sineout.com

On Healthcare, Socialism and Communism

Update, I've made an audio/video version of this 'article' at [link] , go watch it plz

Very rarely do I stick my oar in to political issues such as this, but given the current furore about the 'public healthcare option' in the US, I've decided to share my two cents, such as it is.

There seems to be two main issues with this idea to the right wing in the US, first, that a public option to healthcare is socialism, and socialism is just one step closer to communism (or more commonly, the misconception that socialism is communism), as if communism is a bad thing.
And second, that socialised healthcare just doesn't work, and the only solution to it would be a privatised healthcare system just like the one presently employed in America.

I'll address these points in a reverse order.

Virtually every industrialised country in the world, with an exception to America, has at least some form of public healthcare.
More often than not, the right wing in the US, will point to various failings in the NHS (National Health Service), as proof that socialised healthcare doesn't work, or provides poorer care than the private healthcare in America.
Often citing things like death panels, or over crowding, or any number of 'Bad Things ^TM'.

Every single cite that socialised healthcare doesn't work, or provides poor quality care, tends to either be an exaggeration (as in examples of triage, where people who don't need a surgery, don't tend to get that surgery immediately), or they tend to be anomalies
It's interesting to note, that, just like socialised healthcare, privatised healthcare is just as imperfect, there are the same anomalies and triage situations in American hospitals too.

It's rather funny, when you consider that, the American Healthcare system purely revolves around money. If you don't have it, you may as well not exist, if you do have it, the onus is not on curing a patient, but on not getting sued (which, of course, does tend to lead to the patient being cured).
This isn't the fault of the doctors of America, it's the fault of the Insurance companies interested in their bottom line, not in the people that have taken out insurance with them.

It should also be interesting to note, that another argument against socialised health care, is that it costs more, because it's in your taxes. The amusing thing is that Americans, on average, spend double the amount that people in other industrialised countries spend on Healthcare, here's a nice little graph, showing this:



Given that the American healthcare system revolves around money, and not strictly on saving lives, one has to wonder why the Right Wing, would prefer that.
In their position, I'd much rather a health care system that wants to keep me alive not because I have money in my bank account, but because, maybe, my life has some inherent value.

Of course, this leads tidily on to the socialism == communism angle.
Basically, the arguments that socialised healthcare doesn't work and/or is worse, is mainly an excuse, a reason, a justification into why socialised health care is a bad thing.
In extension, it's used as a banner to explain why socialism in general is a bad thing.

Most people in the Right Wing, don't seem to understand the inherent hypocrisy in calling foul of socialism.
Healthcare in the US is basically one of the only public services in America that isn't socialised. School, for example, is socialised in America (to my knowledge, anyway), any person in the Right Wing, who has attended public school is a hypocrite on this subject before they've even opened their mouths, if they don't want socialised healthcare, they'd better sign themselves up for a lobotomy (which, of course, they'd have to pay for), to remove all the knowledge and memories they gained from their pre-college school years.

Of course the main reason why people are so against this, is because, as mentioned, it's seen that socialism is just one step closer to communism, or, worse, that socialism is communism.

Communism is often seen as a bad thing, because it failed in Russia, and, it's currently employed in China, among other places. The reason why Communism is not a good thing at the moment, is purely because Communism does not work in a scarcity driven economy. Simply put, communism doesn't work, because w...