[geeks] nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro

[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 22, 2008, at 15:23 , der Mouse wrote:

>> No, it isn't, because that is not what it meant by rationed health
>> care.
>
> So, what do _you_ mean by "rationed"?
>
>>> It's just standard supply and demand; in a monetised health-care
>>> system you use ability to pay to "ration" limited health-care
>>> resources.  In a socialised health care system other means are used
>>> to ration limited resources.
>> In other words, socialized medicine is rationed, the US system is
>> not.
>
> Sounds to me as though you two are arguing over what "rationed" means,
> rather than over heatl-care systems per se.
>
>> Both require money so they both have that limit.
>
> They do?  The Canadian one doesn't - at least not in my experience.

Really?  All those workers do everything for free, and the medical  
supplies just appear like magic?

Hell of a system you have there...

> It is?  I can't see how, unless the insurance is not allowed to turn
> people down or some such.

The companies *ARE* heavily regulated in terms of who and what they  
have to cover, but at the same time they also gradually imposed more  
rules and government oversight into the system, determining who was  
covered, how, how much, etc.

At the same time our government started also selling insurance, and  
that has a heavy effect on the commercial insurance and private  
healthcare.

The two systems are not compatible.

When we had a free market system, costs were lower and it was first  
class.

It's still first class, but heavily regulated and being priced out of  
most people's reach.

You either join a heavily socialized HMO or other corporate construct,  
or you vote for someone who will impose a socialized government-run  
system.

That's what one of the OPs was trying to get across: corporations and  
government agencies started socializing the system to make it "fair  
and comprehensive", but the end result is that costs are higher, so  
high that it is getting hard to pay for.

> I don't think so.  Certainly there can be those who profit, but there
> is nothing inherently for-profit about socialized medicine.  At its
> purest (which is not to say that it often - or even ever - is done  
> that
> way), any "profit" is returned to the public coffers, thus ultimately
> reducing the tax burden that society pays for it in the first place.

I'd like for you to show me a single system anywhere, that is any  
good, which does not have corporate giants making huge profits.

> Like most aspects of the socialist/capitalist/communist dilemma, I'm  
> of
> mixed feelings about it.  But I do find that, in my experience, there
> is a substantial positive correlation between how socialized a system
> is and how much I'd like to live under it - and I say that as someone
> who is probably above the wealth median in any of the societies my
> experience covers.

The problem I have with a socialized system, several actually:

	- it requires a lot of taxation, and that's already out of control
	- it is run by a government which has demonstrated no ability or
	  will to do it properly
	- several socialized systems around the world are in constant danger
	  of bankruptcy as more and more people use it
	- in the USA anyway, most of the operation will be handed over to the
	  same corporations who run most of it today
	- *EVERY* system so far proposed comes with some really nasty strings
	  attached

I think most current socialized medical systems are heavily subsidized  
by the free market and could not exist otherwise.

The only way I can see for socialism to work is for citizens to turn  
over most of their money and a lot of their freedom.

-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com