Critical care: Satire on socialized medicine?
- Thread starter JirinPanthosa
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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?
^ 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.
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.
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?
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.)
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?
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That buddy would lose their job way before you got anywhere near an operating room.
This isn't 1950s Russia.
This isn't 1950s Russia.
So?
You know, at some point, one has to move on past the pettiness.
"Waaah, I have to pay and X doesn't, yet X also benefits, it's soooo unfair!" is such a childish way to look at things, quite frankly.
Not to mention quite heartless.
If X is suffering, then we should help X, regardless of his/her ability to pay the bill when all is said and done.
JirinPanthosa: No offense, but... no, you do not get to spin socialism into its polar opposite and still get taken seriously.
With a large enough population, it's pennies and no one notices.
Besides how do you think that the police and the army is paid for if not your taxes?
Surrounded by water with nothing so menacing nearby, I'd rather have free health care paid for by my taxes than the army, and I'm not to fond of the police either. 90 percent of their job is stop drugs, speeding, and drink driving which natural sellection can take care of if you don't mind some collateral damage.
Besides how do you think that the police and the army is paid for if not your taxes?
Surrounded by water with nothing so menacing nearby, I'd rather have free health care paid for by my taxes than the army, and I'm not to fond of the police either. 90 percent of their job is stop drugs, speeding, and drink driving which natural sellection can take care of if you don't mind some collateral damage.
It's called sustainability. If the system will carry those who won't contribute, less and less people are going to contribute. That's human nature. That increases the burden on the people who do, until it gets unsustainable.
To say nothing of the fact that the more "free" health care gets, the lesser quality and longer waits you get.
One, if you don't pay your taxes, you then have to pay fines and your taxes and interest or you go to jail.
Two, the more you earn, the sleezier your accountant, the less your taxes are.
Three, when was the last time the Fire Department refused to put out a fire just because it looked like the burning women and children didn't pay their taxes and therefore their wages? Actually since children don't pay taxes, then fire men should let all the children burn.
Two, the more you earn, the sleezier your accountant, the less your taxes are.
Three, when was the last time the Fire Department refused to put out a fire just because it looked like the burning women and children didn't pay their taxes and therefore their wages? Actually since children don't pay taxes, then fire men should let all the children burn.
Does this mean you favor the system shown in the episode?
It's funny watching americans argue that people who enjoy their socialized medicine as a reality are wrong, really it sucks.
Wake up your health care is substandard and you could die waiting for it!!
Wake up your health care is substandard and you could die waiting for it!!
If we're dead we don't need it anymore.
As I understand it, you show up to an ER, if ER is to believed, in the states and you're waiting a minimum 9 hours before anyone will do anything.
Actually there was a couple episodes of Nurse Jackie, where Nurse Jackie got sick of thepenny pinching from the admistrator, jabbed his ass with a sedative, or he was sick and passed out, I man be thinking about Frank and Hawkeye from M*A*S*H* but everything was backed up becuase management refused to go over budget and hire temp nurses for the week... So Jackie did it any way once any one who should be in charge was passed out.
It might have been the final of the season and they fired her?
Socialized medicine is what is on Voayager and in the Federation becuase they have conceivably unlimited resources.
What we saw in Critical care was all about Capitalism. Sure they were stessing status over financels but they don't have poor people with status now do they?
As I understand it, you show up to an ER, if ER is to believed, in the states and you're waiting a minimum 9 hours before anyone will do anything.
Actually there was a couple episodes of Nurse Jackie, where Nurse Jackie got sick of thepenny pinching from the admistrator, jabbed his ass with a sedative, or he was sick and passed out, I man be thinking about Frank and Hawkeye from M*A*S*H* but everything was backed up becuase management refused to go over budget and hire temp nurses for the week... So Jackie did it any way once any one who should be in charge was passed out.
It might have been the final of the season and they fired her?
Socialized medicine is what is on Voayager and in the Federation becuase they have conceivably unlimited resources.
What we saw in Critical care was all about Capitalism. Sure they were stessing status over financels but they don't have poor people with status now do they?
I was just thinking the same thing. It's scary/amusing to see people point out reasons why it absolutely, positively, cannot work. ...even though it totally does.
Now the Data used in this report is from 2000 but it does provide an interesting spotlight on some of what we are discussing And of course as it is 12 years later it could have changed, so should be taken with a pinch of salt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO's_ranking_of_health_care_systems
To just compare 2 the UK and the US
The UK ranked at 18th the US at 38th, despite the UK ranking only at 26th in expenditure per capita and the US at number 1.
And of course there is some critisim of the WHO report, though the section detailing that seems to indicate that is mainly from the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO's_ranking_of_health_care_systems
To just compare 2 the UK and the US
The UK ranked at 18th the US at 38th, despite the UK ranking only at 26th in expenditure per capita and the US at number 1.
And of course there is some critisim of the WHO report, though the section detailing that seems to indicate that is mainly from the US.
Cigarettes are 16.00 a packet here, for the cheap ones. That's mostly thanks to taxes. So govco sucks back some of the cost of paying for people's emphysema/cancer care by charging those that brought it on themselves.
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