When telling your son about the difference in costs between America and Canada, did you remember to tell him that the American Government spends almost as much per capita on healthcare as the Canadian government. (It actually spends more than the British government). Therefore as an affluent person the only reason you might pay less for healthcare is because your tax rate is more progressive. And I don’t think the difference is that great…

Goodness knows, someone has to take the damn (republican) bull(S#&%) by the horns and give it a good shake regularly. Come to think of it, he could shake a fews dems too, wouldn’t bother me a bit.

As far as “debating” certain comments here, I’ll just close with this: Last time I went to see a doctor (I have no insurance), I went to the emergency room of the hospital across the street from my condo building. (Food poisoning.) Got directed over to a waiting room, where I filled out a questionnaire. Nobody asked me about where I worked, what insurance I had. or even where I was from, and I don’t speak their language.

Oddly, it isn’t a “tax issue” or a “do you deserve care” issue, it is just medical care.

Was given an ID card for the next time I needed to see a physician.
Waited @ 15-20 minutes, went in to the doctor. Quick questions asked, brief exam, handed a bill, told to go see cashier. Paid bill ($8.50), was handed a receipt and my medication.

I’m not even a citizen of this country. I live in Chiangmai, Thailand now.

Now some here might argue Americans wouldn’t care for this, as I didn’t “get to choose” who my doctor was..but this American won’t. And the “15 minute wait” I think most Americans would tolerate. Call it my WAG…..

The “39% that think they will soon be in the top 1% income earners”?? What was the percentage of votes received by the losing McCain/Palin ticket, again?

Most sane nations ignore delusional thinkers(ing.)

J.E. at #69: Thanks. My late Armenian grandfather used to tell us: “I forgive, but I no forget.”

Others should take heed of his wisdom.

Back in the Reagan years I knew several twenty-somethings who would rent to be rich for a night. They’d save their money for two months, rent a limo and a tux, go to the best restaurant in town, and after that go to the classiest bar in town. They lived with their parents or in ratty apartments and mostly didn’t own cars, they were working as waiters or going to Last Chance U., and none of them had a reasonable chance of even getting into the upper middle class. But in their imaginary futures they were rich.

Borrowing leads to identification with the rich, according to economists Fabrizio Perri of New York University and Dirk Drueger of Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.

Insofar as that is true, wow. I’ll have to go look up the study.

Here’s the exact result: ‘A 2000 Time/CNN poll found that 39 percent of Americans believe they are in the wealthiest one percent or soon will be.’

For example, most of us here are aware that the Canadian healthcare system is paid for by taxes Most of us are aware that the Canadian system is not pertfect We’ve heard about the waiting lists millions of time, and we expect to hear about them millions of times more.

As for me, I’m part of the campaign for health care reform, I suspect that many others here are, and I see no reason why everyone here, and Crooked Timber as a corporate body, shouldn’t be. And in fact, I think that that was pretty much the purpose of this thread. And you probably knew that:
“He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.”

On the balance, knowing what I know, a system modeled on the Chinese, British, Swedish, or French system, any one of them, would be far superior, and (this is where we may most disagree) I think that after two years with a such a system, most Americans would agree—which is why there is such furious opposition by people with a stake in the status quo.

As you ask, but did anyone learn anything new? None of the things you’re insisting that we stress are new to anyone here. Why should we frame what we say about the Canadian system in terms of its deviations from from otherworldly perfection.

Your opening statement of Grayson was imbecile., just self-righteous posing. You didn’t even understand what was going on, but just used Grayson’s speech as a platform to display your superiority to politics in general.

You may well ask why I am willing to spend my time on someone such as yourself. That is indeed an interesting question, the answer to which shall be defered to a later time.

Mr. Emerson at #63

people who depend on HMOs also face denial of service and wait lists.

To put it bluntly, the Canadian system is a giant HMO. That’s why it works. That’s why it cost 1/2 what the US system costs. Look, there’s no free lunch here. You save a little on billing, a little on slightly lower salaries, and a lot on waiting lists and denial of services that aren’t considered worthwhile for their cost.

Preferring a system because it provides the best benefits for the cost does not mean pretending the costs are zero. (And the American reaction to even perfectly reasonably HMO actions is one clue that a Canadian system might not be acceptable in the USA.)

In the US the public choice theorists have done a wonderful job of convincing everyone that all government spending comes directly from their pockets and is transferred to the unworthy, but you son won’t need their help because you’ve already explained it to him.

Okay, now I’m irritated. If I read the quote correctly, you are saying that nobody is capable of rationally analyzing claims and finding that they are partially true? That the only options about public choice are either belief that every action of a civil servant is done to for personal gain or that every civil servant is motivated solely by professionalism? That either every person on welfare is unworthy or that every single person receiving welfare is a victim of misfortune?

Cripes, if I hid the truth of either side, what would happen the first time my son gets personal information to the contrary? My left-ish take on the world is not like creationism. It doesn’t have to be nurtured by hiding inconvenient truths.

I’m going to have to assume I’ve misread this comment. I can’t really believe that anyone in this forum would seriously imply inoculating a young adult from the ‘wrong’ beliefs using ignorance.

CS-Lewis-type troll

Does anything outside of unqualified support for one’s side qualify as being a troll?

political football in #66

this might implicit in your argument but isn’t something anyone would take away from what you’re saying.

If you’re going to converse with Tom W., you’ll want to keep this available to cut-and-paste.

Arg. And those who criticized American rights abuses really felt that Al-Qaeda was better? Of course not, nor should they have to state as much every single time. In the context of a left leaning board like CT, I think we can take it for granted that there are shared assumptions about the superiority of the left-ward position (unless explicitly stated otherwise). As I said, the world endured eight years of any criticism of America is unpatriotic. Do we really need to follow up with any criticism of the left (especially in friendly terrain) is… well, whatever the equivalent for ‘unpatriotic to a movement’ would be?

Mr. Emerson has nicely enumerated almost all of the advantages of a Canadian style health-care system here, but did anyone learn anything new? No, because we all understood that already. After all, that’s why we support health-care reform. I save my posts about the superiority of the reforms for the boards where the reading populace might not actually be aware of them. Nor do I deny their costs. If people want to honestly look at both sides and decide differently from me, that is their choice. (At least until I persuade them to change their values :-)).

Thus, we see with Tom W. that it’s okay to be a “bomb-thrower” if you’re out of government (except it’s not okay if you’re Glenn Beck, apparently)

Let me clarify. I’m (obviously) not a big fan of non-governmental “bomb-throwers” on either side. But I don’t think that they have a responsibility to be fair in their discourse. I do not go out of my way to admonish Michael Moore or Glenn Beck for their behaviour even if I personally think it unfair or misleading.

Mr. Emerson at #67

I might add that a bit of vagueness about the downsides of policy and about exactly who benefits and who gains is right at the core of all democratic political consultation and persuasion, or even elite persuasion where multiple interests are represented. Nobody makes a practice of carefully notifying the prospective losers.

If you are on the campaign trail, then perhaps such an attitude is justified. However, when you are trying to make or decide policy, such ignorance is utterly unacceptable. Since I doubt that CT is part of the campaign, I certainly believe that personal responsibility dictates that one has thorough knowledge of all aspects of the policy that one advocates, both good and bad.

Still, that mistaken belief does make them extremely diligent and thus successful, if perhaps less generous to those who fail.

Maybe, maybe not. The recent American-made global financial crisis has excessive optimism written all over it. (Among other things, including fraud. But a lot of people apparently actually believed they had discovered a perpetual profit machine.)

You know, as someone who fancies himself a member of the reality-based community, I instinctively recoiled from this at first, too. But Grayson seems to understand where the liberals have been getting their lunch eaten, and he seems to have a plan to do something about it.

Republican policy preferences create a lot of misery and death. Is it fair to compare American health care policy to the intentional murder of millions? No, it’s not. But, of course, Grayson didn’t do that.

What he did was invited people to consider just how great a tragedy our healthcare system is – a discussion that has been weirdly absent from the debate. Good for him.

He should have been ready for this, and the fact that he wasn’t tells me that he’s going to be stepping into his own mouth before long.

Yeah, I dunno. I’m agnostic on this – he does seem clumsy. But he has moved the conversation in his direction. He’s being asked: Is this the Holocaust? It almost doesn’t matter what the answer is; the fact that we’ve started to publicly contemplate the actual scope of our healthcare calamity is a big step in the right direction.

If you’re going to converse with Tom W., you’ll want to keep this available to cut-and-paste.

I appreciate the need for some “bomb-throwers” to keep your opponents off balance, but surely by the time you reach the point of being part of the actual government, one is expected to be responsible enough not to engage in the self-indulgence of these sorts of games.

One thing I’ve noticed about those who harp on liberals’ etiquette is that the complainers have a really hard time maintaining a consistent narrative, and are always inventing new rules. Thus, we see with Tom W. that it’s okay to be a “bomb-thrower” if you’re out of government (except it’s not okay if you’re Glenn Beck, apparently), but somehow getting elected to democratic office means that one must observe a level of decorum that’s completely inappropriate for democracy.

Was Thomas Jefferson polite about King George (who, after all, had his own legitimate point of view about the controversial issues of the day)?

Where did that rule come from?

Let me propose a different rule: We ought support and denigrate people in direct proportion to their productive support for worthy causes and, of course, their use of legitimate means to support those causes. Vigorous advocacy by democratically elected leaders is the reason we elect them. The problem with Glenn Beck is not that he’s mean, but that he’s dishonest, crazy and supports appalling causes. And the fact that he’s in media rather than an elected representative mitigates his loathsomeness not a bit.