What representative from a country that has socialized medicine said these things?

See below for the answer

Well, I recognize the comments for one. Careful about taking it out of context, though, because she is arguing for maintaining universal access to health care, and maintaining a single payer. Her proposal is to provide funding based on activities, not on facilities.

Your short quotes suggest that there is some debate around whether there should be universal access to health care, and the speaker isn't suggesting that at all.

Yes, I did realize that and that was not my point. Before the US goes full steam ahead in to socialized medicine, we better be very sure we have a way to fund it in the future. The Canadian model is often cited as an example of how the US should go, but the crushing costs, long wait times for common procedures and lesser quality care is something that they are trying to fix.

And while they don't want to move away from the socialized system, she did mention that they would encourage private competition from the free market, which is pretty telling in my mind.

It would perhaps advance the debate if you defined what you mean by socialized medicine. It is a rather pejorative term, and very imprecise. Perhaps you didn't mean it that way. Do you mean:
a) Publicly funded and government delivered, like the Veterans Administration model in the US?
b) Publicly funded and privately delivered (or a combination of public and private), like Canada and many other countries? That isn't socialized in terms of service delivery, only in terms of universal access, IMO
c) Associated with socialism
d) Something else?

Since I currently live under system (b), and go to private clinics for many procedures, I don't understand why encouraging private competition is pretty telling. It seems fine to me. The key issue is universal access and not delivery, again, in my opinion.

Also, I am not sure why you refer to crushing costs (just using Canada as an example). Canada spends approximately 10% of GDP on health care, compared to 15% for the US. If Canada has crushing costs, what does the US have?

Wanted to add an observation to my previous post #18. Another common line being spewed forth by US private insurance Giants, and being disseminated rabidly by their lobby is the supposed "long wait times" and "sub-standard" care being delivered through the government-funded systems in the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, etc.

OK. For those of you buying into this (or disseminating it further), do any of you actually have friends and acquaintances in these countries?? Have you spoken to any of them to find out how true this is? Do yourselves a favor, and instead of listening to fat, greedy US insurance execs spewing venom from their "denial-of-coverage" pedestal, go out and speak to our NATO-allied brethren to get their take on it.

I can tell you I have spoken at length to friends and family in Australia and the UK. They are extremely satisified with both the quality and timeliness of the care they receive from their physicians. I don't claim this to be a true scientific survey. Obviously this is just empirical. But a buddy of mine in Australia had a serious medical issue and he was NOT waiting around for a year like the US Health industry would have you believe. It was taken care of very quickly, professionally, and without a million pieces of paper clutter arriving in his mailbox from hospitals, collection agencies, labs, EOBs, bills, etc.

Now granted: If you want an elective procedure to take care of that bunion your hot model girlfriend can't look at anymore, no way the UK or Australia is going to remove it the very next day. Yes, you are going to need to wait longer than in the US. So THIS is the GOP's justification for poo-pooing the supposed "socialized" medicine our friends are enjoying in Canada, UK, and elsewhere?? Are you friggin' kidding me?

Or heck, if you don't feel like ringing up a large phone bill talking to your long-lost cousin from the UK, let's just ask our NATO buddies here on the forum how they feel about their "socialized", long-wait-time, sub-standard medical care? All comments from Canada, Australia, UK, etc. are welcome. Tell us Amercians how disgusted you are with the quality and/or timeliness of your procedures and diagnostics. What, exactly, do you feel you are missing out on? Tell us how neglected you feel, and tell us how this is all just a slippery slope to Communism. Because you know, one day the government funds your angioplasty, and then the next day we're in Stalin land.

Because this is the way some of the individuals opposing change really view the world. It's sad but it's true. This satarical map posted on "The Lounge" forum says it all:


http://www.xoutpost.com/attachments/...-world-map.jpg

:thumbup: Unfortunately it's all about the money...