Oh, wonderful. I hope you weren't the one responsible for $600.00 toilet seats, or the $$$ followup studies about whether the costs were excessive.<g>
Never had any of those.
I take greatest issue with your suggestion that those ill-informed people would be better informed if only the programs they don't know about were universal and included well-informed people too
That's not what I'm suggesting. I think having specialized programs that need people to be informed of their availability are doomed to fail. There is no practical way of informing people that the programs exist.
As an example and not a recommendation. England has a national heath care system; everyone knows it. You get access to the same treatment, which isn't bad, that everyone else gets. Typical doctor's offices, nurses, etc. It's not a clinic operation. I haven't heard a single American, and there are a good number around here, complain about the health care system. Most in fact, find it preferable to the treatment they get in the States.
One of the areas where their system is considered weak, is for non-emergency surgery; there are waiting periods that are excessive. Those people that can afford to have supplemental private health insurance and they bypass that weakness in the NHS. For those that can't afford it, they wait....[sometimes the doctor gives them "hints"...the Doctor might say...if you start feeling any numbness in your legs, due to a bad disk, then you get bumped up into the immediate care category...wink, wink.]
I would argue that it's the delivery mechanism that's to blame --
Delivery mechanism is subject to interpretation, so I won't say that your wrong. <s> I would say that there is a significant segment of the population that does not have true access to the health care system. A small part, is an unawareness of specific programs, but the greater part is that the decent health care is not affordable and thereby not accessible.
I would argue that it's the delivery mechanism that's to blame -- not the lack of universal health coverage. Your friend and niece would probably say the same thing, if they know what they're talking about.
This is really interesting phrasing...you've said earlier that you're not an expert in health care. [That's ok]. Presumably, someone in the field [my niece or friend] would have more expertise in the field. But they would only know what they are talking about, if they agreed with your opinion.
Not being an expert in the field, if I found that they disagreed with my opinion, I would be inclined to ask them why [or where I went wrong in my thinking] as opposed to telling them they don't know what they are talking about.
Your same argument has been tried and proven not to work.
Are you saying that the national health care systems in Canada and western europe that show a higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate and deliver health care at a significantly smaller %GDP than the US have been proven to not work? [I have been speaking to health care systems of western European countries, Canada, and the US, not communist farming techniques.]
A problem within many of those do-good industries is that if they were to fix the problem for good, they put themselves out of business. Their own self interest demands that they provide "assistance" without a real solution, thereby maintaining their "clients" in a perpetual state of need.
Wow! You're more cynical than I am....I rarely run into anyone more cynical than I am. Thanks, that makes me feel better. <g>
Aside...I just had to replace a well-pump in our house in the States. The original one had a 15 year warranty [Coincidently, the thing broke just after the warranty period]. The brand new replacement [same manufacturer] now has a 5 year warranty. Has quality improved over the last 15 years, or was I, the consumer, just screwed? <g>
jttmab |
