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[ChairmanPoo]

Medical procedures are very expensive. To the point that savings are often not enough to pay them (even with insurance!). I think that other concerns aside, a national healthcare system is fundamental to ensure people get decent healthcare standards.

ER room assistance is not a good example, because in principle you ought to get basic care anywhere, no matter who you are or whether you can pay or not. Otherwise it would be denial of assistance, and punishable by law (and medical colleges as well, likely). It's common sense, too. If you enter an ER unconscious after having had an accident, you wont necessarily be able to identify yourself and/or state what your insurance status is.

[Andir]

Medical procedures are very expensive. To the point that savings are often not enough to pay them (even with insurance!). I think that other concerns aside, a national healthcare system is fundamental to ensure people get decent healthcare standards.

ER room assistance is not a good example, because in principle you ought to get basic care anywhere, no matter who you are or whether you can pay or not. Otherwise it would be denial of assistance, and punishable by law (and medical colleges as well, likely). It's common sense, too. If you enter an ER unconscious after having had an accident, you wont necessarily be able to identify yourself and/or state what your insurance status is.

I agree actually.  I'm not against Healthcare, but I feel as though there are other things that need to be done to help the situation besides blindly funding anyone.

I also feel privacy of medical information should be top of a list of requirements.  Privacy to the level that the patient determines who has access.  (with stipulation to unlock that data only when the patient is unable to provide the "key")

[Leafsnail]

(preferably the Libertarians )

Auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

Agreed.

Now, there's another side of the argument as well.  Take government funded schooling.  If each person is able to use their own paycheck to pay for whatever school they want their child in, government cuts to schooling wouldn't matter because they wouldn't exist.  It would also encourage people to have kids only if they could afford to educate them (...Well, it should, and each parent should be aware what it's going to cost them to have another kid.  I guess you could mandate that all children you have requires a "trust" fund that has $N put in it each month to pay for education expense.  That's the only way I came up with on the fly.  I'm sure there are holes.)  With "free" schooling, parents don't even calculate that cost into raising a child because someone else is paying for it.  (Heck, I'm sure many parents don't even think about the cost to raise a kid because they think the tax deduction is supposed to pay for that... or they just assume someone will help them.)  With parent funded schooling, nobody could use that threat to get funding for their bills with earmarks to benefit their friends.

This isn't a good idea.  Partly because it would punish children for the failings of their parents, and reduce social mobility to virtually zero (your parents were poor?  Hey, you barely got any schooling).  Partly because society would suffer from the fact that most of the new generation are illiterate and innumerate (who's gonna care for the older people?).

ER room assistance is not a good example, because in principle you ought to get basic care anywhere, no matter who you are or whether you can pay or not. Otherwise it would be denial of assistance, and punishable by law (and medical colleges as well, likely). It's common sense, too. If you enter an ER unconscious after having had an accident, you wont necessarily be able to identify yourself and/or state what your insurance status is.

Just having ER as free is kindof wasteful - it means that problems that could have been easily and cheaply prevented at an earlier stage become expensive medical operations (which the taxpayer has to pay for).

[Vector]

*shrug*

I was very briefly (couple months) in a gifted and talented program, until my parents moved to a school district where "all of [THIS AREA'S] kids are geniuses, so we don't need one" (jackasses).  One of the lessons we had was making a list of things we wanted, vs. things we needed.  Ever since then I've been pretty much incapable of buying anything that wasn't going directly into schooling or keeping myself alive, often due to fear of not wanting it later.

Of course, the downside of this is that I wear jackets where most of the buttons have fallen off, the pockets have huge holes, and everything is frayed, or boots where the piece of the sole closest to the foot is beginning to crack and the leather is nearly worn through.  For the financial state of the area I live in, this is... really far into the totally unacceptable range =/  Probably helped that I was never "paid" by my parents for good grades or given an allowance greater than $2/week.

Maybe some kids in the normal programs would be helped by that exercise.


The thing about people having to pay for education for their kids out of their own budgets is that that way, the poorest kids don't get educated.  Because we do have really poor people in this country, and if the choice is between everyone eating every night and reasonable housing, or a big payout for education every year, I'm sure you know what most people are going to choose.  Furthermore, some sort of educational standard is important to teach kids what they need to know to function in the greater world than their little society.  I'm sure lots of places would cut marginalized people's history, sex ed, and so on, if they tried for any district standards whatsoever.

And saying "well, don't have kids, then!" or "well, then that's their choice to make!" is silly.  Especially in a country where abortions are really hard to get, everyone knows the adoption system sucks, and people should not have to choose between food and educated children.

Oh, and usually in a system where some get to go to school, and some don't, you know who doesn't get to go?  The girls.  Universal state-funded education is a fucking huge deal for gender equality and a whole bunch of other things.

I may have totally misunderstood you, so please let me know.

I agree actually.  I'm not against Healthcare, but I feel as though there are other things that need to be done to help the situation besides blindly funding anyone.

I also feel privacy of medical information should be top of a list of requirements.  Privacy to the level that the patient determines who has access.  (with stipulation to unlock that data only when the patient is unable to provide the "key")

Yeah, I'm totally for this.

[Sheb]

Andir, actually the defense and earmarks aren't such a big part of your tax dollars. It's mostly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And that's because you've got so much waste there, the French or Belgian systems are much much more efficient, if only because insurance is provided by the state/mutals and not insurers who need to take their cut.

[Andir]

I may have totally misunderstood you,

It's alright, it was an extreme example as noted with the:

That's an extreme example, but the logic could apply to any number of social programs.

That's why I like the idea of funding by student (edit: in Ohio)... but I wish there was a way to make parents realize what costs are involved (they pay a percentage?)  It's a divide between my libertarian and my "basic necessity" self.  I've been trying to contemplate what the US would be like if we took some of that war money and spent it actually reforming the education system.

[Leafsnail]

Andir, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of costs involved in raising a child already.  Such as feeding, clothing and housing them.

[Vector]

... I just wanted to say that I am really enjoying talking, rather than arguing, with you.

This is super-chill.

Everyone in the thread gets a gold star that shoots ponies.

Andir, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of costs involved in raising a child already.  Such as feeding, clothing and housing them.

*cough*

Yeah, this too.

I know that a lot of parents have issues with their kids getting more education than they did--even mine, who are basically the biggest education-hounds I know.  It makes them feel inferior because I know all sorts of crap they never got access to: basically, they got a modern education, and I got a neoclassical one (all the classics, modified and enhanced for the present era).  And it's hard on them, because I will be living a very, very different life and be getting very, very different opportunities.

[Andir]

Andir, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of costs involved in raising a child already.  Such as feeding, clothing and housing them.

*cough*

Yeah, this too.

I'm talking about the education cost, not overall cost of raising a kid.

[Vector]

I think some people actually just don't understand the idea that roads and so on cost money and are maintained by the state.  My step-grandmother-from-Nazi-Germany often complains about having to pay taxes, and my mom has to keep explaining all the crap she gets out of them.  Way, way more than she ever pays in...

On the other hand, Oma actually isn't very smart and she didn't grow up here, so that may not be the issue with the vast majority of tax payers.


I'm not sure it's the poor we need to worry about in this system, but the rich.  Hurm.

[Siquo]

On education costs: Well, the American system has one good aspect: because it is expensive, students are much more likely to work really hard.

In the Netherlands even college and master's degrees are virtually free (2500 euros a year or something, which you can loan against a pretty good rate), which means that taking 10 years for your masters' degree isn't an exception. It creates more equality, but also a lot more "average" students.

The more expensive studies (like medicine) have got a student-cap and a lottery whether you get in.

It's just what your priority is: Fairness or excellence. Do you want to treat your people humanely or fair, or do you want to be the Best Country In The World?

[Vector]

Really?

Because some of the European teachers here often lament how dumb we Americans have gotten, and how our top students are 80% of what they once were.  And I've had conversations with European graduate students who talk about how Americans have no grounding in culture, the arts, a wide range of studies, blah blah blah blah.

[MonkeyHead]

Having done serious academic research into this, I feel a need to offer my 2 pennies worth here. Based on my findings, what holds the education system of the USA back as opposed to those in Canada, Australia and the EU seems to be the fact that schools are not run by centralized government departments and instead run by locally elected school boards. There is competition within the system (between these locally elected boards) at the expense of developing the system as a whole (the constant media attention to issues like evolution, sex ed and so on in some states are sticking points that seem to define the role of these boards, and who ends up elected to them) - In the USA there are pockets of good or outstanding educational practice that are not being shared, developed and implemented across a unified system as it is in the UK (this I have first hand professional experience of). As a result the education system in the USA has been relativley stable and consistent (more a model of consolidation, with standards based grading currently breaking through, possibly the first really big thing to happen in 20 years), whereas in the UK we have had structures similar to standards based grading for over a decade, implemented over the whole model due to a more centralized approach, where ideas of best practice are constantly being reviewed, updated, shared and developed at all levels of the system. Very similar is done in Canada and Australia, and large parts of the EU, but much less so in the USA, partly due to a question of scale (Michigan is one state that I know first hand is moving to establish networks to share good practice, but it appears to be alone in this regard), and partly due to the organisational model in place in the USA not suiting such collaboration. This rant isnt to say which system is best at producing well educated students, as the biggest factor in this is skilled teachers with time to do a good job (which has suffered badly in the UK since Thatcher due to innovation overload as a result of the political meddling - if interested I strongly reccomend looking into the work of Dylan William, Bob Compton (his film one million mins is very interesting), David Hargreaves and Yhong Zao), but that the system in the USA is held back by its structure. Removing the barriers presented by local boards and taking a centralized approach could save plenty of cash through saving people re-inventing the wheel constantly for different regions - an idea currently being run with on a small scale in the UK and being called "School Families". I will curtail this rant here as I have written more than one thesis on international aspects of education and dont wanna go on forever!

[Andir]

I think some people actually just don't understand the idea that roads and so on cost money and are maintained by the state.  My step-grandmother-from-Nazi-Germany often complains about having to pay taxes, and my mom has to keep explaining all the crap she gets out of them.  Way, way more than she ever pays in...

I wonder if a nice clear budget pamphlet handed to residents would help the that perception.

It's just what your priority is: Fairness or excellence. Do you want to treat your people humanely or fair, or do you want to be the Best Country In The World?

That's a valid point.  It's the basis for many arguments against socialism.  It's also why I wish that the parents "share" the cost of adding a child to the system... and why they are informed how much it costs.  I don't find any issue with privatized colleges, but mainly because of the greater issues at hand (lower education.)

Really?

Because some of the European teachers here often lament how dumb we Americans have gotten, and how our top students are 80% of what they once were.  And I've had conversations with European graduate students who talk about how Americans have no grounding in culture, the arts, a wide range of studies, blah blah blah blah.

I think that's because the lower education system levels have slipped.  If college levels stayed progressively hard, kids would be at a serious disadvantage in college.  So the colleges start giving out Math 101 classes to compensate... taking away their ability to teach higher education later.

[Mindmaker]

And people keep asking me, why I want a friend in the USA so badly >.>
You can spend hours and hours, just discussing the differences in both systems.

Hmm, not exactly on topic, but I just wanted to let you know, that I find your discussions fascinating.