Say Anything Blog

The ship of state nestles so gently into the port of socialism, while the democratic tug boats coax it into place.

Where are the Republican submarines when you need them.

Gman ( o)==:::

No Shoulder Shrugs.  A lie left unchallenged soon becomes the truth.

One Big Ass Mistake, America

Gman,

Evidently out to sea, frigging regrouping! Man the torpeodoes!

Actually, that’s exactly what nationalized healthcare looks like.

Seth,

We know, that’s why it’s so scary. i have friends all over the world, through my businesses, mostly. I have many in China, some in Canada. They hate their health care. I had a very good friend in Canada die from breast cancer because she had to wait for surgery, wait for chemo, and then she couldn’t afford all her meds, so they had to start selling their cars, furniture, etc, to pay for everything. She was only 35. My Chinese friends don’t understand our ins. They think I am making it up when I tell them that we can go to the doctor at a QuickCare and just walk in and be seen in 10-15min, and then go pick up meds in about another 20-30min. I have tried to explain this 1 hr. from start to finish to them. They are so shocked! Course this a place where a man has to be able to buy a house before he marries.

I lived in Laos for four years, where they have a national free health insurance for all and set prices for all procedures. It is, at quick blush, much like what the leftists want to implement here.

Of course, in Laos the doctors would ignore you unless you paid extra under the table. So there was the price, and then the real price. What’s more, since there was such a demand placed on doctors, many were sent abroad to other third world countries to be rushed through medical school to meet demand. As a result, the quality of care was quite sub-par (in fact, quite often fatal). These effects are both the result of simple, predictable cause and effect.

So even with a system to “help” the poor, the poor come out behind. The only effect is poorer care for the middle and upper classes.

Of course, in Laos the doctors would ignore you unless you paid extra under the table. So there was the price, and then the real price.

Such black market dealings are to be expected in a system with price controls.  The laws of supply and demand care very little for what politicians think procedures should cost.  If demand for a service exceeds supply you’d expect some sort of relief valve to develop.  I Laos it’s clearly bribery.

In America, where you’d expect better enforcement against bribery, it’s likely to be rationing of services.  Waiting lists, in other words, just like Canada and Great Britain and Australia and other places around the world.

I wonder, Seth, if Laos with its unofficial system of bribery has a problem with wait times and how that problem would compare to, say, Canada.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

Bribery is more a function of the salaries being set by the government (they are, of course, full on communist and not “mere” socialists). When your wage is set below the cost of living, you almost certainly WILL resort to corrupt means to live.

It’s the maxim “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” in action: no incentive to excel as excess is taken, your level of need predetermined and not connected to reality. The great failings of communism and socialism are that need is determined by others and incentives are removed. Corruption is inevitably increased, and it will increase here (although perhaps not to Lao levels).

All the above are the predictable and inevitable results of the meeting of leftist economic theory with human nature. Not only can it happen here, it will happen here if we go through with this insanity. The only questions are when, and how bad.

...oh, and to your question: wait times aren’t bad in Laos…if you have money.

You’re always better off going across the border to Thailand if you have money, though.

legalized extortion.

Great explanation, Seth. I’ve never lived over there, just have to go on what I’m told. Most of my friends are in Bejing and Shanghai, so I only know what they say. Money IS the thing that divides the difference. I pay the people who work for me there fairly well, yet, they are considered rich! They are all women, so they tell me a lot of personal medical stuff. They have to pay a chunk under the table to go to a real doctor for something as simple as a papsmear. The dentist cost an arm and a leg, unless you are willing to have crappy teeth. I just think it’s wild that someone would have to wait 2 months to get a tooth fixed, even if it’s killing you, and then it’s a piss poor job. I don’t know if that’s what we are heading to, but I’ll pass. I already pay $30,000 a year for health insurance, way more than probably anybody else here, but I have a lot of health problems, so does my hubby, but at least I get great care. I’d rather pay the money.