Folks continue to email me their political pet peeves and prejudices... "The military is a complete waste anyway", "welfare mothers should get a job", "Greedy corporations are nothing but rapists", not realizing that these views were manufactured by someone else for the purpose of manipulating them for political purposes. (Not to mention it is a slippery slope from there to hardcore bigotry, anti-semitism, jingoism, etc...)
There will be no satisfaction in watching the (Fill in the Blank of whoever you can't stand) get theirs, folks, cause you will be VERY busy with the issues in YOUR new life. Because you, and you ALONE, will be responsible for you and yours. Social safety nets, subsidies, tax deductions, and other government support functions currently enjoyed by Americans are going to come to a halt at some point. In other cases the free market will bring things into a very unforgiving equilibrium.
For instance:
America does not have a "Healthcare Crisis". The healthcare system has developed treatments that the economic production system cannot fully pay for. The "CRISIS" is a manufactured political issue because some how the resources available must be apportioned amongst the population - and their is no "fair" way of doing it (Life's not fair now, is it?), so somebody is ALWAYS going to be on the short end of the stick.
Think about it: 100 years ago, in 1908 America... was there a healthcare crisis? Nope. If you got sick, you died. End of story. The development of treatments over the past century did not come with a source of funding. The funds had to be extracted by FORCE, and by mathematical necessity from folks not needing these new treatments. This was a perfect recipe for political manipulation of the masses. Now, for better or worse, no matter where you stand on the issue of healthcare in America, the issue is about to be settled for you. We won't have the money to keep everyone in intensive care for the final 3 weeks of their lives under any circumstances. Best take care of your health while you have it.
Think about it: We don't have a housing crisis in America. We have PLENTY of houses and condos and apartments, no shortage there, folks. We have a housing FINANCE crisis. On balance, the economic system does not produce enough output to pay for the housing we have. After all, mortgage defaults are at extreme levels, and yet we are a zero savings society. We have consumed all of our economic output and still do not have any money left over to pay for all of the homes we have.
No amount of bill passing by Congress, regulating by regulators, or executive orders from a President of YOUR political persuasion is going to change ANYTHING. These issues are SYSTEMIC. Spare me the "Ronald Reagan destroyed this country" and the "Jimmy Carter was a fucking idiot, if only he...". Get over yourself! Easy scapegoats all, but the real problem all along has been US. You and me. But don't let that bother you. The fix is in. But "The Revolution will not be Televised". And American politics will NEVER be the same (thankfully).
Good luck!
Mentatt (at) yahoo (d0t) com
13 comments:
I must take a little umbrage at your characterization of the US health care situation. America, as collapse author Dmitry Orlov has correctly pointed, is the only industrialized nation on the planet that has turned basic and emergency health care into a for-profit enterprise, with the result being that average schmucks use the emergency room as their primary care physician, wait for 8-10 hours to see a sleep deprived internist who then prescribes some overpriced pharmaceutical available without a prescription and for a fraction of the cost in virtually every other nation on earth. Then ensues a paper battle between the hospital and the insurance company, lasting for many months, over whether the hospital could charge for a doctor's visit on top of the emergency room visit.
The medical system here has become a parasite, bloated and ineffectual. The doctors are saddled with unreasonable regulations and financial liabilities. General medicine has been supplanted by medical specialists, insurance consultants, and medical billing experts. In Belize, which is quite a poor country, one can readily receive prompt and excellent free emergency medical care from a Cuban medic.
One of the biggest factors in the decline of GM (besides the obvious decades of inculcated insular myopia) has been their exorbitant health care costs over the last three decades (according to GM itself), a cost not inflicted upon it's foreign competitors. Shock! GM has discovered that socialized medicine is more economical, after six decades of fighting same.
As James Howard Kunstler has said for years, we've devolved into a nation of crybabies. The current issues with energy prices are a symptom of another problem which is one of entitlement. We're going to learn-- in short order-- that no one is entitled to anything.
Fallout:
Life expectancy, despite a HUGE underclass and a HUGE prison population, and despite the fact that Americans are literally HUGE (Fat), is not far from the socialistic healthcare systems around the globe.
The empirical data do not support Dmitri's position.
Anonymous:
My point exactly. We are entitled to NOTHING, and soon we will have a good hard look at what that means.
Life expectancy is not only a function of the health care system. The type and quality of food, environmental degradation, quality of gene pool etc may have a greater impact on life span than the health care system.
When quoting life expectancy, one should also quote the cost of the health care system as a percentage of the GDP. Example:
Life expectancy in Japan is over 80 years at 8% of GDP for health care.
In the US, life expectancy is 76 years at 16% of GDP of health care cost.
Note: Japan is a socialistic economy. The employment of the Japanese people and their health is more important than the profit rates of Japanese corporations.
The numbers are even more impressive in Cuba. There is no question that the US health care system is one of the least efficient health care systems in the world. Infant mortality in the US is among the highest in the world.
On a personal note: A recent visit at my dentist required a 3 minute treatment and resulted in a bill of $200 for the service provided.
Robert S.
The claim "We are entitled to nothing" is a huge joke. The total amount of taxes collected in the US per capita is among the highest in the world. To measure taxes as a percentage of GDP, one should not make the mistake of looking at federal income taxes only. One should include state and local taxes, property taxes, highway tolls, sale taxes, social security taxes, school and college tuition and the high cost of medical care among the many taxes we pay in the US. When added up correctly, the US turns out to be a country of high taxation. Our politicians exceed only in disguising these taxes in areas untaxed in other countries.
Given the high taxes we pay in the US, to say that we the people in the US are not entitled to anything is a huge joke. That joke can be made only by somebody who is either blind to the facts or by somebody who is grossly cynical.
Robert S.
Err....the US is a hard-to-be-proud-of 45th (of 220th) in life expectancy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
Underdeveloped and chronically poor nations such as Cuba, Greece, Malta, and even Singapore have longer life expectancies.
Number of infant deaths per 1000, another widely used measure of health care quality, is also quite poor in the US.
That aside, my position was not that we receive worse care, but that we receive, at best, only equivalent care. The private pay-as-you-go system is no better than socialized medicine in terms of quality, making it a poor choice from an economic standpoint. If product A is not better and perhaps worse than product B but costs x10 as much, why would you buy it?
Gentlemen:
Our life expectancy is MONTHS not years shorter than the others on the list. Considering the size of the U.S. underclass, prison populations, and drug and alcohol abuse, and the level of OBESITY I am STUNNED at how long we live.
If you want to believe our system sucks, by all means, do so.
And no, I don't think the U.S. system of billing third parties is a teribly smart idea.
But I have some experience here. I COME from the large AMerican underclass. I grew up without health insurance, among other indignities I won't bore you with.
But when I got hit by a car when I was a kid, admitted to hospital, I was treated, had surgery... Somebody paid for it, and it wasn't me (I was 9 or 10) or my parents.
I also had all of my immunizations, etc...
Finally, the 3 kinds of lies - mine yours and statistics are in full force here...
Infant mortality in the U.S. is primarily about drug and alcohol abuse by the parents. Medicaid patients - they pay NOTHING for care - have the highest percentage of non immunized children in the fucking U.S. THat is the neglect of the parents - not the healthcare system.
In any event, as Robert Heinlen said in "Stranger in a Strange Land" - The Cure for hemphilia is to let the hemophiliacs bleed to death" The Energy crisis is going to cure the healthcare crisis.
BTW - calling me "cynical" or stupid, dumb, racist, whatever... does not support your contentions.
I have no intention of debating the healthcare system with anyone - anymore than I want to discuss what killed the last DoDo bird.
Certain political folks want to fund certain programs with money while they decry and even ROOT for the demolishment of corporate american via the energy crisis. Guys, the funding you seek ain't comming from any place else. Ergo, the won't be any funding.
Mr. Jeffers, you were lucky that your car accident experience occurred nearly four decades ago. Today, you would have had a significantly different experience.
I will say no more on the matter, on this we will simply agree to disagree and let it go at that. ^_^
Sorry to say that these guys are right, Greg. Medical bills are now the leading cause of the over one million annual bankruptcies in the US, and most of these people had medical insurance. “Unless you’re Bill Gates, you’re just one serious illness away from bankruptcy,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of medicine. “Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick.”
Perhaps our health care system, which focuses almost exclusively on addressing symptoms (through chemicals and surgery) only after one is sick is part of the problem behind the overall poor health of Americans in general. Something about an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure.
-Melissa
This is an emotional issue.
There was no healthcare bankruptcy's in the 1930's. If you got sick, you did not go broke (you already were broke) - you DIED.
Look at the American economic output system from 10,000 feet above the surface of the earth - say, as a Martian would look at it.
The U.S. runs HUGE budget deficits, at both the state and federal level (the states seem balanced - they are NOT), the average American has ZERO savings, and you are suggesting that there is money left over to spend on more government sponsored Healthcare program.
Forget your politics for a moment. Where does the money come from? Efficiency you say? Change the system you say? OF COURSE healthcare should be a public service - BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT WILL IMPROVE, OR CAN EVEN HAPPEN, ABSENT THE ABILITY TO PAY FOR IT.
We cannot lower our savings any more (in order to pay fund this program), hell we can't even make or mortgages. The government is in debt to the point that our currency is in free fall.
This is starting to appear like a "condition", not a "problem" with a "solution".
Finally, at the time of my accident we had nothing. People with nothing continue to get treated under Medicaid. People with assets must spend those assets until they come down to the Medicaid threshold. It is a tough situation, and it is going to get much, much, much tougher as the energy situation demolishes tax receipts and employment.
My advice: Don't smoke, don't drink, and don't do drugs. Wear your seat belt, watch your weight, and hope like hell you have got good genes. Because the energy tooth fairy just ain't gonna be there for you in the future.
First malpractice suits force doctors to purchase malpractice insurance then the fat juicy insurance coverage provides a tempting target to the unscrupulous; ratcheting up the premiums. This isn’t THE cause but one of many, and one that contributes very little to improve medical care, certainly not enough to justify the cost.
It’s not a new problem either, to quote Gibbon:
“…in the decline of Roman jurisprudence the ordinary promotion of lawyers was pregnant with mischief and disgrace. The noble art which had once been preserved as the sacred art of the patricians, was fallen into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, who, with cunning rather than skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade.”
Follow-up:
American inequality highlighted by 30-year gap in life expectancy
"Despite the fact that the US spends roughly $5.2bn (£2.6bn) every day on health care, more per capita than any other nation in the world, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of every western European and Nordic country, bar Denmark."
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