Just Going to Leave This Piece of Epic Win Here...

[TerranUp16]

[~VanMavus]

So, in effect: No to Obama?

[Dragonskull]

I know too little about America to even grasp the irony.

[TerranUp16]

(08-17-2009 03:11 AM)~VanMavus Wrote:  So, in effect: No to Obama?

?

No, it's for Obama- the image is part of the irony. Basically, there is massive opposition to the current healthcare proposal because it very slightly increases government involvement in healthcare (generally negligibly; the biggest involvement is the "public plan" but essentially that is just taking tax dollars to start-up a non-profit government insurance entity that is to compete with existing private insurers with the intent of forcing insurers to stop the myriad of BS they are partaking in now and to demonstrate that prevention is actually a fiscally superior route compared to the current method of insurance companies getting out of paying for everything they can and thus the health of their customers deteriorates to the point where they require a massively expensive operation or procedure that the insurance company cannot wriggle its way out of; the public plan is also intended to offer an option for those who fall through the cracks of the current private plans because of pre-existing conditions and etc).

So the post is basically going through a typical day and pointing out various government services that expedite industry and life in general and the positive impacts that those have and combating the seriously flawed thought that government involvement always = bad.

Total side note, but to give some further context to this debate for non-Americans, people have gone on to profess their love for Medicare while at the same time flaming the proposed healthcare reform because of its government involvement. It's amazing how some people absolutely fail to recognize that Medicare is basically a government-run insurance program for the elderly. The current proposed healthcare reform is effectively that but not restricted to the elderly and far less intrusive/extensive than Medicare as well- so if such people harbor no fear about Medicare and in fact love it... well, it makes rather little sense that they oppose this. And really, if they would pick their heads up out of their asses and learn the facts they probably wouldn't oppose it but this being America it only takes a couple of asshats to spread some lies and rumors and all of a sudden it's, "OMGWTF THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO TURN COMPLETELY SOCIALIST AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" because most of us here haven't yet learned the fact that government fears us (the people) more than we *should* fear it...

[~VanMavus]

Why is America so anti-socialism?

[Dragonskull]

Just for the fun of it, Norwegian possible version of a 'normal day' :

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by one of the many private power providers. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by one of the many water utilities, naturally the closest one. After that, I turned on the TV and switched on one of the many available channels to see what one of the many meteorologic stations predicted for today's weather (who made the satellites and who launched I don't know, but they were probably inspired by the NASA version). I watched this while eating my breakfast of Norwegian Food Safety Authority inspected food.

At the appropriate time (according to my cell phone), I get into my car (that the local Automobile Repair Shop, in accordance to the standards set by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, has claimed safe to drive for another two years) and set out to work on the roads built by Norwegian Public Roads Administration, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel from one of the many private stations that sell fuel they have bought from one of the few private oil companies. On the way to work I deposit any mail I ahve to be sent out via a red mailbox placed somewhere clever, where the Norwegian postal service will collect the mail and make sure it is transported to the correct address within a few days. I also drop my daughter off at the public school, and my, older, son at a private school.

After work, I drive my car back home on the NPRA roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence due to the local fire department and the common wit of a Norwegian, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.

.. I don't know why I did that.. just occurred to me that it's sort of different here.

[WG]

Norway eh... a state owned entity, Statkraft, owns and controls like 40% of Norway's energy production. It also has a majority share (more than 50%) in most of the other power companies in the country. Its pretty much a state backed monopoly even though the market is unregulated.

91% of Norway's water consumption is drawn from public services run by the "Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development" and "Ministry of Health and Care Services".

As for fuel, Statoil which is 71% owned by the government, controls over 60% of Norway's fossil fuel production. The government then also has direct ownership over part of the country's oil production through the State Direct Financial Interest (SDFI).

---

Pretty much all industrialized nations have basic essential services like transportation/fuel, water, power, (and in many, health care), etc lined up in large government backed monopolies that keep prices lower, regardless of regulation status. The point of the image, in regards to the current BS going on in the US, is to highlight the idiotic hypocrisy of all the people opposing health care reform because they don't want the government to be involved as doing so would be pushing "socialism"; Its an old scare tactic to make people blindly take sides without having any idea of whats actually going on. Its rather sickening as health care reform is very badly needed here.

[Dragonskull]

It might be Statkraft (Nationpower) owns and controls 40% of the energy production, but hardly any of that goes to private households. Though I agree, the government has a hand within all the energy production - anything else would be catastrophic, then all the private energy companies could export their power to other countries and possibly get better paid, and then Norwegians would be stuck with incredibly high power prices because Statkraft can't produce enough to keep up the current usage.

I didn't say the water utilities were private. They're pretty much regional, one lake provides water to the nearest cities (and then the "state" in which the lake is in is in charge of the water utility, and they are regulated by national regulations).

Statoil (Nationoil) does not exist any more, the government sold it to Hydro (though without checking details I'm pretty sure the government owns at least 50% of the stocks) - both Norwegian oil-'giants' ..
-
Health-care in Norway is pretty much a government monopoly (except for some specialists and alternative medicine - homoeopathy f.ex) - so if you get ill, or are involved in an accident, you get so-to-speak free treatment at a hospital (a symbolic price, and it reaches a maximum of 1700NoK per year).

[~VanMavus]

Anyone wanna do one for North Korea ?

[Cokemonkey11]

I'm gonna have to agree, epic win.

It's nice to see the benefits anon outputs on occasion.

[~VanMavus]

(Is it just me.. or does it seem like everything he says involves a government administrated/controlled group (at least, in Australia everything he's talking about is controlled by the government). Isn't that the whole point of socialism?

[Dragonskull]

^Exactly, Mavus. It's called irony. >_<

[aja]

(08-25-2009 06:01 AM)Dragonskull Wrote:  ^Exactly, Mavus. It's called irony. >_<

Haven't had my say, but this is totally right. Besides, even if involving government is not so good, take one long look at the insurance companies and the companies that were in/caused the bailout.

It would actually be an improvement.

Besides, second, the businesses answer to the bottom line. Government has to answer to the people. Or maybe it's to the businesses, I never can tell...

[~VanMavus]

(08-25-2009 06:01 AM)Dragonskull Wrote:  ^Exactly, Mavus. It's called irony. >_<

Holy moses. I think I totally took this the wrong way? So he's in favour of socialism? I'm so confused ^_^.

----------------
Now playing: Guus Meeuwis - Proosten
via FoxyTunes

[Dragonskull]

He's not necessarily in favour of socialism, he just argues that it can't be all bad. At least that's what I get from it.

[TerranUp16]

Basically, the programs that the OP references are not considered "socialist" programs in the US. The proposed additions to healthcare are similar in their scope, therefore it seems rather hypocritical to label those additions "socialist".

[Dragonskull]

What are they if they are not considered socialistic?

[TerranUp16]

(08-25-2009 05:55 PM)Dragonskull Wrote:  What are they if they are not considered socialistic?

Liberal?

[~VanMavus]

Liberal is such a stupid word. In Australia it means something totally different to the American version

[Dragonskull]

Sorry, but I can't see how they are not socialistic, and neither do I understand why they would be considered liberal. Is it liberal that the government provide roads? Does it serve equal rights? No it doesn't, not according to everyone. Of course, everything can be twisted into what you want it to be, I am capable of providing a viable argument for why it is not liberal, while others will be able to provide a just as good argument supporting the opposite- therefore there's no use really trying, but personally, providing roads to drive on does not equal liberalism because it supports the rich more than the poor, it supports pollution and is a disgrace to anyone who really does care about the environment. I just chose roads as an example.

A more liberal cause is the water utilities, but by stamping a price on it, the liberalism simply vanishes, not all can afford water from a spring - thus it is not liberal to provide such water. Liberal would be to give it out for free. Socialism is making sure the price is affordable for most and that no private entity hauls profit from it.

Socialism- a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

There is no doubt that all these things that he describes in his text are examples of socialism. The grade of socialism can be discussed, but something 'half-socialism' is still socialism and not (necessarily, of course it CAN be) liberal.

[TerranUp16]

"Socialism is making sure the price is affordable for most and that no private entity hauls profit from it."

But that isn't the intent- actually, some of the measures are even potential profit boosters. It's point of view to a degree, but my point about the "socialist" bit (though liberalism imo is defined a tad differently... but that is something that is generally defined on a per country basis) though is that the connotation being inflected on such claims is essentially full-on socialism where the government has complete control over the healthcare system and that the government is paying EVERYONE'S doctors and thereby holds sway over everything in the most extreme manner. That is the connotation that Americans tend to slap on socialism and this is obviously not that.

[~VanMavus]

Well Americans are for the most part idiots... and we know this already .

Also the idea that government controls all healthcare seems like a good idea.
Your government should be controlling most of the private sector the way the CEO's are running it... right into the ground. >_> Ugh.

[Dragonskull]

(08-26-2009 02:13 PM)TerranUp16 Wrote:  .. full-on socialism where the government has complete control over the healthcare system and that the government is paying EVERYONE'S doctors and thereby holds sway over everything in the most extreme manner. That is the connotation that Americans tend to slap on socialism and this is obviously not that.

That's essentially how it is in Norway, can't quite see the negativity in it. Anyhow I don't know anything about these health-care plans in the US.

[~VanMavus]

Well. Basically the Health Insurance places are hiring doctors (which they now call "Wellness Delivery Professionals" who work at "Health Maintenance Organizations" --- WTF America. Just call them Doctors and Hospitals.) who'll turn down insurance claims. So the Health Insurance companies are raking in fortunes and giving bonuses to whichever doctor denies the most applications for Insurance claims.

Anyway. It's all f-ed in a-. America seriously needs the world just to turn around and say "Shut the f--k up. We're so sick of you."

All America does is fight wars and annoy the rest of the world >_>.

I know I'm off topic. Just ranting about America. We should get all the citizens out who pass a sensibility test, but other then that let's just bomb them. And the Middle East.

[Dragonskull]

So basically, you need an insurance to get medical help in the US. That's absurd.

[WG]

Dragonskull > Eh, not really. You can get medical care easily enough, its just that it cost more money than is should. People pay into an insurance plan which is supposed to help them pay medical costs should you suddenly find yourself sick or in an emergency. The problem is that the insurance companies are pretty damn greedy and don't like to actually help you if they can find anyway possible way to get out of it. And will drop you're coverage when you need it most if they can find anyway way to do so. On top of that they drive up costs for health care considerably over time.

Health care reform is sort of a misleading label as its really not about health care itself; "Insurance Policy Reform" is a far more accurate and its very badly needed. Unfortunately there are a lot of dumb people out there who will listen and jump on a bandwagon for some cause about which they are rather ignorant (that is not exclusive to America though). There is also a lot of money out there for the current insurance sector to push into lobbying and public relations campaigns to try to sabotage any real progress in such reform by manipulating said dumb people.



Van > ... I don't know what America your talking about; Doctors are called doctors not "Wellness Delivery Professionals", hospitals are called hospitals, not "Health Maintenance Organizations" and no, issuance companies don't hire doctors. Seems that you easily buy into a lot of negativity about Americans without really knowing much yourself... Unfortunately there are a lot of dumb people out there who will listen and jump on a bandwagon for some cause about which they are rather ignorant (that is not exclusive to America though).

[TerranUp16]

Doesn't quite work that way... The way it works currently is that you have doctors and etc and they're all private entities. If you don't have insurance, you need to pay a sizable amount for each doctor visit, trip to the hospital, etc... If you have insurance, you pay a sizable amount per a year and pay much, much smaller copays for each visit and such. Most people get health insurance through their employer (aka for "free" as a benefit of working for the company and the company pays the insurance provider yearly while the employee pays the copays and such). *Most* Americans have some kind of health insurance (though there are ~40 million that don't and that is a significant problem).

Medicare and Medicaide programs also exist and basically act as government insurance entities that are tax-payer subsidized to offer care to the elderly for Medicare and the very poor for Medicaide. Obviously, there are coverage gaps and basically, the system has come to be structured in such a way that it is pretty much expected that you have insurance and operations and procedures and etc actually tend to cost people without insurance... which is another major issue. The way this actually incurs governmental expense and such is that hospitals need to treat ER patients no matter what so they tend to lose a lot of money as people without insurance tend to use the ER as a doctor's office (and this also increases ER wait times which are horrific here which is why I kinda LOL every time some asswipe brings up how Canada and etc have "wait times" for doctor's appointments- never mind that to start with, those are only generally waits for non-essential procedures such as cosmetics and etc, but our most vital wait times are significantly worse than theirs).

So anyway, where HMO's and such come into all of this is that they are essentially specialized healthcare providers that often are cheaper but they restrict what doctors you can see and such. I'd say that they're not an issue and that capitalism takes care of the issue as people who don't want that can simply avoid HMO's, but because healthcare is generally provided through your employer, the true capitalist system of proper competition never really comes into play. Which is another of the great ironies of the situation currently where we effectively have business-instantiated "socialism" as opposed to government-instantiated "socialism" for healthcare.

Heath insurers tend to be asshats though. As WG indicated above, they spend hordes of resources trying to find ways to not cover you when you need that coverage. They rarely support preventative measures and because of this they tend to have to deal with chronic issues far more often. Part of the current reform package is to shift towards an emphasis on prevention which should actually benefit all involved financially over time. But this is one of those things where, as usual, businesses are focusing on the trees instead of the forest- the short-term, right here, right now bottom line instead of the consistent long-term bottom line. Insurers also will block coverage for people with "pre-existing conditions" (aka, if the insurance company knows that they are going to be losing money on someone, they're not going to cover them; it makes financial sense but the issue is that the entire healthcare industry has been wrapped so heavily around the concept of insurance that it completely f**ks those people over for reasons that are far beyond their control).

Kinda a side note, but insurers as of late have been doing more and more of what people fear the government will do- imposing cost-cutting measures that negatively impact the quality of service to the consumer. For example, whereas usually I would get my prescriptions from a local pharmacy, I am now *forced* to use an online service, MedCo, which provides 90-day supplies of medicine through the mail because my insurer has worked out a deal with them. #1 issue imo is that is completely subverting the core concept of capitalism as I am locked into my insurer and I am also now locked into a drug distributor. However, this also causes significant issues when, for example when I got my concussion and they needed to experiment with various prescriptions to find one that worked- a 90 day supply is not conducive to that. Also, if something fooks-up, there is a sizable turn-around in rectifying any mistakes in the order process which can leave you without medication that you need as opposed to being able to drive two miles to the pharmacy and get it all sorted in ten minutes. Finally, in a somewhat parallel manner, insurance companies are increasingly just switching prescriptions to generics and other, cheaper medications without informing their clients beforehand. My provider did this to my Keppra which I take to combat my post-concussion symptoms and I hadn't realized what they'd done (since everything comes in the same, large white bottles). The result was that I missed two days of college courses and had to schedule a neurologist appointment immediately to assess the impacts of the issue because the generic flat-out did not work and in fact brought back the seizures which Keppra had been repressing (for those that don't know, these medications are dealing with brain chemistry to a degree so even though generics are *supposed* to be the same thing as the brand name drug, they aren't always perfect replications...). I ended up being able to negotiate getting some Keppra from a nearby pharmacy to halt the horrific side effects of the generic sooner, but the whole ordeal was entirely unnecessary and insanely risky and I was not informed at all in advance... the insurance company just did it...

EDIT- Clarification of "free". The company doesn't just give healthcare away so if you're not paying anything directly for it, you are indirectly paying for it in lost wages as your employer is paying you less than they otherwise would so that you can get the benefit of healthcare. Some companies will do this a little more directly by giving you wage x but allowing you to choose to utilize their health plan and then you get lower wage y or they deduct whatever per year from your earnings and such. Some plans also require some kind of annual payment. It varies from employer to employer and plan to plan. But anyway, generally the cost of acquiring healthcare is reduced when you get it through your employer and therefore most people do.

[Dragonskull]

What are ER patients? Emergency something?

Anyhow, what you explain here is the failure of capitalism. Certain things are not meant to be made money on, for instance healthcare. It is essential for humans to have healthcare. When you are yourself responsible of making sure that you'll get the help you need, and in addition have to fight for it, when an accident happen or you get hit by a disease, something has gone wrong. Hauling profit for doing this for people, is ethically wrong. Regulating them is certainly not enough.

In Norway the government is responsible for the hospitals, and a certain amount (differs from election to election of course, as they make their own budget) is set off to pay hospitals the money they need for new equipment and cover wages for the personnel. The government takes this money from (preferably) tax-income, so generally, everyone who work pay for the healthcare of everyone. So basically, it is not free healthcare in Norway, and I would guess that you'll pay more to the healthcare system than you will ever get back in service generally, of course there's the exceptions. Hence, in a way it is an insurance, though no one gets any profit from it (other than those who need healthcare, obviously, and that's not in form of money anyway) and you won't have to argue about anything, if the doctor finds you ill, you get help. Doesn't matter if you pay taxes or not. Note: generally you pay a small fee for every visit to a doctor, to partially cover his/her wages. This sum is symbolic compared to what you would have paid if there was no system like that we have, and if you need to visit a doctor on a regular basis you are ensured that after you've reached a yearly set limit, you won't need to pay any more, this year that sum is 1780NoK. Medicine that the doctor advices is also included in this yearly limit, so in the end, the worst case scenario is that you pay 1780NoK during a year for healthcare in Norway (excluding taxes, no idea what percentage of your total tax is used on healthcare).

Private doctors, homoeopaths and other, alternative medicine or cosmetics are of course not covered by this system, and have their own prices for whatever they do and for how long. Point is that you don't need to visit these if something should happen to you.

[TerranUp16]

ER = Emergency Room.

[~VanMavus]

@Dragonskull. I agree .

@WG. <_< Eh. America is confusing enough anyway.