A topic that frequently occurs when disucssing the market is healthcare. I always wind up providing economic reasoning as to why socialism fails in every industry and aspect of society and although I’ve yet to have a socialist be able to logically refute anything what I hear over and over is “look at european healthcare, it’s so great”. I’ve found that the U.S. ranks #1 in per capita cost and we probably suffer in the overall rankings mostly due to the category of “distribution” (WHO). I’m curious if anybody here lives in Europe and/or has experience or knowledge as to how their system actually “functions” so I can draw implications from it.
[:@]In Venezuela hospitals are a disaster. Once I had a robbery on the street, was bleeding and needed stitches on my nose. I went to the local hospital. They managed to clean the wounds with cotton. The next day I managed to pay a private plastic surgeon who fixed my nose. Otherwise I rather not think the complications I could have endured due to time & infections.
Six babies died recently at the same time at a public maternity recently because of an “administrative mistake”.[:@]
[:)]A PLUS POINT, finally: Anti-retroviral therapy for HIV is distributed punctually every month for patients in need. Supplies are abundant. It is like a dream. I hope that keeps being that way. I think that is excellent use of government money because it is an action that is clearlt saving lots of lives in this country. It is a UN objective that is being met.[:)]
My mother lives in France. She reports that she gets on the mail invitations to get vaccines on certain days, and a whole schedule setup for medical appointments. She says it seems actually like overmedication, but I will talk to her more in detail and report back…
I’m from Sweden, our Helth Care is useless and we can’t afford it…
Since the Swedish Economy is crashing faster than the U.S. economy and it’s near hyperinflation at this point we won’t be able to pay for health care anymore, and it will most likely have to be privatized, so that’s that.
Up until now it’s been very inefficient, my grand mother has worked her whole life in the Swedish health care system, and her main complaint is that the nurses and people working there have to bother with so much paperwork and bureaucratic jobs, resources that could be spent on curing sick patients. But there’s also been long lines in the bigger cities, and also critique of where the hospitals in Stockholm have been built, since they are not built where the sick people are (Socialism really can’t seem to calulate anything).
But we also have had less liberty because of our public health care, the main thing is that you can’t do anything that could hurt you in Sweden. Since it would cost a lot for the government. The second thing is high taxes, Sweden has the second highest tax rates in the world (although corporate taxes are low for companies that is reinvesting to expand), this is a cause of the public health care system among other things, so it’s really not free, and you can’t choose how to spend your money at all.
But you should really visit a Swedish old folks home, it’s like hell, and it’s been widely crticised.
Or for daily horror stories, usually featuring NHS, Canada(less of these lately, i imagine because of the move towared privatization), and and acceleration of stories in Australia. http://socglory.blogspot.com/