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[ChairmanPoo]

I think the misunderstanding lies in the usage of the word "free". It's not "free" healthcare, it's goverment-funded healthcare. And it works well in most of the developed world.

[Frumple]

To the american mind, good chairman, the doctor's visit that doesn't break three digits might as well be free

[McTraveller]

Yes, thank you Chairman.

Just don't call it free!  It's not free in cost or in liberty.

Yes, state funded health care does provide health care at demonstrably lower cost to higher portions of populations than the US system.  But for the love of all, don't call it free!  It's dishonest!

(I don't know if people misunderstood that I was not advocating for our current for-profit healthcare. I find many aspects of it abhorrent. But my spouse, several close friends, and other relatives are all in the health care industry so I know that simply having the government pay for care in the US system is not going to look anything like what other countries have.  Search my post history; I can't recall what I've said before on that matter and would probably contradict myself if I tried to state it again  )

[hector13]

I guess schools really are failing these days:

If you can't pay for things*, you can only have what someone else is willing to give you.

EDIT: changed don't to can't; if everything is free, you cannot pay for it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It should not be surprising that this situation is the same thing as a definition of poverty.

*EDIT 2: there's a detail here - if you can't pay for things and you are not able/allowed to make things for yourself.

You can be pretentiously obtuse by moving of the goalposts away from what you acknowledge is the position people are speaking, to the dictionary definition of the words used to describe that position, but there’s no need to be a cunt when someone asks you a reasonable question when they think you’re engaging with the accepted phrase and not being a pretentious shit about it, aye?

Is there anything - beyond people not using language in a strict dictionary definition because they dare to use accepted terms to refer to something you think is reminiscent of dystopian government for some reason - that will result in a negative consequence from

PPE ah fuck it it’s moved in but I’m in a bad mood so have at it anyway.

[McTraveller]

Sorry hector13 - I was not trying to be pretentious.  I get railed on by my wife for sounding condescending all the time too...it's not my intent but my tone is terrible.

My comment about schools was because this is basic philosophy I was taught and I guess I take it for granted that schools still teach this: if you give up responsibility, you also give up freedom.  Chalk it up to more systematic decay or conspiracy or whatever why this is not taught any more.

As for "free" - Words matter, especially during periods when the meanings start to shift. So yeah I'm going to encourage not being complacent about it.

[Dunamisdeos]

I would recommend not using free simply because it gives the opponents of healthcare reform something to latch onto.

[PTTG??]

So just to clarify, you're down with some kind of socialized medicine, you just don't want to call it "free healthcare?" If that's the case, we can call it bug-eating so long as the United States gets the same level of civilization as Slovenia.

As for the value of your arguments, argumentum ad absurdum is not helpful in politics. Every policy requires good faith and moderation in its application. The absurd extremes of the free market are as horrifying as the absurd extremes of planned economies.

[Trekkin]

As for "free" - Words matter, especially during periods when the meanings start to shift. So yeah I'm going to encourage not being complacent about it.

For what it's worth, I'm actually with you on this. The economics of American healthcare aren't good for patients, but it does fund a system that incentivizes parts of healthcare research that would be difficult to fund otherwise. Other countries can and do fund academically appealing basic science, but critical parts of the engineering that produces actual therapeutics are concentrated here for a reason: some pharmaceutical companies are so cartoonishly rich that they can throw workable sums at high-risk high-reward endeavors to bridge the gap between theory and compound pipeline. Destroying that system would significantly limit the world's ability to innovate vis-a-vis new medical technologies.

There is something to be said for the meaningless distinction between an unaffordable drug and a nonexistent one and plenty of people more than willing to say it, but there are less disruptive middle grounds that keep those incentives in place while making health care more affordable. They just aren't as appealing as torches and pitchforks, because they involve lots of memetically toxic fiddly details of IP law.

[Max™]

You could keep incentivizing development via greed with profit motives and still slash our healthcare costs/spending to a far more reasonable level by just murdering the insurance industry, and nobody who understands how it works would even blame you! That is some evil shit when you really look into it.

[Frumple]

Actually, iirc most of that R&D angle is basically horseshit, and the U.S. commercial healthcare R&D just flat out vanishing overnight wouldn't really be that big of a deal, nevermind it wouldn't happen. Lot of the money thrown around there doesn't actually do much good, plus it's not exactly a huge chunk of their expenditures, or something along those lines.

Pretty sure there's been a steady dribble of articles and whatnot lately actually checking the claim that U.S. for-profit R&D is super vital and finding it... wanting. Which really shouldn't be that much of a surprise when you're talking the sort of fucks that would really rather you not question their business models and just quietly choke on whatever they're interested in jamming down your throat that day.

[Il Palazzo]

Well, McTraveller has a point, in that the overuse of 'free healthcare' is what made Warren twist like an eel trying to avoid saying that taxes will go up to fund it. If the rhetoric were using state-sponsored or taxpayer-funded healthcare, it would be less contentious and less prone to being strawmanned by opposition, methinks. Less catchy, though.
I suppose as long as anyone's goal is to convince their fellow Americans that private healthcare should go, it wouldn't hurt to make an effort to refer to the alternative without using the word 'free'.

Destroying that system would significantly limit the world's ability to innovate vis-a-vis new medical technologies.

Ah, but aren't you a biased Big Pharma shill? Sitting there, in your blinged-out lab, working on funny stuff, like you're in that Margaret Atwood novel.

[hector13]

Sorry hector13 - I was not trying to be pretentious.  I get railed on by my wife for sounding condescending all the time too...it's not my intent but my tone is terrible.

My comment about schools was because this is basic philosophy I was taught and I guess I take it for granted that schools still teach this: if you give up responsibility, you also give up freedom.  Chalk it up to more systematic decay or conspiracy or whatever why this is not taught any more.

As for "free" - Words matter, especially during periods when the meanings start to shift. So yeah I'm going to encourage not being complacent about it.

No problem. I also apologize for the bluntness of my response, but I’m too tired to mince words, and you picked someone who has been too sensitive about their intelligence for ages. Regardless, you didn’t deserve quite that strong a response.

Anyhow, this may partly be a cultural thing; I’m a British citizen, so “free” healthcare (meaning free at the point of use) has been available for my entire life, paid for via taxes and national insurance contributions, and I’ve grown rather attached to it. While you may have had to wait for it, you would eventually get what you needed/wanted and you didn’t have to worry about how it would impact your finances for the months following diagnosis and treatment.

I live in the US now, and been to the doctor all of one time. Probably won’t go again, but that was partly because of all the goddamn hoops I had to jump through to get seen, and then being charged for it afterward (it was a physical, but I also had a problem that required blood tests that didn’t fall under the “one free yearly physical” thing from my insurance) despite paying $600 a month for coverage, and I honestly have difficulty understanding why people prefer that over what I grew up with.

[MrRoboto75]

I swear for every dollar spent on medical RnD five goes to yet another TV commercial going "ASK YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT ANALDILDO TODAY"

[Folly]

I live in the US now, and been to the doctor all of one time. Probably won’t go again, but that was partly because of all the goddamn hoops I had to jump through to get seen, and then being charged for it afterward (it was a physical, but I also had a problem that required blood tests that didn’t fall under the “one free yearly physical” thing from my insurance) despite paying $600 a month for coverage, and I honestly have difficulty understanding why people prefer that over what I grew up with.

Polls show that shy of 30% of Americans actually prefer the current system or one without government assisted healthcare. I'd imagine that most of those are probably just comfortable with what they're used to and afraid of change. But most Americans do want healthcare reform.

Imo, the much greater issue is lack of oversight in the medical industry. If there were actually someone ensuring that medical professionals perform only procedures that are necessary, and charge only what is fair for their services and medications, then the prices of healthcare would plummet so fast that nobody would even care who was paying for it anymore.

[Eschar]

If you can't pay for things*, you can only have what someone else is willing to give you.
-snip-
There's a detail here - if you can't pay for things you are not able/allowed to make things for yourself.

... if you can pay for things you certainly aren't making them for yourselves either.

I was going to say also that if you are paying for something, you can only have what someone else is willing to sell you (in response to that first point of yours I quoted in this post), but I realized a relevant difference: in that case you can often 'vote with your dollar' if they aren't willing to sell you good products. Unless they have a monopoly.

Also:

Free:
...
5. given or available without charge. [Example:] "free healthcare"