Do people 'deserve' universal health care?

[angela_shy]

Here in UK, those on low income or claiming state benefits don't pay for precriptions. People suffering from certain illnesses are also exempt from charges

The thing that makes the prescriptions here expensive is that they make a charge of £7.10 per ITEM (US$11.12) Now, I usually have 12 different drugs prescribed each month...so you can see how it mounts up!

There is the option to pay a yearly fee of £102 / US$159.70 (which is what I do) I receive a card to show that I have paid the fee and have to show it when I go to collect my medicines from the pharmacy.

hi Tufty
in Wales prescriptions are free... i have a spare room if you want

[Tufty]

LOL thanks Angela

Actually, was just reading about free prescriptions in Wales.

[angela_shy]

^^ yw

actually we don't even have to visit the doc - just ask a pharmacist for simple medicines
plus we have nice beaches and shopping... good place to live, eh?

[Tufty]

Do they have new hearts as well?

[angela_shy]

perhaps that would be expecting too much of the poor pharmacist lol

[MMI]

Who says pharmacists are heartless?

I agree with Tufty, the free prescription rules in England are crazy (and I remember paying 2s. 6d. (12 1/2 p) for prescriptions in the good old days, regardless of how many items were on it).

I had a serious illness once - on drugs for the rest of my life. I had to buy a pre-payment certificate. More recently my wife also became seriously ill and she is now on drugs for ten years at least. She has to buy a prepayment certificate.

(Even so, the cost of a prepayment certificate represents a huge subsidy from the state.)

Then I got another illness - the kind you get when you're fat and lazy, the kind you can put off or avoid if you eat sensibly and look after yourself just a little. Boom! I get free drugs forever - not just for that illness, but for anything else I want to go down with too. Where's the logic?

================================================== =======

Now, reverting to Muskan's post and his reference to a video clip on YouTube, I can do no better than copy a couple of the comments made by people who watched that disgusting, one sided clip:

ArtificialCleverenAI said: "Nice agenda-driven expose of an apparent socialised healthcare failure. From my own personal experience within the UK and France, serious cases are referred to consultants within days. Having had a relative survive cancer, upon suspicion of the disease they were in specialist care within four days. It's a matter of record that the UK's health system is orders of magnitude better than the US's by survival count for such diseases and operations."

And povmcdov said: "In the NHS (UK) all patients with a suspected cancer are referred to a specialist within two weeks. The rural county I live in has at least 5 MRI machines covering 800K people. No waiting weeks for scans here. As a healthcare professional I would feel safer in the NHS than in the local private hospitals. If you want to skip the insignificant wait the NHS hospitals also provide private care, but you get the same treatment.

The NHS is not perfect but I would take it over the US system anytime."

I would add that it is totally fallacious - a deliberate lie - to say that the Ontario system of healthcare has crumbled away, simply because one person was dissatisfied. And, to be honest, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the people featured were put up to say what they did. People will lie for money, you know.

I don't know, but I've been told that the Canadian system is even better than UK's NHS.

However, SCGATOR2001 posted the following (on YouTube): "But make sure the GOVERNMENT stays out of your health care or else we'll get this OR WORSE! Government is the problem, not the solution. The gov't made mortgage companies lend to risky people (led by ACORN and the like) and they "almost" wrecked the economy.

Get them in US Healthcare and it will be more of the same. The gov't will make sure NONE of us have decent healthcare. That's socialism, CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN!"

I think those remarks are echoed above by people here who oppose free healthcare. A few points then. If government is the problem, and it's staying out of healthcare, then surely it should get involved.

But that's just me being flippant.

What I don't understand is why Americans think that their Government will deliberately try to provide the lowest possible standard of healthcare, when you only have to look at the countries that do have subsidised or free systems to know that governments do their damnedest - and for the most part, with considerable success - to provide a first rate health service.

If they are right about the American system of government - and Americans should know, I suppose - then don't vote for politicians who say they will make sure only the richest will get medical treatment when they need it. Vote for someone who cares about his country and his countrymen's health, and who will promise to make free healthcare work.

And as for saying, "I give to charity, that's enough," let me remind you that there are very few social needs anywhere in the world at any time in history that have been satisfied by charitable donations. Often, social needs can only be met by the state. In my view, healthcare is one such need.

Free (or subsidised) healthcare is the jewel in the crown of any caring society, socialist, capitalist, or mixed. The absence of such a system tells me the society doesn't care at all. To turn the original question round, is it the case that each country gets the healthcare system it deserves?

[denuseri]

As a former med/surg floor nurse I have seen first hand our own proplems with health care and heard about different issues in systems some of my peers were much more familuar with.

Most of which were here in the states practicing medicine, but many were from countires other than the United States such as Canada, The Phillipines, England, and Mexico in paticular.

We had in our few off hours, and somtimes while charting, many many conversations about this topic.

The only conclussion we could ever mutually agree too was:

That regardless of how the system was set up, or which system was used in our respected countries of origin, (socialist, captitailist, comunist what have you) it basically had a lot about it that sucked.

I have heard and seen the insurance companies and lawyers ruin what was the best health care system in the world for a while. I have heard how other systems are so good on the news etc etc, I have however never heard that from my fellow nurses that came from those systems.

Am I for universial health care?

Yes. I wish we could help everyone that ever got sick or needed medical attention with the best possible care accross the board.

Do I see it happening anytime soon if ever?

Unfortunately no.

It is sad, but I believe too many will stand in it's way, not just individuals that fear the governements involvement in thier medical system, but also the governments themselves etc etc, it would litterally require a world wide con-census to provide heath care of a certian standard for all equally regardless of economic provision. Fully cooperating consensus mind you. Something we cant even get a few people to agree to on an internet chat site, let alone the world.

In fact my only hypotheisis as for how this would possibly work would be through the organiazation of a seperate opererating entity that is divorced from societal influeneces that all governements and people submit thier authority too regarding the consideration of rescources and disposition of medical dispensation including legality of medical issues and cost etc etc,.

I sadly wonder if it will ever be within our organzational abilities as a species to preform such a task.

The ideal of universal health care is a grande utopian ideal to strive for, but not yet within our grasp in a practical sence to achieve at this time.

[Thorne]

I'm not big on these kinds of political wrangles, personally, but I do have a comment regarding governments taking over health care systems.

I won't trust any such takeover unless ALL government employees and, most especially, ALL elected officials are enrolled completely in the same system as everyone else must use. No special perks for fat-cat Congressmen, no private clinics for bureaucrats, no sweetheart prescription deals for anyone. Everyone gets treated the same. There are too many instances in this country, and especially in the communist countries, where the people who make the rules are exempt from them.

If I know that I'm getting the same level of care as a Senator, at the same cost, then I'll trust a government controlled system. Otherwise, it's just another panacea to help control the masses.

[MMI]

I'm not big on these kinds of political wrangles, personally, but I do have a comment regarding governments taking over health care systems.

...

If I know that I'm getting the same level of care as a Senator, at the same cost, then I'll trust a government controlled system. Otherwise, it's just another panacea to help control the masses.

Scaredey-cat nonsense, Thorne. Why do you assume free (well, paid-for by taxes, actually) health treatment will be so inferior that your rulers will avoid it? Why do you pefer a system that cures its sick only if they can pay for it? Over here in the UK, many of our "rulers" do use the NHS. And many don't. The reasons they usually cite for not using the NHS (especially the left-wing politicians) include, they must avoid the waiting lists because they are "very important people", or they are using their freedom to choose, or because of the security risks. But no matter what, they have a vested interest in keeping the NHS going because they would be voted out of office if they didn't. Here, everyone has a right to the best healthcare possible, even if he is poor.

In the UK we have a private healthcare system as well as a state-run system. The "private" doctors are mostly NHS doctors moonlighting after a hard day's work in the state-owned hospital. Often they use NHS facilities to supply their "private" services because the private sector cannot afford them, or it's not commercially viable to purchase them.

Staffing is worse in the private system, too, because, once the doctors have gone home, only a few nurses are left. If there's an emergancy at night, doctors have to be called in, or the patient taken to an NHS hospital, where there are doctors (if ony junior ones) available at all hours.

Private operations are usually only of the less complex kind because of the lack of facilities, and, perhaps, because it would be too dangerous to let a surgeon who has already been operating all day in one hospital loose on a paying patient in a private one. So the major operations are carried out by the NHS anyway.

When operations go wrong in a private hospital, the patient is frequently brought to an NHS hospital for corrective surgery. I doubt it ever happens the other way round.

NHS has its faults, like any other system - as denuseri points out, they all do. And in the majority of cases, the reason is funding, not training - although standards may vary a bit, not staffing, nor the will to heal. In the UK, funding problems have lowered the standard of healthcare considerably. Everything has to be costed now. We have dirty hospitals because we skimp on cleaners, some drugs are not available on the NHS because cheaper, less effective ones are available. The administration is top-heavy because the overpaid fat cats at the top are more intersted in their careers than in their patients. And lawyers are getting in on the act too, so more and more funds that could go into health care are lining solicitors' pockets instead. But we have considerable success too. In the US (so far as I know) you have superb facilities that even we Brits will travel to use if we have the money and the NHS can't deal with our problem. But there's the rub. We - and Americans - need money to be treated in the US system. Americans who don't have money, can rely on health insurance schemes. Except they are costly, and there are so many exclusions, such as, if you're likely to fall ill, you won't be covered. If you do fall ill, you won't be covered again. And whatever happens, you're only covered for so much. After that, I gather you have to rely on the government-funded or charitable systems that are no better than a third-world country would provide.

Isn't that a mark of shame for the world's richest country?

[Muskan]

I'm not big on these kinds of political wrangles, personally, but I do have a comment regarding governments taking over health care systems.

I won't trust any such takeover unless ALL government employees and, most especially, ALL elected officials are enrolled completely in the same system as everyone else must use. No special perks for fat-cat Congressmen, no private clinics for bureaucrats, no sweetheart prescription deals for anyone. Everyone gets treated the same. There are too many instances in this country, and especially in the communist countries, where the people who make the rules are exempt from them.

If I know that I'm getting the same level of care as a Senator, at the same cost, then I'll trust a government controlled system. Otherwise, it's just another panacea to help control the masses.

When they even fails to provide Food for All, how can they dream of something like Universal Health program?

Even Now people like the socialistic dystopian dreams.

Any Collective-Welfare program, be it American or British or Indian always fails because of the natural corruption collectivism causes.

[wmrs2]

I'm not big on these kinds of political wrangles, personally, but I do have a comment regarding governments taking over health care systems.

I won't trust any such takeover unless ALL government employees and, most especially, ALL elected officials are enrolled completely in the same system as everyone else must use. No special perks for fat-cat Congressmen, no private clinics for bureaucrats, no sweetheart prescription deals for anyone. Everyone gets treated the same. There are too many instances in this country, and especially in the communist countries, where the people who make the rules are exempt from them.

If I know that I'm getting the same level of care as a Senator, at the same cost, then I'll trust a government controlled system. Otherwise, it's just another panacea to help control the masses.

Thorne, there are many great remarks made on this thread but your remark has as great of merit as any. As you point out, as long as there is a political system in any country, there will be sweet heart deals for those in power. Of course, it is possible to live in a country where the poor are in power and the hard working wealthy land owners are hanged or beheaded. But that sounds a little extreme but it has happened.

Every time I think my mind is made up about universal health care, I hear a very logical opposing view to what I believe. The ant and the grasshopper, at first thought I would like to allow the grasshopper to starve, after all, he should have planned better for the winter. This applies to those who bought homes that they could not afford. I am willing to let them sleep on the streets at first;but like the ant, I feel sorry for them.

If it were possible to have utopia health care, I would be for it. Sense I don't think it is possible, I am against it. The health care we have is the best in the world. I planned for health care when I entered the job market at the level I was happy with. My insurance company just paid a $200,000 yearly health bill for me. If health care was totally a government monopoly, I am sure that I would be dead. So would millions of others like me also. I am happy that there was the freedom to plan for my health care instead of trusting to Joe politician. It just has not worked very well to surrender your freedoms to the government in terms of health care. We have the right to health care if we have the wisdom to search in pursuit of happiness but the fellow who drunk beer at the bar while I studied in college does not have this right by his own choice.

Don't get me wrong, I like grasshoppers but it is hard not to step on them when they are all over the floor. Sometimes you must simply sweep them out the door. Seriously, I don't know what course to follow. Thanks everybody for offering your opinions to us that don't know.

[Thorne]

It just has not worked very well to surrender your freedoms to the government in terms of health care.

I would have to say it's a bad idea to surrender your freedoms in terms of anything!

[Dr_BuzzCzar]

The health care we have is the best in the world. I planned for health care when I entered the job market at the level I was happy with. My insurance company just paid a $200,000 yearly health bill for me. If health care was totally a government monopoly, I am sure that I would be dead.
.

A couple of questions

1) How do you measure how good our health care system is; infant mortality? life span? What metrics are you using to back up your declaration that this system is the best?

2) If you lost your job and ran out of COBRA coverage how would that $200k health bill be paid?

[wmrs2]

A couple of questions

1) How do you measure how good our health care system is; infant mortality? life span? What metrics are you using to back up your declaration that this system is the best?

2) If you lost your job and ran out of COBRA coverage how would that $200k health bill be paid?

I am not sure that I can defend the declaration that this system is the best and I really don't know if Oboma's health plan is better or not. The health plan I have is really good for me. I have medicare and a secondary plan. I am retired and it is doubtful that my health plan will change much. Any light you can shine of this issue will be appreciated. I do have family members who need health coverage.

[Muskan]

Isn't that a mark of shame for the world's richest country?

The recent economic turmoil is constantly proving that American "richness" is overhyped, and it was alluded by previous government's bid to keep printing dollars. Thats the Major reason of meltdown.

About corruption in America,



Fed refusing to say where the $2 trillian went
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...efer=worldwide
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.
...

[MMI]

Economic meltdown or no, it's still shameful that the world's richest nation has a third rate public heath care system.

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with socialism. American fear of the concept is depriving its underprivileged citizens of a decent living while its wealthy capitalist czars gorge like parasites off them and their labours. Competition and free enterprise are mere shibboleths propounded by those who stand to benefit from them. They have no intrinsic value themselves. A state that co-operates with its citizens to provide the basic essentials of life is a much better ideal, even if that means the very rich have to pay more. What does it matter? Most of them got it by cheating or from inheritance anyway. Even in USA, there are very few who have "made it" without resorting to underhand methods at some time.

As for all welfare programmes being doomed to failure, name me one that has failed. And before you say "Britain's NHS" I would remind you that the NHS started on 5th July, 1948 and is still going strong. It is now the world's 3rd biggest employer - so not only does it provide a valuable health resource, but it has a fantastic economic contribution to make, too. It has its faults, but so does the US private care system, whose worst fault is declining to treat those who cannot afford it, while its medical insurers refuse to cover treatment of any condition they have had to pay out on before, or to price that cover out of anyone's reach.

I would mention that other welfare programmes were introduced in Britain at about the same time: unemployment benefit, old age pensions, industrial injuries benefits, and family allowances, to name a few. They are all valuable and they are all still in effect.

State services - even inefficient ones - win over individual wealth, private insurance or meagre charity almost every time. Dystopian dream? I think not: give that honour to extreme capitalism.



---- WOW!!! I've just noticed I can type the word "socialism" withpout getting edited out> Thanks to the people who made that happen! ----

[Thorne]

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with socialism. American fear of the concept is depriving its underprivileged citizens of a decent living while its wealthy capitalist czars gorge like parasites off them and their labours.

The problem with socialism, as I see it, is that you wind up with an underpriveleged class who feel that they deserve everything they can get without working for it. They become true parasites, sucking from the government teat, which is kept full by the hard work of the middle class. The wealthy, in any society, will always reap disproportionate rewards, but they generally provide at least some jobs. The welfare class provides nothing but more mouths to feed and strident calls for free everything.

[gagged_Louise]

The problem with socialism, as I see it, is that you wind up with an underpriveleged class who feel that they deserve everything they can get without working for it. They become true parasites, sucking from the government teat, which is kept full by the hard work of the middle class. The wealthy, in any society, will always reap disproportionate rewards, but they generally provide at least some jobs. The welfare class provides nothing but more mouths to feed and strident calls for free everything.

You're free to view people who don't own their house and almost never have the money to go abroad as white trash who show they've never had the guts to make it into the middle class, but quite often, where people are landing in terms of work, and how fast they'll take off, is limited by restraints they don't control themselves and cannot "vote with their feet" to avoid. Lousy schools, outdated models of work, lack of a billfold of useful connections or "getaway money" isn't stuff that people choose to live with, they may not ven be aware of it.

The idea that people who are rich always deserve it would be reasonable if folks like Bill Gates or Nelson Rockefeller had dug their riches out of the barren rock, just by using their own ingenuity and hard work. Of course they didn't: Bill Gates or Larry Page (Google) may be businessmen of genius but they would never have got very far if they had had to work in a "free" economy without powerful public programs for engineering and computer facilities, libraries and education (how would Bill Gates or Steve Jobs have assembled a team or formulated their ideas if they'd had to literally go door-knocking and putting in small ads for money gathered from delivering the morning papers, instead of being at home in, and allowed into, a business and research community that was around before they came along?)

Of course if you treat the "underclass" (in America often the descendants of black slaves or of illiterate farmers from Asia and eastern Europe) as parasites and dumbheads and block their way to the good future, they are likely to keep on being criminals, hustlers, shirkers and liars - at least some of them - because that's all they get the place to do and that's the image of them projected everywhere. But it doesn't say much about their real potential. It's shortsighted to think that people from South Gate, LA and people from the Hamptons start from nearly the same baseline when it comes to education, money, health and exercise - or ability to get advanced work and get on the career ladder.

[Thorne]

You're free to view people who don't own their house and almost never have the money to go abroad as white trash who show they've never had the guts to make it into the middle class, but quite often, where people are landing in terms of work, and how fast they'll take off, is limited by restraints they don't control themselves and cannot "vote with their feet" to avoid. Lousy schools, outdated models of work, lack of a billfold of useful connections or "getaway money" isn't stuff that people choose to live with, they may not ven be aware of it.

It was never my intent to label these kinds of people as trash, white or otherwise. Sure, there are many people who, perhaps through no fault of their own, are always on the bad end of every deal, unable to pull themselves up. And programs which help them, which give them the opportunities to get out of that rut can, and should be, of high priority in any society. But there are many who are more interested in what the government can give them rather than in learning what the government can do to help them build their lives. I have no problems with programs which teach people. I only question the efficacy of programs which give away benefits and priveleges to those who do not want to earn them and who will actively oppose anything which might force them to earn it.

The idea that people who are rich always deserve it would be reasonable if folks like Bill Gates or Nelson Rockefeller had dug their riches out of the barren rock, just by using their own ingenuity and hard work.

Rockefeller, of course, is one of those who inherited his wealth. While less impressive than someone who's earned it on his own, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Should we force people like that to give away all their money and start from the bottom? That's ridiculous!
But Bill Gates used existing infrastructure, the same kinds of things that anyone else could use, to identify a need, build a product to fulfill that need, market that product and create an empire from it. As far as I know, he didn't have any more to work with than anybody else could have access to, other than his own intelligence and abilities. Shall we condemn him because he was smart enough to recognize potential? Shall we strip him of his money, just because he did something we didn't think of? Also ridiculous.

It's shortsighted to think that people from South Gate, LA and people from the Hamptons start from nearly the same baseline when it comes to education, money, health and exercise - or ability to get advanced work and get on the career ladder.

Of course they don't start at the same baseline! And yet, there are many who manage to crawl out of the jungles of LA and become successful business men, or athletes, or even just good, hardworking middle class citizens. Sure, it takes more work than starting with money, and perhaps some lucky breaks. But it can be done. But if they're not willing to try, not willing to do the work, they will be stuck where they are, and they will teach their children to accept what they are, rather than work to make themselves better.

[wmrs2]

Economic meltdown or no, it's still shameful that the world's richest nation has a third rate public heath care system.

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with socialism. American fear of the concept is depriving its underprivileged citizens of a decent living while its wealthy capitalist czars gorge like parasites off them and their labours. Competition and free enterprise are mere shibboleths propounded by those who stand to benefit from them. ............................

State services - even inefficient ones - win over individual wealth, private insurance or meagre charity almost every time. Dystopian dream? I think not: give that honour to extreme capitalism.



---- WOW!!! I've just noticed I can type the word "socialism" withpout getting edited out> Thanks to the people who made that happen! ----

At first light you give a good argument. Here is where we differ some what. First the word socialism is a bad word. We do not have a third rate public health system. You overstate your position in favor of spouting the dialectic which allows you to use less real facts. Down with Karl Marx.

The fact is that we have a lot of socialism in America. Where do get off referring to "extreme capitalism." There are counties that do have extreme socialism and I choose not to live there. We have a measure of universal health care. Every county in every state has a health department where the poor can have health services. Other than that, it is the right of every capitalist to pursue the survival of the most fit. It is from the population of the most fit that all great advancements is health science comes. Water down the most fit with socialism and you'll see how fast we do fall to the bottom of the technology race in medicine, earth sciences, and social growth. Capitalism continues to be the bread and butter of the American way. Let's improve our health care but let's do it with capitalism rather than socialism.

[MMI]

Gagged Louise, whom I'm becoming more enthralled by with every post she makes, says it all. What more can I add?

There are leeches in the "lower" levels of all forms of society. But they are relatively few in number. As I said in another post, very few people actually want to be a burden on society, and those who are have usually fallen on hard times through no fault of their own, and will do almost anything to get back on thier feet again as quickly as possible. Dole is rarely sufficient to give anyone much more than a basic standard of living, even in welfare states.

No. I'm sorry to say it, but people who reject the provision of social assistance to the needy on the basis that it encourages the indolent to demand more and give less are wilfully blinkered if not totally blindfolded, and argue out of selfishness rather than any morally defensible position.

I should also add that any society that loses its working classes will cease to exist much more quickly than if the middle classes disappeared. It would probably benefit from the loss of its upper/ruling classes, because it could easily replace the jobs they provided by forming co-operatives or state-owned corporations. But I'm not arguing for communism, simply social conscience in the form of a health service accesible to all who need it.

[voxelectronica]

Do people deserve universal health care? No.

People do NOT deserve medical coverage simply because they're alive and breathing. I as an individual have no obligation to keep another person alive and that is what my tax dollars would be going to. No one deserves the tax money I worked for, it's mine.

As you may be able to tell I'm a financial conservative... very conservative.

Regardless of if people DESERVE universal health care or not I do feel that as a country we have no reason to insure the health of all of our residence. As was pointed out, a healthy citizen is a working citizen.

I do *not* believe that the politicians in office can possibly do this without skimming off the top, taking their do's, being corrupt etc. Earmarks? seriously.

I believe in almost 100% privatized society. This is my *one* area that I believe should be socialized and it's not because my birth control cost me $50. It's because there is no reason why the poor in other countries should expect a healthier life than the middle class in this country. It's a matter of pride.

Also. I agree that most people don't want to FEEL like they are a drain on society but I think at this point (especially in American culture) there is an entire sect of our population who do not believe that's what they are. You have to first realize that you *are* a drain on society before you can feel some sort of remorse for that.

[lucy]

Do people deserve universal health care? No.

People do NOT deserve medical coverage simply because they're alive and breathing. I as an individual have no obligation to keep another person alive and that is what my tax dollars would be going to. No one deserves the tax money I worked for, it's mine.

Of course it's not your money. If it were yours, it would be on your bank account.

I believe in almost 100% privatized society. This is my *one* area that I believe should be socialized and it's not because my birth control cost me $50. It's because there is no reason why the poor in other countries should expect a healthier life than the middle class in this country. It's a matter of pride.

If it's a matter of pride, then your pride is taking a bad beating right now. Because the poor in many other country within the OECD ARE in fact living a healthier life than the middle class in America.
Oh, did i mention that life expectancy and average body height (two of the easiest to measure and very informative indicators of wellbeing of a society) in America actually are sinking, whereas they are still growing in most other OECD countries?

[gagged_Louise]

Most of this isn't going to be directly about health care or health spending but I'm taking the time to reply on some points from -mostly - Thorne's latest post because we're running into issues of social equality and the chances to realize your gifts in a modern society here, and these kind of underpin our reasoning about if public-funded health care.would be desirable or not.

Sure, there are many people who, perhaps through no fault of their own, are always on the bad end of every deal, unable to pull themselves up. And programs which help them, which give them the opportunities to get out of that rut can, and should be, of high priority in any society. But there are many who are more interested in what the government can give them rather than in learning what the government can do to help them build their lives. I have no problems with programs which teach people. I only question the efficacy of programs which give away benefits and priveleges to those who do not want to earn them and who will actively oppose anything which might force them to earn it.

Handing out money on a charity basis or earmarking small sums to be used for rent, food, children's allotments etc - while putting medical and education aid at a bare minimum - is one thing, empowering people to really get gping and kicking off the limitations of living in a chaotic, run-down neighbpurhood or having to accept working for 6 bucks an hour is another. You won't get poor people from the gutter to rise up by handing them fifty bucks a week and then keeping tabs on them every moment and treating them like they're stupids who are liable to toss away the cash on liquor or toys and then just ask for more, like they're children. The trend of policies in Amrica has been to push the wealth to the top - the finace crisis and the recession of late has made that really clear I think. And most American (or European) small businessers and artisans do not earn many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and are not in a position to expand their firms a lot. Joe the Plumber is not any plumber.

Rockefeller, of course, is one of those who inherited his wealth. While less impressive than someone who's earned it on his own, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Should we force people like that to give away all their money and start from the bottom? That's ridiculous!
But Bill Gates used existing infrastructure, the same kinds of things that anyone else could use, to identify a need, build a product to fulfill that need, market that product and create an empire from it. As far as I know, he didn't have any more to work with than anybody else could have access to, other than his own intelligence and abilities. Shall we condemn him because he was smart enough to recognize potential? Shall we strip him of his money, just because he did something we didn't think of? Also ridiculous.

No, of course Mr. Gates isn't to be stripped of most of his money, it's a more interesting issue if he (or Microsoft) should be allowed always to set their own prices no limits and exploit their advantage - and that's why they got those hefty penalties from the European Union competition overseers.

Bill Gates and his likes were able to concentrate on computers from an early age - to take just Gates, the mothers' association at his school bought a computer for him and he was able to take time off from regular classroom hours getting acquainted with computing and software from his early teens onwards.

At thirteen [ca 1968] he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school. When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy an ASR-33 teletype terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students.[12] Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest.

I doubt they'd have done that for a black pupil who was at the school as a free charity guest and whose dad was an assistant plumber. And Silicon Valley or Stanford University aren't places that came into being from a bunch of empty-hands geeks standing outside the fold of the established economy; that's just the legend. To give Gates added credit, I think he's very aware that one can't sit around and wait for the market's invisible hand to do the trick, he made that plain in a tv interview I saw recently.

The internet, too, has been helped massively by public spending both in America and Europe - departments of defense, CERN (where the html language was developed), university pc networks, state telephone companies, the space programmes which freed up lots of resources and forced engineers to take on new challenges of developing faster chips and btter signal capacities, and so on.

I see we're moving onto the "spreading the wealth" tag here. I was trying to avoid any general discussion about socialism, I'm not an ideological socialist and it seems many Americans simply throw together social liberals, social democrats and stalinists. Planned command economy isn't my rallying cry (though it's a delicious irony that the private spending spree economy of the Bush era ended in the biggest socialization moves of modern American history: the buy-up of Fannie and Freddie and the bail-outs of banks, possibly of the big three car companies and then what...)

I'd agree with MMI that the American fear of everything that could remotely be called "socialism" is a leftover from the 19th century, and it's used as a tool by the fat cats who stand to gain from a highly moralizing attitude to money, a belief that society is about the survival of the fittest. Most companies today don't handle their budget planning as if it were a household budget, they plainly assume that they can get money - public money, by loans or from risk investors - if they need to expand. So it's not really about clawing a share of the market with what you got from the start, rather about what you can corner through alliances with other people, other companies. If they'd all started in a garage some of them would have foundered very soon, no matter how good the ideas.

It's an illusion I think that you can have a society that's 85% middle class. Neither the pure free market nor a state bolstered by ebullient welfare programs (which, by the way, isn't exactly how it looks in Sweden these days either) will lift everybody into the gilded middle class where your kids feel they can become anything, you have a year's wages on the bank, a stack of cd's and dvd's and a thriving pensions savings account. You seem to assume that the free market will perform that feat, and if some people don't get into the middle class it's a sign they were soft bags and deserve to be looked down upon or stepped on. Look, any modern society has a large working class, it's just that they don't always work in assembly-line factories or sweatshops..

Sure, it takes more work than starting with money, and perhaps some lucky breaks. But it can be done. But if they're not willing to try, not willing to do the work, they will be stuck where they are, and they will teach their children to accept what they are, rather than work to make themselves better.

Yes, there are leeches in any social class, or simply people desperate to cling to what they have. There's lots of children of the rich who take it for granted that they inherently deserve their handbags and jewellery, their designer clothes and their expensive education because they were born into it or because they think "Dad started from the bottom and now he's a CEO - and I've inherited his stamina so I have a right to that kind of respect". I'll just say Paris Hilton, she truly gave this arrogance a face when she got nailed for drunk driving and was sentenced to a brief prison term. There's many other examples.

George W Bush is reputed to have told a professor at Harvard Business School in the mid-1970s who showed the film The Grapes of Wrath to his students - he did this in order to show an angle of the 1930s depression that he realized many of them might not know from their own home background: "Why are you showing this commie movie? Look, people are poor because they're lazy!" Point taken. Of course the hobos in the film could have cut their beards and got a job, or if it were today, their children could have enrolled with the army and then had some of their college years paid for. So?

Also. I agree that most people don't want to FEEL like they are a drain on society but I think at this point (especially in American culture) there is an entire sect of our population who do not believe that's what they are. You have to first realize that you *are* a drain on society before you can feel some sort of remorse for that.

Excuse me vox, what kind of a height would that kind of condamnation be issued from? "Many people need" to have it rubbed into their minds that they "are a drain on society"?? I don't see what gives a corporate CEO, a senator, a US president, or even a bishop,a wife or a "staid middle American man" the right to spit people in the face like that. And for sure, some of the gist of those words was aimed at people you do not know. Everyone of us has a right to choose whom we want to mix with (though not all are in a *position* to make that choice freely, it's often about money and work) but there's no general right I think to just heave slop on a group of people you don't know.

[Muskan]

Of course it's not your money. If it were yours, it would be on your bank account.


it was his/her money before government confiscated it from him and termed that loot as TAX.

He was forced to sacrifice because he has the ability to earn more than others.

Such sacrifices can bring doom alone but no good.

[lucy]

Well, it's more or less agreed upon that governments need money (of course there's much debate about how much and how to get it and even more about how to spend it, tho. And those debates are necessary.)

If you can't agree with that, well, then you're living in the wrong world. Sorry, can't help you there.

[Thorne]

Well, it's more or less agreed upon that governments need money (of course there's much debate about how much and how to get it and even more about how to spend it, tho. And those debates are necessary.)

If you can't agree with that, well, then you're living in the wrong world. Sorry, can't help you there.

I agree, governments need money. And, while taxing isn't the only way to get it, it's better than outright looting. Not much better, but....

What I would like to see is for the taxpayer to get more say about how that money is spent. Sure, some has to go to defense. And some has to go to government salaries. And there are all kinds of other necessary areas where the money absolutely has to go. But there are also a lot of expenditures which are both unnecessary and undesirable, at least by the average tax payer. I certainly don't want to see my tax dollars being used to bribe foreign officials, regardless of who they are.

So why can't they include an optional questionnaire in the income tax statements we must file, and let the taxpayer distribute that discretionary portion of his tax dollars? So I can, for example, have more of my tax money go to parts of the budget which I deem more important, rather than to paying some so-called artist for pissing on a canvas. Or instead of paying some unwed junkie mother of four an allowance so she can buy another rock of crack. Or instead of giving money to a corporation which didn't have the brains to handle its own finances, and will likely not be able to handle its finances after getting the money.

Perhaps then we'll see more money going to what's really important. And if you think universal health care is important, then you could allocate more of your tax dollars to that.

Sorry for going off on a rant. I don't want to hijack this thread.

[lucy]

[I]
Such sacrifices can bring doom alone but no good.

As far as i know taxing is not new, i bet there were taxes in ancient Babylon already. So, what about doom? Where? When? Did the whole world miss it's doomed for the last 5000 years?
Or is it just doom, but never doomsday? Then it wouldn't be that bad, i guess, since we live with it for the last 5 millennia.

[gagged_Louise]

So why can't they include an optional questionnaire in the income tax statements we must file, and let the taxpayer distribute that discretionary portion of his tax dollars? So I can, for example, have more of my tax money go to parts of the budget which I deem more important, rather than to paying some so-called artist for pissing on a canvas. Or instead of paying some unwed junkie mother of four an allowance so she can buy another rock of crack. Or instead of giving money to a corporation which didn't have the brains to handle its own finances, and will likely not be able to handle its finances after getting the money.

Perhaps then we'll see more money going to what's really important. And if you think universal health care is important, then you could allocate more of your tax dollars to that.

Imagine the torrent of lawsuits from citizens vs the state that kind of model would produce! I don't want to think about it. On every level - county, city, state, federal - the state would fall prey to a million lawsuits from people who showed their "this is what I want my taxes to go to" cards from an election - not necessarily the last one - and claiming "my money hasn't been spent on this though you claim it was, you diverted it or you shirked the instructions - I refuse to pay for such and such,and I won't pay any more taxes for now until it's straightened out". And class actions and campaigns by churches and trade unions too, or even the mayorate of a city suing the state it's located in (if we suppose it's the USA). It would cripple any kind of political leadership or political negotiations.

In a general way, it would also reduce the citizen to a customer, choosing tasty alternative titbits for their own wallet - and a customer can be bought or bribed by the kind of deals that a politician - or somebody who isn't a politician, but clearly affiliated with the political world, like a general, a bishop or an influential businessman - would promise. If everyone decides their own peronal tax targets, the people become quite corruptible, because the election becomes stuff to buy and choose.

I'm not saying people don't vote from their long-term economic interests, but at least they mostly don't vote their leading men from the point of view that "he'll be very good as a personal business partner to me and other people I know".

I remember someone said in August that the looming bailout of Fannie and Freddie could not likely take place before the elections, because once it had happened, it would put the entire people - most of them, everyone who had a housing loan or who directly or indirectly owned bank or industry shares - in a sort of client position to the person - not chosen yet - who would be the next president: the guy they'd vote on. Now as both Obama and McCain supported the bailouts it didn't come to that - people did not feel their wallets were directly on the voting table, in the sense of who would promise the best conditions for this issue - but I still think it was a valid point.

[gagged_Louise]

bellelapine, do you seriously think that people who are genuinely poor do not sometimes get treated just as shittily as your mother? To turn your qúestion around: why should people who have tried hard to find a way out of a mess they did not choose themselves - bad state schools, closed circles of getting a decent job, illness - have to pay for the occasional cheating and hustling by some anonymous folks they have never met, but who happen to be living in the same kind of places and have more spacious consciences?

Unfortunately you can't sell yourself today - or begin to reinvent yourself - by saying "look, I have tried so hard for years and I have actually kept my nose just above the water, though the career path that I wanted and trained for hasn't got started yet". That kind of 'neat threadbare powerty' just isn't appreciated today, not in a world of flash wealth and celebs waving gold chains, furs, credit cards and diamond rings.

I don't have any trouble understanding why ghetto kids feel the glam gangster is a more inspiring role model than a dogged factory worker (soon unemployed and without medical insurance for his crumbling joints) or their 40-year old mom who just barely gets to pay the rent and keep them clothed - and who looks a bit haggard and ten years older than she actually is. You get nowhere today by trying to show off a facade of neat propriety and zero ability to break your own niches. And to achieve some lucky breaks and show off your talent often takes money. For better or worse, that's why people today, unlike in the 1940s, are not likely to accept the idea that keeping poor and proper but honest is all they should do.