snowbunny

See the link I posted.....

If anyone cares or remembers, I listed Canada first as my ideal health care model precisely because it's a single-payer system vs "socialised" medicine wherein the doctors are employed directly by the government.

Elvira

Why?

BigDavyG

I wonder about people who automatically take phrases to have derogatory meanings - its all about context.
I would also wonder about people who use snide phrases which they assume have derogatory meanings instead of just coming out and stating what they think/mean.

For example Elvira, if you didn't get so hot under the collar about people using the term socialised medicine and instead challenged them on why they think its such a bad thing you might get a bit further.

Deedee13

socialised, universal, i dont give a monkeys toss as long as i have a doctor that knows what the bloody hell he is doing when poking around in me!!!

Bad experiences all over the damn place but still living to tell the tale. I just dont want to be 70 and having to work in Target to pay my prescription bills... worrying thought..

Elvira

Davy - maybe you weren't around last week....

But we went around this particular mulberry bush very recently.

Several times, actually.

snowbunny

I believe that having a single-payer system is more cost effective than our current US system. I would prefer that the doctors not be directly employed by the government. Single-payer is a compromise, I think, between the current US and the current UK system. For example, I'd much prefer to be on Medicare than under the VA.

On the other hand, if the choice were between carrying on with the present US system, or moving to a system like the NHS.... I'd go with the NHS, as I said in that long ago post.

Elvira

I still don't understand why you think it is better for doctors to be self-employed rather than employed by the government.

FWIW, in the UK, GPs are in effect self-employed, whereas hospital specialists are employed by the hospitals, which in turn are run by the Health Authorities.

I like this system because it gives the GPs the freedom to allocate their budgets and resources as suits the needs of their particular patient groups, whilst hospitals are directly accountable to their HAs.

TouristTrap

It is used as a scare-mongering tactic here.

Whenever universal healthcare begins to make the news, someone will come along and say the S word together with the Canadians wait for years for hips..etc...to quash the discussion.

snowbunny

It has to do with long-ago reading I did in my early twenties.... when I had the time and spare brain cells to really delve into the topic. But mostly I see it as more easily sold to the Great American public (doctors self-employed vs employed by the government) so there's a huge dose of pragmatism vs idealism in my "choice."

Tracym

Interesting, since the one of the first things that article says is that the UK is an example of socialized medicine.

So I still seem to see the term seems to be used a lot as factual, not derogatory.

snowbunny

It's kinda like the word "gay."

It used to mean "happy."

But now it's gotten overloaded with connotations that many find to be negative.

Same with "socialised" -- yes, in the factual sense of the word, the UK system is socialised. But people equate "socialised" with Russia and wards of orphaned children and decrepit equipment -- they DON'T interpret it positively. So it's used as a scare word.

Connotation is everything if you're trying to sell something.

Triumphrob

I work in the convention industry, and have to sit in a lot of medical meetings. One really scared me about 2 weeks ago. US Doctors and Administrators were stating that the US mortality rate is the 48th worst in the world these days, due mainly to the fact that 30% -40% of the public dont have insurance and cant afford to go to the Doctor or afford their meds.

TouristTrap

Outrage!!

Elvira

And don't get me started on infant mortality!

But this kind of stuff gets next to no publicity in the US. Most people are doing "okay" with the status quo, and they are scared of "socialized medicine". They don't usually see the poor unfortunates who lose their homes and everything they have worked for, or the ones who actually DIE because they do not have medical insurance.

So nothing is going to change until the whole system collapses. Which it will do - give it 10-20 years at the most.

Bob

obviously not a high class bird then...