered completely acceptable in the USA to have socialised education, socialised law enforcement, socialised military and so on, but apparently socialised medicine is a greater evil than Hitler?

The majority of countries in the world have decided that all of their citizens have a right to healthcare regardless of ability to pay. That so many Americans do not agree with that principle is curious, especially since so many of them are so badly screwed by the system they so vociferously defend.

It has to be down to the indoctrination they receive pretty much from birth that There Is No Alternative to the healthcare system that they've been lumbered with. Watching American news programmes around the time of the whole Obamacare controversy was an eye-opening experience, as all the rich lobbyists with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo queued up to explain exactly why the ridiculously overpriced and divisive American system was the only way to deliver healthcare.

Naturally, they told horror stories of the situations in European countries, where people who were forced to suffer under the yoke of socialised medicine were dying in their thousands in the streets from bubonic plague and cholera (after working 16 hours in their jobs at the government collective farms of course) because it took six months to get an appointment. And I'm only slightly exaggerating the tone they took.

The reason the banking industry is screwed up is squarely down to a *lack* of regulation, not an excess of it. You might remember that a few years back there was a slight global financial meltdown; that was a direct result of governments in countries like the USA and UK abolishing all sorts of regulations and "setting the banks free" over the last 20 years or so. Of course, once they were set free the banks just went all-out for short-term profit wherever they could get it and to hell with prudent financial controls and long-term sustainability. Inevitably it all ended it tears and colossal payouts from the public purse to try and make good the damage caused by years of under-regulation.

That's pretty much exactly why the American healthcare system is so expensive and screws so many people so badly. It's been too lightly-regulated for too long, so of course it's taken every opportunity to increase costs and profits while reducing benefits. There's been nothing to stop them, the lobbyists have spent an awful lot of money to ensure that. It's a very cosy little carve-up.

My view is, everybody in every country should be fully covered by universal healthcare, so they never have to worry about being unable to afford treatment. If they can afford to pay for private healthcare then great, let them do it if they want, but they should not be allowed to opt out of paying their contribution to the national healthcare system.

After all, in America today a lot of people pay for private security firms to monitor their houses, but they aren't allowed to withhold that part of their taxes that goes towards paying for the police. If they pay for private education, they can't opt out of paying for state education. Why should healthcare be any different?

It really is a scandal that health insurance is now so expensive in the USA that so many Americans are entirely dependent on the cover they get through their jobs. How can such a rich country have allowed such a Third World divide to develop over something so fundamental to the overall wellbeing of society? And how is it that Americans are still largely living with the reality of losing their coverage for pre-existing conditions if they change jobs (voluntarily or otherwise)? Why didn't previous governments close that loophole a long time ago?

Desert Dubliner

Anarchy, State and Utopia of Dr Robert Nozick explains quite well why socialised law enforcement and defence are necessary.

Socialised schooling and medicine aren't and should be privately provided.

Eeyore

I made numerous points. Is that the only one you've got a sort-of answer for?

That's just an opinion, not a fact. Certainly as far as schools go, there are many state schools in the UK that are so highly-regarded that parents put their kids into private schools if they can't get into the state one.

Do you believe that in a civilised society, everybody should have a right to access full healthcare regardless of ability to pay? Or is your view that healthcare is a privilege, not a right, and if you can't afford it, then tough?

britexpat76

My private health insurance with Bupa cost £110pm for 2 people and covered extended cancer treatments and a whole extra load of nasties.

An absolute bargain, I don't know why everyone who can does not take it up.

Miss Anne Thrope

You truly are a pompous fool. Most people? You clearly know nothing about what most people think or know as further illustrated by your blustering nonsense across every thread where I've seen your comments.