Critical care: Satire on socialized medicine?

[lurok]

It definitely does social commentary. Ad nauseum. And sometimes really badly.

[MacLeod]

Triskelion wrote:

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In other words, the costs appear elsewhere than on your hospital bill. Due to the first law of thermodynamics, nothing is "free."

In many countries with Universal Health Care you don't get a bill. It's funderd via taxes. Yes you have the option of taking out private medical care should you wish do so and can afford to do so. And yes you might have to wait for non-emergency surgery. And yes Universal Health Care isn't without it's issues after all no system is perfect. But in general universal health care it's about providing based upon need rather than ability to pay.

[teacake]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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Satire is about being mean. Star Trek isn't mean.

^Picard lifts the unenlightened from the dirt of their ignorance, he doesn't mock them being there in the first place.

[Guy Gardener]

lurok wrote:

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It definitely does social commentary. Ad nauseum. And sometimes really badly.

Only because what they were saying was 10 years behind the curve when Voyager was first run.

Enterprise was asked to do a special AIDS awareness episode for some AIDS foundation nonprofit or day or charity event and maybe they were going to donate pofit fromt he episode or... That was the one where T'Pol was Meldraped by a Vulcan she just met and she claimed that melding was a dity habit only undertaken by sick mutants and she's never been so violated.

Clueless.

[teacake]

If you watch Let That Be Your Last Battlefield while somewhat drunk it looks like satire.

[Xhiandra]

I don't see how you could think it's a socialized system.
The top few influential people's elective treatments taking precedence over the peons' life-saving needs? Socialism is about preventing that exact scenario, not creating it!

[T'Girl]

MacLeod wrote:

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In many countries with Universal Health Care you don't get a bill.

I think the point that Triskelion was making (if I understood) is that you are in fact getting billed. Just in a round about fashion, ultimately it comes out of your taxes directly, or in the cost of merchandise and services you purchase.

If a company pays taxes, and those taxes (in part) go towards your medical care, then items that the company sells you cost more, so they can obtain the money that will be paid in taxes, that then pay your bill.

MacLeod, how do you figure you're not getting billed?

[R. Star]

^
The problem with everyone paying into a communal fund to provide for everyone is that not everyone pays into it yet still reap the benefits of everyone else's work.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Which is why "right to work" laws are complete horse-hockey.

[MacLeod]

^Yes but in countries with Universal Health Care, mean that in theory 100% of the population have access to Health Care regardless of ability to pay.

[T'Girl]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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^ Which is why "right to work" laws are complete horse-hockey.

Wrong, that is a matter of personal choice, closed shops remove personal options.

If someone chooses to work for an employer outside of a union contract, they simply do not receive the union contract benefits.

[JirinPanthosa]

Alpha Flyer wrote:

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Recommended watching: Michael Moore's "Sicko."

Dude, I think the two of us both agree about how the health care system ought to work, but Michael Moore is a narcissist and an opportunistic editor of reality who's just as full of crap as the people he attacks, and has succeeded in turning more people against his point of view than toward it. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a GOP conspiracy to fund more Michael Moore movies, because he's their ideal straw man.

I did not mean to imply that Obamacare was socialized medicine, but that's what it has been called by its opponents, who have also said it included 'rationing'.

And I might argue that, handing control over medical decisions to committee under an edict to be 'fair' would have unintended side effects that would be a less extreme version of Critical Care.

The problem with the ending of the episode I think is that, they did not solve anything. Sure, they cured these specific people who were in front of the camera. But it's heavily implied that cytoglobin is in short supply, and getting a bigger supply for their own hospital means creating a smaller supply for other hospitals, so in the long run, they have not saved any lives on balance, and they threatened the life of a bureaucrat just doing his job to achieve this.

So, they didn't solve anything, they just taught these particular bureaucrats how to play the system better.

Also, I think if we do have a system that's entirely based on need, then people who engage in risky behaviors like smoking or skydiving should have to pay more. But that's a tangent.

[JirinPanthosa]

Xhiandra wrote:

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I don't see how you could think it's a socialized system.
The top few influential people's elective treatments taking precedence over the peons' life-saving needs? Socialism is about preventing that exact scenario, not creating it!

Yet, every time it's been attempted, it's created that exact scenario. Replacing a system that gives an unfair advantage based on money with a system that gives unfair advantage based on personal connections.

Right now in America, if you're rich, you can make a special donation to the hospital and move your son to the front of the line.

Under a socialist system, if you've got a buddy in the health ministry, you make a few phone calls and move your son to the front of the line. Which I believe is similar to what happens in Critical Care, you think TC isn't really based on who you know and who your friends are?

[iguana_tonante]

R. Star wrote:

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The problem with everyone paying into a communal fund to provide for everyone is that not everyone pays into it yet still reap the benefits of everyone else's work.

For people living in a country with UHC, it's not a problem. It's the reason for having it.

(Also, it costs way less than the "private only" system. Look it up.)

JirinPanthosa wrote:

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Yet, every time it's been attempted, it's created that exact scenario. Replacing a system that gives an unfair advantage based on money with a system that gives unfair advantage based on personal connections.

Right now in America, if you're rich, you can make a special donation to the hospital and move your son to the front of the line.

Under a socialist system, if you've got a buddy in the health ministry, you make a few phone calls and move your son to the front of the line. Which I believe is similar to what happens in Critical Care, you think TC isn't really based on who you know and who your friends are?

Sorry, had to laugh. I bet you have zero first-hand experience with a "socialist system" (which is, I suppose, one where health care is provided by the state), and only work from what you've heard from American political pundits.

Why are people having this conversation again? Wasn't it discussed to death a couple of years ago?

[Guy Gardener]

That buddy would lose their job way before you got anywhere near an operating room.

This isn't 1950s Russia.