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Forums - General - Warning from the President!

TheRealMafoo on 19 July 2009
SamuelRSmith said:

I'm not going to argue with you, I just want to address that last sentence which I would disagree with. I come from quite a wealthy area in the UK, and I know of a lot of people who have earned a hell of a lot, I know of 3 millionaires, and quite a few people who are considered to be really wealthy. They managed to succeed just fine in this country under our current system, and some of them even came from backgrounds where they lived on welfare.

Hell, my own family is testament, both of my parents came from relatively poor backgrounds, living on welfare, that kind of thing. I've just said bye to my dad, as he's flying to Hong Kong to meet some of his business partners and check up on some of his factories in China.

We used to have private health, actually. But it didn't offer any real benefits to us, so my dad canceled the policy and we went back to NHS treatment. However, I'm also quite lucky in the sense that all of the hospitals, doctors and clinics in my area are the highest ranking in the country.

Ok, so you're very well off, much better then me.

if I need blood work for anything, I go in, and get the results the next day (or same day). Nothing buys you that in the UK.

if my 92 year old grandfather breaks his hip on Monday, he has a new one by the end of the week. He is not rich, just a normal guy. No normal guy in the UK can get that (and I would be surprised if a rich one could get that service in the UK).

This is what I don't want to lose. I like living in a country where everyone has more they can achieve, they just need to achieve it. The more you socialize, the  more you take away from what I can achieve, for the benefit of not having to achieve it.

 

I don't understand why people in todays US, don't see that as losing something, and only see it as gaining.



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SamuelRSmith on 19 July 2009

My nan was diagnosed with bowl cancer last year, within two days she had the tumour out. She's on NHS.

I've had several operations, myself, none life threatening, but I've had them within the week of going to the doctor. When I went in with an emergency a few years ago at around 5ish, I was on the operating table by the time the evening was out.

Like I said, though, I live in an really good area for the NHS (that article you linked to referred to the "post-code lottery"), so my experiences will be better than others.



Kasz216 on 19 July 2009
SamuelRSmith said:
Kasz216 said:
SamuelRSmith said:
I didn't say they fixed it, I said the NHS has come on leaps and bounds since 2000 - assuming that old age care would have improved along with the rest of the NHS.

Well... it hasn't?

Apparently not. No need for the question mark.

Also i'll note it was the government who claimed they fixed it, not you.  Was in a rush had to visit my Grandma at the nursing home.

Anyone in the US who wants insurance should be able to get it.  Currently the people who can't are mostly those who have preexisting conditions.  Something should be done for them.

Private insurance and hospitals are better then public because they don't have to watch the purse strings because they're going to be paid.  There isn't a budget that needs to be watched... your more likely to be overtreated then undertreated if you choose to have insurance.

There is nobody saying "we've gone through 70% of our cancer drug allowment and it's only March."

Even then the differences in healthcare treatment are hardly anything AND aren't nessisairly due to healthcare treatment.

Something people always and vastly overlook is the effect of culture on healthcare.

A good example is to look at Roseto.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/books/chapters/chapter-outliers.html

 

Italy the country Roseto came from is ranked by the WHO to have on of the best healthcare systems in the world, sicne just about the only useful stat they study is life expectancy.  However.  Their healthcare system is considered a mess by the people who live there.  Overcrowded, long waiting, long lines.

So why is it so great as viewed by the WHO?  It's got nothing to do with healthcare.  It's culture.



TheRealMafoo on 19 July 2009
SamuelRSmith said:
My nan was diagnosed with bowl cancer last year, within two days she had the tumour out. She's on NHS.

I've had several operations, myself, none life threatening, but I've had them within the week of going to the doctor. When I went in with an emergency a few years ago at around 5ish, I was on the operating table by the time the evening was out.

Like I said, though, I live in an really good area for the NHS (that article you linked to referred to the "post-code lottery"), so my experiences will be better than others.

So in the UK, you can't go to any hospital you want? It's based on where you live?



SamuelRSmith on 19 July 2009

No, it's just easier to go to the ones closer.



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Kasz216 on 19 July 2009
SamuelRSmith said:
No, it's just easier to go to the ones closer.

There has to be more to it then that.  I mean the healthcare in scotland compared to london is ridiculious and it can't be that big of a drive.

 

I mean... people fly from the middleast to get to a hospital that's by me that anyone can go to.



SamuelRSmith on 19 July 2009
Kasz216 said:
SamuelRSmith said:
No, it's just easier to go to the ones closer.

There has to be more to it then that.  I mean the healthcare in scotland compared to london is ridiculious and it can't be that big of a drive.

 

I mean... people fly from the middleast to get to a hospital that's by me that anyone can go to.

Scotland is different, it's under a different NHS (NHS is broken up into different regions).

I've been in about 3-4 hospitals in my time, just depended on which was the most convenient at the time. That, and the hospitals were better at different things.



HappySqurriel on 19 July 2009
fmc83 said:
SamuelRSmith said:
HappySqurriel said:

I could be wrong but I suspect that a lot of the panic to push forward Obama's agenda is because of how poor his approval rating has become. I don’t think there has been a president in recent history who’s approval rating has fallen as far, as fast, or to such a low level as Obama’s has in their first term. One important thing to understand about American politics is that if a president is popular enough few people will oppose him, and if he is unpopular enough few people will support him, and at the rate things are going by the end of the year every senator and member of congress will be doing everything in their power to distance themselves from Obama.

Right now most Republicans see bipartisanship as being a losing strategy for their political careers, and more and more conservative Democrats are seeing Obama as being more of a liability than anything else. Within the next couple of weeks Obama's support could fall to a level that he won't have the votes to continue his agenda.

Now, the ironic thing is that his approval rate is falling so quickly because people voted against George W. Bush's agenda (and not for Obama's agenda) and the speed and scale of the changes that Obama is making do not sit well with them.

Have you got any graphical representations of his fall? Like month-on-month, I was actually wondering about this earlier.

So Obama's approval-rate has fallen from 69% to 56% in 6 months. If you feel like comparing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Presidential_approval_rating has a nice overview.

 

Just with a quick look, I must correct HappySqurriel, Gerald Fords rate fell even faster (it even looks like, that this is a common thing for democrats).

Well, I admit I could be wrong on the historical changes and I have (mostly) been following the rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll which has his approval rate down to 51% of likely voters; and an interesting trend they track there is the percentage of likely voters who strongly approve compared to the percentage of voters who strongly disaprove.

Now, I do agree with people who claim that an elected official should not be acting based on their polls because often unpopular things have to be done; and sometimes things are popular/unpopular based on unrealistic expectations. The thing people often miss when watching polls move when elected officials try to approach difficult issues is that the same approach towards the same issue may impact two politicians completely differently primarily because of political credibility.

A politician with a long track record of doing the right thing with results that typically meet or surpass people's realistic expectations often get given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to voters when they approach a new challenge. The problem Obama currently faces is he really doesn't have much of a track record, and the actions he has taken since becomming president have often tracked at or below people's worst case expectations and proven his critics correct.



Slimebeast on 19 July 2009
SamuelRSmith said:
I can't... shit weather?

Although I would argue that it's not necessarily the health care system that's at fault for old people dieing. Every year thousands of old people die because they get their gas/electricity turned off and there's nothing that can be done about it.

Or they die from lack of sanitation, you often hear stories of police breaking into old people's homes to find the person dead with piles and piles of rubbish, etc.


LOL!



Khuutra on 19 July 2009
TheRealMafoo said:
SamuelRSmith said:
My nan was diagnosed with bowl cancer last year, within two days she had the tumour out. She's on NHS.

I've had several operations, myself, none life threatening, but I've had them within the week of going to the doctor. When I went in with an emergency a few years ago at around 5ish, I was on the operating table by the time the evening was out.

Like I said, though, I live in an really good area for the NHS (that article you linked to referred to the "post-code lottery"), so my experiences will be better than others.

So in the UK, you can't go to any hospital you want? It's based on where you live?

This is one of the weirdest assumptions about socialized healthcare. I mean, I know insurance companies have approved lists of hospitals that you can or can't go to, but I've never heard of that sort of thing in socialized countries - though, granted, the only ones I've bothered to look into are Canada and the UK.