MMoore movie SiCKO

[speedingpullet]

Ahhh, jg, you didn’t anwer my questions….never mind. Far be it from me to be anal-retentive about it… 😉

You have a point – America paid less tax back ‘n the day.

Bearing in mind that the America you are referring to was a sleepy, largely argarian, cultural backwater up until WW1. Where people died on the street for lack of decent medical care, and life expectancy was in the high 40’s due to terrible living conditions, illiteracy..and westward expansion was still in the cultural memory of all concerned…those were the days.

That was then and this is now…more people, more fingers in more pies…as much as we’d all like to return to the ‘good old days ‘ of times past, none us us here could really survive it.
You can’t have the “Greatest Country in the World’ without someone, somewhere, paying for it to be so. By all means, rest on your laurels a while, but Greatness costs.

Sounds to me that what you’re suggesting is a form of Anarchy (or is it Libertarianism? i can never distinguish the two).

Nothing wrong with Anarchy as a politcal form – it may surpise you to know that both Trotsky and Stalin considered it as a potential social framework for Russia after the revoloution, before deciding on socailist communism.

You could do no better than read “The Dispossessed” by Ursula le Guin, for a fascinatiing fictional “what-if?” about how Anarchy would work in the ‘real’ world.

Unfortunately, like a lot of other political systems, its great for the Big Picture, but falls somewhat short of perfect for ‘the devil is in the details’ kind of stuff.

Would you, for instance, be willing to stop paying for hospitals, emergency services, education, military , infrastructure of all kinds, simply because they part and parcel of the Government?
Would you be prepared to live with the consequences of cutting off all forms of socialised help, including any form of government support for you and yours?
Would you be able (willing, I’m sure, but able) to protect your family, loved ones and property from any schmoe who took a liking to it/them, bearing in mind that you would get absolutley no help doing it, other than what you can beg, borrow or steal?
How would you deal with national problems like clean water, emissions, pollution, power supples, when America has reverted basically back into small Nation-States?

How would America grow as a nation, socailly, scientifically, industrially, etc… with no ‘grand plan’ to fall back on?
How would you compete with the rest of the world, when your population is trying to survive childhood without decent, modern, nationwide medical care, or struggling to find a teacher that can educate them to a standard where they can compete outside the borders of the USA? .

Or, most importantly, do you really think people are capable of thriving with no supervision at all?

Maybe I’m too cynical, but I don’t think human nature is altruistic enough to trust everyone to be on the same page, at the same time.

Let’s face it, Westerners are having enough trouble living under captialism without freaking them out by giivng them the ‘total freedom’ to do as they please.
There are a lot of predators out there (and not just non-taxpayers, either) who would do a number on a lot of people, and wthout laws and institutions in place to curb them, you’ll get Anarchy in the derogatory sense, rather than the political sense.

So – if that’s too grim a scenario, what kind of ‘government’ do you allow in order to stop total social decay?
How do you balance needing some form of nationwide oversight with the need to be self-sufficient? How self sufficient can you be and still have meaningful dealings with the rest of the planet? Wheres the perfect balance, the ultimate point of inflection?

I’m not getting at you, i’m genuinely interested.

Like everyone else, I don’t want to pay taxes, and want to change the way things are. But I have difficulty imagining a way that would work – for the benefit of the majority of people and not for the benefit of a minority – that would be radically different from the political system we have now.

Anyway, I have things to see and people to do 😉

I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, truly.

[speedingpullet]

Ahhh, jg, you didn’t anwer my questions….never mind. Far be it from me to be anal-retentive about it… 😉

You have a point – America paid less tax back ‘n the day.

Bearing in mind that the America you are referring to was a sleepy, largely argarian, cultural backwater up until WW1. Where people died on the street for lack of decent medical care, and life expectancy was in the high 40’s due to terrible living conditions, illiteracy..and westward expansion was still in the cultural memory of all concerned…those were the days.

That was then and this is now…more people, more fingers in more pies…as much as we’d all like to return to the ‘good old days ‘ of times past, none us us here could really survive it.
You can’t have the “Greatest Country in the World’ without someone, somewhere, paying for it to be so. By all means, rest on your laurels a while, but Greatness costs.

Sounds to me that what you’re suggesting is a form of Anarchy (or is it Libertarianism? i can never distinguish the two).

Nothing wrong with Anarchy as a politcal form – it may surpise you to know that both Trotsky and Stalin considered it as a potential social framework for Russia after the revoloution, before deciding on socailist communism.

You could do no better than read “The Dispossessed” by Ursula le Guin, for a fascinatiing fictional “what-if?” about how Anarchy would work in the ‘real’ world.

Unfortunately, like a lot of other political systems, its great for the Big Picture, but falls somewhat short of perfect for ‘the devil is in the details’ kind of stuff.

Would you, for instance, be willing to stop paying for hospitals, emergency services, education, military , infrastructure of all kinds, simply because they part and parcel of the Government?
Would you be prepared to live with the consequences of cutting off all forms of socialised help, including any form of government support for you and yours?
Would you be able (willing, I’m sure, but able) to protect your family, loved ones and property from any schmoe who took a liking to it/them, bearing in mind that you would get absolutley no help doing it, other than what you can beg, borrow or steal?
How would you deal with national problems like clean water, emissions, pollution, power supples, when America has reverted basically back into small Nation-States?

How would America grow as a nation, socailly, scientifically, industrially, etc… with no ‘grand plan’ to fall back on?
How would you compete with the rest of the world, when your population is trying to survive childhood without decent, modern, nationwide medical care, or struggling to find a teacher that can educate them to a standard where they can compete outside the borders of the USA? .

Or, most importantly, do you really think people are capable of thriving with no supervision at all?

Maybe I’m too cynical, but I don’t think human nature is altruistic enough to trust everyone to be on the same page, at the same time.

Let’s face it, Westerners are having enough trouble living under captialism without freaking them out by giivng them the ‘total freedom’ to do as they please.
There are a lot of predators out there (and not just non-taxpayers, either) who would do a number on a lot of people, and wthout laws and institutions in place to curb them, you’ll get Anarchy in the derogatory sense, rather than the political sense.

So – if that’s too grim a scenario, what kind of ‘government’ do you allow in order to stop total social decay?
How do you balance needing some form of nationwide oversight with the need to be self-sufficient? How self sufficient can you be and still have meaningful dealings with the rest of the planet? Wheres the perfect balance, the ultimate point of inflection?

I’m not getting at you, i’m genuinely interested.

Like everyone else, I don’t want to pay taxes, and want to change the way things are. But I have difficulty imagining a way that would work – for the benefit of the majority of people and not for the benefit of a minority – that would be radically different from the political system we have now.

Anyway, I have things to see and people to do 😉

I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, truly.

[drunkle]

you’re paying more for less and you’re happy? if the option were to not have any insurance and just save the money, you’d be far better off: 10k year (ave family expenditure on health ins) over just 10 years is of course 100k. add the gains if you had invested it over that time. keep piling it on for the 30 years or so that you’re likely to go without needing expensive care. 300k plus interest. likely to take care of all your broken bones, flu shots and stitches that you’ll need.

since that’s not an option, since insurance companies have a mandate to be a required expense/purchase/revenue stream, you’re fucked. you’re getting less, paying more… and you’re happy? and you’re bitching about socialized medicine? it’s already here, dummy. but it’s a psuedo system where payments are required, but services are not. and that’s the point of the movie.

[drunkle]

you’re paying more for less and you’re happy? if the option were to not have any insurance and just save the money, you’d be far better off: 10k year (ave family expenditure on health ins) over just 10 years is of course 100k. add the gains if you had invested it over that time. keep piling it on for the 30 years or so that you’re likely to go without needing expensive care. 300k plus interest. likely to take care of all your broken bones, flu shots and stitches that you’ll need.

since that’s not an option, since insurance companies have a mandate to be a required expense/purchase/revenue stream, you’re fucked. you’re getting less, paying more… and you’re happy? and you’re bitching about socialized medicine? it’s already here, dummy. but it’s a psuedo system where payments are required, but services are not. and that’s the point of the movie.

[PerryChase]

jg, you should go watch the movie before commenting on it.

[PerryChase]

jg, you should go watch the movie before commenting on it.

[Anonymous]

PC, I made no comment on the movie, only on socialized medicine.

sp-, too many points. We’ll have to chat over a beer at the next meet up.

[Anonymous]

PC, I made no comment on the movie, only on socialized medicine.

sp-, too many points. We’ll have to chat over a beer at the next meet up.

[what_a_disasta]

I was reading an interesting essay today about “Red State Fascism”, http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/red-state-fascism.html Have a read through and see if you recognise anyone from this discussion.

*cough * J *cough* G *cough*

[what_a_disasta]

I was reading an interesting essay today about “Red State Fascism”, http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/red-state-fascism.html Have a read through and see if you recognise anyone from this discussion.

*cough * J *cough* G *cough*

[equalizer]

Biggest socialized medical group in the world

Take a guess: Yep, its the VA system (HYPERBOLE) and its actually not that bad from what I hear from many veterans. I think Businessweek had a big story on VA system and stated that that have a huge incentive to keep people healthy because they have to pay for life, whereas HMOs have no incentive because you don’t sign life time contract. VA computer systems are top notch since they have to track medical records for life. Pay for service in principle is the correct way, but the problem with jg’s pay for it out of pocket in practice is that health care is NOT capitalistic in the sense that there is no price competition. When is the last time you have seen prices in a medical setting? It’s the only industry where they NEVER disclose/discuss pricing; sounds like CUBA to me.

Only way to fix it is to get rid of HMOS, follow jg’s lead and then BAM, pricing would be competitive and health costs would go down.

[equalizer]

Biggest socialized medical group in the world

Take a guess: Yep, its the VA system (HYPERBOLE) and its actually not that bad from what I hear from many veterans. I think Businessweek had a big story on VA system and stated that that have a huge incentive to keep people healthy because they have to pay for life, whereas HMOs have no incentive because you don’t sign life time contract. VA computer systems are top notch since they have to track medical records for life. Pay for service in principle is the correct way, but the problem with jg’s pay for it out of pocket in practice is that health care is NOT capitalistic in the sense that there is no price competition. When is the last time you have seen prices in a medical setting? It’s the only industry where they NEVER disclose/discuss pricing; sounds like CUBA to me.

Only way to fix it is to get rid of HMOS, follow jg’s lead and then BAM, pricing would be competitive and health costs would go down.

[drunkle]

jg, this thread is about the movie. all the idiotic non sequitors about cost or socialization or whatever have been red herrings, defamation and just plain bullshit.

it’s amazing to realize that even intelligent people fail to recognize bullshit when they see it. i work with people in public ed and there are some absolute morons there. but they’re paid on moron scale. i see corporate failures in the news every day. and they’re paid in blood. open your fucking eyes. there’s more to the story than what rush limbaugh or ann coulter feed you.

edit:
unless of course, you’re just facetious. that you know what’s what, you’re towing the line for personal gain.

[drunkle]

jg, this thread is about the movie. all the idiotic non sequitors about cost or socialization or whatever have been red herrings, defamation and just plain bullshit.

it’s amazing to realize that even intelligent people fail to recognize bullshit when they see it. i work with people in public ed and there are some absolute morons there. but they’re paid on moron scale. i see corporate failures in the news every day. and they’re paid in blood. open your fucking eyes. there’s more to the story than what rush limbaugh or ann coulter feed you.

edit:
unless of course, you’re just facetious. that you know what’s what, you’re towing the line for personal gain.

[NotCranky]

Just for the sake of argument…
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/index.html

[Author]

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