Is "socialism" a scare word in America?

[apogee]

*duplicated post*

 

[gaara4158]

You made some good points. It's also ludicrous and criminal what US citizens get charged for prescriptions.

Thank you! That’s another thing: research and development for prescription drugs is subsidized by public funds, and then they’re patented and sold back to us by private companies! They’re double-charging us for our own medicine. This is why the commodification of life-saving medicine is evil.

 

[pitabread]

In America, we have too many people riding in the cart and not enough people pulling the cart. A universal healthcare system would result in high premiums for the working man and a free ride for the freeloaders.

America already pays more and gets less than every other developed country when it comes to health care. The only people who win in healthcare in America are the insurance companies.

 

[pitabread]

Anyone who feels healthy but needs health care must still pay for the expense of those who are not healthy or do not pay into the healthcare system.

That already happens via the current private insurance system.

 

[Danthemailman]

That already happens via the current private insurance system.

Do you believe that socialism will provide a better way?

 

[Speedwell]

Do you believe that socialism will provide a better way?

It appears to wherever it has been tried. I believe that the US is the only modern industrial nation without it and our health care outcomes are not even as good as some third world countries. We also have medical bankruptcies, unheard of elsewhere.

 

[Belk]

Do you believe that socialism will provide a better way?

No, which is why we are not talking about socialism but universal health care.

 

[Danthemailman]

No, which is why we are not talking about socialism but universal health care.

Just thought I would ask since the OP is about socialism.

 

[Belk]

Just thought I would ask since the OP is about socialism.

Fair enough.

 

[pitabread]

Do you believe that socialism will provide a better way?

I'm not sure what you mean? In general, any social system is going to have the general populace contributing and then people using the results of said system unevenly.

If you're concerned about people paying into a system and not using it, you already have that happen with private insurance. So it's not really an argument against social healthcare/insurance.

(It's worth noting the U.S. also already has government sponsored socialized health insurance systems, it's just not universal.)

The arguments in favor of universal health coverage is that you don't have a % of your population without health coverage, and you don't have an inefficient middle layer of insurance companies sucking away money that could otherwise go to healthcare.

 

[apogee]

Just thought I would ask since the OP is about socialism.

You're absolutely correct, although this is one of those areas where "socialism" is used as a scare word.

As though not letting people die, or become bankrupt, because they are too foolish, incapable, unfortunate, poor, ill or 'lazy', to get sufficient insurance, is inevitably going to lead to death camps and totalitarian regime (or even worse, poor healthcare)

 

[Andrewn]

this is one of those areas where "socialism" is used as a scare word. As though not letting people die, or become bankrupt, because they are too foolish, incapable, unfortunate, poor, ill or 'lazy', to get sufficient insurance, is inevitably going to lead to death camps and totalitarian regime (or even worse, poor healthcare)

Exactly. Countries like Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, etc., have had universal Medicare for decades. This is not Socialism. It's basic Social Liberalism.

 

[Hans Blaster]

In America, we have too many people riding in the cart and not enough people pulling the cart. A universal healthcare system would result in high premiums for the working man and a free ride for the freeloaders.

So the good news Dan, is that you seem to understand that "universal" coverage doesn't mean "single payer" (gov) as you referred to "premiums" going up, rather than taxes.

So here's how the ACA was supposed to work:

1. Medicaid is expanded to a somewhat higher income limit giving access to more low income insured people. (This would have a tax cost.)

2. Restrictions were placed on insurance companies to prevent them from rejecting policies or claims due to pre-existing conditions. (This would impact other premium payers.) It also allowed parents to keep their adult children on the policies longer. (Given those young adults access to fairly inexpensive insurance.)

3. Other uninsured people were required to get insurance from a newly created market for individual policies or pay a penalty. (This increased the pool of healthier people which should have lowered the premiums for others. It also should have made it easier to by individual policies and probably cheaper for those who were already doing so.)

This wasn't expected to get to universal coverage, but was expected to make a significant impact at reducing the number. It did.

 

[Albion]

Exactly. Countries like Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, etc., have had universal Medicare for decades. This is not Socialism. It's basic Social Liberalism.

No, it's not Socialism. It may (depending on which country's system we might be referring to) be typical of a Socialist state or one ingredient in the policies of the typical Socialist society, but it's not Socialism in itself, by itself.

On the other hand, it's also not correct of people who favor Socialism to say that IF there is government medical care, that's all that there is to Socialism, so 'not to worry' because Socialism is nothing unusual or oppressive.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Smith's work is admirable and immense (I spent three years studying bits and pieces of it at university), but I'd suggest J S Mill did a better job in Principles of Political Economy. Certainly his outline of problems and potential problems arising from capitalism in general, and the results of various economic scenarios under capitalist economic modes, is more realistic.

I don't know enough about the guy to speak on his economic ideas intelligently....though I'm not surprised that after living in a world increasingly run by capitalism, he was able to describe its problems in more detail than Smith.

Lemme guess....some of those problems involved people directly manipulating supply and demand to get rich?

And Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money is at least as successful as Smith's Wealth of Nations as a description of economic behaviour. Personally, I'd argue its moreso because it takes a systemic approach.

Is it? I remember Keynes building off Smith almost entirely. What was his big contribution? That because the government controlled things like the value of money and interest rates, it could correct for market failures as long as it saw them coming?

 

[Gene2memE]

Is it? I remember Keynes building off Smith almost entirely. What was his big contribution? That because the government controlled things like the value of money and interest rates, it could correct for market failures as long as it saw them coming?

One of Keynes key contributions was in describing the economy not as interactions or even systems of interactions, but as flows and systems of systems moving into and out of equilibriums. This moved economics away from using a static picture (a single frame, if you will) and towards using a dynamic picture (a movie).

This seems like a really simple, basic idea now. But in the 1920s and 1930s, it was wholly new conception of the economy.

 

[Gene2memE]

I don't know enough about the guy to speak on his economic ideas intelligently....though I'm not surprised that after living in a world increasingly run by capitalism, he was able to describe its problems in more detail than Smith.

Lemme guess....some of those problems involved people directly manipulating supply and demand to get rich?

As I recall, not really. Mostly dealing with various scenarios around capital and debt accumulation, technology, wages, taxation, inflation, and situations where profit was either maximised or minimised.

Mill was more concerned about the underpinnings of national economies and trade, rather than problems of wealth accumulation by individuals (be they people, corporations or other).

 

[FireDragon76]

IMO the problem with socialism is that there is literally no end in this world to all the sufferings that people experience, but there is a limit to the amount of resources we have in this world to address those things.

Socialism doesn't necessarily address any and all possible human aspirations, but that doesn't necessarily discredit it as a political or economic ideology. Let's not make the Perfect the enemy of the Good...

 

[FireDragon76]

I had no idea that Buddhism could lead one down a path of rugged abolutist libertarianism. I always thought it was more community oriented.

In Asia, it usually is. It also often coexists with Confucian values. Though most practicing Buddhists in the world are political conservatives, the religion fosters communitarian, not libertarian, values. Some forms of Buddhism (for instance, Mahayana or Vajrayana Buddhism) even deny the notion that "individuals" exist.

As I read and understand the Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha taught wholeheartedly about voluntary compassion, not forced "compassion" directed to specially selected individuals and causes selected by the government.

Forced "compassion" is not compassion at all.

When Ashoka accepted the Buddhadharma as the emperor of the Maruyan Empire (where India get's the wheel on its flag), he created alot of government services for the people (including hospitals) because he believed in extending the concept of benevolence to government. And he is usually considered a paragon of a Buddhist ruler.

 

[gaara4158]

It basically boils down to this.