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Forums - General Discussion - Healthcare isn't a business, it's peoples lives

Viper1 on 22 April 2009
vlad321 said:
Viper1 said:
vlad321 said:

The problem is with the business part. Because the moment companies see you depend on them too much they will instantly try to milk you as much as possible. What will happen under the capitalistic model owuld be something along this way:

Company A invents cure for AIDS first. There are no other cures known, the company patents the cure. The demand is high and there are no other copmetitors so they start charging a ridiculous amount, oen which only the top 5% and less can afford to pay. Any following company will probably get sued, due to the patent filed earlier. How many ways do you think people can take care of AIDS?

See what happens? It's kind of how Time Warner tried goign the way of content based billing instead of speed based. Thankfully they got pressured from the government and people threatened to switch and they changed that. What happens if there were no other companies to switch to and the government did as what you said and just chilled in the back?

If it's a private business, it won't work. Unless like the red corss or some non-profit organization comes up with the cure.

That's a rather dubious proposition though.  You can't base a health care system on something like that.

 

Well what I'm saying is to let the government pay the researchers and doctors to discover the cure. Maybe slightly inefficient (maybe if people in government were assigned by merit not favor done to the guy above) but it would still be better off for everyone than if a business did it. I'd rather pay the government than some person in a business, at least I control who I'm paying for a week every 4 years, not so with a business.

At least the politicians have a little more incentive than jsut money, they need to get re-elected, so they serve the people at least to a larger amount of a degree than a pure businessman.

 

If only this were true.

 

Capitalism works because it is better at economic matters than any government ever dreamed it could be.   However, we do have , plenty of government funded research so it's not like the cure for AIDS, or other breakthroughs, must come from a private corporation...much less must it be the US itself.  Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and many more foreign pharmaceutical companies could be the one with the big breakthroughs.

 

 

 



The rEVOLution is not being televised

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Son1x on 22 April 2009

Slovenia 38 ^^
Pretty good for a country like that.



"And yet, I've realized that maybe living a "decent" life means you won't ever have a "good" life."

 

Viper1 on 22 April 2009
Son1x said:
Slovenia 38 ^^
Pretty good for a country like that.

Read more of the thread.  We've found out the list is almost a decade old and highly subjective and not based on much analytical data.

 



The rEVOLution is not being televised

TheRealMafoo on 22 April 2009
highwaystar101 said:
TheRealMafoo said:
highwaystar101 said:

I would not have stood a chance of achieving what I, or my dad, could have achieved if it wasn't for the opportunities Iwe were given by the tax payer.

 

Your government has done its work well, if you feel there is no way for you to succeed without them.

 

Yes, more or less. To do a 3-year Bachelor of science degree in this country costs around 30,000. I can't afford that, to pay for my degree I would have to work for three or four years before hand. However, the taxpayer picks up around 27,000 of this and I pay about 3,000.

I could be successful without them, but it would be a much steeper hill for me to do much slower climb.

 

I am not sure you read my response correctly.

I meant the government has done a good job brainwashing you into thinking they are required for you to succeed.

The first step for any repressive government is to condition its people into thinking they need government to survive. That government is the answer to everything. They seem to have succeeded in this with regards to you.



SamuelRSmith on 22 April 2009

@Viper1 - though I'm willing to bet that Slovenia's health care system has improved over the past few years, particularly after joining the EU.



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draik on 22 April 2009
TheRealMafoo said:
highwaystar101 said:
TheRealMafoo said:
highwaystar101 said:

I would not have stood a chance of achieving what I, or my dad, could have achieved if it wasn't for the opportunities Iwe were given by the tax payer.

 

Your government has done its work well, if you feel there is no way for you to succeed without them.

 

Yes, more or less. To do a 3-year Bachelor of science degree in this country costs around 30,000. I can't afford that, to pay for my degree I would have to work for three or four years before hand. However, the taxpayer picks up around 27,000 of this and I pay about 3,000.

I could be successful without them, but it would be a much steeper hill for me to do much slower climb.

 

I am not sure you read my response correctly.

I meant the government has done a good job brainwashing you into thinking they are required for you to succeed.

The first step for any repressive government is to condition its people into thinking they need government to survive. That government is the answer to everything. They seem to have succeeded in this with regards to you.

 



 

Viper1 on 22 April 2009
SamuelRSmith said:
@Viper1 - though I'm willing to bet that Slovenia's health care system has improved over the past few years, particularly after joining the EU.

That's possible but I have no way of knowing either way.

 



The rEVOLution is not being televised

TheRealMafoo on 22 April 2009

care to explain yourself draik, or are you just trolling?



mrstickball on 22 April 2009
vlad321 said:
Viper1 said:

That's a rather dubious proposition though.  You can't base a health care system on something like that.

 

Well what I'm saying is to let the government pay the researchers and doctors to discover the cure. Maybe slightly inefficient (maybe if people in government were assigned by merit not favor done to the guy above) but it would still be better off for everyone than if a business did it. I'd rather pay the government than some person in a business, at least I control who I'm paying for a week every 4 years, not so with a business.

At least the politicians have a little more incentive than jsut money, they need to get re-elected, so they serve the people at least to a larger amount of a degree than a pure businessman.

 

Wrong. You elect businessmen with your dollars every day. You elect politicians once every 4 years in the US, but the lifespan of a businessman is far worse if they perform badly. How many CEOs get fired a year versus politicans? I'd argue that the CEO has to do far more to be viable than the politician. Not only this, many Americans vote for politicians not based on results, but rather promises. Politics is far more promise-driven than results-driven.

Because of that, capitalism-based programs can, and always will be better when money is involved. Businesses seek to be more efficient than the next one, because there's something called 'competition'.

And that's what truly makes capitalism based solutions better: Competition. With public healthcare, pension, and schools, there is absolutely, positively, no competition for something 'better' - it just exists. With no real competition in a given field, the quality suffers. Go look at the US education system. When it was private-based, it was much better in quality. But when federal funding took it over in the name of fairness, we've now plunged ourselves in a bad mess - more problems, less solutions, because those that are in power really don't have the abilities, nor drive, to create true solutions.

Attack all you want, but the United States, despite being this 'hyper-capitalist' state that some deride, still is one of the most prosperous nations in the world, and did it with much bigger obstacles than what Europe has faced.

 



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

SamuelRSmith on 22 April 2009

@TheRealMafoo

The fact that you see the Government as something to be weary of, well, it just... I dunno, worries me?

Perhaps you need to move to a freer country.