The Adversary Never Sleeps: politics from Outer Darkness

[_DrW]

To add to the conversation, private hospitals in Oman operate pretty much as they do here in the US. The difference is that Oman has a health care system that looks much like the US system will look when Obama care is fully implemented. One can opt out and go private, but government funded healthcare is available to all who chose it (and I mean all).

One who uses the private healthcare system in Oman, even without the benefit of private health insurance, will find it to be very responsive, competent and reasonably priced.

Out of pocket costs for routine cardiac care there, none of which were covered by insurance or the Government, were substantially less expensive (about a third of the cost) as compared to here in the US, and the care was of excellent quality.

This can be done because doctors are paid on salary only and are not required to carry burdensome levels of malpractice insurance. There are a lot of other small differences that add up to big savings for the healthcare consumer. Granted, many of the high risk procedures are done outside the country and this cuts down on the amount of malpractice claims and the cost of insurance that doctors and the hospitals must carry. Overall, however, there are good examples out there of how government supported and private healthcare systems can work hand in hand to provide good quality care at a reasonable cost.

IMHO Obama's affordable healthcare legislation is a good first step. More in the way of legislation will be needed before the US can catch up with some of the "developing" countries when it come to providing good quality, reasonably priced, first line healthcare to everyone who needs it.

[_richardMdBorn]

And your solution for the millions that can't afford medical insurance even with large deductibles? Who are not provided with insurance by their employers?

I have two actuaries in my extended family. One (brother-in-law) you would have heard of if I mentioned his name. We chat about this a lot. Neither would agree with you.

How do these actuaries disagree with me.

We should be attempting to reduce the cost of medical care. Obama Care has the reverse effect. The cost of my insurance on a comparable basis, provided through my company, increased by almost 12% for 2013 versus 2012. Mandating that all employers provide additional benefits increases the cost of insurance and gives employers an incentive to drop the coverage. Obama Care is increasing the cost of medical care not decreasing it. The savings Obama promised was a fable he told to the ignorant. Obama wants Single Payer. The rich will be able to get coverage off shore. It's the Middle Class who will screwed through long lines and shortages.

[_grindael]

Putting this all on the Affordable Heath Care Act is disingenuous. http://business.time.com/2009/09/16/hea ... ten-years/

[_richardMdBorn]

Putting this all on the Affordable Heath Care Act is disingenuous. http://business.time.com/2009/09/16/hea ... ten-years/

"I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year." He promised this. It won't happen.

More details are here:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... -premium-/

[_Droopy]

They are always telling us at Church that the adversary wants to tempt us. What better way than to offer us a political philosophy which emphasizes the personal greed of the individual rather than social justice for all?

I'm not sure that any such political philosophy exists, in any coherent form. The closest you can get here is socialism, in which both the personal greed of the individual and the collective greed, resentments, and bigotries of politicized identity groups is harnessed by tiny cabals of utopian ideologues for the purpose of acquiring and wielding unlimited, unaccountable power.

[_Bhodi]

They are always telling us at Church that the adversary wants to tempt us. What better way than to offer us a political philosophy which emphasizes the personal greed of the individual rather than social justice for all?

I'm not sure that any such political philosophy exists, in any coherent form. The closest you can get here is socialism, in which both the personal greed of the individual and the collective greed, resentments, and bigotries of politicized identity groups is harnessed by tiny cabals of utopian ideologues for the purpose of acquiring and wielding unlimited, unaccountable power.

I'm well read on socialism (and Thomas Sowell for that matter). Could you quote any source document for socialism that would support this position? I am something of a neoliberal, but I would not agree with your definition at all.

[_Droopy]

Once the means of production are expropriated, who actually owns, controls, dispenses, and allocates those resources?

It was Hayek who pointed out that envy, or ressentiment, was the fundamental psychological/emotional basis for all socialist thought.

Class envy (greed and avarice focused on the good fortune and property of others) is the basis of any appeal to class war, and socialism is, both in theory and application, when stripped of its sophisticated ideological academic frills and cosmic moral posturing, nothing more that a moral and philosophical pretext for the construction of a society based upon legal plunder, the primary recipients of which is a tiny, permanent (socialist/communist) or semi-permanent (democratic socialist) political class composed of the actual, practicing politicians and its stable of intellectuals, within both the state and academia.

[_Droopy]

Who is the "vanguard" of a socialist revolution? When socialists/leftists say that something is "public," what are they really saying?

[_moksha]

When socialists/leftists say that something is "public," what are they really saying?

That it has not yet been usurped by the private sector due to questionable money making potential. The air we breath is public, because there is no reliable means of cornering the market.

[_Dr. Shades]

What better way than to offer us a political philosophy which emphasizes the personal greed of the individual rather than social justice for all?

Please define what "social justice for all" looks like. Thank you.