Why is socialism so bad?

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Originally Posted by maladroit

"A society that leans more towards more free markets will always be more productive than their left leaning counterparts."

- then why doesn't the free market approach work with US health care? despite paying twice as much per capita for health care compared to canada, americans see their doctors less often, and spend less time in hospital than canadians, and experience a 2.5 year shorter lifespan, along with higher infant mortality...that's not very productive

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There are plenty of factors that lead to high life expectency, of which are far more heavily weighted than "health systems" to reflect total life expectancy. One of which is lifestyle, another is stress; this truly says something that goes along with part of the OP's premise.

Secondly, there is not a free market in regards to healthcare... It's heavy regulations here in the US lead to an oligopoly of firms. State regulatins alone in regards to insurance completely distorts the market.

There is no such thing as free healthcare; the people who will pay for it are the middle class who have worked all their lives. The very rich will not, they have their tax free havens. If Obama even attempts to reach in their pockets, an assassination is certain, conveniently blamed on white supremacists.

Look forward to free tattoo removal and other general stupidity.

NHS blows millions on removing tattoos - Times Online
Cancer patients ‘betrayed’ by NHS - Times Online

Most nations in the world are socialistic to some extent today.

Anarchy = no discipline
Socialism = government imposed discipline
Capitalism = self discipline

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Originally Posted by GoldenBoy812

Secondly, there is not a free market in regards to healthcare... It's heavy regulations here in the US lead to an oligopoly of firms. State regulatins alone in regards to insurance completely distorts the market.

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exactly, Im not arguing for socialism. Trust me, Im acutely aware that "those that much is given, much is needed" My point is that socialism already exists on a large level. We dont have a completely free market and having seen a social healthcare at work. I would like to see it in this country. I would be willing to give up welfare, food stamps, and half of the disability cases to pay for healthcare. I think its that important. I just dont understand how someone really thinks that welfare, food stamps, and disability are not social programs and enable fools to sit on their ass all day. trust me, I have two close people in my life that collect disability (in my opinion needlessly) and dont give anything back to society... or even put in so much that they deserve to sit on their ass all day. yet, despite our anit-socialism rhetoric our gov't sends them a check every month! Thats FUCKING socialistic!

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Originally Posted by Reefer Rogue

I'd much rather live in England where my health care is free, where the government actually cares about the people, rather then the profits. I'll gladly pay taxes to help people in need. The amount of money you're forced to pay for an American college is deplorable, these are 2 reasons i moved back to England from America. The people are great but the laws suck ass, too harsh, too republican, too reactionary. Not enough equality in society. All they wanna do is bleed you dry. This is why Obama will win, because these are the key issues which affect a majority of people in difficult economic circumstances. People aren't even aware of the differences between positive and negative liberty. Too many people want too much negative liberty, they want the government out of their lives, they see them as people who interfere in your business. Whereas positive liberty is where the government uses its tools and power to help people in need with social reform and welfare and health insurance and college costs. There's been so much negative liberty recently, the republicans thought the wealth would trickle down but the wealth must start from the bottom up. This is how the economy will really prosper, when people on main street have enough confidence and money to start buying and investing again.

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Being that we are a republic, i damn sure expect the laws to be that of a republican standard. :jointsmile:

You are refering to "freedom of" vs "freedom from". The American creation was based on a strict balance between the two, where you have the freedom of speech, religion etc... (that had been denied for ages), and you have freedom from your governments ability to take that away. We are talking federal, as states truly had the power to act more so how the federal government does today, which creates a competition among states.

Its not that i am against socialized health care, just that i do not want such things dictated from Washington DC. States should have the right to enact such policies, as well as preform the will of the people, as it is through or state where the democratic process ends. If success is achieved, other states will eventually adopt such policies which can lead to a constitutional ammendment (just so it does not interfere with aspects of the constitution). This rightous path has been stolen from the American people and now live on the dictatorship of Washington...

Think about it for a second, if a state wants to employ more safety nets, it will have to tax its people more heavily. If this leads to greater production from its populace, other states will adopt similar policy. Remember, wealth is not a zero sum game. Slavery actually sapped the wealth of the south after the slaves were free. The north was always more productive, which should have been a great indicator that an economy based on slave labor made even a smidget of pareto efficiency impossible.

In reality, it was not about efficiency, nor was it about doing the right thing. Slavery was used by the south to keep the price of cotton cheap over the short run. Over the long run it backfired.

I guess what i am trying to say is, states should be the sole provider of social safety nets. Just so long as they do not deny your constitutional rights:jointsmile: But when it comes to competing against capitalist states, one will always outshine the other. Free markets always win, and they never discriminate...

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Originally Posted by theforthdrive

exactly, Im not arguing for socialism. Trust me, Im acutely aware that "those that much is given, much is needed" My point is that socialism already exists on a large level. We dont have a completely free market and having seen a social healthcare at work. I would like to see it in this country. I would be willing to give up welfare, food stamps, and half of the disability cases to pay for healthcare. I think its that important. I just dont understand how someone really thinks that welfare, food stamps, and disability are not social programs and enable fools to sit on their ass all day. trust me, I have two close people in my life that collect disability (in my opinion needlessly) and dont give anything back to society... or even put in so much that they deserve to sit on their ass all day. yet, despite our anit-socialism rhetoric our gov't sends them a check every month! Thats FUCKING socialistic!

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One of the main reasons socialized health care will never be fully adopted is because it will lead to a deficient research and development budget. Sad but true, the driving force in global innovation is profit.

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Originally Posted by GoldenBoy812

One of the main reasons socialized health care will never be fully adopted is because it will lead to a deficient research and development budget. Sad but true, the driving force in global innovation is profit.

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Valid point. youre right, profit is the best drive for innovation. And lots of money goes into R & D. But I would also argue that lots of the R & D of big Pharma. is not needed. The med. schools could take back much of the research thru. gov't grants. I know I know. Thats more socialism. Fuck, I dont know what the answers are, I just know what we are doing now isnt working that well!

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Originally Posted by GoldenBoy812

One of the main reasons socialized health care will never be fully adopted is because it will lead to a deficient research and development budget. Sad but true, the driving force in global innovation is profit.

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I think that's false. Doctors and researches who are actually devoted to their work will still make the progress, and could be paid by the government for their hard work. If profit drove research, we would probably have cures for Diabetes, AIDS, and cancer right now. The problem is that it's much more profitable for these diseases to still be around than it is to cure them.

That's the sad part.

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Originally Posted by JakeMartinez

I think that's false. Doctors and researches who are actually devoted to their work will still make the progress, and could be paid by the government for their hard work. If profit drove research, we would probably have cures for Diabetes, AIDS, and cancer right now. The problem is that it's much more profitable for these diseases to still be around than it is to cure them.

That's the sad part.

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What's sad is that a good number of doctors do become doctors in order to make money. Socialized medicine would require regulation in other markets aside from the insurance industry otherwise costs would get out of hand. A doctor's Salary is directly dependant on what an insurance company will pay for. When you have a socialized healthcare plan then you force a TON of risk onto policy writer. The only way to cover the risk is to charge a high premium or to regulate other fields.

Shrug.. I like my doctor making 100-200k/year and I would hate to see that impeded when 61% of American's have employer based insurance, 19% have no insurance and the remainder have medicare/medicaid or are unconfirmed.

We've had a 9% decline in employer based insurance since 1988. That is less than 0.5% a year. This would seem to indicate a problem that needs to be addressed and not necessarily that we need to have a universal healthcare system.

with universal health care, the doctor charges the health care plan (or the hospital) for each procedure, much the same way a doctor charges procedures to an insurance company or directly to an uninsured patient in the private USA health care system...unlike the private system, there is no insurance company in the universal health care system so it isn't overburdened with paperwork and profiteering...i think the usa is the only country in the world where the health care system is dedicated to avoiding the provision of health care by denying insurance coverage, which probably has a lot to do with the poor US healthcare outcomes compared to universal health care systems in other countries

First, I think all of your comments are interesting but doesn't anybody think that the size and population of the U.S. is a factor in any of this?

I could compare a lemonade stand to coca cola and come to the conclusion that the owner of the lemonade stand (a 9 year old boy) has a better business plan then coca cola company because his profit margin is a lot higher due to his incredible efficiency an low over head.
truth be known he's not busy enough to have to deal with hiring employees, he only makes one kind of drink so there is never any waste, he's cute and has no competition

Look, there are over 300 MILLION people in the US 3rd highest in the world. Japan has a little over 100 Million.........that's a 3rd less
France has a little over 60 million........ that's 5 times less
the netherlands has a little over 15 million.....that's 20 times less

Life expectancy for the US is 78.06
Life expectancy in france is 80.59..... a little over 2 years
Does anybody have any idea of how many different life styles, eating habits there are in the US compared to ANY of the ones in question? It is proof of how great this country is that we are so closely comparable.

How about quality of life?
U.S. ranks 12th at 0.951
France ranks 11th at 0.952
Netherlands ranks 9th at 0.953
This is also how great this country is because we are so comparable.

On top of all of this, we have the largest and strongest military in the world....don't forget that. It costs a lot of money to be a super power.
Also, I've met many people in my life time that have flown here...to the US for surgery because their hospitals weren't good enough to take on a given procedure.
Something as simple as an MRI...something used quite frequently to find cancer in the body is not used in Canada, they have to drive over the border for that.
Now, of course there are examples of government run programs but that is the problem they keep growing and growing and growing.
That is the greed of the government...nothing more. Stamp out greed, make government smaller, that's how life gets better in the US.

If anybody really wants to know the truth look up who has been running this country since the 50's
Both the House and the Senate, you know the guys that vote on everything, have had a majority of democrats overwhelmingly since 1955.
Until 1983 there was never a republican majority for either.
Collectively the republicans have run both houses about a total of 20 times in 53 years that means that 80 times collectively the democrats have.

Good day and good luck!