Australian Healthcare...

[Larry Gude]

...ok, so, it appears they have a universal basic system open to ALL.

The gaps in it appear to be dental, optical and ambulance. You pay these.
They have public hospitals and private. Private you have to pay for. Public isn't as good but takes care of you.
Medicine seems to be covered by the gummint.
Emergency is covered for all.

If you're rich you pay a 1-1.5% tax unless you opt to get your own coverage.

Every one else can buy insurance to cover your out of pockets and co-pays and/or dental and optical.


It seems be generally acceptable but the complaints are they want better care in the public hospitals. And it costs about 9% of GDP v. our more than 17% and rising.


Anyone know friends or family there and what they think of it?

 

[Gilligan]

I'm more familiar (directly) with Norway's system, but it does not sound like Australia's is radically different. Tax rates (sales and income both) are through the roof, of course. But they also go to great lengths to manage costs. And have almost zero lawsuit activity; the system is not under continuous attack from literally herds of legal firms like it is here.

 

[Larry Gude]

literally herds of legal firms like it is here.

This is the problem. Our affection for law, for incessantly pursing perfection in everything means we deal with the inevitable result; ceaseless litigation. My baby's folks were both born and raised in Western Europe until they moved to the US post war and their views, the story they paint of civilization back then was of a much more socialized society with much more going along to getting along as well as a much higher acceptance of rules and order. This is both good whereas society runs much smoother and cares for people on a more human level than we do and bad because it is much easier to control and lead the population down the wrong path if you can seize the reins of power. In any event, socialized medicine was a fact of life and the profession had basic ethics that were expected and demanded. No hiding behind lawyers and insurance. You felt obligate to do your best for pauper or prince.

We tend to have the worst of socialism; public loss, private gain and a people who think EVERYTHING is a suing offense in retaliation with masters who feel no more obligation to us than their bottom line.

 

[PsyOps]

Except that you are alluding to healthcare in Australia as a viable solution in this country, why are you talking about it?

 

[Larry Gude]

Except that you are alluding to healthcare in Australia as a viable solution in this country, why are you talking about it?

With the hope we can get to a good and viable solution while we're in the middle of trying to 'fix' ours and what that might look like.

Buddy of mine who lived there says Panama has a really good system.

 

[PsyOps]

With the hope we can get to a good and viable solution while we're in the middle of trying to 'fix' ours and what that might look like.

Buddy of mine who lived there says Panama has a really good system.

So, the about-face is over for you? It's really sad after all of these years to see you abandon, what appeared to me to have been, your limited government stance.

 

[Larry Gude]

So, the about-face is over for you? It's really sad after all of these years to see you abandon, what appeared to me to have been, your limited government stance.

There is NO desire or taste for limited gummint in this nation. NONE. The election of Trump was the last straw if it hadn't happened already. So, to be fair, limited gummint isn't even possible anymore and it's because of what's been set in motion. The tipping point was in January 2001 when the GOP had the BIG chance, WH, House, Senate, favorable court AND a majority of state houses nation wide, all filled with anticipation of what the GOP would do now that it, finally, had THE chance, the golden opportunity. We know what was done from there. The tipping point was reached and it was rejected, with gusto.

Now, it simply is too late. So, how to MAKE enormous gummint work, to be as moral as possible?

George Will was correct; the thing to do was vote Hillary or to, at the very least, NOT vote Trump and lick your wounds and find good candidates. Now, the GOP has ALL the power again and now there will be another round of GOP written and passed laws from the Med D to TSA, DHS, No Child, more pointless war and TARP bag of big gummint tricks.

I mean, look. The ACA could have been gone day 1. McConnell will NOT take the 'nuclear' option and end philibusters and just kill the thing. Ain't happening.

Limited gummint is OVER. Now, it, BIG gummint is about trying to make it work and trying to make it as moral as possible. It was probably a pipe dream in '01 but if it was gonna happen, the moment, the tipping point came and went and that is simply the way it is. Our society is so intertwined with the levers and powers in DC, the thing would die if anyone even tried to cut a single branch loose.

Done. Noble idea. Impractical and for the best of reasons in a democratic society; no one wants it.

 

[PsyOps]

There is NO desire or taste for limited gummint in this nation. NONE.

And you seem to epitomize that. Forgive me for making this about you, but I have a question... We you ever for limited government? If so, how does someone like you do a 180° so willingly?

 

[PsyOps]

Limited gummint is OVER. Now, it, BIG gummint is about trying to make it work and trying to make it as moral as possible.

There is nothing moral about turning over all of this stuff to government, that will only result in THE PEOPLE holding less power; completely contrary to what our founders intended. Big government will only work for one thing, the government. I can't think of something more immoral.

 

[Pete]

There is NO desire or taste for limited gummint in this nation. NONE.

I said this years ago and you disagreed. I completely disagree about the tipping point being a fixed point in space while the GOP was in power. There is no tipping point, it has been a steady and gradual march since FDR. All on the hard right want to just cease all these programs and quit cold turkey. It can't and won't happen until it just collapses and even then they will mitigate it by cancelling currency, printing new and vowing to not make the same mistakes, which is a lie.

 

[Chris0nllyn]

I'll ask the Aussies I work with.

 

[Pete]

I believe they re wrong in that they are trying to legislate health care through insurance, when they need to be influencing the healthcare through the marketplace.

 

[Larry Gude]

I believe they re wrong in that they are trying to legislate health care through insurance, when they need to be influencing the healthcare through the marketplace.

At present and for some time, the 'market place' has been a monopoly. Trump mentioned at his joint sessions speech, last on his health care list, to open up the state for competition and we've not heard a word about that since.

The NFL and baseball will lose their monopoly status before the health complex does which is to say the obvious; never.

 

[Larry Gude]

I said this years ago and you disagreed. I completely disagree about the tipping point being a fixed point in space while the GOP was in power. There is no tipping point, it has been a steady and gradual march since FDR. All on the hard right want to just cease all these programs and quit cold turkey. It can't and won't happen until it just collapses and even then they will mitigate it by cancelling currency, printing new and vowing to not make the same mistakes, which is a lie.

I had hope then based on us not having had the GOP actually have the power necessary. So, they got their shot, we, I cheered as they outflanked the D's (and the constitution) and here we are. It's not gonna collapse because we have fiat currency and don't even need physical fiat currency anymore. There's no need for it to collapse. Like work, the world has changed and it's because you're correct, it's been a linear, one way trajectory for some time and long before FDR. I'd go back to at least the creation of the Fed.

In any event, I had hope. It's been replaced by practical considerations. It ain't happening. It can't.

 

[Larry Gude]

And you seem to epitomize that. Forgive me for making this about you, but I have a question... We you ever for limited government? If so, how does someone like you do a 180° so willingly?

Absolutely. I saw the citizens use of a dollar as far superior to that of the gummint. More efficient, more moral, more fair. I saw government as a referee.

When George Bush bailed out the UAW, a Republican president rescuing one of it's longest and strongest opponents, I knew the world had changed. He looked at the impact on the companies, the vendors, the communities, the land lords, the restaurants and the entire impact, real world, real time, rather than it simply needed to be one of the reasoned, however harsh, lessons of making bad decisions over time, that they HAD to fail so that everyone who had made the tough choices and done the right thing, Ford, could reap the reward of being right when it was hard.

Then he did TARP bailing out everyone who HAD to lose for their poor choices for the system to work and that bail out made the UAW/GM one look like saving a lemonade stand. He saved Germany, the UK, perhaps the whole interconnected new world order globalist system. And the ideas of the market disappeared. He did not save the trouble asset, the most vulnerable of us as he did with the UAW thing. So, there was no consistency. No rhyme, no reason. Just the favored and the unfavored.

Since then, well, no sense rehashing the whole thing. We have a YUGE gummint fan in power and his last name is not D.

My 180 was as you suggested back in the day; it took time. As for being willing, once you come to terms with how things are and the options which include the complete absence of any meaningful support for a given ideology, you accept things and choose between being miserable or finding ones own peace. The GOP chose to lose and lose honorable with Goldwater and that beget Reagan. That spirit, lose with principle rather than win and have it mean nothing, or worse, is gone.

 

[Larry Gude]

There is nothing moral about turning over all of this stuff to government, that will only result in THE PEOPLE holding less power; completely contrary to what our founders intended. Big government will only work for one thing, the government. I can't think of something more immoral.

Then you better hope the people who, like it or not, ARE the gummint, make the best of things. You better start honoring the whistle blowers or we simply won't know damn thing.

 

[PsyOps]

Then you better hope the people who, like it or not, ARE the gummint, make the best of things. You better start honoring the whistle blowers or we simply won't know damn thing.

Do you even realize you're talking out of both sides of your mouth? You're for big government things like universal healthcare, yet not for holding our sworn intel people to their word of not leaking classified. You want big government to do their big government stuff, except keeping secrets.

And you're conflating two things that have very little to do with each other.

Government taking control of our healthcare/health insurance industries = protecting classified information that is protected to save lives.

You obviously reject the belief that much of what is classified, if exposed, could result in lives being negatively. Just the same, allowing government to take control of OUR OWN healthcare could result in our lives being negatively impacted. And the proof is in Obamacare.

You can't have it both ways.

 

[Larry Gude]

Do you even realize you're talking out of both sides of your mouth? You're for big government things like universal healthcare, yet not for holding our sworn intel people to their word of not leaking classified. You want big government to do their big government stuff, except keeping secrets.

And you're conflating two things that have very little to do with each other.

Government taking control of our healthcare/health insurance industries = protecting classified information that is protected to save lives.

You obviously reject the belief that much of what is classified, if exposed, could result in lives being negatively. Just the same, allowing government to take control of OUR OWN healthcare could result in our lives being negatively impacted. And the proof is in Obamacare.

You can't have it both ways.

Think about that for a minute instead of reflexively defending your bailiwick. The larger the gummint is the more imperative it is that it be open and transparent. To put people at risk, as Clinton and Obama and McCain did BECAUSE they knew they could keep it secret is the horse before the cart. The answer is NOT less open-ness. Open our gummint up so we can give informed consent and then there will be FAR less people at risk because people of poor character won't be able to hide behind secrecy.

 

[This_person]

Absolutely. I saw the citizens use of a dollar as far superior to that of the gummint. More efficient, more moral, more fair. I saw government as a referee.

When George Bush bailed out the UAW, a Republican president rescuing one of it's longest and strongest opponents, I knew the world had changed. He looked at the impact on the companies, the vendors, the communities, the land lords, the restaurants and the entire impact, real world, real time, rather than it simply needed to be one of the reasoned, however harsh, lessons of making bad decisions over time, that they HAD to fail so that everyone who had made the tough choices and done the right thing, Ford, could reap the reward of being right when it was hard.

Then he did TARP bailing out everyone who HAD to lose for their poor choices for the system to work and that bail out made the UAW/GM one look like saving a lemonade stand. He saved Germany, the UK, perhaps the whole interconnected new world order globalist system. And the ideas of the market disappeared. He did not save the trouble asset, the most vulnerable of us as he did with the UAW thing. So, there was no consistency. No rhyme, no reason. Just the favored and the unfavored.

Since then, well, no sense rehashing the whole thing. We have a YUGE gummint fan in power and his last name is not D.

My 180 was as you suggested back in the day; it took time. As for being willing, once you come to terms with how things are and the options which include the complete absence of any meaningful support for a given ideology, you accept things and choose between being miserable or finding ones own peace. The GOP chose to lose and lose honorable with Goldwater and that beget Reagan. That spirit, lose with principle rather than win and have it mean nothing, or worse, is gone.

So, after all the bashing, you're now saying Bush was right?

 

[This_person]

...ok, so, it appears they have a universal basic system open to ALL.

The gaps in it appear to be dental, optical and ambulance. You pay these.
They have public hospitals and private. Private you have to pay for. Public isn't as good but takes care of you.
Medicine seems to be covered by the gummint.
Emergency is covered for all.

If you're rich you pay a 1-1.5% tax unless you opt to get your own coverage.

Every one else can buy insurance to cover your out of pockets and co-pays and/or dental and optical.


It seems be generally acceptable but the complaints are they want better care in the public hospitals. And it costs about 9% of GDP v. our more than 17% and rising.


Anyone know friends or family there and what they think of it?

My first guess, due to competition it would be likely we'd have better health care, as measured by deaths due to medical errors per population. It would appear that is wrong. In 2005, it was reported Australia has significantly better results as measured by less people harmed by medical mistakes than the United States.

That said, I wonder what role Australia plays in medical research, new pharmaceutical or procedures, etc., etc., and how that factors in the medical costs. I also wonder what role is played in taxes overall compared to ours, medical school costs, freedom to sue when things go wrong (not just how many, but what are the laws), and that type of thing.