The Washington Post shocked many of its Democratic readers this week by telling the truth about the growing disaster in the UK’s National Health Service — a cautionary tale as a few Republicans plan to join Democrats to extend the failed Obamacare subsidies rather than reform our own broken health care system.
Socialism is in vogue in America. Various socialists are assuming greater power in the Democratic Party and mayors such as Zohran Mamdani (New York) and Katie Wilson (Seattle) are taking over the leadership of major cities.
I discuss the rising class of American socialists in my new book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. The young voters fueling this shift have never experienced life under socialism and have no memories of the meltdowns in prior such systems. As former socialist and communist countries move toward capitalism, many Americans are embracing socialism, according to polls.
The Washington Post editorial board exposed the myth of nationalized systems in its scathing column on the UK’s National Health Service, which is asking sick people to stay away from hospitals as the system struggles to offer basic care.
The NHS has existed for years in a perpetual state of emergency. This was the case before the pandemic hit, and it has only gotten worse. Hospital corridors overflow and routine procedures get canceled due to a catastrophic event commonly known as “winter.” It comes around every year, yet the system, despite annual funding increases, still somehow remains unable to cope.
A campaign to keep people away from hospitals during the holidays is underway, which includes begging the public to seek out other forms of treatment for “less serious” injuries and ailments. The British press compares the messaging to “Covid-era stay-at-home pleas,” which included asking patients who needed care to avoid medical facilities in order to “protect the NHS.”
In November, some 50,468 people waited 12 hours or more in emergency departments, often on trolleys in corridors. This is the highest on record for that time of year. Some 2.35 million people went to A&E in November, the highest on record for that month.
What is troubling in the debate over Obamacare is that some Democrats admit that it has failed. Democrats touted the law with an enabling class of academic experts as promising lower health care costs in a system that would pay for itself. Obama himself spread the false claim that you could keep your doctor under Obamacare. (later called the “lie of the year.”)
It proved to be a disaster. Health care costs soared under Obamacare and Democrats stepped in to pass massive subsidies that pay a fortune to insurance companies without doing anything to correct the underlying problems.
The shocking increase in costs under Obamacare should galvanize a nation in seeking a major overhaul without delay. Health care is now unaffordable for many. Yet, that desperation is political gold for many in dangling subsidies before voters as an inducement to return them to power.
With the midterm elections approaching, Congress is about to repeat the same pay-now-worry-later approach. For some, the directions may even be reassuring. As Obamacare craters, it will become increasingly difficult to return to a market-driven system. Instead, many Democratic members want a single national health care system or a Medicaid-like system for all.
It does not matter that the UK is struggling with its own system to provide basic care, and NBC is describing the UK system as “broken.”
With the threat of the Democrats taking over the House in the midterms and producing gridlock in Washington, it is unlikely that the GOP can remain firm and unified on creating an alternative. Some will join Democratic members admitting that Obamacare failed, but this is not the time to correct the problem. Instead, we will pour more money into a broken system and kick the can down the road.
Clearly, England (whatever that is, anymore) needs to look to the US as a model of healthcare civilization. Yes, the US where injured and seriously diseased people literally flee ambulance and paramedics services out of fear of being bankrupted by them. Obamamania institutionalized capitalist healthcare (sic), as the enforced subjugation of health to the mean streets of profiteering is the crown jewel of Queen Michele Obama, millionaire health insurance executive.
“It’s the [freedom], stupid!”
– James Carville
___________________
Private-property free-enterprise industries functioning in the free markets of the private sector generate the best product at the lowest price.
KH the “capitalist” system you rant about is the only system that has Ever worked.
One of the things you left wing nuts do not seem to ever grasp is that Big Business DOES NOT WANT free markets.
Absolutely Obamacare was rigged – EVERY system created by govenrment will ALWAYS be rigged.
If it is not rigged by “Big Business” – and that will be near impossible to overcome, it will be rigged by some other interest group.
An actual free market CAN NOT BE RIGGED. Since it si actually a free market – all efforts to rig it provide the oportunity for someone else to undercut efforts to rig it and profit.
Look arround you – since the rise of actual free markets the standard of living of humans has increased at an exponential rate.
Humans spent nearly 1M years trying to increase standard of living enough to support villages.
We were lucky to see a 1% improvement in the human condition in 1000 years – much less the 3% was saw in 2025 and the 4+% that is likely in 2025.
Look arround further – What works ? What does not ?
Pick all the things in your life. What is more expensive today than 20, 40, 60 years ago ?
90% of your life is MORE affordable today than 20, 40, 60 years ago.
In 1965 Sears advertised a toaster for 19.95. Today I can get a toaster at Walmart for $12.99.
Many things cost less today in nominal dollars (before accounting for inflation).
EVERYTHING that is not heavily entangled with govenrment is cheaper in REAL (inflation adjusted) dollars.
But you need not trust data on inflation – it is trivial to work out the changes in cost yourself.
How many hours would you have had to work to buy a $19.99 toaster in 1965 ? How many hours today ?
Just about everything is cheaper today than it was 20, 40, 60 years ago.
What are the exceptions ? Universally the more heavily entangled government is in something the more expensive it is.
This should not be surprising. Coases law determined 70 years ago that bargaining is the most efficient way to provide goods and services, that the use of force – AKA government automatically and obviously makes things MORE expensive.
While this post trashes socialism – and deservedly so, the problem is not specific to socialism.
The problem is that government is ALWAYS an added cost. Socialism is just one of many economic systems that always fail – they fail because more govenrment means more cost and less efficiency.
More government means lower increases in standard of living.
For the past 75 years study after after study has found EVERYWHERE that the optimal size of govenrment is smaller than whatever the govenrment conducting the study has.
Universally it has been found that for every 10% of GDP that govenrment consumes the rate of improvement in standard of living declines 1%.
Those on the left like to rant about fascism – but fascism is the antithesis of free markets.
Musollini the father of fascism defined fascism as
Everything in government
nothing outside govenrment
nothing against government.
Fascism is just socialism where the FORCE is overt. Socialism by men with guns.
Kevin, how does one provide a sustainable patient-centered healthcare system that excludes capitalism?
Socialism failed compared to what? The US health care system has horrible outcomes compared to the rest of the developed world. If you aren’t rich you get crummy care. Health corporations extract money for doing nothing while forcing doctors to treat people in small visits. I had a bad spinal injury and heart failure. I’d be dead if I hadn’t gone to Guatemala. In the US they wanted to do robot surgery ($60K minimum) on me with no guarantees. In Guatemala I got the topline crisis doctors at the cost of a US copay. They warned me against an operation and I got physical therapy in my home with a sophistication unseen in the US for $20/hour. It cured me in 6 months. I was dying and now I am in better health than when I was 15 years younger.
Presumably, you’re writing this from Guatemala???
I hear Guatemala is nice this time of year.
Enjoy, amigo.
There’s your answer: Get rich and stop the b—-.
Where is the nation and government that was voluntarily created to serve the poor?
That was Karl Marx’s nonviable idiocy, manifested most prominently in 1917 Russia.
Forgive me for not believing a word you say.
The US health care system has horrible outcomes compared to the rest of the developed world.
That may be true now, but if it is true now, it wasn’t before Obama deliberately took away our health care insurance plans and doctors that he lied to use we could keep.
An anonymous commie Democrat – lyin’ Like A Biden that he would have shorter wait times to see a specialist cardiologist to assess him regarding heart failure in the UK or Canada as compared to the USA. And so, this commie Democrat abandoned the communist Obamacare plan he voted for and supported to use his excess income to be able to fly to Guatemala, to buy his way into healthcare there.
So you went to Guatemala for Free market healthcare, and your conclusion is that socialism works ?
The US healthcare system and the US education system are “socialism lite”
And the failures in the US are directly attributable to the involvement of government in healthcare.
I would further note that Healthcare is not all that complex.
In the past century+ 3 changes have raised global life expectance from 45 years in developed countries to nearly 80 in the bottom of the third world.
Those changes are all CHEAP.
Antiseptics,
Antibiotics,
and IV Fluids.
All the myriads of other advances in healthcare have had negligable impact on life expectance.
almost 2 decades ago my Mother got terminal cancer. Incredibly expensive drugs prolonged her life and the quality of that life by almost a year. But NOTHING was going to save her. She was in and out of the hospital repeatedly during that year. When she was in the Hospital she was in a special Cancer wing. She had a private suite, Marble floors, wood paneled walls, Two Entertainment systems – one in almost a separate room where family could be with her, they could eat, they could watch TV separate from her, they could even sleep in the room with her.
She had ONE nurse at a station outside her room monitoring her 100% of the time.
NONE of this increased her life span. But it ALL increased the quality of her last year of life.
And it was all incredibly expensive.
And that is the REAL difference between Healthcare in the US and Guatemala or much of the rest of the world.
The US has nearly the least healthy population in the world. We do not get enough excercise, we eat too much and badly, we have double the rate of diabetes of the rest of the world. Most of us make the worst health choices in the world. Yet our life expectance is near the top of the world ? That is also why our Healthcare is expensive.
This article compares the US to the UK – the People in the UK also live unhealthily as does much of the west, though the US still takes the prize for least healthy living. The UK has comparable interventions to the US and comparable results in life expectance.
But in the UK – wait times for treatment are far longer. And when you get Treatment – though the Medical treatment is about as good. Again – the whole world has IV fluids, antiseptics and antibiotics. The Quality of life aspects of the treatment are FAR lower than the US. Unless your care is not through NHS – you are likely on a Ward with other patients and nurses and staff shared with many patients.
If your goal is getting people healthy – the results are about the same as the US.
But if you are looking to enjoy as much as possible the time you must spending in the healthcare system – the US provides better than anywhere else in the world – AT GREAT COST.
But then luxury healthcare comes with luxury cost- except in an actual free market – where what is a luxury today is an affordable choice for everyone tomorow.
Do not forget sanitation, which is number one by far.
The US healthcare system today is not the most socialist in the world.
But the US have not had a free market in most of healthcare for 60 years.
US Healthcare is quasi socialist.
Your healed praise on Guatemala. I know little about Guatemalan healthcare.
But the failures you identified in the US system are the consequences of our Quasi socialism – not free markets.
I would further note that I had a slightly similar experience to you in the US.
My right shoulder locked up. It was painful to move, I had very limited range of motion.
My orthepedic surgeon perscribed Surgery and 6 months of PT.
That worked and I have near full range of motion and no pain.
A year after my right should was fixed my left shoulder locked up. My PT told me quietly to skip the Surgery, and I went straight to PT. My left shoulder was fixed by PT faster than my right.
Wherever you are you can get good and bad advice.
Democrats caused the problem. Democrats excerbated the problem with extensions. Democrats have no solutions. Democrats demand to keep excerbateing the problem with more extensions. Democrats promise to.fix the problem this time if you just vote for them.
Solution: Government assisted suicide. Please kill yourself to keep healthcare costs down! What a plan!
Dear Prof Turley,
The UK is a cautionary tale of unrestrained capitalism and untrammeled corruption .. . Starmer seems determined to spend all their money (and Russian sovereign wealth!) defeating Russia in Ukraine while his subjects cue for healthcare in a dilapidated, outdated Royal infirmary.
Obviously, excessively centralized economies don’t work. Unrestrained ‘capitalism’ is a perversion of the ‘free market’ and health care innovation. That’s the cautionary tale for the U.S. – a vast, unregulated maze of healthcare ‘providers’ all competing for the ‘common dollar’. .. 2025 est. 30% of total U.S. budget for a pig in the poke.
I’m convinced the free market .. . along with free speech, sweet baby Jesus, the Hippies, Rock&Roll, free sex and Rap music is what will Make America Great Again.
Apparently, our main ‘competitors’ are China, most BRICS countries and the rest of the world.
*prove me wrong.
Responses are not what is required.
Being demonstrably correct in proper behavior is.
Start by being the honorable person you were created to be.
We are born to be without sin and thus absolved of any potential transgessions.
alfred
“The UK is a cautionary tale of unrestrained capitalism and untrammeled corruption”
ROFL
“Obviously, excessively centralized economies don’t work.”
No ANY government involvement in the economy beyond the basic rule of law.
Prohibitions against the use of force, or fraud, as well as enforcing agreements are ALL that is necescary.
There is massive amounts of economic data to prove this.
” Unrestrained ‘capitalism’ is a perversion of the ‘free market’ and health care innovation.”
I have no idea what you are talking about – and I doubt YOU do.
There are 3 necescary social contract restrictions on the Free market.
The punishment of the use of force – criminal law
Punishing those who do not live up to their agreements – contracts law.
Requiring those who harm others to make them whole – tort law.
This is ALL that is necescary – not just for optimal free markets, but for consistantly rising standard of living.
Further all of these are A posteriori – After the fact. We Punish the use of Force to get your way – AFTER you use it.
All a priori govenrment regulation is harmful to all of us.
” That’s the cautionary tale for the U.S. – a vast, unregulated maze of healthcare ‘providers’ all competing for the ‘common dollar’. .. 2025 est. 30% of total U.S. budget for a pig in the poke.”
Clearly you know nothing about what you are talking about.
The US has one of the most regulated healthcare systems in the world.
If you think we have unregulated healthcare – Please get into providing healthcare – you should easily be able to make a killing undercutting the existing market.
You can ALWAYS tell when you do not have an actual free market. How ?
Because in Free markets prices ALWAYS decline over the long run.
Please provide ANYTHING where “real prices” have increased in the US – EVER over a period of atleast a decade that did not involve government ? ANY example ?
Here again, Americans enjoy the freedom of the Constitution.
Article 1, Section 8, provides Congress the power to tax for ONLY debt, defense, and general welfare.
Article 1, Section 8, does not enumerate any power of Congress to regulate healthcare, which is not general.
General welfare does not include national healthcare.
The general public, or the whole of the citizenry, does not require general or the same types of physical care and attention; it requires specific, individual, and particular treatment.
General welfare does not include at least 250 non-general, particular, individual, specific, separate, and distinct clinical healthcare professional sub-industries.
Americans enjoy private property and free enterprise to be conducted in the free markets of the private sector.
Scientists conduct basic science, and doctors, who are scientists, conduct healthcare provision freely and privately.
Congress enjoys no power by the Constitution to tax for, fund, operate, or regulate the science or healthcare industries.
Free market competition generates the best product at the lowest price.
A system of courts is provided by the Constitution for citizens to obtain redress.
That the communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) among you crave power and desire the imposition of their dictatorship does not bear.
Communism did not exist in the Constitution when it was adopted, and communism does not exist in the Constitution now.
Volunteer fire departments and volunteer police way back when. When fire insurance first came on board the fire department checked for insurance before putting out a fire.
No insurance it burned and then the house next door went down etc sort of like the catastrophic fires in California. Inept gubment had no water in the reservoirs. Who pays? They’re honored by reelection instead and maybe promoted.
Guess where current jobs growth is. Health care. We’re funding it with only the best money can buy to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Fires catch your house on fire too but how does the health of others impact others? Express that as real harm.
Why extend the subsidies when the policies can be downgraded instead?
California has the answers.. First tax billionaires 5% of their assets, a wealth tax not an income tax, when you get that later extended it to everyone except wealthy politians..
Maybe Mr. Turely will expound on the Constitutionality of.a wealth tax soon?
^^^. Upgrade the language to get an understanding of globalization. 3rd world countries are now called developing countries or emerging economies or markets or emerging countries such as India.
It couches that in language with India is the 5th largest economy in the world. Sounds good until its 5th largest poverty economy in the world. The old standard were capitalism as 1st world, communist such as soviets 2nd world then came 3rd worlds. Most nations lived in the 3rd world.
Now they’re taking down the 1st world. People have noticed. They’ve destroyed the US, the UK, Europe. Communism so everyone can be mediocre. Odd isn’t it.
It’s fraught with dishonesty. It’s ignorant and filthy. It was the welfare system that helped as people learned to game the system.
And your citation of the Constitution is?
When fire insurance first came on board the fire department checked for insurance before putting out a fire.
Things.That.Never.Happened.
Imagine way back when, before modern dispatch systems, where fire departments whether paid or volunteer, had instantaneous access to determine whether you had fire insurance and whether it was current? It was in a Rolodex beside their rotary dial telephones above where the Dalmatian fire dogs slept?
AND, tort lawyers were yet to be invented who would sue a fire department for not providing fire service despite the home owner paying municipal taxes to pay that service?
Tort lawyers didn’t exist who would sue that fire department on behalf of nearby home owners because their homes were damaged/burned because the fire department allowed the first house to burn?
Might have happened in one or two volunteer fire halls in America. Not impossible, but essentially a lie to use as an extremely poor metaphor.
” As Obamacare craters, it will become increasingly difficult to return to a market-driven system. Instead, many Democratic members want a single national health care system or a Medicaid-like system for all.
It does not matter that the UK is struggling with its own system to provide basic care, and NBC is describing the UK system as “broken.” …
” Instead, we will pour more money into a broken system and kick the can down the road.” -JT
It is not just the Healthcare System(s), its Capitalism that’s broken, and it is bursting out around the World. The threat your Children face is no longer an “existential threat”, its a real ‘clear and present danger’. GenZ knows it and is reacting to it.
Wall Street Week | Rattner’s trip to China, Nepal’s Gen-Z Uprising, Capitalism 4.0, Succession Cliff
This week, Willett Advisors’ Steven Rattner says China’s innovation is surging even as its consumers struggle, and warns that US trade policies won’t slow Beijing down. The real solution, he says, is doing better at home. And, a close look at the social media spark that ignited Nepal’s biggest youth-led protests in decades, toppling the government and revealing the power of perception in global uprisings against inequality. Plus, has capitalism lost its way, or is a new version already emerging? Later, a wave of retirements is reshaping America’s local businesses – succession planning could open opportunities for owners and private markets.
By: David Westin – Bloomberg Wall Street Week ~ December 6th 2025
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-12-06/wall-street-week-rattner-on-china-nepal-s-revolution-video
Chapters: (significant sections in Bold)
00:00:00 – Steven Rattner on China
00:09:34 – Nepal’s Gen-Z Uprising
00:23:44 – Future of Capitalism
00:35:08 – Small Business Succession
00:47:21 – Sharma and Authers on Capitalism
Ref. Book:
Ruchir Sharma – Rockefeller International Chair
Author of “WHAT WENT WRONG WITH CAPITALISM”
https://annas-archive.org/md5/e1b4fc16239b90b791bf5244d246579a
.
“revealing the power of perception in global uprisings against inequality. ”
We can blame our common enemy, partisan and political social/MEDIA, for stoking those perceptions.
No Anonymous capitalism is not broken, it is responsible for taking billions out of abject poverty. What is broken is an education system that for decades now has been indoctrinating the youth of the world by leftists, socialists and communists teachers and professors. Those poor later generations that advocate for “equality” will suffer the consequences if they achieve their stupid aims. Socialist equality is everyone equally poor with only the ruling class enjoying the riches of their impoverished society
To: Vincrod says: December 27, 2025 at 1:28 PM
(I am not trying to make a counter-point)
Capitalism does not work with ‘equality’. It works by ‘inequality’, it must have it in order for it to flow, from “out of abject poverty” those that Have-Not > to > the those that Have. It is broken is the sense that We have reached the end, that there are no more sustainable-resources to distribute, hence wealth, that of a Nation, that of a Society has been completely captured* and capitalized increasingly into fewer and fewer hands as it comes to a pinnacle. The same goes for Socialist and Communist societies, etc. .
(* relative to the size of the Population – 8.x Billion Today)
So it is a natural expectation that the forthcoming Generation(s) Z… will rebel with dogma such as the ‘Fight for Equality’ a mythical utopia that is counter to the ideals of Capitalism. It’s unobtainable and unsustainable to work within a Capitalistic Forum. “Equality” is all but a symbol of Hope.
Jonathan is writing about the past 250 years, all the while Others are writing about will it survive the next 250 years. That’s highly questionable.
I digress;
Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his recent interview with David Rubenstein – 92ny.org, that they are preparing a Time Capsule to be opened in 250 years from now (yr. 2275). I cannot begin to believe that it will be relevant to what Earth will be by then – if in fact we survive ourselves. Capitalism, Socialism and Communism societies will have all evolved ~ “The only constant in life is change”. -ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus
The solution is simple. Tax unhealthy food (read: carbs) and use the money to pay for free healthcare. McDonalds super-size meal with soda: pay big tax. Eat all the salad and sardines you want: tax free.
I am still mad that during Covid going to the grocery store to buy coke and twinkies was considered an essential service. If I have to wear a mask and keep 6 feet apart you should not be allowed to buy coke and twinkies.
Did you not actually read the article or ever study any history? Your “solution” to a failed socialist program is more socialism complete with taxes and regulations. You are clearly of the school of thought that believes “the beatings will continue until morale improves.” Socialism never brings prosperity, only shared misery. There is not a country of any size that has a socialized medical system that actually works.
If you are wondering why we have so many foreign doctors it is because they trained in their socialized medicine countries then moved to America to work and actually make serious life changing money.
Many hope to eventually move home with the money needed to enter the specialties with modern equipment bought in America.
In the near term, they will have to pass the subsidies for ACA or medical costs will soar, more so than they already have.
But let us address the real issue: Just like the teachers union, the government send the subsidies to the insurance companies, the insurance companies raise costs and in order to keep the grift going, the insurance companies give campaign donations to Democrats who vote to keep the grift going.
Give the subsidies directly to the people in the form of Health Savings Accounts, tax deductible, cuts off the insurance companies grift. Allow people to pick and choose their healthcare and the free market will work it out.
Bezos seized control of WaPo editorial board to make it less communist, so it does not represent the newsroom, only the new Bezos people. This is not the sea change that WaPo needs that can only come by breaking the Newspaper Guild’s control of the newsroom.
I suspect this comment will alienate several commenters here, but I just scanned thru the comments, and I do not see a single one mentioning OUR OWN PERSONAL ROLE and responsibility regarding our health AND health care.
I personally see two big drivers of health care insurance: One is the socialist “equal-healthcare-for-all” scheme, which de-incentivizes personal responsibility for keeping oneself healthy; and Two, (clearly related), is the nonchalant attitude toward our country’s HUGE problem with OBESITY.
“Obesity can lead to several serious health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, certain types of cancer, and sleep apnea. It can also contribute to joint problems and negatively impact mental health, such as increasing the risk of depression.” Mayo Clinic.
(You will note that the above diseases/conditions are the primary drivers of visits to clinics and hospitals, and HUGE drivers of pharmaceutical medications/panaceas.)
There was a time when insurers (for both life and health insurance) required a physical before proffering individual insurance rates.
After numerous discrimination and disparate impact lawsuits, they switched to a one-size-fits-all approach, causing healthy persons’ rates to go up, and unhealthy persons’ rates to drop.
Accordingly, despite being one of the most wealthy and developed nations in the world, the United States ranks 48, repeat, in 48th place, for life expectancy. https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
As long as OTHERs pay for our food and cover our costs when our DIETS and LIFESTYLES are the cause of our health problems, -we have no real incentive to improve. this will continue.
As to the socialist “equal-healthcare-for-all” scheme, another driver of costs: illegal immigration.
Blame it on Trump, says left-wing WBUR/NPR affiliate:
“In Lawrence, a mill community of around 90,000 people on the Merrimack River, where more than 80% of the population is Hispanic or Latino, Kesia Moreta said she’s already seeing people slip out of the state’s health care network because of the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to crack down on illegal immigration. Moreta, who manages a program created under the ACA that helps people sign up for coverage, said clients have been missing meetings out of fear that being enrolled for health insurance will harm their effort to stay in the U.S. legally.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/07/03/massachusetts-health-connector-aca-romneycare-spending-bill
——————————–
C’mon everyone. we can do better than this.
Let’s make REAL New Year’s commitments to get ourselves looking and feeling the best we can!
I SINCERELY WISH THIS FOR ALL OF YOU IN THE COMING YEAR! yours truly, lin.
apologies for length of this post.
Lin,
That is a very accurate analysis. MAHA is not just a fancy campaign slogan but something people really need to take to heart. Eating minimally or non-processed foods, exercise on a regular basis, healthy habits are all things everyone young and old can do.
Howdy Upstate: (I was just writing you an “agree” to your above comment (@11:49) when I saw this from you.)
My parents scared us into behaving ourselves (we were wild little Indians, let me tell you.) by claiming that if we hurt ourselves, we would have to pay for it. We believed them.
Not till we grew up did we learn, when we turned 18, each of us got a check from the insurance company for $2,500-4000 (today’s value @ $10K).
I learned that my parents had bought a combo policy of life and catastrophic insurance for each of us when we were born. For little stuff like measles and penicillin, doctor came to our house and mom just paid him cash or check, -and cherry pie and coffee.) We kids were all born in the city’s hospital and had one doctor who knew us from birth. (He died when I was away at college.)
Wow, those days are gone.
lin
You are correct that life expectancy in the US is lower than the rest of the western world.
In fact the only countries with WORSE life expectancy are in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
However you failed to note that the countries that have BETTER life expectancy have highly socialized healthcare systems.
Obviously, you are making a strong case for socialized healthcare in the US.
you apparently cannot read or comprehend what is meant by socialized medicine.
I looked at the link lin attached. The TOP THREE countries for life expectancy are ALL Asian — Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea. Their idea of socialized medicine means something like our Medicare–it is based on “taxes and individual contributions.” Recipients pay roughly 30% and governments pay the rest.
What you fail to explain is WHY–when the TOP THREE have systems similar to U.S., they are the top three,
but the U.S is # 48. Tell us why, Anonymous.
Could it be because they eat rice and stir fry bean sprouts and broccoli, and are generally small and slim, while we eat Double Cheeseburgers and french fries and call up Sonobella to suck out our fat?
You fooled yourself into a hole. Now climb out. Good exercise, Anonymous.
I agree.
The healthcare systems in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea are basically the same as the Medicare system here, and they have the highest life expectancy.
This is an excellent argument to make our Medicare available to EVERYONE here in the US.
What a great idea !!!!
I am sure you agree that this would be a wonderful solution to the healthcare problem here in the US.
People contribute to Medicare their whole employed lives. The unemployed and no-income get Medicaid.
So we already have what you describe, essentially.
YOU STILL don’t get it–that it is not socialized medicine but LIFESTYLE that makes the difference–something socialized medicine does not address. The difference between Nos. 1,2,and 3—and No. 48 has to do with DIET and LIFESTYLE, get it?
So how do you explain the UK, with their supposedly awful healthcare, having a longer life expectancy than the US ???
Is that also lifestyle ????
It has to do with lifestyle and social factors. The healthcare system comparison only affects the number minimally.
It’s doubtful the Repubs can even legislate on such a complex issue. They like to oversimplify, and cluster around accusatory-partisan slogans (“Obamacare failed”). The Dems sloganeering is framed positively “(health care is a right!”) — though equally meaningless and inactionable.
Who is going to muster the honesty and adult-responsibility-taking needed to admit the following
:
• borrowing for health care consumption now is unsustainable; borrowing from future taxpayers is off the table
• everyone dies; extending geriatric lives is a bottomless pit of wasted public funds; end-of-life expenses must not be shouldered by taxpayers; it is a family-centered, private economic decision
• too many Americans are living unhealthy lifestyles; the new design must contain strong incentives for healthy lifestyle choices (“I decided I couldn’t afford to be an overweight slug”)
• doctors, nurses and other HC professionals have free choice whether to be in that profession; there must never be any coercion to contribute to the profession, and there must remain strong incentives to serve in it
• health care insurers (i.e., those only involved in finance) have no guaranteed profit — and they must be effectively policed by commissioners to prevent and punish claim denial, non-payment or under-payment scams; if interstate sale of insurance is allowed, the first question is “Who will have unquestioned authority to police the insurance companies?”
• the best health care insurance is self-insurance (family savings, HSAs)
• illegal immigration should be deterred by limiting services to emergency stabilization
• NIH/CDC/FDA should invest heavily in PSAs that educate the public about taking responsibility for their health, and publicly criticize food and beverage companies who won’t align with the health interests of their clients; example: addictive food-designs, beverage-designs, inhalant-designs should be pulled from the market
pbinca accuses the Republicans of being just like her: It’s doubtful the Repubs can even legislate on such a complex issue. They like to oversimplify, and cluster around accusatory-partisan slogans…
pbinca has only the tactic and failings she describes here to justify her regular attacks on this blog on the Second Amendment rights of Americans. Rights which like, pbinca’s right to elective birth control abortions in Kalifornia, are actually covered in the Bill of Rights.
She spins lies and false equivalency to make HER versions of what little the Second Amendment should cover legitimate. All because of her grossly oversimplifed solution to violent crime. Complete with accusatory partisan slogans accusing those who don’t see it that way of “not caring about the children”.
This is the point where pbinca swiftly disappears back into the wormwood that is Kalifornia, until her next reappearance, hoping not to be noticed.
Every 20 years, I keep hearing the VA is finally fixed, and 20 years later, it’s always broken, again.
I remember 30 years ago, when a liberal pundit on PBS’s Frontline glibly prophesied that Canadian-style socialized medicine was a miracle that would solve all of America’s healthcare problems. All liberals are false prophets. Today, desperate Canadians cross the border and pay out of their life savings to get healthcare in the U.S. that is simply is no longer available in Canada.
Unfortunately, the false prophets will be back if the GOP doesn’t come up with a comprehensive program for our looming healthcare challenges. We still have a little time that the socialized systems lost a long time ago.
The NHS is one of the world’s largest employers, right up there with the Chinese army and US military.
NHS has been described as the third largest employer at times and sometimes fifth largest when you unreasonably include McDonald’s franchises and Walmart.
Impressive for what is basically a small country, closer to Lichtenstein than China.
But they frequently claim their treatment centers are understaffed and the NHS actually appears to be deficient in numbers of people actually treating patients. I suppose the rest are leeches of some sort, bureaucrats and regulators.
Recently the NHS was using “The Liverpool Protocol” which basically hastened death by studied neglect. It was a scandal when the secret neglect hit the news and it was abolished though one wonders if only the name was abolished and the bureaucratic murder was continued.
Canadian socialist healthcare is a nightmare as well. Though in one respect it is more efficient than the NHS. Instead of killing you with passive neglect they give you a lethal injection, sort of what the Germans used to do and what some American states do if you torture and murder someone.
Ironically, UK and Canada are too virtuous to execute a sadistic homicidal criminal in the way reserved for their peaceful, tax paying, but sick, citizens.
A few steps more in this direction and UK and Canadian doctors will be wearing SS uniforms, figuratively if not actually.
You shouldn’t be more afraid of your doctor than your disease.
Read “The Nazi Doctors” by Robert Jay Lifton. Medicine by bureaucrat is unhealthy.
WOW, what a hornet’s nest this article stirred up! Let’s keep the discourse civil folks.
What will it take to recognize that our health care system, ACA, is a total failure! And you’re worried about a civil discourse. Let’s just keep spending more money, I.e. subsidies. Oh by the way the Federal government is running $2 trillion annual deficits. We’re broke
Democrats see no connection between bankruptcy and spending.
. Who said DEI, CRT didn’t work! 😂
🎄
So-called Republicans like NY’s Rep Lawler will, it is hoped, read this and belatedly understand the health care idiocy they have been promoting.
One interesting fact, if you will. Much was talked about “bending the cost curve” in healthcare when the ACA was being talked up. In fact, the cost curve already was flattening for Medicare enrollees. In inflation-adjusted numbers, the annual per enrollee cost was $15,838. In 2024, the spend was $17,786, which is a 12% increase over 18 years.
No doubt there are details to argue within the numbers, but what stands out is a huge part of the spiral upward of spending is the aging of the population and the enormous increase in Medicare enrollees.
reminder if Democrats WIN again…they will import another 20 million illegals!
Where do you come up with such stupid garbage?
In what way is it garbage? While the 20 million number may not be exact (maybe it was closer to 10 or 15 million), the Dems admitted it was a strategic move for more voters. And there is little reason to believe the strategy has changed.
Where do you come up with such stupid garbage?
Where do you get such stunningly intellectual rebuttals to somebody pointing out 20+ million criminal Illegal Aliens is one part of the health care problem? Just like the rational that we need more foreign Illegal Alien criminals because we don’t have enough American criminals here – we need more foreign Illegal Aliens needing health care because we don’t have enough Americans needing health care?
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is the intended psychological manipulation by a low-IQ perpetrator of those they hope to victimize through intentionally misleading that person or group. This involves the perpetrator lying, denying events, and other methods used in the hope their intended victims doubt their perceptions of reality, memories, and feel overly emotional or irrational.
The main five methods of gaslighting that may be used alone or in conjunction with others are: lying, blame shifting, countering, trivializing and withholding.
The facts and realities of the previous democrat occupation leave no doubt as to the validity of guyventner’s comment. In short, that’s exactly what the democrat agenda is.
The medical “system” (I hesitate to call patients and doctors” a system) worked better in the 1950s. People were expected to work and doctors adjusted their prices to account for differences in income. Insurance, government, and dependency were factors in upsetting this workable practice.
edwardmahl
What an astoundingly stupid comment !!!!
The medical system did not “work better” in the 1950’s.
There were no CT scanners, no MRI scanners, no sophisticated diagnostic testing as we have today, virtually no antibiotics or vaccines, very limited medications. None of the highly sophisticated cancer treatments or engineered biological medications that are advertised endlessly on television. Doctors simply relied on physical examinations and guessing at a diagnosis. Polio and other infectious diseases were rampant, with no available treatments. Back then if you got sick, you simply died. The role of doctors was to hold your hand and make you feel better as you died.
Anonymous low-IQ troll: what an astoundingly stupid comment!! Edward did not deny medical *technology* has improved since the 1950s, his critique was directed at the medical *system* – which, if you had any ability to read and comprehend English, you would have known. So GFY stupid Democrat commie low-IQ troll.
Yet another astoundingly stupid comment !!!!
The medical “SYSTEM”, as you correctly observe, has changed dramatically since the 1950’s.
Back then, as edwardmahl notes, people simply paid their doctor who “adjusted his prices to account for differences in income”. The doctor could afford to do that because he didn’t actually “DO ANYTHING” other than tell you what was wrong and hold your hand as you died. There were no other costs incurred for CT scans, MRI scans and other “technology” as you put it.
But NOW, we do have all the “technology” that was unheard of in the 1950’s.
And that “technology” has substantial costs that are incurred by multiple other players who didn’t even exist in the 1950’s.
Back then you simply paid a small fee to a single family doctor, who didn’t actually do anything other than make you feel better as you died.
NOW, there are multiple specialists involved in making a diagnosis.
NOW, there are multiple tests that can be done to make a diagnosis.
NOW, there a host of very expensive treatments available that were unheard of in the 1950’s
So yes, you are correct, “TECHNOLOGY” has changed the medical “SYSTEM” and that has to be PAID for.
In the current “SYSTEM” as you put it, you have to deal with not just a single family doctor, but a whole host of specialists, hospital facilities, testing technicians, and expensive treatments.
edwardmahl stupidly tries to criticize the current “SYSTEM” by making an absurd and irrelevant point that we should get back to the “good old days” when all you had to do was deal with a single doctor.
He seems to think that it should be possible to deal with all the other NEW players in the “SYSTEM” the same way.
Both you and edwardmahl are out of your minds, living in a bizarre fantasy world.
Yet another astoundingly stupid comment !!!!
Yet another astoundingly stupid deflection – gaslighting instead of projecting this time. Oh yes – newer medical technology requires providing free health care to 20+ criminal Illegal Aliens. It also mandates a requirement for unnecessary uses of that new diagnostic technology to practice “defensive medicine” against the current excessive tort system and it’s slip and fall lawyers that preys on the health care system and its insurance providers.
Want a reminder of the entire list while you deflect and defend with “technology advances”?
In the bizarre fantasy world where the Obamacare Marxist Useful Idiots moved to (who believed they were actually going to save $2500 a year despite all these new technologies he’s babbling about)… it’s just the new technologies that explain the abject failure of Obamacare and its astronomical costs.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is the intended psychological manipulation by a low-IQ perpetrator of those they hope to victimize through intentionally misleading that person or group. This involves the perpetrator lying, denying events, and other methods used in the hope their intended victims doubt their perceptions of reality, memories, and feel overly emotional or irrational.
The main five methods of gaslighting that may be used alone or in conjunction with others are: lying, blame shifting, countering, trivializing and withholding.
edwardmahl What an astoundingly stupid comment !!!!
Building a strawman indirectly related to the post in order to desperately project with an astoundingly stupid comment.
Projection:
Channeling one’s actions onto others typically refers to the psychological concept of projection, where an emotionally disturbed individual unconsciously or deliberately attributes their own thoughts, feelings, and anti-social or criminal behaviors onto someone else. This is an internal defense mechanism which allows that mentally ill person to avoid confronting their own behavior and guilt by seeing it instead as as the thoughts and actions of another person who they despise and hate.