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Olorin, the article is written with a strong agenda supporting universal healthcare provided for by the government. Possibly most of the world is in favor of that today. I'm not and I'm pretty sure most of the people I know aren't.

I am an uninsured American.** I've been to the doctor once since 2006. I paid the $180 bill out of my own pocket because I'm self-employed and nobody provides insurance. It's not the government's responsibility to do so and I don't want it too. The government is inefficient and cumbersome. I can and should handle my own business. If I die because of my choices and economic situation that's on me. Not on the government or my employer or anyone else.

**My family has been part of a health sharing ministry for seven years but thus far we haven't used it.

Here's a quote from that article: "Yes, countries with single-payer systems still have coronavirus cases, Italy and Japan. But the spread of the virus in those countries would likely pale in comparison to the potential spread of coronavirus in the US, in which a significant portion of the population simply won’t go to the doctor if they’re sick. Coronavirus is a worldwide public health emergency, and massive profits for health insurers and pharmaceutical manufacturers shouldn’t come before the basic health and safety of human beings."

A forumite who is a US doctor has already said this isn't true, confirming what others have said that any American that needs Covid-19 medical attention will receive it, whether they pay or not.

I can understand why the author might tout Japan, but Italy? Of course, with hindsight we know that unfortunately Italy got clobbered.

As an example of affordability: A healthcare facility will charge the insurance company $4,000 for something like a CT scan. But the same scan billed to medicaid or medicare will be $2400-$2600. If a person offers to pay that day, the charge may be only $400. Now if a person has a 20% copay, think of how much that person pays if they have insurance. $800 is what they would pay besides any payments for the insurance. I have been to a government healthcare system many times. Worse care than the private sector in many cases with longer wait times.

Please, let us get back to the coronavirus and not bicker about the type of healthcare any more nor post inflammatory links.

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Hey, Sammy, I understand the point he's making but it's wrong. Any American who shows up at an emergency room will be treated. Basically every American knows that (there are minimal exceptions). While some people may be reluctant to see care for some reasons, including economic, the fear from this pandemic is almost sure to overcome that. There will be very few Americans who aren't treated for Covid-19.

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive




I think the problem is that it is very difficult to prove either way.

If you follow mind_messings viewpoint then potentially many of the most impoverished Americans will die of COV-19 at home having never accessed healthcare in the first place and potentially never being tested post-mortem. That supposition is impossible to prove either way at this point although I guess in the fullness of time looking at 'excess mortality' statistics might give an insight.

As before I'm not taking sides - just pointing out that the two of you will get nowhere with arguing about that point in particular and most likely with your dispute in general.

Mate I think you are both right to block each other as it seems from an outsider's perspective that you both have 'history' that is making what is already a very thorny topic impossible to negotiate.

I'll ask just one question - not rhetorical as I genuinely don't know the answer. If somebody spends 14 days in hospital (with say 4 days in critical care) in the US, how much is their bill likely to be at the end of it if they don't have health insurance?

I can tell you a 5 day stay in the PICU was a $165,000 bill before insurance adjustments.

Without insurance, we would of received the same treatment, and they wouldn't of billed that much. I do not know what they number would be to be honest. For as much as I cuss insurance daily, and truly believe it is a legal way to rob from people, I am glad I have it.

P.S. My notions, as posted above, are personal views that I would advocate in county, state and national politics. I am not suggesting what I think is right for any other country or people.

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

I dread the cure.

Big problem of course with this is that the deaths for corona virus already doubled from this value in the past 7 days, and will likely double again in the next 6 to 7 days. It has been consistently doubling over 6-7 days since about March 15th.

There's a lot wrong and it's an explicitly political graphic and seeing its traction among those circles on social media in an effort to downplay seriousness.

Doesn't include the host of other confounding variables and issues that go beyond pure death count.

Canoerebel, for most of the world, universal healthcare is a given, accepted by both ends of the political system. OK, I understand it's a difficult subject for American politics, even though I don't undestand why.

Regarding, your personal situation, I think you are fortunate that you can afford the costs involved in your healthcare system. What about those who can't? The article I provided had some numbers in it.
44% of Americans declined to see a doctor due to cost. This is a very large portion of the population.

Inefficient public healthcare that can give all people what they need is preferable in my book to efficient private healthcare that excludes almost half the country. I'm just saying that financial efficiency is not the end goal of hospitals, it's curing people.

Well its good to see that politics doesn't sidetrack or impact this thread. [:D]

It spices it up, imo.
Otherwise it's just counting the dead and predicting how bleak the future is.

A good political fight is a welcome distraction.
A religious fight an even better one (I'm up for it if anyone is interested).

If you'll read back through here, you'll see many people politely asking that we get back on topic while others are bowing out of the thread.

OK, I'll try to get back on topic by asking RFalvo69 (who appears to be online) for his prediction about the possibility of Italians demanding that Italy leaves the EU and how soon he sees it happening.

ORIGINAL: Olorin

OK, I'll try to get back on topic by asking RFalvo69 (who appears to be online) for his prediction about the possibility of Italians demanding that Italy leaves the EU and how soon he sees it happening.

Now I remember part of the reason I left this forum many years ago.

Any discussion of the US healthcare system seems to generate sparks here.

Naill Ferguson (the Harvard/TV persona, who has been a citizen of the USofA for a decade) has made some interesting public observations about it. As someone who has lived with both it, and the NHS in the UK, he may be worth listening to.

Meanwhile in Australia:

As at 6:00am on 2 April 2020, there have been 4,976 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia. There have been 269 new cases since 6:00am yesterday.

However, I am becoming distrustful of this daily figure. Yesterday's was over 300, but the graph on the same page has a confirmed figure of less than 150.

ORIGINAL: Ian R

Any discussion of the US healthcare system seems to generate sparks here.

Naill Ferguson (the Harvard/TV persona, who has been a citizen of the USofA for a decade) has made some interesting public observations about it. As someone who has lived with both it, and the NHS in the UK, he may be worth listening to.

For reference this is one of those observations. Make of it what you will.

http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism ... hs-is-ours

ORIGINAL: Olorin

It spices it up, imo.
Otherwise it's just counting the dead and predicting how bleak the future is.

A good political fight is a welcome distraction.
A religious fight an even better one (I'm up for it if anyone is interested).

A nun slapped me in class when I was a kid. I have a grudge.

Hoo boy.

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Lokasenna, you altered this beyond the scope of the original discussion. Poor Americans in general may delay healthcare choices (as you point out) but the discussion was that they would have access to healthcare no matter their economic state. There may be some with Covid-19 who delay healthcare due to economic conditions. Most won't. They'll go the doctor or emergency room or call 911 and they'll be cared for. That was the original assertion. I haven't seen any reports contrary to that to this point.

As for DD96's comment, it's generic rather than political. You have to be an awfully sensitive Californian to take exception to it, since regional jokes are common in the good ol' USA. It's probably too critical for this environment but everybody would give him the benefit of the doubt since he doesn't post often and doesn't have a track record (that I'm aware of) of being offensive. Heck, I just told an Alabama joke (that's what we Georgians do, etc.) and it certainly couldn't be construed as political except by some folks in here, I think.

Yep, by quoting posts in this thread and continuing a line of inquiry begun by others, I've certainly altered it beyond the scope of the discussion I've been quoting and referring to. /s

I understand you're a lawyer by trade and so assertions are your former tools of trade, but you're supposed to then back them up with findings of fact (and findings of law, were this a court - correct?). Instead, I am also finding your assertions to come across as an effort to gatekeep this thread (and sometimes this forum), and what is and isn't allowed to be talked about, with preference given to your preferred points of view (whether intentional on your part or not; in all likelihood it's not intentional, but just a consequence of the way the human psyche works when it comes to processing conflicting points of view). The consequences of this gatekeeping, where you have usually been polite although sometimes passive-aggressive, can be seen in the willingness of others to pile on to mind_messing in a much more unfriendly tone that is clearly intentional; you don't see this happening in the reverse. You don't see mind_messing (or I) telling others to, in so many words, shut their mouths and go away. Gatekeeping of this nature can kickstart the creation of a hostile community. In full disclosure, I have come to this community less often precisely because of this undercurrent of hostility and microaggressions, but I haven't posted about it because being accepted by strangers on an internet forum is not important to my sense of self.

We've butted heads in this thread going back 50 pages, always somewhat around this issue, because to me your statements have come across as having the goal of centering the narrative around a preferred perspective, sometimes with snide and borderline impolite rhetoric towards posters who commented something that you didn't agree with. I'm not mad or heated. My intended tone here is simply to be blunt and matter-of-fact-like. I'm sure my statements, even or perhaps especially those buttressed by references to public health authorities and statistics, come across the same way to some folks. Our perspectives are all colored by our news sources. Some of us acknowledge this; some of us don't. There's a great quote from Edward Murrow: "Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences." While this forum does have a diversity of posters across a broad spectrum with respect to several demographics (age, geography, etc.), some of those categories are weightier in places than in others (e.g., age). It would be interesting to see a survey, as my impression from interacting here is that posters on the WITP:AE forums skew older, whiter, and US-centric, which a higher proportion of military veterans. Those characteristics track with certain political viewpoints more than others, and it's only natural that shared political viewpoints among posters will leak into conversations on these forums here and there.

I guess you haven't been reading all the posts (and do understand that I bring this up not to single out any poster, but to point out that there are veiled and not-so-veiled comments in this thread of a political nature, loosely interpreted as being "on the other side" from those comments you've taken exception to). Missing those is rather normal, as those comments and experiences which cause someone (of any persuasion) to bristle are going to be more memorable to them (negativity bias is very well documented). Allow me to quote a few posts other than the ones mind_messing pointed out. I don't call them out in real time because my approach is to generally let mildly political things slide, as putting a signpost on them tends to just escalate things and I'm mostly not interested in arguing with strangers on the internet. I (usually) have a lot of better things to do with my time and if a place isn't pleasant to be at, then I don't go to that place.


Also, most the other posts by these posters (well, most of them) are apolitical in nature and generally advance the discussion. However, sometimes comments that are "micro-political" in nature get posted. One of them ran against your grain and so you caught it. I'm only going back through 1/14th of the posts here; there were plenty more occurring in real time during the first 80 pages as well and that is not something I am going to spend the time to collate for posterity. But perhaps going forward, if we're so intent on keeping anything that's vaguely political out of this thread? There's a part of me that relishes the thought of policing that in real time, although I'm not typically a preemptive agenda-setter.

#2662

As per one of my previous posts, a Coronavirus was killing people from 2005 to 2013 and being labeled as THE FLU.
This is noise that originated in political entertainment masquerading as news.

...

#2832

I dread the cure.

(Image of questionable veracity and full of right-wing denialist BS, so bad that I'm going to quote it below)

...

#2843

"American exceptionalism" is used here as an intentional insult. We can all see right through it.

...

#2844

A lot. So do LA Clipper court side seats and Lamborghinis, neither of which are taxpayer funded.
(Let's leave aside the massive public subsidies for pro sports for now; that's its own ball of wax and is truly nonpartisan although still political in nature.)

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

I dread the cure.

This is misinformation at best. It's so bad that even Facebook flagged a milder version of it as false. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... abortions/

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

What you wanna bet that there won't be 25% of Americans not receiving treatment for Covid-19? I bet 98% will. The other 2% (or whatever it happens to be) will likely be those who expire before they realized the severity or otherwise didn't seek medical attention. Everybody else, rich or poor, black and white and brown and red and yellow, conservative and progressive, athiest or religious, will receive medical care.

I think the problem is that it is very difficult to prove either way.

If you follow mind_messings viewpoint then potentially many of the most impoverished Americans will die of COV-19 at home having never accessed healthcare in the first place and potentially never being tested post-mortem. That supposition is impossible to prove either way at this point although I guess in the fullness of time looking at 'excess mortality' statistics might give an insight.

As before I'm not taking sides - just pointing out that the two of you will get nowhere with arguing about that point in particular and most likely with your dispute in general.

No, the likely scenario is that they would prolong seeking life-saving treatment at a disproportionate rate (due to financial concerns, in turn due to misinformation) and therefore a disproportionate number of them will die. Same thing that happens with any other health problem that they don't seek treatment for when it first comes up.

Way back in this thread there was an anecdote posted by someone who "knew someone" who spent several weeks in the hospital and, because their income was low enough, they didn't have to pay much/anything. That's great for that person, but it's just one anecdotal data point and completely ignores the stark reality that large numbers of Americans routinely go without adequate medical care for financial reasons only. Beginning with states that have not expanded Medicaid, costing them 14K lives per year.



By the way - does anybody else find it absurd that we're arguing about what's off-topic in an off-topic thread? [8|] It's not like this is all irrelevant to the extremely broad thread subject line, and as I stated at the outset of this post, it's not like I've been opening new lines of discussion.

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: Ian R

Any discussion of the US healthcare system seems to generate sparks here.

Naill Ferguson (the Harvard/TV persona, who has been a citizen of the USofA for a decade) has made some interesting public observations about it. As someone who has lived with both it, and the NHS in the UK, he may be worth listening to.

For reference this is one of those observations. Make of it what you will.

http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism ... hs-is-ours

I read it. While his comparison of support for NRA positions to support for NHS status quo, is good enough at a very high level for a rough analogy, it's a far cry from the implication that he says anything substantive whatsoever about the US private health care scheme in this column. He mentions a single study that pointed to the "higher expenditure" associated with US cancer patients surviving for longer. Well, yeah - they survived for longer, and we pay more for the same treatment in the US than patients do in other countries. Nor does he link to that study. We are just supposed to take him at his word that it says what he says it says.

Loka, you and others haven't batted an eye at the most overtly offensive political commentary in here. I could give examples but won't, mainly because I'll be calling out people who spoke in the heat of the moment but who are well-regarded members of this community.

As for MindMessing, if you read through this thread in total, you'll see the repeated snarky nature of his comments, my repeated requests that he take it private or elsewhere, and his refusal to do so. There have been private asides between him and me, and there has been past history, in which he repeats his behavior ad nauseum. I disagree with him on many things - as I do with others - but his behavior has been beyond anything I've encountered before on a Matrix site, by far.

I have him blocked now, so hopefully we can coexist peacefully. But if my presence and attempts to avoid the political mayhem in here (that allegedly wouldn't transpire) fail, I'll bow out of the thread I started.

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
We are just supposed to take him at his word that it says what he says it says.

As opposed to deliberately misrepresenting what it says? [&:]