Greetings from China

[Drew99GT]

Originally Posted By: Tempest

You are against the bailouts but you are in favor of tax payer funded health care. Those are directly opposite views.


I don't live in a bubble of absolutes.

 

[Gary Allan]

Quote:
If someone never saves money in their youth and blows their paycheck every week and then turns 65 should everyone else be on the hook for his medical care?
How about if they smoke and take drugs and whatever?


Suppose someone saves as much money as they can. Doesn't blow their paycheck on any week ..and then turns 65? Should their lack of "enough" economic viability determine their value as a human?

That is, you're imposing worst case "beliefs" as a justification for your attitude. None of those things need to be true and you would still assert that the person needs to be kicked to the curb.

This is the primary flaw in your whole scene. You appear to justify your notions with "assumptions of negligence and defect". For some reason, the presence of some of what you take exception to ..justifies flushing those who it won't apply too.

Broad strokes and nebulous results.

You still haven't told me how this benefits the society. Where's the beauty in Tempestopia?

 

[moribundman]

Tempest would make a kick-arse Saint Peter.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
Government owning all the land and determining who gets to use it and how much it's going to cost is not one for the people and by the people.


Since when isn't government owning all the land before they sell or leasing it to you? I don't think you can claim government land just because there isn't a private owner even in the US.

As Gary Allen said, land is "leased" here in a bid/auction system and you put a bid that you think is worthed the price to you (the developer). Most buildings here are still in the low quality according to the US, and usually don't last more than 30 years. Typically every time a building is teared down and land redeveloped, the developer negotiate with the government and trade in the remaining lease for a new 50 year lease. I don't see a problem with this system even in the US and how is it "unfair", as long as you don't value property the same way we value it in the US. The same system was used in Hong Kong by the British colonial government since 1897, because their lease to the northern part of Hong Kong (New Kowloon and New Terroritory) last only till 1997 before they have to return it to China.

I remember the Tiananmen square incident well, but this has nothing to do with it, just like 911 has nothing to do with the dot com bubble.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
WHO is doing the "declaring"?

In a nationalized health care system, indeed, a government makes the decision and determines your worth to society.

Under capitalism, SOCIETY make the decision because it determines the cost of things. It is also determined by the PERSON that is needing the health care because they may not have not taken the steps to ensure their care.

You know....that foreign concept of personal responsibility.

If someone never saves money in their youth and blows their paycheck every week and then turns 65 should everyone else be on the hook for his medical care?
How about if they smoke and take drugs and whatever?

You are against the bailouts but you are in favor of tax payer funded health care. Those are directly opposite views.



Tempest, the flaw in your concept is that everything happens perfectly. According to your concept, if you take care of your health and your finance in a capitalist world, you (as 100% of the population) will live a happy long retirement to the age of 90. This simply isn't true.

The non-nationalized, non-government paid for, health care system only guarantees one thing: those who have the money will get the care they wanted, and those who were as well of gets treatment according to demand and supply.

It doesn't guarantee that you get the treatment you need simply because you save and never spend your entire life (you could be making low income, or unfortunate incident could happen, like massive inflation or the loss of a major source of income).

It doesn't guarantee that you get the treatment you need simply because you take care of your health. Your gene could be bad and you need high cost treatment that is simply unaffordable despite how much you make and how hard you try to take care of yourself.

Those who could afford to can get the best treatment that seems wasteful (like a rock star on drugs could do blood transfusion every year just to sustain his health, so he can do more drugs).

Those who got lucky could claim all the savings from the average medical costs just because they get good genes, or live a short life.

What private, non-nationalized health care system guarantee is a cost effective health care system to the suppliers and the typical (most common group of) consumers under statistic, not to protect the worst case scenarios I mentioned above from happening.

Insurance would only reduce this to some degree, but since insurance is a for profit industry, it will find loop hole and to some degree the not so well off will still have to face the problems mentioned above.

 

[PandaBear]

Medical system in China:

There are both public and private hospitals here and usually the better hospitals are the public ones with more experienced doctors and better equipments, and the "luxury" hospital established for the super well off folks with Western standards, equipments, practices, and senior doctors retired from public hospitals.

My dad came back 3 months ago when he got double visions during a trip to Europe. The hospital he visited is the Fujian provincal hospital and is supposely the best hospital in the province (China has a province system, so it is similar to a state in the US). I was born in the same hospital with my aunt being the delivery nurse when she worked here until her retirement 15 years ago.

The hospital is the size of an office building we typical found in the state, 6 floors with only about 100-200 parkings (always full). Patients usually come by bus, then put down a deposit at the cashiers (10 windows) with either their existing patient card or get a new one. The size of cashiers, speed of transaction, and the number of people waiting in line is like a typical Walmart during the weekend. All records are computerized and everything is stored in the hospital database retrivable by doctors, nurses, pharmacy, and cashiers.

After putting down the deposit, the patients runs the card through a kiosk to register for an appointment for the area they need help in, with the assistance of a uniformed staff per kiosk. Since the older generations don't know how to use computers, an assistant per kiosk is a must. Unlike the American medical system that you always see a general doctors first, every doctor is at least a semi-specialist and you start with a specialist and transfer to another specialist if needed.

After the patient get the appointment, he/she wait in the hallway for the doctor in the department outide his/her office. This is the process that could take a long time and the condition of the hospital isn't up to the Western standard (in terms of newness and sanitation of the floor). The medical equipments are suppose to be very sanitized (by fire and IPA alcohols), but you wouldn't find the tips of every possible equipment being disposible as in the US.

Doctors give the presicriptions in the computers and you could either get a printout or fill the prescription in the hospital pharmacy. Most people fill the prescriptions in the hospital pharmacy despite it being slightly more expensive (10% or so) for the sake of mine. You can trust that the hospital give you genuine medicine instead of fake ones with the same packages. The American and European brands are selling very well and people don't buy generic medicine here (only name brand), due to the tight Europe and US quality standard. The typical foreign branded medicines cost about the same as we found in the US. We in the US could thank our FDA control for the cheap and high quality house brand generic equivalent that the Chinese couldn't enjoy here.

A typical cost for a hospital trip cost about $130 RMB ($20 US)minimum, about 10% of a typical monthly salary, 50% diagnoses and 50% medicines. With foreign medicines cost could go up to $400 RMB easily.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
Tempest, the flaw in your concept is that everything happens perfectly. According to your concept, if you take care of your health and your finance in a capitalist world, you (as 100% of the population) will live a happy long retirement to the age of 90. This simply isn't true.

I have never made any such claim and you are aware of this.
Quote:
The non-nationalized, non-government paid for, health care system only guarantees one thing: those who have the money will get the care they wanted, and those who were as well of gets treatment according to demand and supply.

I have never said that it will guarantee anything. I don't believe health care should be guaranteed.

Why do you believe that it should be?

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
There are both public and private hospitals here and usually the better hospitals are the public ones with more experienced doctors and better equipments, and the "luxury" hospital established for the super well off folks with Western standards, equipments, practices, and senior doctors retired from public hospitals.

If true, this is exactly opposite of the way it is in Thailand (where my ex-wife if from). The private hospitals are far superior to the government hospitals. Significant numbers of westerners go there for good care at relative cheap prices.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
Since when isn't government owning all the land before they sell or leasing it to you?

You said nothing about selling. If you can't own land, then you really don't own anything.

What guaranties does the leaser have that the government won't come and take your stuff? Private property rights do not exist in China.

 

[sprintman]

It's the govt's responsibility to ensure guaranteed health care for everybody, a basic tenet of life.

 

[Pablo]

Originally Posted By: sprintman
It's the govt's responsibility to ensure guaranteed health care for everybody, a basic tenet of life.


Not all of us swallow that gunk. Do you really trust the government with all your records and really your life?

 

[sprintman]

Yes but Australia is run very differently than the U.S

 

[PandaBear]

This thread is worthless without a pic, so here they are:

The military base dormitory (left) that my dad and aunt used to live in when they were in their 20s. They were considered "nice" housing back in the days and the old wooden shacks they grew up in were redeveloped after a Taiwan air raid burnt part of the neighborhood.

The pink one on the right is a recent development, it used to be an open field here.

As you can see, the habit of the old days were to not lite a place unless someone is walking through it at night. No light for you during the day, and you bring a flash light with you if you go out at night (no street light). By the way, the stove of the kitchen ran on coal (compressed into a cake with cheese holes in the middle), that's why the kitchen window has a vent on the bottom, not the top.

Considered a nice place to live, it had the only swimming pool in the city back in the days. Those less fortunate would have to swim in the river or a fish pond.

Fast forward to the 90s, building like the ones in the first 2 rows of the photo below (and the pink building on the right side of the 1st photo above) starts showing up, they were low quality apartments that have at least decent living conditions (2 rooms, bathrooms that aren't in the public, and kitchen with propane stoves).

The building in the far back are recently finished and are up to the Western standard, but you have to be a business man to be able to afford it.

17 years ago I accidentally shoot a firework rocket to the building in the 2nd row (mid row) of the photo, and the rocket (2 stage) land on the bed sheet the family try to dry and caught it on fire. My aunt was so scared she hid me in the kitchen and turned off all the lights at home. Of course, we now have a good laugh of it.

With a remodeling, they are now closer to the living standard of the developed world.

 

[PandaBear]

How I grow up in Hong Kong after my family left China (When I was 1 yr old)

 

[Oldmoparguy1]

PandaBear, great pics, thank you for sharing.......