TrentW82

(Note: Thanks to hym for finding the health care thread.) Okay, I'll take a swing at that one and see if I can explain it so it makes sense. There are several issues to consider here: Issue: What is the appropriate role for government? Some people believe that the national government should provide for the national defense, period. To them, anything beyond that is overreaching. Opinions are spread along a continuum starting from there and going out to some point at the opposite extreme. In some areas of the country, there is a strong belief that the government has no business telling them what to do. From what I can see, the strength of this belief is directly proportional to population density. People who live close together or on top of each other tend to accept the need for more laws; people who lives miles from their neighbors, not so much. Issue: There are only so many tax dollars to go around. If something is not currently being paid for by tax dollars and the decision is made to cover it, the money has to come from somewhere. Either the tax money has to be increased or diverted from somewhere else. Issue: If my tax dollars are going to pay for my neighbor’s health care, his unhealthy habits suddenly become my business. Right now, if he overeats (to use a common example), that is his problem, not mine. But if my tax dollars are going to be paying for his heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes it is now in my best interest to pressure him to get his act together. It’s a corollary of “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins” but it would also impinge on my neighbor’s freedom to manage his own life. Issue: Universal health care limits access to specialists. We hear a lot about waiting lists in places with managed health care. A British friend of mine was diagnosed with an active cancer and was put on a waiting list (estimated to be six weeks) to have the surgery to remove it. I was appalled. Issue: In some areas of the country, specialists are few and far between. If someone is paying the taxes for it and therefore has a “right” to see a specialist, doesn’t there have to be a specialist around for them to see? Where are these doctors coming from? I would like to hear how this works in Australia. It is about the size of the continental US (give or take) and, I believe, has the same setup: denser population along the coasts, relatively not much in between. How do people in the middle of the country get access to, say, an oncologist or rheumatologist? Those are some of the key points. I’m sure there are others but this post has already been long enough. Interesting points! I understand where a lot of the American mentality would come from. The population factor is a reason it works well in Australia and may not so effectively in the USA. Yes we're a relatively comparable size and have big variations in population density, but our population is only 23 million as opposed to 320 million which would make it more manageable. Access to specialists in rural areas is an issue with any system - private or public. If treatment is required, they generally get themselves to a city hospital if there isn't one in the regional hospital. In terms of waiting lists, remember that the private health industry exists as well. People have the option of also getting private health insurance if they wish, which gives them access to private hospitals and private medical clinics, most of which have little or no wait times. So the existence of a universal healthcare system doesn't take away the option of private healthcare if you choose, and if you have private healthcare you claim it on your tax return and get some tax refunded (to makes up for some of the public healthcare your tax was paying for). In terms of paying for your neighbour's healthcare, compare it to any other tax or even any other form of insurance. Insurance companies exist because it's the premiums paid by all the people who don't need to make claims that make it possible for them to cover those who do. So if you insure your car and don't have any accidents, you still have to pay for insurance and your premiums are funding the pool of money the insurance company has to dig into to pay out some other idiot's claim, but that's just the nature of insurance. You pay something to cover the 'just in case', in the meantime it may be covering other people but one day they might be covering you. Same goes with tax, even if you don't drive, your taxes still pay for road maintenance. Remember too that if you don't need public healthcare yourself because you're privately insured, you can claim it on your tax refund so in effect you're not really paying for your neighbour to be covered by Medicare when you don't use it. Another point is that a healthy society benefits everybody, really. Somebody else's health may not be your problem, just like funding public education may not be your problem if you choose to send your kids to a private school, but a healthy and educated population has a flow on effect that benefits society as a whole and prevents or reduces the prevalence of many other social issues which may affect you.

The 3 major parties here are the Liberal Party (centre right, although the current Prime Minister is further towards the hard right), the Australian Labor Party (centre left and very much aligned with unions) and the Australian Greens (further left than Labor, and favour environment over workers). We have a bunch of minor parties too but with the two-party preferencial voting system all they really do is flow preferences to the two major parties - Labor & Liberal. Although the Greens have really come to prominence in the last 10-15 years and particularly in Melbourne there are alot of inner city electorates where the two-party preference is now between Labor & Greens with the Liberal Party an insignificant third, forced to flow their preferences to Labor! The last federal election was won in a landslide by the Liberal Party but they have become so unpopular since coming into power that 3 out of the 4 state elections since have been won by Labor, and even the state the Liberals retained had a huge swing the other way. If there's one thing Australians hold sacred, in the same way Americans hold liberty & freedom sacred, it's our workplace rights and protections. Any government who even hints at scrapping penalty rates, relaxing unfair dismissal laws or lowering the minimum wage loses popularity very quickly! Something I am interested to hear from Americans, is why is there such a fear of universal healthcare? I know that from all accounts I've heard, "Obamacare" hasn't been the best executed attempt at a healthcare system. But Obamacare aside, I know alot of Americans are opposed to the idea of universal healthcare in general. Almost as though if your government provides you with healthcare, you're one step away from being communists or something. It doesn't make sense to me. You still pay taxes the same as we do, so don't you think paying tax should automatically give you healthcare as well? Australia isn't close to being communist, but I've never paid for a doctor's appointment in my life and don't ever plan to, and don't believe i should have to simply because I pay tax so I believe healthcare is a right. So I find it strange that the idea of a government providing basic healthcare with all the tax dollars it rakes in can be seen as something to 'fear' rather than embrace. I'd go as far as to say it's a basic right that you shouldn't have to pay (besides paying tax of course) to receive medical treatment. Otherwise what are you paying tax for if it doesn't even provide basic life necessities like medical treatment? This may be a simplistic description but in Australia healthcare essentially works like this: You pay an income tax. Income tax includes a 'Medicare levy', but really it's just part of your tax rate (you don't notice it). You get sick. You go to the doctor. You get treated. You pay nothing. The medical clinic 'bulk bills' the government for the number of patients it saw. The government rebates all the medical clinics out of the pool of money it has collected from the Medicare allocation of income taxes. Pretty hassle free system, and it works... Same deal if you need to go to the emergency room or receive medical treatment in hospital. All the while, the private health insurance industry still thrives in parallel to it, for those who choose to pay for extra cover. Surely a similar system couldn't be too hard to implement without too much objection, and surely the country would benefit from it?

Pretty much exactly the same in Australia. The economically permissive party is more socially conservative; the economically restrictive party is more socially progressive. What differs is our terminology though.. Our socially conservative equivalent of the Republicans are called the Liberal Party! Whereas Americans term the socially progressive democrats as 'liberals'. Interestingly too, they are generally more opposed to becoming a republic... So our equivalent of the Republican Party don't want to be a republic and they're called the Liberal Party lol.

Big Tigers fan here and was shattered by their performance in the ALDS but it was expected that the bullpen would let them down. The more heartbreaking thing is that if they were able to get past Baltimore, then as dominating as KC have been, Detroit was the one team they really struggled to beat all year and KC was the one team Detroit really had no trouble with. Before the playoffs started I thought we'd probably get past Baltimore in a tough series but probably have to face the Angels and wouldn't make it out of the ALCS. The fact that KC swept the Angels just rubs salt in the wound of not making it past the ALDS. In any event, I'm rooting for KC in the World Series. They've been an exciting team all year, played the right way and been fun to watch so it would be good to see their cinderella story have a happy ending. Was hoping they'd face St Louis though, a Missouri rivalry would have been fun and I don't like the Giants.