Why people are afraid of universal health care

[Toni]

The only question is whether their wait is mandated by doctors, or by accountants.

It's always by accountants. The only question is whether they work for the insurance company or the government.

You are wrong.

Worse, you are mistaking your own personal situation for some kind of inescapable law of nature that must be universally true; And are thereby complicit in your own opression, from which you believe that not only no escape is likely, but that no escape is even possible or imaginable.

You think it's the doctor making the decision.

I can, however, assure you that decisions regarding waiting times for specific patients in both Australia and the UK are made by doctors, on medical grounds, and without consulting any accountants.

NHS medical staff don't even have routine access to information about costs. The doctors neither know nor care which treatment options cost the most.

Myopic. The doctors decide who goes on the waiting list but the doctors have no say in how long the wait is. That's the government by means of deciding how much money to allocate.

Money is always allocated by some governing bodies. The government may allocate $X towards any particular medical center or hospital or region, using whatever criteria they utilize in such decisions BUT I am certain that each hospital abd medical center has a director and a governing board who allocate various resources according to whatever budgetary constraints they have. And I’m also certain that ORs are allocated according to needs, known or anticipated. The government t dies not make those decisions— the hospital directors do.

Which seems preferable to the insurance companies doing the same thing while keeping a hefty portion of the premiums they receive for the benefit if their CEOs, board of directors and stockholders.

Except, of course, when one has a fascist regime in charge as was just elected in the US. I don’t like any of our odds here in the US.

 

[Swammerdami]

The latest free-to-view Hartmann Report is titled "Were It Not for White Supremacy, America Would Have Single-payer Healthcare." Way back in 1912 Teddy Roosevelt ran for President proposing government-paid healthcare but was stymied by the "teachings" of Frederick Ludwig Hoffman. Here are a few excerpts:

. . . The simple fact is that, were it not for slavery, white supremacy, and the legacy of “scientific racism,” America would have had a national, single-payer healthcare system in 1915, just 31 years after Germany put into place the modern world’s first such program.

At the center of the effort to prevent a national healthcare system — or any form of government assistance that may even incidentally offer benefit to African Americans — were Frederick Ludwig Hoffman and the Prudential Life Insurance Company, which promoted his “science based” racial theories to successfully fight single-payer health insurance.

. . .
In 1980, David Koch famously ran for vice president of the United States under the banner of the Libertarian Party, an organization founded a few decades earlier by big business to give an economic rationale and political patina to their simple theory that economics were more important than democracy, and the quality of life of working people should be decided in the “free marketplace” instead of by unions or through democratic processes via government regulation.

In this, Koch and his Libertarian friends were echoing Frederick Hoffman.

In his 1896 book Race Traits, Hoffman laid out his “scientific” assertion that when government steps in to help people, it invariably ends up hurting them instead. Not only should there be no government assistance given to help African Americans recover from three centuries of property theft, forced labor, and legal violence, but it is scientifically wrong to even consider the idea.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Apparently murdering a scumbag is now considered terrorism, as Luigi Mangeone is being charged with terrorism as well as first degree murder, as apparently what he did caused people to be terrified. Considering the massive celebrating that occurred he should be charged with the opposite of terrorism, such as counter-terrorism and engendering joy and hope in the populace.
The only people terrified were other scumbags.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Apparently murdering a scumbag is now considered terrorism, as Luigi Mangeone is being charged with terrorism as well as first degree murder, as apparently what he did caused people to be terrified. Considering the massive celebrating that occurred he should be charged with the opposite of terrorism, such as counter-terrorism and engendering joy and hope in the populace.
The only people terrified were other scumbags.

I think terrorism is a stretch. This is likely based on his writing a manifesto (ideological goal) and the act's affect on the population. Domestic terrorism "Appears to intend to intimidate or coerce a population" by definition. So what? They are calling this coercion? "Persuading someone to do something by use of force"? More like, persuading someone to do the right thing by use of force.

Lesson learned: Never write a manifesto. Save it for closing arguments. And I hope Mangione delivers his own closing arguments.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

I can kind of agree that what was done here was unjust.

What should have happened was that the UHC CEO got shot in the pancreas with a cancer gun and have had all of his treatment claims denied -as all of his wealth diminished to bankruptcy over the next 24 months of excruciating non-covered treatment prior to his death.

Ending life permanently and immediately is a favor in the United States compared to the alternative for most of us.

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