Once and for all: the waiting room question for soc. Health care

[Texas_Trigger]

@xahrx

The problem there is the comparisson is between a left wing socialist and a right wing socialist system, or socialism and fascism being the more common labels. The US does not have free market health care. Likewise, in some supposedly socialized systems people pay out of pocket for a good amount of services. The only thing you can say about all the current health care systems is they are amazingl complex labrynthine bureaucracies on all counts.

Yes, I know. I tried to make that knowledge very clear. I know that we do not have a free market. If you had really read my post then you would also have noted that I used the exact same terms that you did to describe our system and universal systems, fascism and socialism, respectively. What I was asking there: is the reason you hear so many claim that the lines in universal systems aren’t that bad because by comparison to ours, they aren’t? LIKE I SAID, it seems to be fairly commonly asserted (or perhaps implied) on these forums that the US lines are nothing compared to universal systems. I will repeat, I am in no way asking if lines will be shorter or quality will be better in a free market compared to universal care. I know they will be. For this thread, we are comparing the pre-Obamacare U.S. system with universal healthcare with regard to line length and waiting times. I hope that clarified everything.

@xahrx

The health care debate boils down to the first rule of economics: there’s never enough of anything to satisfy everybody. Scarcity means there will always be someone who didn’t get what they wanted, or ‘needed’ if you prefer. This will be true of every system, so specifically in every health care system you will be able to find horror stories and hard luck cases to argue for some opposing approach. Socialism rations by politics, the market rations by price. They both ration, people will suffer and die horrible, underseved deaths under both systems. The market system in every other area provides lower prices and greater availability of goods and services, there is nothing magical about health care which expempts it from these free market forces. The socialist system, right or left wing, will eventually collapse due to basic calculation errors and misallocations of resources, and during the length of its life will spread mediocre, declining levels of care to perhaps more people. Neither a free market nor a socialist system will guarantee everyone long healthy lives, the free market system will guarantee the best chance for everyone to live long healthy lives. That’s why I favor the free market system for health care.

Again, not what I ask, and we know. But, I do appreciate your response, nonetheless.

@Esuric

This from someone who can properly define neither “slave” nor pure, organic “capitalism” in a coherent, meaningful form. Your posts never answer my questions. they deflect with half-assed snobbery; it’s not even clever.