I recall the case of a fourteen-year-old girl from my district who died of acute nephritis in a Moscow hospital. She died because a doctor decided that it was better to save "precious" X-ray film (imported by the Soviets for hard currency) instead of double-checking his diagnosis. These X-rays would have disproven his diagnosis of neuropathic pain.
Instead, the doctor treated the teenager with a heat compress, which killed her almost instantly. There was no legal remedy for the girl's parents and grandparents. By definition, a single-payer system cannot allow any such remedy. The girl's grandparents could not cope with this loss and they both died within six months. The doctor received no official reprimand.
[...]
The appalling quality of service is not simply characteristic of "barbarous" Russia and other Eastern European nations: it is a direct result of the government monopoly on healthcare and it can happen in any country. In "civilized" England, for example, the waiting list for surgeries is nearly 800,000 out of a population of 55 million. State-of-the-art equipment is nonexistent in most British hospitals. In England, only 10 percent of the healthcare spending is derived from private sources.
Britain pioneered in developing kidney-dialysis technology, and yet the country has one of the lowest dialysis rates in the world. The Brookings Institution (hardly a supporter of free markets) found that every year 7,000 Britons in need of hip replacements, between 4,000 and 20,000 in need of coronary bypass surgery, and some 10,000 to 15,000 in need of cancer chemotherapy are denied medical attention in Britain.
Age discrimination is particularly apparent in all government-run or heavily regulated systems of healthcare. In Russia, patients over 60 are considered worthless parasites and those over 70 are often denied even elementary forms of healthcare.
In the United Kingdom, in the treatment of chronic kidney failure, those who are 55 years old are refused treatment at 35 percent of dialysis centers. Forty-five percent of 65-year-old patients at the centers are denied treatment, while patients 75 or older rarely receive any medical attention at these centers.
In Canada, the population is divided into three age groups in terms of their access to healthcare: those below 45, those 45–65, and those over 65. Needless to say, the first group, who could be called the "active taxpayers," enjoys priority treatment.
Read more: What Soviet Medicine Teaches Us
And of course, such a thing could never happen in our times. Not in a country like Japan, with its bullet trains, and high-tech industries.
Supporting Socialism is immoral not only because it violates people’s rights, but because it ruins people’s lives. A person who is not a socialist by 21 is not heartless; aderabe, such a person is both intelligent and compassionate.KOBE — A 69-year-old man injured in a traffic accident in Hyogo Prefecture died last month after being refused admission by 14 hospitals, a local fire department said Wednesday, revealing yet another case indicating Japan’s emergency medical care is in a grave situation.
The man collided with a motorcycle when he was riding a bicycle in Itami at around 10:15 p.m. on Jan 20. After arriving at the scene five minutes later, rescue workers provided first aid while seeking a hospital for about one hour.
But 14 hospitals in Hyogo and neighboring Osaka prefectures rejected his admission, citing a lack of specialist doctors or empty beds, according to the department.
The man was eventually taken to one of the 14 hospitals at around 11:30 p.m. that day, where his condition abruptly deteriorated. The hospital in Itami tried to transfer him for better treatment but the call was rejected by two hospitals.
He was already in extremely critical condition and unable to be moved when a third accepted the request. He eventually died of hemorrhagic shock three hours after the accident.
The 29-year-old motorcycle rider, meanwhile, was taken to a university hospital in Nishinomiya, Hyogo, as soon as the rescue workers determined he appeared to have suffered more severe injuries.
In December 2007, the Hyogo prefectural government instructed local municipalities to have their fire department headquarters work to find a hospital to accept urgent patients if paramedics cannot find one after 30 minutes.
On the accident in question, an Itami fire department official said, ‘‘There were four other emergency calls in the same time frame of that night and as a result, we were unable to find a hospital (for the dead man).’‘
It remains unclear, meanwhile, whether the death of the man was associated with the delay in his transfer, the department said.
The incident is the latest of a growing number of similar cases in Japan in which hospitals and medical institutions have declined to accept patients in need of emergency treatment, citing a lack of medical staff available or proper equipment and facilities.
56 comments:
Are you implying that the Coney Island hospital is operating under s socialist system? Since it obviously isn't, you are undermining your own point about socialism being the cause of bad medical care. Irresponsible doctors are the cause of bad medical care.
Of course it is.
That was my point regarding “a little bit of murder and rape”. A public hospital is a little bit of socialism — government managing a service which has nothing to do with government’s job description. In this case, a medicine. When out of 100 hospitals, 30 are public, it’s 30% socialism in medicine. When they are 100% public, it’s 100% socialism in medicine.
Just like with murder. When there is one murder a month, it is less crime than one hundred murders a month, but it is still crime. One county hospital out of ten is still a little bit of socialism.
Furthermore, if it is unfair, it’s only unfair in favor of socialism. E.g., in Israel, the health system is not as terrible as in the Soviet Union because public hospitals are placed in direct competition with the private ones. (Mind you, it is still incredibly terrible.)
I didn’t say that the doctors were irresponsible. The doctors in Israel are not irresponsible. And not all doctors in Russia were irresponsible. The system is to blame, not individual people.
I mean, what is the point of your argument? That it is not precisely socialism al pi Marx? So what? Call it publicism. Public anything sucks. Public hospitals, public schools, public post, public construction, etc. For a very simple reason — it does not exist in the climate of competition and free market, and it has no way of predicting the changes in the market. Read the essay about Profit and Loss. http://mises.org/daily/2321
So, why have publicism? Even if you were to make a ridiculous argument about charity (that the government needs to force people to give charity), fine — use that as an intermediate step. Pull out the government out of education completely and give people vouchers to use in the private schools of their choice. The details about specifics of funding (since some private schools will be more expensive than others) can be worked out.
After all, the government gives people food stamps, but the government itself is not in the business of food production, b"H.
(In USSR it was. The country with the greatest area of arable land in the world, and with this land being among most fertile in the world had to import grain from Canada. And its collective farms were as successful as anything else Socialism produced. Shall we also blame this on tyrants and the fact that Russians were oppressed by tzars? And whom shall we blame the failure of kibbutzim on? The British? The Turks?)
Also, reading until the third paragraph in the quoted text would answer your question.
So, where are you planning on moving?
To New Hampshire?
And this is what happens to healthcare when there is unfettered capitalism: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande
Doctors prescribe unneeded procedures to make more money.
The bottom line is that irresponsible people can mess up any system.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande
It is Atul Gawande's article about what is going on in certain Texas hospitals.
It’s better to prescribe unneeded procedures to make more money than to underprescribe.
So what? Mechanics fix parts which were not broken or don’t need an immediate fixing. Should we make car repair service government-run?
There are problems with anything, anywhere, anytime. Nothing is perfect. We are not talking about perfect. We are talking about better or worse.
If you have an abusive husband, who is very good at money, and a loving, caring husband who is a space cadet when it comes to money, it’s not a good excuse for saying: “Well, everyone has his faults. This guy beats up his wife. This guy forgets to file tax return. Nobody is perfect.” That is ridiculous. Being a space cadet is a negative trait that needs to be worked on. Wife-beating is grounds for divorce and imprisonment.
"It’s better to prescribe unneeded procedures to make more money than to underprescribe."
So you're having a colonoscopy on Monday?
The whole thing with over-prescribing has been dealt in so many different sources.
Medicine is not different from any other business. Stuff happens in business. There are mistakes; people cheat; people buy lemons; sometimes people suffer, etc. It’s actually the same with any kind of relationship. But problems and dangers in a relationship are not a reason to get the government involved.
But you have just admitted that it isn't an intrinsic part of capitalist medicine that doctors always try to cheat their patients and prescribe unneeded treatments. Surely you would agree with that statement. Socialist medicine is similarly open to the danger of undertreatment. But just as there are ways (suggested in the article) to have more oversight and makes sure that doctors don't see themselves as businessmen, there should also be ways to move socialist doctors to be more vigilant.
No, chv"sh. Where did this logic come from?
Nor am I replacing my car’s engine on Monday, iy"H. But I may be convinced that some pipe is leaking and conned into exchanging it. Or I may go to a second mechanic. Or I may go l’hatchilo to the mechanic that my neighbor recommended as honest.
People always try to sell you more stuff than you want or need to buy. But this is better than people being apathetic and irresponsible about delivering you products. American sales people are annoying, but I’d rather take an annoying American sales person who wants to sell me something I don’t need than a French sales person who wants me to get the hell out of his store.
Do Americans have higher life expectancies than citizens of socialist countries?
I think doctors should see themselves as business people (female doctors also exist, for better or for worse). They should focus on delivering the best possible product to their patients. They should also see it as a calling, sure.
I don’t think nitpicking about the issues solves the question. There are intrinsic problems with government-run enterprise of any kind. So, the only kind of enterprise that we should allow the government to run is that which we cannot absolutely do without government running — law and protection. Everything else, since we can do with a private alternative, the government should butt out.
Higher than in the Soviet Union. I don’t know. Look up the statistics.
But we are not talking about life expectancy. We are talking about quality of health system. American culture (one of the most inferior cultures of the world regarding most issues except economics and politics) presupposes one to eating fatty foods. In Japan, where the system may be worse, they eat more healthy food.
Instead of looking at life expectancy, look at percentage of successful cancer treatments. Successful heart surgeries. Etc.
I also think that if scientists were placed on the market and thought of themselves as business people, rather than recipients of state-run charities, rate of discovery and invention would go up. Maybe back to the superior levels that existed in 19th century.
I don't think that asking about life expectancy is nitpicky. I could take your logic about "every system has problems" and use it for the socialist cause. At least under the socialist system and this is the point) you don't have millions of uninsured.
Don't tell me that charity evolves like technology. The human soul is the human soul. It isn't going to change. Drawing an analogy to the physical world seems absurd to me.
Plus, US gets a lot of immigrants from other countries, which come sick. (There is the same problem with Israel which gets a lot of Russian Jews.)
1. The success and effectiveness of charity depends on the success and effectiveness of society at large.
2. Of course human soul changes. At least the standards do. Back in the day, a lot more things were considered to be ok from the moral point of view than today. E.g., people didn’t care about female education. Should the government force females to learn Gemara?
3. What I was saying is that life expectancy is a sign of health of the population. Health care system, despite its name, is more like Disease care system. It doesn’t create health, it battles diseases. (Just like the Department of Defense is actually the Department of War.) So, we have to look at the effectiveness of its cure of diseases.
Now, I think life expectancy is an important indicator for people personally. We should try to understand why in Japan people live longer. I definitely think it’s the food.
Which is another thing. This was largely Margaret Thatcher’s point: don’t rely on the government to make you healthy. Take an initiative.
Excuse me, what I was I thinking? Of course the human soul changes! After all, A"R states in p"b of L"A that we are literally like the heel as opposed to the head! Our souls are much lower!
Women learning has nothing to do with souls improving. According the Rebbe it is a sign of the coming of Moshiach because of "umaleh haaretz deah at Hashem," etc.
You are right, women learning has nothing to do with souls changing. Because soul has nothing to do with what we are discussing. Women learning became a priority, because social consciousness changed. The way people view the world changed. Not just in women learning. In many other things.
So, that’s the case with charity too. People see charity as a more worthy cause today than they did in 19th century. That is why today they allow D.C.-run mafia to rob them. (Unless people have become bigger idiots over time, which is also possible.)
That’s one aspect. The other is that there is more capital to spread around — we know this, because Obama is spreading it.
Think of all the things you could delegate to the government instead of doing yourself.
How about virus scanning? How about making sure you don’t open any .exe files whose content you don’t know about?
How about AAA? How many people have cars and don’t have AAA coverage.
No. People are still essentially selfish. Even if and when they give charity, they will not carefully choose between competing charity organizations. People most certainly do not see charity as a more worthy cause today than they did in the past.
Unlike all of your other political ideas, your ideas about human nature and charity are very rosy, idealistic, and optimistic. Like all of your other political ideas, they are a little nutty.
You can't compare charity to those other things because people take care of themselves on their own. When Fred is hungry, he goes to make a sandwich from himself. However, they are not very likely to take care of others without prompting. He may throw a few coins at a beggar, but he will not really think about what the beggar needs and fully take care of him.
The first part of what you said: do you have any evidence to back that up?
I have evidence to back up my idea. The people allow the government to stay in power and tax them. Even though many people hate it, the majority still allows it. And then they still pay money to charity.
In 19th century, income tax on modern levels wouldn’t fly. Nor would female suffrage, homosexual marriage, and many other things. People’s consciousness changes.
Yes, believing in liberty is more nutty than believing in socialism. Sure. How many more millions of broken lives do we need before we see the fallacy of socialism? My views of people are too rosy, but your views of the government are not too rosy? I suppose you didn’t actually read any of the articles that I linked to.
So prompt them. Go around and collect money.
Fred won’t know where to buy a sandwitch without commercial either.
Again, this is all talk. I want to see data. Numbers. Tables and graphs.
You say: no way would private charities provide enough money for all the uninsured. I ask: why rely on charity? Why not find them a job? Why won’t the government stimulate more jobs, so that people have more money and have to rely on the government less? How? Support the businesses.
Since no numbers seem to be forthcoming, I will share these two links:
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/product_files/Generosity.pdf
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/Commerce.Web/product_files/The%202002%20Generosity%20Index~~%20Comparing%20Charitable%20Giving%20in%20Canada%20and%20the%20US-genindex.pdf
You mean, laissez-faire (sp?) economics? No regulation? That works? Is that why the economy has historically prospered the most under our Republican presidents like Reagan and the Bushes???
Not to mention all of the jobs that could be had for a decent pay (decent is enough to keep children from starving)in the 19th century with good old l-f...
Some more links:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2007/2007-012.pdf
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=782
Of course, it’s easier to make unfounded statements about the nature of humanity than actually look at the data.
So? There is far less poverty in Canada than in America. Obviously. Since it is a socialist state. These numbers will not be useful unless you compare them to numbers and poverty levels of actual poor people in the area.
Answer to both: yes. Economics improved under Reagan and Thatcher. And 19th century capitalism allowed people to work. It allowed children also to work. Do you know what children did before they went to work on factories? They died from famine or engaged in prostitution. Oh, the evils of capitalism!
Re: poverty: I am not sure I follow.
Re: Reagan. Simply untrue.
Re: working: so? Families were still starving. The children worked and then they died. They did not earn enough.
If I live in Utopia and my neighbors don't need my help then I won't give charity. If I live in Canada and my neighbors need less help then I will give less charity. So just comparing numbers (or numbers per capita) is not really effective.
Re: Reagan: I suppose asking for numbers will be ineffective.
Re: families: and children die today too, from cancer. Therefore what? Society improves.
Re: US vs. Canada: but the point is, when the government gives less, people give more.
Anyway, I still maintain that the way to make people richer is not free soup, but better economy.
from a wikipedia article on reaganomics:
A recession occurred in 1982, his second year in office. This was central to Volcker's campaign against inflation: applying either the Phillips Curve or the NAIRU theory, high unemployment (more than 10 % of the labor force in both 1982 and 1983) undercuts inflation. Reagan benefited from the fact that Volcker relented (shifting to more expansionary monetary policy) after inflation had largely been beaten. Further, the sudden fall in oil prices around 1986 helped the economy attain demand growth without inflation in the late 1980s.
The job growth under the Reagan administration was an average of 2.1% per year, which is in the middle of the pack of twentieth-century Presidents.[citation needed] Comparing the recovery from the 1981-82 recession (1983-1990) with the years between 1971 (end of a recession) and 1980 shows that the rate of growth of real GDP per capita averaged 2.77 under Reagan and 2.50% under Nixon, Ford and Carter. However, the unemployment rate averaged higher under Reagan (6.75% vs. 6.35%), average productivity growth was slower under Reagan (1.38% vs. 1.92%) and private investment as a percentage of GDP also averaged lower under Reagan (16.08% vs. 16.86%). Furthermore, real wages declined during the Reagan Presidency.[37] What makes this comparison so significant is that between 1971 and 1980 the economy suffered a severe recession in 1975 whereas during the Reagan recovery there was no such interruption.[38]
Re: improvement: But I thought that we agreed that there are unchanging laws of economics just as there are unchanging laws of nature. And I am saying that, in the past, laissez faire has not worked!
Re: US and Canada: It is not such a complicated point that I am making. Your response is no response.
This "people being richer" phrase sounds like "duels are fun." "War is interesting." I don't think that richness is something to be taken into account. Healthy and moderately comfortable should be the goal.
Actually, Rothbard attacks Reagonomics as having achieved exactly opposite of what it was supposed to achieve, by making the government only larger. Anyway, I need to examine the numbers and opinions more carefully. Even if you’re right and it didn’t work, it was because the goals he claimed to desire achieving were not achieved.
Laws of Biology don’t change, but species become more complex with time. Life improves. It didn’t solve the problem back then but neither did the involvement of the government. The problem was not solved completely every. There are people living below poverty in all states. We need to see what contributes to greater prosperity: free market or socialism.
I said that people will give more if US government gets out of the charity business, and I used the articles to support. Plus, read the sources I provided after US vs. Canada.
People being richer should be the goal of any society. It’s what the society is all about: making life better. You’re living right now an extremely luxurious lifestyle by 19th century standards. Who is to say what is moderate? Is having two pairs of tefillin moderate or minimal? What about wine for kiddush? What about chicken and beef for Shabbos?
http://mises.org/daily/1544
Look at this circus: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=58125
Re: Reagan: No. there were more unemployed in his era than in other eras.
Re: US and Canada: and I am saying that I don't care about how much people give (gavra). I care about how much people are taken care of (cheftza). Those studies only look at the gavra and therefore tell me nothing about the effectiveness of private charity.
I thought that you didn't believe in society? You think that the point is "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property." You see the founding fathers as the heroes of this country. But the Rebbe saw the pilgrims as the heroes. And quality of life cannot be assessed by looking at material things like that.
Value of life is a better way of expressing what I mean than quality of life. It is about duties and not rights.
Also, guess what the pilgrims were? Christians and not atheists. And the Rebbe liked them.
I despise political correctness. I speak the English language, not some tongue concocted by people who have no sense of history and are half-computers themselves. Business-people, indeed!
That’s one sensible thing I have heard in this thread of comments yet.
But there were business women (e.g., the wife of Chofetz Chayim... until he closed down the business, that is). And there are.
(read?)
“Let me tell you something, newbie: doctors are men. Doctors-women are men. Doctors-children are men. And for G-d’s sake, doctors-men are men.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENEMCdPjq1c
Sorry, wrong clip.
Here’s the one I meant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbPXprKOybw (the audio is a bit off)
But you were the one who was encouraging political correctness. What happened to that?
Basically, you consider any new idea which sounds anti-establishment to be eminently sensible. That is an emotional reaction. I understand that emotion, but I don't think that it is a good reason to neglect the poor.
(I only use ad hominem attacks when they are true).
I guess this means that you surrender. Let's all vote for Obama next election.
I was not encouraging PC. I was calling it as it is. There are business women. Therefore, “business people” (most women are people too).
Just because I don’t respond to every outrageous statement while slicing brains after the midnight (I just got home), while also trying to attack people who try to destroy our tradition, doesn’t mean I have surrendered. Anyway, you have to stop thinking in terms of correlations and start thinking in terms of mechanisms. I.e., stop thinking Russia/American/Canada and start thinking in terms “why did socialism fail in Russia”.
In order to understand that — the causality — one needs to understand the basics of free market. What is the purpose of market, and why does it have to be private. For that, see the essay “Profit and Loss” that is available on mises.org that I sent you.
To see why we shouldn’t vote for Obama see the essay on the causes of crisis by Rothbard that I sent you.
Also, what do you mean by helping the poor? How poor one must be to be qualified for help, and what should that help include? For example, food — fine. What about a car? What about clothes? What about a Shabbos suit? Cancer treatment — fine. What about dentist plan? What about orthodontist plan? Where do you draw the line and how?
I still repeat that the best way to help the poor is allow them help themselves by giving them jobs in a healthy economy.
http://mises.org/daily/609
http://mises.org/daily/2526
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-001-x/89-001-x2007001-eng.pdf
“The authors also find that the skill mix of immigrants matters in determining their impact on the wages of domestic workers. Since a significantly higher proportion of immigrants to Canada are highly skilled this has had the
effect of curtailing the growth of earnings of the most affluent Canadians and dampening a labour market trend to higher earnings inequality.
In the United States the opposite has happened, with a much higher proportion of lower skilled immigrants depressing the earnings of low paid Americans and exacerbating earnings inequality.”
Plus, US has after-effect of slavery. V’dal.
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