Dear Yuyutsu,

We're not talking about the Gina Rhinehearts here
or about forcing people to do anything they don't
wish to have.

I've already explained earlier that most Americans would
prefer a national health insurance system and why there
is an opposition to it from vested interests. I've also
explained the high health costs in America and the fact
that it delivers health services unequally and why.

And as I stated earlier the question is simply -
whether medicine should, be a social service (like police
forces, socialised elementary and secondary education,
socialised fire fighting, and so on), or whether it
should remain primarily a commercial enterprise.

The answer to that question will depend on the power
relations among the interests involved.

OUG you highlight another major thing the thread has if not side stepped not yet addressed.
Americas debt.
First the lock down threatens to make the day the world and America must confront that today or very soon.
Remember it can not be ignored,that debt built under both sides of politics.
So do not look for easy answers.
Do not too make the claim killing Obarma care will help reduce that debt.
Be happy that America spent borrowed money to stop the greatest depression the world ever saw instead of the GFC.
American and Europe's debt will one day hurt us all.
But are Tea Party red necks bringing that day closer?

Dear Foxy,

<<I've already explained earlier that most Americans would prefer a national health insurance system and why there is an opposition to it from vested interests.>>

There may as well be an opposition from vested [financial] interests, but as I explained, it's not the only opposition.

Earlier you mentioned that the American AMA opposes Obamacare, but I don't understand why: when more people are medically-insured, the demand for doctors' time increase, hence overall doctors receive more money. Doctors can still charge whatever they like and they won't ask for less - take it or leave it, just because the payer is different, so poor Obama, to keep his promises, would just have to keep increasing taxes to feed their endless greed. If he doesn't, then this will translate into longer queues and those who want immediate treatment will still pay a fortune for it.

<<And as I stated earlier the question is simply - whether medicine should, be a social service (like police forces, socialised elementary and secondary education, socialised fire fighting, and so on), or whether it should remain primarily a commercial enterprise.>>

Why must it be either?

Why must it be the same body that provides police forces, to also provide medicine? both can be public - but what's the one got to do with the other?

A few public functions such as policing, fire-fighting and other security functions need to be mandatory, hence carried out by a mandatory and violent body - the state.

But most public functions need not be mandatory, so why should they be carried out by the same violent body rather than by a public voluntary body?

State and commercial enterprises are not exclusively the only two options. Nothing but state-intervention prevents people from creating their own medical-support organisation(s) on a non-commercial basis.

Dear Yuyutsu,

In most industrialised societies, health care is
provided as a public service, either free of charge
or at nominal cost. In the US this is not
the case as already explained.

The British National Health
Service introduced soon after World War II, has
served as a model for many other countries. The
British system allows for private physicians, profit
making hospitals, and fee-paying patients, but in
practice almost all doctors, hospitals, and patients
participate in the public system. The physicians are
usually salaried employees of local communities,
but they may also recieve a fixed annual sum for each
of their patients. Thus, doctors who attract patients
have higher incomes than those who are less popular -
but even so, they earn less than a third of what their
American counterparts do.

Medical care of any kind - physician consultations,
diagnostic tests, hospitalisation, major surgery,
artificial limbs, and so on - is completely free.
However, patients are expected to pay a small flat fee
for any prescription, regardless of what the drug or
its actual cost may be.

One major problem of the National Health Service is that
the demand for free health care outstrips the supply,
so the system is chronically short of cash (which comes
of course from taxes), and there are sometimes long
waiting lists for non-emergency treatment. Nevertheless
the system ensures great equality of health care and
offers the British a longer life expectancy and lower
infant mortality rate than American enjoy - and it does so
at a much lower real cost, a far lower percentage, than
in the US. In the British view, health care-should be
distributed according to who needs it, not who can
afford it, as is the case in the US.

I've already explained the American system and why the
AMA is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.

As for Obamacare - I suggest you Google it and get the
precise details you're after. You will find out that it
greatly improves the health care industry, and provides
expanded coverage for the nation's poorest.

Dear Foxy,

I happen to know that the quality of British health-care is so notoriously poor that any Britons who can afford it go to Germany or Eastern Europe for treatment. Some even take the train there to visit the dentist. Yes, it is completely free, but also worthless.

I haven't researched the reason for the high costs of medical-health in America, but it may well be a result of corruption, or collusion between the American AMA and congressmen. What for example if the AMA uses the congress to demand such strict standards for being qualified as a doctor (or specialist) that there are too few doctors in the USA. Yes, it would be great to break the AMA's back and send both colluding parties to prison.

You know I don't care that much for America, but I took your advice and looked up 'Obamacare': all I find is horror upon horror, I don't even know where to begin as individual freedoms are trampled on left right and centre, coercion everywhere. Yes, I know that this is more or less what we have in Australia, we are just so used to it that we take for granted something that breaks every moral standard.

I repeat: financing health-care for the needy is one thing, it's part of standard welfare, what we call 'safety-net', so it is fine to have that paid out of tax-money, but imposing all the other things on everyone else, other than the needy, is a horrible crime.

In other words, Obamacare has two aspects: the one is the nice front for which Obamacare is mostly known - for who doesn't like to help the neediest in society?
However, behind this nice façade, is the ugliest oppression - and that's the aspect which most people do not see unless they bother to read and understand the details.

I have written a list of concerns on Monday, 7 October 2013 11:49:08 AM, but now I have even more.

However, I'm too sick of what I saw and too tired to continue.

Oh Foxy what are we going to do with you.

You're believing all the propaganda again. Hell both Republicans & Democrats are screaming as they start to find the real facts.

How does a single income family parents & 2 kids on $46,000 PA, who find their insurance going from $2,800 to just over $10,000. The wife said she thought everyone should have health care, she just didn't realise they were going to have to pay so much of it personally.

At a single stroke Obama has moved them from comfortable to struggling, & this is so different to what they were lead to expect.