Admission of Interest:Paula, I AM a socialist, hopefullly a thoughful and knowledgeable one. I personally think that national healtcare is too important to use a means of scoring cheap political points towards a larger agenda. Even so, I have some observations on is nat.health care 'as' socialism...
Socialism is used a as bugaboo in this country synonymoulsy with Communism, you might as well say Satanic - they both start with 'S'... In the rest of the world, even conservatives will admit the differences (e.g. commitment to democracy) There is no question that all aspects of the welfare state including are historically associated with political movements associated with the political Left which in most countries are socialists. Health care is no exception. However (!), national health care always had a broad base of support, everywhere outside the US, because even rich people realized the public health consequences of lots of sick poor people. (TB was the prime motivating fear for the first national health's and given the emergence of resistant strains of TB we really should be motivated to get off our collective behinds...) Whatever the form univeral access takes it will require the government restructuring of health care markets. This will be attacked as socialist (and already is) no matter what distinctions u.a. supporters will make. Those folks who fear "creeping socialism" will probably never support u.a. Given that, I think the most effective reply (rather than getting into a "is it" or "isn't it" debate) will be , "So what. Whatever it is, it works." And it will. -Paul Meyer ----- Original Message ---- From: Paula Minor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 9:39:25 PM Subject: Re: [CGUYS] Canada > I am not sure. When you talk about rationing it sounds like > a bad thing. But in terms of dollars and cents the Canadian System > has to make sure that the tax money is well spent. In the > US the private sector has a lot of rationing by the insurance > companies. And then there is the case of the ones who don´t > have insurance and have to use the Emergency Rooms to have > care when things go out of hand. Isn´t this a form of > rationing? A perverse one? It absolutely is rationing.....we just don't call it that. Depending on the procedure and your insurance company (if you even have one) you may or may not be allowed to have said procedure. It's up to, not your doctor , a medical professional, but your insurance company employee who was hired off the street. It happens way more than most people want to think. If you are a patient in an HMO where the dr. makes more money by NOT prescribing expensive tests or sending you to a specialist, you are rationed in your care. National health care is NOT socialist or socialized medicine. People with money can still go where they wish and pay the price. Even if you are using gov't paid care, you could still choose your dr. It depends on how it is set up. But, until a way is found to get insurance companies and profit out of the practice of medicine, I see no hope for us. Paula IN/USA Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" Have a wonderful day! ************************************************************************ * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress * Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * List archive at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ * RSS at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml * Messages bearing the header "X-No-Archive: yes" will not be archived ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress * Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * List archive at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ * RSS at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml * Messages bearing the header "X-No-Archive: yes" will not be archived ************************************************************************
