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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DanD who wrote (64568)	5/9/2008 6:42:44 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 543214

This discussion started because Canada's lack of diversity in comparison to the US was touted as a reason that it's socialized medical model would not work here. This, from Bull, is what started it: "Longevity depends on many other factors such as lifestyle, genetics etc. It is naive to think that having Universal Healthcare in the US will magically prolong the longevity to equal that of Sweden & Canada, countries that are more homogenous than the US" The numbers I produced showed that every US ethnic population was represented in significant numbers. I didn't see anyone challenge that. I certainly didn't. Unless you can show that those populations have significantly different quality of health care in the monolithic Canadian health system, I don't see how Canada's diversity can be used as an argument against socialized medicine in the US. On what basis are you reading alleged different qualities of health care into this? Where did that come from? I don't recall quality of care being raised. Something you inferred maybe. Bull specified genetics and lifestyle. It never occurred to be that quality of health care was a factor. The discussion was of diversity--genetic and lifestyle diversity. The diversity issue for me is about acceptance of the shared risk. Homogeneous populations, tribal populations, are more likely to be willing to share costs and risks than diverse populations. That's human nature. We are more willing to pay the medical costs of a second cousin than those of a stranger who is not only genetically but culturally different from us. Somehow we got sidetracked into a discussion of relative diversity. There is a continuum of homogeneity/diversity. None of the countries discussed is absolutely homogeneous. Each is diverse to some extent based on both your definitions and common sense. Canada is more diverse than Sweden. I think we agree on that. The US is more diverse than Canada for those who recognize that relative diversity has two axes. If you, for some reason I can't divine, continue to recognize only one axis, then, maybe not. I would offer an analogy. but... <g>