Death Panels in the UK

[Venom]

Originally Posted by Iehovah

Because going in to see a doctor about your excess of chub, difficulty breathing and other heart-attack contributory factors does not cost thousands of dollars, and is far better PREVENTION, then waiting until you are wheezing like a marathon runner and wondering if those chest pains are a heart attack or the fifth burrito you stuffed in your slavering maw.

The funny thing is with the way the health service is run in the UK you probably wouldn't get examined properly until you had serious symptoms.

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by is all mememememe with me

you probly need to factor into that the fact that by smoking, on average you will be paying an extra £2000 per year in taxes. consider still that only 1 in 4 smokers actually get health problems thru smoking and thats around £320,000 of revenue to cover the medical bills of each sick smoker for a 40 year period of smoking, just from the cigarette revenue alone. that's without the national insurance of around ave £1000 per year that everyone pays anyway. so each smoker is effectively paying 3 times the bill thru cigarette taxes.

then compare that to some idiot who goes and breaks his neck sky diving. he'll pay pretty much nothing in extra taxation for his pleasure but could cost way in excess of £2,000,000 in medical costs to the nhs.

if you wanna get really fussy you could say that many of the road traffic accident victims didn't really have to travel by car and could have gotten a bus or walked their journey. so why should the rest of us be footing their bills too.

we could go on all day like this tbh. personally i think doctors should do their jobs that they are paid to do, and stop trying to preach to us how to live just so it makes their jobs a little easier.

It has nothing do with making their jobs easier. It has to do with smokers and obese people causing healthcare costs to skyrocket, making it that much harder for nonsmokers and nonfatasses to get treatment.

Malice, not everyone is a fatass smoker yelling "Murica!" while trying to get treated for feline HIV. I thought conservatives were all about personal responsibility? A fatass who brought all of his health issues upon himself gets treated no problem, but someone who happened to not be lucky enough to be born into a middle class or higher family has to suck it up and die when he gets a diagnosis he had nothing to do with.

Fuck you.

[Malice]

Originally Posted by Venom

The funny thing is with the way the health service is run in the UK you probably wouldn't get examined properly until you had serious symptoms.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...on-in-NHS.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/el...te-orders.html

Oh yeah, having the government completely run the healthcare system, what a great idea.

Originally Posted by crazzyass

but someone who happened to not be lucky enough to be born into a middle class or higher family has to suck it up and die when he gets a diagnosis he had nothing to do with.

Fuck you.

Why don't you help them? You know, healthcare actually isn't expensive if you go somewhere where the government hasn't heavily interfered with it:

60 Minutes Medical Tourism Video - YouTube

60 Minutes Medical Tourism Video - YouTube
Video: click to display

Medical Tourism | ABC News | Jeff Schult - YouTube

Medical Tourism | ABC News | Jeff Schult - YouTube
Video: click to display

Yes, wages are lower, but you need to take into account purchasing power parity (cost of living), and wages aren't necessarily that high a percentage of expenses. Also, the survival rates can be very good, so you're not getting substandard shoddy care in some hut.

Really, how stupid do you have to be not to be consider this? Gee, healthcare is so expensive in this country, I guess I'll just have to die. How dumb do you have to be to never produce the thought that going to another country might be cheaper? It's not as if you only have a few seconds to think of possible options.

Note that medical tourism shows the success of real for-profit free market health care.

[southernsun]

Originally Posted by Venom

The funny thing is with the way the health service is run in the UK you probably wouldn't get examined properly until you had serious symptoms.

Even then they wouldn't notice anything wrong with you and send you away, only to die a week later as the pakistani doctor with a blag degree from mickey mouse university in punjabistan failed to realise that the constant headaches you had for 12 months solid could of been a brain tumor.

Happens all the time. True.

[upinsmoke]

More than half of doctors across the UK have backed controversial measures to withhold treatment to smokers and the obese.
According to a new survey around 54 per cent of those who took part said the NHS should have the right to deny non-emergency treatments to those who fail to lose weight or kick their smoking habits.
Members of the networking website doctors.net.uk were asked 'Should the NHS be allowed to refuse non-emergency treatments to patients unless they lose weight or stop smoking?'
And although the poll was optional 593 of the 1,096 doctors who participated answered yes.
It is believed that some procedures are less likely to work on those with unhealthier lifestyles and medics say they should not use their already limited resources for such work.
In some parts of England smokers and the obese are already being rejected IVF treatment as well as hip and knee replacements by private clinics but patient groups have reacted angrily to calls for the NHS to follow suit, saying it denies them their basic human rights.
Speaking to The Observer Dr. Tim Ringrose, doctors.net.uk's chief executive, said the shift in attitudes is a result of the need to make huge cut backs.

He said: 'This might appear to be only a slim majority of doctors in favor of limiting treatment to some patients who fail to look after themselves, but it represents a tectonic shift for a profession that has always sought to provide free healthcare from the cradle to the grave.'
Dr. Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, also told the paper: 'Clearly, giving up smoking is a good thing, but blackmailing people by telling them that they have to give up isn't what doctors should be doing.'

Pulse magazine has already reported that around 25 of 91 Primary Care Trusts in England have imposed some treatment bans since April last year.
A move to help save the £20bn, expected by the Government, before 2015.
But treatment bans of any kind were slammed by Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, who added: 'There are occasions where a doctor may advise an obese person to lose weight before surgery can safely go ahead.
'But treatment bans are wholly unacceptable.'

that is what I love about this country. They make up rules which break the law.

the law says that everyone has a right to medical treatment and is equal under the law.

which means if you treat one person you have to treat everyone or you could see yourself being brought before the European courts.

Having said that ,I am no longer fat or smoke

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by Malice

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...on-in-NHS.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/el...te-orders.html

Oh yeah, having the government completely run the healthcare system, what a great idea.



Why don't you help them? You know, healthcare actually isn't expensive if you go somewhere where the government hasn't heavily interfered with it:

60 Minutes Medical Tourism Video - YouTube

Medical Tourism | ABC News | Jeff Schult - YouTube

Yes, wages are lower, but you need to take into account purchasing power parity (cost of living), and wages aren't necessarily that high a percentage of expenses. Also, the survival rates can be very good, so you're not getting substandard shoddy care in some hut.

Really, how stupid do you have to be not to be consider this? Gee, healthcare is so expensive in this country, I guess I'll just have to die. How dumb do you have to be to never produce the thought that going to another country might be cheaper? It's not as if you only have a few seconds to think of possible options.

Note that medical tourism shows the success of real for-profit free market health care.

Please don't be stupid. You know everything in medical tourist destinations is pretty goddamn cheap, and it has nothing to do with lack of government regulation. Correlation is not Causation.

Also, if your solution to improving healthcare in this country is "go somewhere with better healthcare" reveals just how fucked up our system is.

How's your feline HIV? Think Indian doctors can treat that?

[Tachosomoza]

It's funny how Malice spews propaganda for a philosophy that will be solely to the benefit of rich people, when he lives in subsidized housing and grew up in Compton. Useful idiot, this.

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by Tachosomoza

It's funny how Malice spews propaganda for a philosophy that will be solely to the benefit of rich people, when he lives in subsidized housing and grew up in Compton. Useful idiot, this.

I'm sure he'll gladly give up his benefits so that his wealthy superiors can get another tax cut.

Hey Malice, my investments/income is doing pretty well these days. Am I your deity now?

[Struwwelpeter]

Correlation is causation. Correlative trends observed using empirical measurements are the basis from which scientific conclusions are drawn.

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by Jim "fuck latinos" Carrey

Correlation is causation. Correlative trends observed using empirical measurements are the basis from which scientific conclusions are drawn.

...no. Correlative trends can be used to determine causation. But causation and correlation are not inherently the same thing.

[Struwwelpeter]

Originally Posted by crazzyass

...no. Correlative trends can be used to determine causation. But causation and correlation are not inherently the same thing.

Correlation is indeed causation, Crazzyass. Correlative trends observed using empirical measurements are the basis from which scientific conclusions are drawn.

[reject]

I agree wholeheartedly that they shouldn't give treatment to obese people, but smokers pay SO much in tax per pack that they should be entitled to the finest treatment available.

[Tachosomoza]

Originally Posted by reject

I agree wholeheartedly that they shouldn't give treatment to obese people, but smokers pay SO much in tax per pack that they should be entitled to the finest treatment available.

You're selfish because you're not obese, but you smoke. An obese person who doesn't smoke probably believes that he's entitled to the finest treatment available as well. Hypocrite, you.

[reject]

But I give the government a lot of money, that's not being selfish. I'm smoking for England.

[Tachosomoza]

[reject]

But obesity kills quickly and makes you look disgusting and it turns you into something useless, smoking goes all right with a healthy lifestyle, and any ill effects are after 40+ years of smoking, hence plenty of tax "paid" to cover it. Obese contribute nothing short term or long term. Fuck 'em.

Smoking FTW.

[The Pat-Man]

Originally Posted by reject

But I give the government a lot of money, that's not being selfish. I'm smoking for England.

beautiful


GOOOOOOOOOD SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE THAAAAAA QUEEEEEEEEEEEN

[Malice]

Originally Posted by crazzyass

Please don't be stupid. You know everything in medical tourist destinations is pretty goddamn cheap, and it has nothing to do with lack of government regulation. Correlation is not Causation.

Also, if your solution to improving healthcare in this country is "go somewhere with better healthcare" reveals just how fucked up our system is.

Nothing to do with lack of regulation? Completely ignores the economics.

No, but it's a good way to deal with it. It's not as if we have "free-market" healthcare, as much as the imbecile left would like to believe.

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by Jim "fuck latinos" Carrey

Correlation is indeed causation, Crazzyass. Correlative trends observed using empirical measurements are the basis from which scientific conclusions are drawn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence

[reject]

Originally Posted by The Pat-Man

beautiful


GOOOOOOOOOD SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE THAAAAAA QUEEEEEEEEEEEN

The only woman I'd give my life for.

[Tachosomoza]

The UK needs more regicide. The entire royal family should be lined up and shot, they contribute nothing, yet sap tens of millions of pounds a year from the people of England. Fuck them.

[The Pat-Man]

tacho wants to kill an old lady how niggardly.

[Tachosomoza]

Originally Posted by The Pat-Man

tacho wants to kill an old lady how niggardly.

Consider it doing my part to end the phenomenon of "welfare queens". Seize all of their property and convert it to public housing.

[Malice]

If people like Tacho were in charge, care would not only be denied to supporters of liberty/capitalism through their socialized health care, providing care through any medium would be punishable by death.

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by Malice

Nothing to do with lack of regulation? Completely ignores the economics.

No, but it's a good way to deal with it. It's not as if we have "free-market" healthcare, as much as the imbecile left would like to believe.

No, ignoring the low wages, small economy, and currency differences is ignoring the economics.


No, you're actually right about that. We have a crony capitalist system, with the government aiding large companies and serving their interests at the expense of everyone else. Ironically, this is what inevitably occurs in a "free market", because companies are free to lobby the government and the government is free to write laws that favor specific companies and industries for its own benefit.

The only way to achieve an actual free market is through regulation. What you're really calling for is more crony capitalism. Your ideology leads to monopolies and corporate welfare for companies that don't need it. As much as you claim it isn't, the current environment is exactly what you and other "free market capitalists" want: the ability to do whatever you want to make money, regardless of the consequences.

[Tachosomoza]

Originally Posted by Malice

If people like Tacho were in charge, care would not only be denied to supporters of liberty/capitalism through their socialized health care, providing care through any medium would be punishable by death.

[The Pat-Man]

Originally Posted by Tachosomoza

Consider it doing my part to end the phenomenon of "welfare queens".

i loled, ill give you that. bitch needs to find a job goddammit.

[reject]

Originally Posted by Tachosomoza

The UK needs more regicide. The entire royal family should be lined up and shot, they contribute nothing, yet sap tens of millions of pounds a year from the people of England. Fuck them.

They cost each person in the UK 64p a year, and bring in millions, perhaps billions, in tourism $. If the UK didn't have it's history and the royal family and shit, nobody would come here.

Except the pakis and polish.

[Struwwelpeter]

Originally Posted by crazzyass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence

http://ghill.customer.netspace.net.a...causation.html


Enjoy your Flavor-Aid, Communist cookie-cutter university grant beneficiary punk.

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by reject

They cost each person in the UK 64p a year, and bring in millions, perhaps billions, in tourism $. If the UK didn't have it's history and the royal family and shit, nobody would come here.

Except the pakis and polish.

This is true. I wonder what it's like being holed up like an animal in a zoo, which is essentially what the Royal Family is. A lot of people envy them, but I can't say that they do. They've never had a say in what they do or who they are. Must suck.

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by Jim "fuck latinos" Carrey

http://ghill.customer.netspace.net.a...causation.html


Enjoy your Flavor-Aid, Communist cookie-cutter university affirmative-action-beneficiary punk.

Interesting read. I'll reiterate: causation does not equal correlation. Any number of examples can prove that.

[Struwwelpeter]

Correlation does indeed imply causation. The odds that correlation will not imply causation in any case are lower than those that a human being will have at surviving a full-power twelve guage buckshot round to the base of the skull. That's because the only cases in which correlation does not equal causation are made-up strawman fantasies such as the mythical and non-existent "sharks and ice cream" study.

[Malice]

Originally Posted by crazzyass

No, ignoring the low wages, small economy, and currency differences is ignoring the economics.


No, you're actually right about that. We have a crony capitalist system, with the government aiding large companies and serving their interests at the expense of everyone else. Ironically, this is what inevitably occurs in a "free market", because companies are free to lobby the government and the government is free to write laws that favor specific companies and industries for its own benefit.

The only way to achieve an actual free market is through regulation. What you're really calling for is more crony capitalism. Your ideology leads to monopolies and corporate welfare for companies that don't need it. As much as you claim it isn't, the current environment is exactly what you and other "free market capitalists" want: the ability to do whatever you want to make money, regardless of the consequences.

How is it that private hospitals in other developed nations can also have much lower rates?

Does Israel not count? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism_in_Israel

Keep in mind that there's still bound to be government interference. Control over the education system (pushing up prices, lowering quality), mandated accreditation (an AA degree that requires you to take classes that have absolutely nothing to do with your career), immigration control (foreign workers. Supply and demand affects the price of labor too), possibly tarrifs, taxes (property), driving up the cost of land (such as with Freddie and Fannie and central banking) and other commodities. All these things in a developed nation and they're still much cheaper.

How about no government? This idea of limited government is a fantasy. You'll probably use the standard arguments against anarchism, though, if you even consider market anarchy a true form of anarchy.

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by Malice

How is it that private hospitals in other developed nations can also have much lower rates?

Does Israel not count? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism_in_Israel

Israel has universal healthcare. Of course procedures are inexpensive and of high quality.

I am dying over here. Ahahahahahaha. Malice, you brighten my day with your stupidity. It never fails. Here, have some more of my tax dollars. It's worth every penny.

Keep in mind that there's still bound to be government interference. Control over the education system (pushing up prices, lowering quality), mandated accreditation (an AA degree that requires you to take classes that have absolutely nothing to do with your career), immigration control (foreign workers. Supply and demand affects the price of labor too), possibly tarrifs, taxes (property), driving up the cost of land (such as with Freddie and Fannie and central banking) and other commodities. All these things in a developed nation and they're still much cheaper.

What are you trying to say exactly? That there's still bound to be government inferference in developing countries? And that they're still cheaper? Are you arguing my side or your side? If there is government regulation and it's still cheaper, then it's obvious that either the regulation helps make it cheaper or that it has no effect. You're barely coherent Malice. You're in the final stages aren't you? The cat-scratch fever almost has him.

How about no government? This idea of limited government is a fantasy. You'll probably use the standard arguments against anarchism, though, if you even consider market anarchy a true form of anarchy.

Yes! That'll make the markets free-free to do whatever the fuck they want. Not that they don't already. But if you don't think that nearly all-powerful monopolies won't pop up, you're insane. No government is fine in a low-tech hunter-gather society. But when you take the technology that we have now, and the vast resources owned by companies, and then take away the one thing that partially keeps them accountable, what do you really expect to happen? That the companies suddenly start cleaning up the environment and stop fucking over the public through the financial sector?

Something really, really, really makes me doubt that.

[Malice]

Originally Posted by crazzyass

Israel has universal healthcare. Of course procedures are inexpensive and of high quality.

I am dying over here. Ahahahahahaha. Malice, you brighten my day with your stupidity. It never fails. Here, have some more of my tax dollars. It's worth every penny.



What are you trying to say exactly? That there's still bound to be government inferference in developing countries? And that they're still cheaper? Are you arguing my side or your side? If there is government regulation and it's still cheaper, then it's obvious that either the regulation helps make it cheaper or that it has no effect. You're barely coherent Malice. You're in the final stages aren't you? The cat-scratch fever almost has him.



Yes! That'll make the markets free-free to do whatever the fuck they want. Not that they don't already. But if you don't think that nearly all-powerful monopolies won't pop up, you're insane. No government is fine in a low-tech hunter-gather society. But when you take the technology that we have now, and the vast resources owned by companies, and then take away the one thing that partially keeps them accountable, what do you really expect to happen? That the companies suddenly start cleaning up the environment and stop fucking over the public through the financial sector?

Something really, really, really makes me doubt that.

You fucking idiot, those private hospitals don't have anything to do with their universal system. Canada has private hospitals, they're not the same.

No, government interference doesn't have to push prices through the roof, it doesn't have to cause everything to collapse. There are many ways they can interfere and different interferences will have different effects, some will be more harmful than others. Your view is completely nonsensical, you haven't thought things through.

What, you mean like the robber barons during the so-called gilded age? This is a complete myth, look it up. Big business uses regulation for their own benefit, it allows monopolies to be created.

There was a very important book written about this, by a leftist, mind you:



You don't understand anarchism.

[crazzyass]

Originally Posted by Malice

You fucking idiot, those private hospitals don't have anything to do with their universal system. Canada has private hospitals, they're not the same.

Right, right...let's see...so private hospitals in Canada and Israel both have dramatically lower costs than ones in the US. What's the difference between the two? Oh yes! Canada and Israel have universal healthcare, pushing overall healthcare costs down. Of course the private hospitals still have lower costs than the US, their total system is orders of magnitude more efficient than ours.

Stop proving all of my points for me, it almost sucks the fun out of debating you.

No, government interference doesn't have to push prices through the roof, it doesn't have to cause everything to collapse. There are many ways they can interfere and different interferences will have different effects, some will be more harmful than others. Your view is completely nonsensical, you haven't thought things through.

"Interference"? The fuck are you talking about? "Different interferences will have different effects"? Sounds like you're describing wave motion, not economics. Don't tell me my view is nonsensical when you're talking about voodoo economics. You're literally saying that the existence of government just fucks the world up, sort of like how the very existence of matter bends space to cause gravity.

What, you mean like the robber barons during the so-called gilded age? This is a complete myth, look it up. Big business uses regulation for their own benefit, it allows monopolies to be created.

There was a very important book written about this, by a leftist, mind you:



You don't understand anarchism.

Ah, yes, laws that break up monopolies actually form monopolies. How silly of me. I see the error in my logic there.

No, I understand anarchism far too well. You understand an idealized masturbatory teenage fantasy version where everyone is John Galt when in reality you'd just be another cog in the wheel, breaking your back for a penny an hour, praying your overlords are pleased or else you're out on your ass. I wonder, if (when) they eventually fire you, or you're simply too injured or old to be of any use anymore, how will you protect yourself? Having no resources and no longer being under the protection of the companies private military company, you'll be on your own. How long will you last in that situation, I wonder? Go to your family, if you have any? How will you pay the tolls to use the roads? Never mind getting killed on them on the way.

I really want to hear, in depth, how your fantasy utopia would work out. Please, enlighten me.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by reject

I agree wholeheartedly that they shouldn't give treatment to obese people, but smokers pay SO much in tax per pack that they should be entitled to the finest treatment available.

Americans' poorer lifestyle choices as compared to other OECD nations does not account for any significant cost differential in healthcare.

The simple fact is this: our prices are higher.

[Malice]

No, no, don't be so sure Charger, there's some interesting information about this in "20 Myths About Single Payer". If you consider criminality to be a poor lifestyle choice, then blacks and hispanics may indeed contribute significantly to costs.

In addition to aides and obesity, the United States has other demands on its health care
system that Canada does not. For example, the U.S. male homicide rate is three times that of
Canada.
161
The United States also has health care costs related to war injuries (including those of
Vietnam veterans). And as Figure 7-3 illustrates, teenage girls, who are more likely to have
premature babies and other complications stemming from pregnancy, become pregnant almost
twice as often in the United States as in Canada, and give birth nearly two and one-half times as
often.
162

[ChargerCarl]

Sorry, Im taking the word of the world's leading health care economists over yours.

[southernsun]

Originally Posted by Tachosomoza

The UK needs more regicide. The entire royal family should be lined up and shot, they contribute nothing, yet sap tens of millions of pounds a year from the people of England. Fuck them.

Prince Phillip is a l-e-g-e-n-d, he pisses all over the 'political correctness' brigade in the UK and does he give a fuck? no.