John Stossel shows that Paul Krugman is mistaken. (Be especially sure to click on, and watch, the Stossel segment appearing in the “pull their own teeth with pliers” part of his post.)
There ARE True Scare-Stories from Britain and Canada
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I read Krugman’s op-ed and was thinking, ‘surely he’s not saying NHS operates perfectly..?’ and then came to cafe hayek and saw you posted this. Well done.
Dental care isn’t part of provincial health care in Canada.
I really like Doug Casey. He never hesitates to call politicians very appropriate names. Here he is calling Baby Bush the worst president in history. Casey of course is an anarcho-capitalist.
Back in 2006, I had heard him call Baby Bush – the head monkey.
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/casey/2009/0818.html
Bush was bad, but if he thinks Bush is the worst president in history, Casey doesn’t know much history. Even if he were the worst president in history, Obama is making a play for that title.
Unfortunately, you can’t call The One a monkey – head or tail of. Apparently, you can’t even criticize his proposals without being accused of racism.
I am quoting two paragraph’s from that essay…
1.“As disastrous as he was, I rather hate to put him in competition for “worst president” in the company of Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, the two Roosevelts, Truman, Johnson, and Nixon. He is simply too small a character – psychologically aberrant, ignorant, unintelligent, shallow, duplicitous, small-minded – to merit inclusion in any list. On second thought, looking over that list of his personal characteristics, he’s probably most like FDR, except he lacked FDR’s polish and rhetorical skills.
2.And he’s left OBAMA! with a fantastic starting point for what I expect to be even greater intrusions into your life and finances. Eventually, the Bush era will look like The Good Old Days. But only in the way that the Romans looked back with nostalgia on Tiberius and Claudius after they got Caligula. And then Nero. And then the first of many imperial coups and civil wars.
Now, Lincoln’s name in that list will irritate a lot of people. So will many other names, depending on the your political persuasion. I don’t know enough to judge whether Lincoln belongs on the worst president’s list – I do know that he violated the constitution on a few counts – in other words, I don’t think he deserves the glorification he gets.
Oh, thank you for the excerpt. Indeed!!!
Those quotes are great. As to Lincoln, his disregard for the Constitution led directly to over 500,000 American deaths (if I’m remembering the number right), so he seems to fit into the list very well.
I’m unfamiliar with Doug Casey, but if that essay is typical he seems like my kind of guy!
Don,
Personally I would argue that Krugman was not mistaken at all. I would assert that as a devout socialist he outright lied, and he did so knowingly, intentionally, voluntarily, and willingly. Krugman is part and parcel of the army out to conquer us, the propaganda arm of that army, if you will.
Let us not be afraid to call a spade a spade at this point in our “friendly” discourse with the LDSCP.
“Krugman is part and parcel of the army out to conquer us, the propaganda arm of that army, if you will.”
Then you better get out your machine gun and starting shooting before it’s too little too late!
Yeah, it’s a good thing we don’t have that.
Anybody got numbers on health care related bankruptcies and home foreclosures in the UK.
A recent study found that 62 percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses. Of those who filed for bankruptcy, nearly 80 percent had health insurance.9
According to another published article, about 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure every year due to unaffordable medical costs.
And of course finally no one is proposing a Canadian or British style of government owned/run health care. But again it’s just crazy me talking facts so don’t worry about that.
Why muirduck,
Of course no one proposed a Canadian or British style of government owned/run healthcare, oooooof course not! Nope not here in the good ole U.S. of A.!
Well hell, none of those loonies that hammered John Mackey wanted a Canadian or British style health care system, no no no no no they didn’t!
Why Obama was so against it he tried to slam it through the congress before August and before anyone had a chance to read it or understand it, yes yes yes Obama hated the idea so much he took the best road he could to see to it that the idea died!
Obama and his minions are just pulling an elaborate April Fools joke on us.
Thanks fool, it is good to know the village idiot is still alive and entertaining.
I’m not the idiot. You just unequvically proved it is you. You obviously don’t know the differnece between single payer (proposed for us) and socialized medicine as exist in Canada and Great Britian.
Oh, dooooo point out the differences. I’ve read the whole painful bill. So, I’m curious what you think the big difference is.
OF COURSE I’d rather let my child die rather than provide him with life saving care that might force me into bankruptcy and losing my house. You know, we should allow government to choose between our life savings and the survival of our loved ones
This idiocy put forward by Muirdiot and his ilk that the source of all bankruptcies is medical bills if people filing for bankruptcy happen to have ANY unpaid medical bills at the time of bankruptcy is tiring.
And OF COURSE nobody is proposing Canadian or British medicine – unless, of course, we’re talking about the proposals floating around congress. Those propose exactly the Canadian system and the NHS.
muir:
One cannot have a right to healthcare anymore than one can have a right to housing.
There can be a right to access such things in that the government cannot pass a law excluding part of the citizenry i.e. we’re all equal in the eyes of the law.
But to say someone has a right – which is what your post is saying – to say that they have a right to something that imposes a duty on someone else to provide for that right is logically inconsistent with the basic requirements of a free society.
It sounds nice on the surface to provide an expansive welfare net for the general population, but it simply cannot exist while leaving the society as a whole free.
Don’t waste time talking to imbeciles.
“One cannot have a right to healthcare anymore than one can have a right to housing.”
Then why worry about people yanking out their own teeth with pliers, R. Gardner? Such people who resorted to that were obviously free riders and either wouldn’t or couldn’t pay for dental treatment in the free market anyway. So these people would still be yanking out their teeth with pliers. Either that, or the only dentists in their price range use pliers too and use a large mallet to knock their patients.
How do you know? I thought, the whole point was delay in getting to the doctor, not an inability to pay, because only the extremely wealthy have the means to pay for private care, after all the taxes are paid towards the socialized care.
In a free market, there will be no licensing of pharmacist, at least pain medication will be cheap and freely available. Less taxes confiscated will leave the patient with more money to buy a better set of forceps in place of rusting pliers.
Gil,
You do realize, I hope, that your post is completely nonsensical?
Put the smoke down, take a shower, and get some sleep. Never operate a keyboard when stoned.
Nope. The mallet part was sarcastic humour (just like yours). Besides I saw a similar story about an Aussie woman doing the same thing for the same reason. The interesting part was the way she said that as soon as she yanked out the tooth (after using wine as a sort of pain-duller) the incessant aching immediately disappeared. Heck, it could be said that yanking out your own tooth isn’t that hard (or getting someone else to do it for you after you become roaring drunk) so why go to dentists at all for that procedure?
Now, that we are on the topic of Krugman, that scheming liar, Bob Murphy has an interesting article.
http://mises.org/story/3621
I can’t see the segment about the tooth pulling but I remember the story when it was reported in the press over here in NHS-land. I thought you should know that the auto-dentistry was the result of the lack of dental provision on the NHS. Almost everyone in the UK has private dental care, it being very hard to find a dentist who will take you on the NHS (they are massively in demand and few in number). The reason our idiot resorted to pliers was because he couldn’t afford a dentist not because the NHS denied him one. In other words, he symbolises tha dangers of private health care, not the socialised sort (if we admit that he wasn’t just a crack-pot from whom no meaningful lessons can be learned).
Are you shitting me, johnmeredith? Is this how you rationalize the facts?
Oh, he had coverage, if he would have just waited he could have seen a dentist, but being a total crack-pot he just went ahead and pulled his own tooth! Is that how it was, johnmeredith?
Of course the intense pain of an abcess had nothing to do with him being a crack-pot, eh? Naw!!! Couldn’t be! Nor could the spreading infection in his jaw, naaaaaaw, couldn’t be.
He could have just taken a kilogram of opium and killed the pain until a dentist on NHS could treat him.
My foolish friend, johnmeredith, the last time I had an abcess spring up suddenly was in 1982. It began with a dull ache on a Friday afternoon, it became uncomfortable to eat by dinnertime, and by my bedtime it was flat out hurting. I got virtually zero sleep, and by morning I would have killed or committed physical violence to get that tooth out. I was fortunate in that I found a dentist locally that could take me in on emergency that Saturday morning. Had I not been able to do so, I was fully prepared to remove it myself, the pain was that intense.
But, sheeeeet man, I am just a crack-pot.
Yes indeed, johnmeredith, everyone in England has NHS care including dentist, you just can’t get to a dentist when you need one……..fat lot of good that does, eh? But, by God you got the coverage!
Thanks man, I needed the laugh this morning.
John,
very hard to find a dentist who will take you on the NHS (they are massively in demand and few in number)
Think about it. Why do you suppose that is? Clearly, the NHS provides dentistry – you say so yourself. Yet, no dentist wants NHS patients. So, if there weren’t any private dentists, none of you would ever get your teeth fixed – least of all pliers man. Those dentists who now don’t accept NHS will not just submit to the NHS when forced. They’ll find something else to do with their lives and your shortage will just increase.
Of course some Brits can’t afford a private dentist. Your taxes are sky high, your incentives to work and produce are decreasing every day.
But, dentists are relatively minor issues and your septum is not life threatening. Where the NHS really fails is in treating scary, life-threatening disease. 57% of men diagnosed with prostate cancer in Britain die and 46% of women diagnosed with breast cancer die. Compare that to 19% for prostate cancer and 25% for breast cancer in the United States. Then, there’s British QALY where the state, not your loved ones, assesses the value of your life. In parts of Scotland, average male life expectancy is BELOW RUSSIA’s at 53 years. My friend, I know the state of Russian men and that is nothing to be proud of.
So, if you have a minor complaint or you get lucky, the British system won’t kill you, but if you have a serious problem, you’d better scrape together the dosh to go private to get anything resembling actual medical care.
We pay more here, but we get more. We shell out dollars in exchange for life. That’s a pretty good trade.
Vidyohs, you don’t seem to understand the system. He could have walked through the door of any dentist and had the tooth operated on, just as in the USA, but, like in the USA, he would have needed to pay (or have insurance). That is because dental care is not covered by the NHS except for emergencies or special cases (children below the age of 18, pregnant women, people on disability allowance etc). When I get my teeth checked or operated on I have to pay, just as if I was in the USA and, like the USA, I could save money and pull them out with pliers, but I don’t. On the other hand, when I take my kids for check up I don’t have to pay, so I am slightly in-pocket and nobody tries to save money by denying their offspring dental care.
Other health care is covered, so if, like me, he needed his septum straightened, he can just go to the doc and get it done for free (at point of use). Mind you, I did have to wait ten days for an appointment.
May be after all the taxes confiscated from him for feeding the parasites running the NHS, that man didn’t have enough to pay for a Dentist.
Thank you. All the private service in the world is useless is the government leeches 75% of you income as it does in many parts of Europe.
One big flaw in human nature, johnmeredith, is to extrapolate personal vision and experience across the broad spectrum of the total human vision and experience. Perhaps you’re making that mistake.
I have observed that reality almost never reflects the theory.
In theory your NHS may sound wonderful to you, but in reality it is less than efficient and poorly accessible.
Now you don’t see it that way, I understand how that is possible.
The theory here in the USA is that our Post Office is a cesspool of inefficiency and waste, and in general the reality appears to reflect that. But, I have on occasions in my wanderings around the USA, found a Post Office or two that were efficient.
All the patrons served by those rare Post Offices have a difficult time understanding the denigration of the Postal Service by all those other people in America. Their reality is different, but they don’t know that because their experience is extremely limited and they have perspective on national reality.
But, as stated, they exhibit that flaw. Their experience and knowledge is extrapolated from the local to the national, and they don’t know they are doing it.
Most people live in a small sphere and to them that sphere is the world. If you really observe people, even politicians are guilty of this……no particularly politicians are guilty of this.
They have dentists in the UK?
I am currently in Canada and I can assure you that for the most part these stories are accurate.
My kid needed had a rash that needed to be taken care of. Nothing major, right? Of course all we needed was five doctor appointments in as many days at different locations with one appointment preceded by a five hour wait, all just to get a prescription of some ointment that would make the kid stop scratching himself.
The process was such that you would think you’re getting an emergency passport or something, very bureaucratic.
Trust me I was ready to shell a couple hundred bucks and have the whole thing taken care of within 24 hours. There is absolutely nothing free about health care up here.
Please don’t let this happen to you. Please.
“My kid needed had a rash that needed to be taken care of. Nothing major, right? Of course all we needed was five doctor appointments in as many days at different locations with one appointment preceded by a five hour wait, all just to get a prescription of some ointment that would make the kid stop scratching himself.”
Hm, maybe. Perhaps Canada is in such a state. But if this happened in the UK it would be front-page news, I can assure you. That is why there is this image of a collapsing NHS, every small cock-up makes it to the national press. My child recently needed to visit the doctor because of a rash. We phoned in the morning for an appointmnet, were given one at 10.30 that day, saw the doctor who presccribed a moisturising lotion for childhood eczma which we got free from the chemist in a big bottle that we can use for the next couple of years and which cured the problem in 24 hours. I think that is the more typical experience.
It’s ok, usedtobeDAVE must be lying… No-one can get 5 specialist appointments in 5 days here in Canada. Typically it takes 2 weeks to 6 months to get a specialist depending on their specialty and the severity of the condition.
Cheers
outside of one dermatologist (4 hr wait btw), the others were pediatricians and gp’s
johnmeredith,
unfortunately, there is nothing atypical about my experience. there is no one who does not dread needing a doctor in the province of quebec
also, please stop using the word “free”. there is absolutely nothing free about it. sponsored maybe (by your fellow taxpayer), but not free
John Stossel makes some good points as always
I’m not buying the idea that high medical bills cause bankruptcy.
#1 all medical providers will allow you to pay on a payment plan
#2 if you are already at the red line, you should have been watching your expenses, it’s not MY fault that you bought that Plasma TV and went on a $10K vacation in Europe that you couldn’t afford
Sorry idiots, but it’s not MY job to bail you out of your idiotic life decisions!
Question to the Cafe Hayek community.
Can anyone point me to an Austrian or Free Market analysis of Obamacare?
What I am not looking for:
- how government health care creates problems, or
- how free-market solutions actually work better.
but an analysis of this specific/particular piece of legislation or the propositions being thrown about as it is being written in the house/senate.
Thanks
The NHS even made a website trying to reduce all wait times to 4 months!
http://www.18weeks.nhs.uk/Content.aspx?path=/What-is-18-weeks/About-the-programme
Unfortunately, the way Krugman is flat-out lying for this government is reminiscent of another Paul: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels
Here is some recent word on the Canadian Healthcare.
http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=1878506&sponsor
Just finished driving four days with my father-in-law, who’s from Canada. Even though he supports Canada’s health system, he should be the spokesperson against the Democrats’ proposed reforms. Here are some anecdotes he shared with me:
Saskatchewan, a rural province, needed to save money and cut back on the number of hospitals. Of course, the closures were justified with more morally appealing terms. Well, guess which towns were more likely to lose their hospitals? The ones in political districts that had never voted for the majority party over the last few decades. Coincidence?
Canada has universal coverage, right? Well, it depends on your definition of “necessary” treatment. In Alberta, most citizens have private insurance to cover “unnecessary” treatments, which might include advanced heart procedures. If you had the heart condition, would you call those treatments unnecessary? Probably not, but a politician and bureaucrat looking to cut back on costs sure would.
And what about prices? Don’t worry. The provincial government and doctors association will figure them out. I’m sure they have the patients in mind when they do. No politics there.
I could go on. As I mentioned, these are tidbits coming from someone who supports the Canadian system. I wonder what those who oppose it have to say.
I know I’m late to this, but can anyone point to published numbers similar to the ones that muirgeo quoted? I can’t find them, and frankly I find it all hard to believe.
If these numbers were correct, I’m sure Obama would have used them at least once.
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