Is this the great benefits of socialized medicine?

[Rye]

In all fairness, it didn't really change the content/thrust of his post.

[Darth Wong]

Actually, I thought the new phpbb let you see the edits so you could check?

It doesn't show the edit. It just makes a note that it was in fact edited. Of course, not all edits are necessarily malicious or dishonest; someone might simply look at his post and decide that he wants to add something, or spot something he doesn't like. That's why people often quote what they're replying to in contentious debates.

[Stark]

In all fairness, it didn't really change the content/thrust of his post.

Yeah you're right, he just elaborated. It was more amusing when it was a simplistic one-liner, however, and my response looks tardy by comparison now. I'll learn to quote instead of using quick-reply one day.

It doesn't show the edit. It just makes a note that it was in fact edited.

My mistake; when the software was changed I thought one of the mods talked about being able to see different versions of posts.

[Edi]

We can see the mod logs, if we modify someone else's post, such as me fixing a couple of quote blocks a few weeks back and that sort of thing. It doesn't show version history if people edit their own posts.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Actually, I thought the new phpbb let you see the edits so you could check?

Not from what I can see. I can lock the post to prevent edits, but I cannot revert it back to its original incarnation. We'll just have to go by quoting in this case.

[Serafina]

Drug costs (which IS a vaild bitch!) are VERY high. Why?

Now THATS a story to tell!

Drug costs have NOTHING in common with anything that could be called "reason" - its all about profit (at least in the countries where the goverment is not limiting the prices).

Lets take an example: There is a drug used on horses (to treat a certain, horse-specific eye disease) which happened to be usable to treat eye cancer. It was actually better at it than previously used drugs.
Given that the drug was produced for animals and needed in huge quantities, it was cheap.
You see, producing something that nobody can afford is pointless, so prices were kept low.

Now, what happens? We got a better treatment, which is way cheaper (less than 1/10 the price).
Thats good, is it?
Well the drug was used "undercover" for a short time. For a drug to be used for a certain treatment. there has to be a governemt approval (based on industry-financed studys). There was no such approval for this drug and its use to treat eye cancer. You can use an unapproved drug, but only if there is no alternative.
Some doctors used the cheaper alternative anyway, despite it being illegeal (as there was an alternative).

Now, a company is buying the recipe for the horse drug, and, 2 months later, releases a "new" drug.
This drug gets a goverment approval, but is way more expensive than the horse drug (~8 times the price).
Now its virtually impossible to use the original horse drug on humans, despite it being virtually the same as the "new" one and eight times cheaper.

Where does this dramatic price increase come from?
Simple, a drug for animals has to be cheap - no one is going to invest tens of thousands on an animal (or at least not a lot of people). And it was needed in huge quantities, further reducing the price.
But something curing cancer? Which is only needed once in low quantities? You can raise the prices like hell.

You see, people are actually paying for treatment. Something curing a more dangerous disease is worth more.
Sounds reasonable?
Well, no. There is no link to the actual cost of the drug (research/production). If you happen to produce it cheaper, thats means more profit. If you decrease the treatment time, you just raise the cost per dose.

If you are sick, you have NO choice. You need the treatment, and you are goind to pay for it (or you insurance).
If you are scared more, you are willing to pay more.

Thats why i support govermental price controll. A better treatment should be worth more, but prices have to be tied to research and production costs, NOT how scarded people are of the sickness it is intended to cure.

[Patrick Degan]

Did you miss the whole part about public pressure forcing a change in that policy? That's democracy in action, which applies to a government but will not work with an insurance company.

Because that outcry so brought back their lost vision. An HMO may try to pull this stunt but all of them wont.

HMOs DO pull stunts like that, and can get away with it and there's fuck-all any of the members in it can do about the matter, since it's all in the fine print you need an electron microscope and an intravenous amphetamine drip to read through.

When Britain pulled this shit it hit every person in the country. That is the difference. When one group of people makes the calls for everyone their fuckups hit everyone. When one HMO pulls this it affects a few people till they get their asses taken to court.

Except if you can't sue for lack-of-grounds to do so, if you signed the agreement but didn't bother to read the fine-print. That's why HMOs have armies of lawyers on payroll; not to deal with the odd lawsuit but to tinker the terms of contract to make it impossible for you to sue when they decide to fuck you over.

Believe me, boy, the last thing HMOs are scared of is being taken to court by a dissatisfied customer, or his/her estate.

[K. A. Pital]

Instead of universal healthcare bringing everyone up to the same level of care, we are going to push everyone down to an arbitrary and cost effective lower level of care.

You don't understand what "arbitrary" means, right? It can't be "arbitrary" and "cost-effective" at the same time. And you're saying currently the poor are getting "cost effective" care, or any care at all? Your whole argument is just a badly kitbashed rant. It's not a comparative study. It's, plain and simple, bull-shit.

Dying people are a liability, not a growing market - what kind of morbid joke is that? Making people pay for treatment does not mean it would magically save the elderly poor, because they aren't able to pay that - how hard is it to grasp it? The price of last-year care as shown by others already, is great, and thus it would be the greater part of a financial burden for a corporation. The high price would thus cut off all recipients unable to pay. End of story, and end of the argument.

Come next time when you can compose a more coherent argument about socialized care. Oh, and if you're willing to play with the "it heals X more people compared to status quo, but kills Y more rich people whose standard of care is forcibly downgraded", here's a thought for you, as long as X>Y that's okay. No people have an exclusive greater right to life than others, that may come as a surprise to you, but it really isn't.

[LaCroix]

As far as I know, cutting some fingers off with a hacksaw in the US leads to the decision, "which ones would you like to be reattached, this one would cost 15.000, this one 20.000,..."

Under socialized healthcare, you get all of them back, with no price tag.

Also, since doctors and drugs are not crimminally overpaid under socialized health care, the pricetag of the whole operation would be a few 1000$, not a few 100.000$.

Old people with an incureable, permanent degenerative illness are not given treatment immediately - problem got solved instantly - you whine.

Young people with asthma or something don't even get healthcare by private insurances or people loose their insurance coverage because of new illness or shady policies by profit-seeking insurances - perfectly fine.

Let me tell you - somewhere, somehow a big magnet got installed on your mental compass. You're so off course, it's not even funny anymore.

Just one fact. People in europe are having nightmares about being subjected to the US healthcare system. A system where a simple accident might lead to bankrupcy with hundred thousand dollars debt.

Get your head checked, it's worth your money.

[mr friendly guy]

I did not know socialized medicine meant telling the elderly (basically the ones not rich enough to avoid using Medicare) that they should accept dying based on a financial cost-effective computation.

You make it sound sooo simplistic, except things aren't that simple.

1. You presume that the treatment will improve outcome, and its just a matter of costs. If they are elderly and really sick where doctors would recommend not to treat, it usually is because its not likely to work, so the resources can be better spent on other things.
For example an elderly patient with multiple co mordities (lets say heart problems) may not survive surgery (for another condition, say a bowel obstruction) whilst a younger person without other medical problems has a better chance of doing it. See Broomstick's example with her own mother.
Lets not forget prolonging suffering which brings me to my next point

2. Quality of life.
There are treatments which can prolong life, but what is the point if they are just going to suffer. We can keep a Terry Schiavo or even just a person with severe dementia alive by inserting tubes into them and feeding them, but what's the ultimate point? Why would you live when there is no enjoyment of life and no hope for something to improve so that they can again enjoy life?

Or is this how right wing retards see things? Simple black and white, dead or alive. Where we keep corpses around that should have long ago been laid to rest, just to sate some morally bankrupted philosophy? Does not the concept of human suffering weigh into your thinking?

How young does someone have to be to deserve the costs to add a full year to their life?

Assuming for a moment that we don't have the resources to give to to both an old person and young person, you cannot see the difference between allowing a 16 year old person to live so that they can experience more of life versus extending the life of an old 100+ person who already has lived a reasonably good life?

This is also assuming of course, the above 2 points I mentioned are equal in both the young and older person.

Now I will be the first to say there is no black or white cut off point, however you seem to think there is no goddamn difference.

[Pablo Sanchez]

You see, people are actually paying for treatment. Something curing a more dangerous disease is worth more.

It has been pointed out that managing health care with markets is stupid, because demand for the avoidance of death is unlimited.

[Serafina]

You see, people are actually paying for treatment. Something curing a more dangerous disease is worth more.

It has been pointed out that managing health care with markets is stupid, because demand for the avoidance of death is unlimited.

Well, thats just part of my standard rant against german pharmacist law.

Other than that, it seems that we completly agree.

P.S. More comments than just one-liners would be nice

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, healthcare is an infinite demand market, which right there shows you how silly it is to try and apply capitalist principles to it (my biological father still, as far as I know, has several hundred bottles of various longevity formulas and pills of dubious to genuine effect in this cabinets, that he spends hundreds of dollars or more on a month; the man, at 91, between his army retirement, the fact they force him to take social security, and he continues to work, has an income of 100k-bills or more a year, but blows a sizeable amount on that ridiculous stuff. Growing up around him was an enlightening lesson in how it can, in fact, be beautiful to accept death by the time you're past 90 or so. It always hurt me to see such a grand man who's lived through so many adventures clearly afraid, though I in fairness compliment how he grimly carries on at things even now, still working whilst his body decays around him).