So I've read up on socialism and communism a tiny bit.....

[Greta]

You take away our individual right to those choices and sure, you may like your healthcare, but do you also like your freedom to homeschool, drive a car, buy the food you choose, etc, etc, etc.?

 

Respectfully, this is a slippery slope. I was only talking about health care, and I do not fear that by improving the health care system in this country I would be putting my right to homeschool at risk. Obviously a public education system would be much riskier to the right to homeschool than a public health care system, but we already have that, and my right to homeschool is in tact. I'm not worried. We can have a national health care plan and still be the free country that we are right now.

 

In America, we have (theoretically at least) a government that is of the people, by the people, for the people. So I see absolutely no reason the government can't or shouldn't take part in protecting and looking out for the people!

 

In fact, it obviously already does. Take the military and the police force for example. These are publicly funded. And no one (that I know of) seems to find this shocking or objectionable, because we all feel that *everyone* has a right to things like police protection. It's not that police protection is a fundamental human right, it's really more of a privilege. But luckily, in this country we do NOT view it as a privilege that only the wealthy deserve, but one that everyone deserves.

 

I view health care in the same terms. In a country as wealthy as this one, I think every child with leukemia deserves access to treatment, every elderly person in need of surgery should get it, every pregnant woman should have pre-natal care, and so on. Can you imagine if some intruder broke into your home in the middle of the night, you called 911, and they asked for credit card number before they would agree to send police help? I really don't see how turning someone in need of life-saving medical treatment away because they can't afford to pay is any different. People go bankrupt, lose their homes, lose everything, trying to keep loved ones alive and well. That just seems fundamentally wrong to me. It shouldn't happen.

 

The choices we Americans have made so far have resulted in the most expensive and least effective health care of any industrialized nation on the planet. I think it's time to start making some different choices. Private health insurance is a flawed concept, imo, because all it's accomplishing is adding a middle man who is out to make a profit. Obviously he's either going to have to increase your expenses or reduce your services in order to accomplish that. But a government-run system isn't looking to make a profit, just to cover expenses, so it's not set up from the very beginning to screw you. Are government run systems perfect? Of course not! But are they better than what we have right now? IMHO, that would be a resounding hell yes!

[Greta]

Lorna, it was great to hear your experiences. The Frontline episode that I mentioned earlier talked about the UK system's problems with waiting. But they said a lot had been done over the past few years to improve it. From what you said, sounds like a lot more improvement is still needed!

 

I must confess to being shocked when I read on this board of someone wondering whether they should take their sick child to the emergency room because they cannot afford it. No one should ever be in this situation in a civilised society.

 

AGREED! And as an American who hears stories like this all the time, I still find it shocking each and every time. It just seems barbaric. For all the complaining I have done about my over-priced and ineffective health care insurance, I am much better off than many many Americans. We have friends who are not so lucky.

 

I suppose you need to choose. There are two extremes, but I like the French system. It costs a lot, it is wonderful to have something like that when you are at you most vulnerable.

 

Vive la France!

 

It is called dignity.

 

Nicely put.

[percytruffle]

Lorna, thank you for sharing your experiences. What an awful thing for your dd to have to go through with a broken leg.

 

The state of health care in the US may not be what it should be, but I just wanted to let everyone in my state know about a program. Here in NY we have a safety net for uninsured kids called Child Health Plus. If you are struggling to pay for health insurance and live in NY, please check into this for your kids. If you qualify for this plan you will never need to wonder whether to take your kids to the emergency room or doctor because of your inability to pay for the cost.

[chiguirre]

I agree. Our health care system has failed our population in many ways. I'm still not convinced that government sponsored health care would be any better, just different. So far, our federal government has not shown me that they can responsibly take control of anything and do a better job at it than the private sector does.

 

Yes, you would think we were capable of better!

 

The thing is, we have a national health care system financed by the federal government. It's called Medicare. If you're lucky enough not to need extensive medical care until you're 65, you're pretty much covered (yes, I know there are co-pays) but it works well. My parents are pleased with their Medicare experience and that included prostate cancer treatment for my dad (who's fine now). But as things stand now, if you have a heart attack at 64, you may well lose all your retirement savings, your home equity and any prospect you had of a peaceful old age. If government financed healthcare is good for senior citizens, I feel it's good for everybody.

[Guest Lorna]

Percytruffle, I am so glad to hear that there are some systems in place to protect the vulnerable.

 

My feeling about socialism is that the danger lies when the government switches its attitude from serving the people to using the services to control the people and have them conform to a certain model. For example, the French attitude seems to be that the government services are there for them to use as they, the people see fit, as a individual. In Britain the people have to fit the system, and to adapt to it. The British government has put huge resources in recent years into the health care system (supposedly double) but anecdotally very little seems to have changed because the relationship between the people and their services haven't changed.

 

As a home educator in the UK it can also be very difficult. It is perfectly legal to home educate in the UK (no grey areas:001_smile:) but it can be very difficult to leave the house during public school hours. Everyone will question you and the children; police are trained to look out for truants and are not always aware of the law. People have lost the realisation that we live in a free society and that public school is a service for the people and not an open prison.

For example, my home-educating friends took their children to the zoo on the train as a birthday treat during school hours. They were stopped by two policemen, a social worker and a BBC camera crew. They were treated like criminals. Most of the home educators I know have been stopped at some point and treated, in front of their children, like they are doing something profoundly wrong. I had no idea until we home educated what it could be like to live in a police state.

 

I will gladly pay for good schools, health care for all my fellow citizens, but I want it to be subject to the people and not subjecting the people. I have great concern that the liberties I took for granted as a child have been eroded in recent years in the UK. I have huge admiration for the people of the USA who seem to understand the importance of these liberties. It is important that you continue your great struggle to keep them, as an example to the rest of the World.

[percytruffle]

I will gladly pay for good schools, health care for all my fellow citizens, but I want it to be subject to the people and not subjecting the people. I have great concern that the liberties I took for granted as a child have been eroded in recent years in the UK. I have huge admiration for the people of the USA who seem to understand the importance of these liberties. It is important that you continue your great struggle to keep them, as an example to the rest of the World.

 

:hurray:

[Greta]

Wow. That was very enlightening Lorna. I am learning much from your posts!

[percytruffle]

If government financed healthcare is good for senior citizens, I feel it's good for everybody.

 

 

I'm glad your family had a good experience with healthcare in their later years and I am very glad this program is available, but it is far from perfect. My elderly parents also used the Medicare system, only they had to give up their family doctor they had seen for thirty years just as my dad was beginning to experience heart problems and Parkinson's disease. His treatment, shuffled between in-service doctors, and his eventual stay at an approved nursing facility where his wrist was broken by a male attendent, were less than ideal.

[TXMomof4]

Interesting conversation about the quirky rules that can develop in a more socialist-leaning country. But what about all the advantages of the kind of socialism that is common in Europe right now? I'd gladly give up having my hair dryer in my bathroom in exchange for health care!!!!! :thumbup:

 

You know, I'm not sure I'd choose that healthcare. My sister is in England right now with the air force. At her 1 yo dds check up they thought they heard a heart murmur at the clinic on base. They don't have specialists there with the military, so she had to go through the NHS to see a cardiologist. It took NINE weeks to get her daughter in for an echo. NINE weeks that her dd is losing weight and they believe she has a heart condition. I would be freaking out. But she just had to wait her turn to fit into they system somehow. I have yet to meet a doctor here who wouldn't work with you somehow on payments. And even if one didn't, you have the choice to go to another one who will.

[LizzyBee]

I have yet to meet a doctor here who wouldn't work with you somehow on payments.

 

That's been my experience as well. My OB in Baltimore let me pay $50/month for my share of the bills when my older children were born. I think we paid the hospital $40/month and a lab company $10/month. The lab company even told me straight up that as long as I made a payment of any amount every 28 days, they were prohibited by law from reporting us to a credit agency. Nobody has ever made me feel bad for making payments.

 

As for hospitals turning people away for lack of insurance, has anyone here been turned away or personally known someone who has? I've seen signs in hospital ER's that explicitly state that they do not withhold emergency treatment for lack of insurance. I used to work with someone who did not have insurance for her son, and she would take him to the ER when he was sick because the ER was cheaper than the doctor.

[Greta]

As for hospitals turning people away for lack of insurance, has anyone here been turned away or personally known someone who has? I've seen signs in hospital ER's that explicitly state that they do not withhold emergency treatment for lack of insurance. I used to work with someone who did not have insurance for her son, and she would take him to the ER when he was sick because the ER was cheaper than the doctor.

 

I apologize for not being clear. Due to a law enacted in the 80's, emergency rooms are required to not turn anyone away because of an inability to pay. But the law applies only to emergency care, not other forms of health care. People do get "turned away" from preventive care, which saves lives, non-emergency surgery and treatments, long-term care, etc.

 

Also, it sounds very simple to just work out a payment plan with your doctor. But since 5 million families have filed for bankruptcy since 2000 because of medical bills, I'm thinking it's not always that simple. The costs of health care in the US have been skyrocketing, and when someone gets seriously ill, it can absolutely break a family's ability to provide for themselves. Some people go broke and lose everything in order to get health care. Some people die because they never get it. I really think we can do better.

 

That said, I have found the drawbacks mentioned with the UK system to be very interesting food for thought. I don't think it means we should give up on public health care entirely! Obviously this is just one country, and even with its drawbacks, overall their people are getting better care than Americans are. And there are other systems and methods out there that we can learn from. And as much as I've enjoyed the conversation, I'm also starting to feel that I'm continuing to argue beyond the point where it's appropriate and purposeful. I plan to watch that Frontline episode online tonight with my DH to learn more about the other health care plans that are out there. And I do plan to continue to vote for candidates who want to implement a national health care plan. But beyond that, I should probably quit here.

 

Cheers Everyone!

GL

[LizzyBee]

That said, I have found the drawbacks mentioned with the UK system to be very interesting food for thought.

 

There's been lots of food for thought on both sides of the issue. Don't stop posting, because we really do need to consider all points of view!

[Storm Bay]

I can't even imagine what it was like to live through the revolution and then Lenin and Stalin's reign. I don't have any ancestors from Russia or Eastern Europe, so what I know is only from reading. I think reading about it gives us only a glimpse of how awful it was.

 

Yes. People were often shot without any questions being asked. I met a woman from the same Mennonite culture my dad grew up in (she's more my age and her grandparents also escaped) who had relatives have family members shot in front of them for nothing. Both my grandparents had Hollywood style narrow escapes, and my grandmother lived in hiding for part of her childhood. My grandparent almost never talked about it; it was too horrible for them to bring up.

[homeschoolmom]

You know, I'm not sure I'd choose that healthcare.

 

I agree. I also wouldn't want to be taxed beyond belief in order to pay for this healthcare (the horror stories my Canadian friends share in that regard, wow). People comment all the time about how inefficient the government is - you want them to manage more? I'll take my consumer directed healthcare as imperfect as it is, I like my choices to be MY choices. JMO.

[Storm Bay]

I'm sure you're aware that there are some pretty horrific stories about health care in the US. I've heard many more good stories about other country's health care systems than bad ones. It isn't fair (for EITHER side! I'm not pointing fingers at you!) to pick out a handful of stories as an example, and if I was guilty of that then I apologize.

.

 

Having lived both sides of the border I agree totally with this. I find that there are pros and cons to both countries, and that there is poor information given on both sides of the border about the other country.

 

btw, Canada doesn't have a national health care system because it's been provincial from the various times they were started, unless there has been some extremely recent development I haven't heard about yet. Just like in the US, care can vary from province to province and place to place. While it is true that there are longer waits for elective surgery, there are other areas where the US has more problems because people can't afford adequate health care, or there are people practicing medicine who have no business to be there. Like the surgeon in MA who walked out of the OR to go to an ATM, for eg.

 

As soon as one believes they have the best system in the world I find that skews objectivity. My dad has practiced medicine in both countries and has seen the good, the bad and the ugly both sides of the border. One big problem that has come up in the US are unethical practices by at least some of the pharmaceutical companies who have paid doctors to prescribe their drugs.

 

My opinion is that both systems have inherent flaws. I can't see that universal health care would fix the problems here, and there are some big problems despite the fact that some of the world's best health care facilities are in the States.

 

Oh, yes, and to dispel another myth, in every province I ever lived you can choose any PCP you want to without first calling the insurance company (unlike American HMOs we've dealt with), but you do need a referral to go to a specialist (just like our HMO with the one exception of OB-Gyn care.) Although I never heard the term PCP until I married an American.

[homeschoolmom]

btw, Canada doesn't have a national health care system because it's been provincial from the various times they were started, unless there has been some extremely recent development I haven't heard about yet. Just like in the US, care can vary from province to province and place to place. While it is true that there are longer waits for elective surgery, there are other areas where the US has more problems because people can't afford adequate health care, or there are people practicing medicine who have no business to be there. Like the surgeon in MA who walked out of the OR to go to an ATM, for eg.

 

As soon as one believes they have the best system in the world I find that skews objectivity. My dad has practiced medicine in both countries and has seen the good, the bad and the ugly both sides of the border. One big problem that has come up in the US are unethical practices by at least some of the pharmaceutical companies who have paid doctors to prescribe their drugs.

 

My opinion is that both systems have inherent flaws. I can't see that universal health care would fix the problems here, and there are some big problems despite the fact that some of the world's best health care facilities are in the States.

 

Oh, yes, and to dispel another myth, in every province I ever lived you can choose any PCP you want to without first calling the insurance company (unlike American HMOs we've dealt with), but you do need a referral to go to a specialist (just like our HMO with the one exception of OB-Gyn care.) Although I never heard the term PCP until I married an American.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

 

State/Provence-based or national, I still prefer to cut out the middle man (government). IMO as corrupt and inefficient as the private sector is it's still more efficient than government. But I live in NJ so I may be unduly influenced! ;)

[chiguirre]

Anj posted a WSJ article on another thread that bears directly on this discussion. You can read it here:

 

http://67.202.21.157/forums/showthread.php?p=195191#post195191

[Guest Lorna]

It is a funny, light-hearted and gentle look at communism, through the eyes of a big-hearted East German lady. She succumbs to a coma after a serious heart attack. During her lost time, communism falls and Germany is unified. It is really a farce about how her son tries to protect his mother from the shock of realising everything she has worked for and believed in has gone - including a particular brand of green pickle.

It is a lovely, happy film giving insight into life before the pulling down of the Berlin Wall.

 

Good Bye Lenin!

[percytruffle]

Yeah! Our library actually has it. I placed it on hold. Thanks for sharing!

[Laura Corin]

The problem with the NHS, from my experience, is not that it's bad, but that it's patchy. There are areas of excellent service and then there are disaster areas. My father had excellent care, including hospice care at home, during his last months. His not having to worry about obtaining and paying for his care made an enormous difference.

 

I contrast this with my parents-in-law who, despite being covered by the schemes for old people in the US, are still out of pocket for over USD 1,000 per month for drugs. They are constantly distressed by the money, even though their sons are helping. I'd still rather patchy than not there.

 

I do remember the French system with affection, but my experience is twenty years old now.

 

Laura

[Laura Corin]

I have great concern that the liberties I took for granted as a child have been eroded in recent years in the UK. I have huge admiration for the people of the USA who seem to understand the importance of these liberties. It is important that you continue your great struggle to keep them, as an example to the rest of the World.

 

I don't think we should be two rose-tinted about US liberties: they have been eroded since 9/11 just as they have in the UK.

 

I do suspect that the situation with HE in the UK will improve. There was certainly a time in the US when homeschooling was viewed with great suspicion; perhaps we will come out the other side of that stage in the UK too.

 

Laura

[Storm Bay]

I don't think we should be two rose-tinted about US liberties: they have been eroded since 9/11 just as they have in the UK.

 

 

Yes, I think many countries have been losing their liberties since 9/11.

[Jenny in Atl]

It is a funny, light-hearted and gentle look at communism, through the eyes of a big-hearted East German lady. She succumbs to a coma after a serious heart attack. During her lost time, communism falls and Germany is unified. It is really a farce about how her son tries to protect his mother from the shock of realising everything she has worked for and believed in has gone - including a particular brand of green pickle.

It is a lovely, happy film giving insight into life before the pulling down of the Berlin Wall.

 

Good Bye Lenin!

 

Loved that movie... ok, I have no life.. all I do is listen to music, read bks, and watch movies. :biggrinjester:

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

Loved that movie... ok, I have no life.. all I do is listen to music, read bks, and watch movies. :biggrinjester:

 

I'm confused. That's not a life? Oh NO!!! :D

[Kathy in MD]

My father would start to rant and rave about various gov't policies. Getting tired of listening, my mother would retort that "Christ was a communist". End of discussion.

[Phred]

The USSR was not Communist but rather Socialist. Everything was controlled on behalf of the people by the state. In a true communist society there would be no government. But, I guess they knew that because they called themselves the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

 

There is reference to a Christian Communism. Dunno how valid it is.

 

The idea is that communism is the ideal way for humans to live. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need. Seems logical. But I really NEED a 105" widescreen LCD TV. Well, I don't... but I WANT one. And therein lies the rub. Who decides the difference between need and want? It's not about being "fallen" and "sinful". It's just that we don't have enough TVs for everyone and so some will have to do without. So we have to have a way to determine who gets the TVs and who doesn't.

 

In Capitalism we keep score with money. In Socialism the government decides. So forget about the TVs. Let's get back on health care. It's a resource just like the TVs and oil and everything else. What we're saying here is that either we want the decisions made by money... or by the government...

 

The U.S. form of health care is the most wasteful, ridiculous system on the face of the planet. For every doctor there are four people who push paper. Not nurses, not technicians... paper-pushers at the HMOs and insurance companies. Might be more now, I first heard that back in 2000. Saying that we need the right to choose and that's the reason to stand up against national health care... comon... choose what? If you're in an HMO you lost the right to choose anything. You go where they tell you to go, see who the tell you to see. If you don't have health insurance then you hold out until you're so sick you have to go to the ER and then we all pay for the visit if you can't. What "choice" is that? There are no "rights" being lost here. Only lefts... all those left behind by a country that just doesn't care.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

It is a funny, light-hearted and gentle look at communism, through the eyes of a big-hearted East German lady. She succumbs to a coma after a serious heart attack. During her lost time, communism falls and Germany is unified. It is really a farce about how her son tries to protect his mother from the shock of realising everything she has worked for and believed in has gone - including a particular brand of green pickle.

It is a lovely, happy film giving insight into life before the pulling down of the Berlin Wall.

 

Good Bye Lenin!

 

You can also try Everything is Illuminated. It is also a lighthearted look at what had been communism, facism, and what it is like when your society is recovering from both.

[Jenny in Atl]

You can also try Everything is Illuminated. It is also a lighthearted look at what had been communism, facism, and what it is like when your society is recovering from both.

 

:iagree::iagree: I loved this one too! The girls and I have watched it a number of times. Dh, hates movies with too much reality.

[Storm Bay]

For every doctor there are four people who push paper. Not nurses, not technicians... paper-pushers at the HMOs and insurance companies. Might be more now, I first heard that back in 2000. .

 

This is correct--and that wasn't new even in 2000, because I heard about that years before. This is one of the reasons American health care is so expensive. Malpractice suits in a country with no ceilings and some absolutely crazy rulings at times is another large factor. Not to mention that when I moved down here I was amazed at how many people were asking me the very same questions. Before moving here only the doctor asked those questions.