Operation Health Freedom - Daniel Hannan (No Edits)

[davijeph]

No, Mr Hannan they were attacks on you.Listening to you on Fox about the NHS was sickening .I doubt you have ever used the NHS and so divorced from "ordinary lives" with your never worked for wealth you dare to try and destroy possibly the greatest organisation this country has ever developed.Insurance based health is great for those like you.For those in the middle and low paid it's a nightmare just note the self reliant people in the USA bankrupted by health care cost.Shame on you.

[cwood4ever]

@davijeph LOL cant take truth

[davijeph]

@cwood4ever LOL you do not know the true

Life expectancy in the US was 78 years in 2007, compared with 80 years in the UK.

Spending on healthcare UK approximately GDP 8% US approximately 16% of GDP

Nearly 45,000 people die in the US each year in large part because they lack health insurance (Harvard Uni)

Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the US in 2007, UK medical cost bankruptcies ZERO.

Please see “the U.S. Healthcare system in international Context”

[cwood4ever]

@davijeph LOL there are over 300 million people in the USA a national health service is impossible. My grandfather lived into his late 90s 2 years shy of 100. I have always gotten great health care and never went bankrupt. Not to mention I don't have insurance right now, I just pay out of pocket for small things. Example I went to the Chiropractor payed $40.00 easy. If I needed something major I just get medicare which will pay for it. You should stop listening to Anti American propaganda. USA#1

[davijeph]

@cwood4ever I am very pro American ( wearing my Levi 501s, Timberland shirt, Rockport shoes and my American/Japanese made car in the garage) admiring your arts and to a lesser extent culture and values, not so sure about the politics but even today our forces are allied in war. All the Americans I have met have had open and generous natures (you however can keep your evangelists). The fact you say you have no insurance speaks volumes what if you have an accident or develope a serious illness?

[ohmyliver01]

It's funny how all the top countries in the world (using the World Health Organisation statistics) all have socialised health care systems.

anyone would think it works far better than a free market solution....

[libertyplayground]

well, the US has a strongly socialist system, with a mix of fascism too. Bottom line: the system is a product of government intervention

Around the world, there aren't any free-market systems in developed countries - so we don't have that data point in contemporary times.

However, back in the 1940s and 1950s, the US healthcare system didn't have cost problems and was generally the best in the world. Then, government intervention started on a massive scale.

[ohmyliver01]

Fascism? Explain please

The US system is far more free market than the top rated countries, for example the market determines pricing, the entities within the US system (hospital groups, doctors, etc) act as private businesses, where as in the top rated countries they aren't. Don't confuse the government being the largest consumer for healthcare with it being a 'socialististic' system.

what evidence are you using for your 'back in the 1940s and 1950s' assertion.

[libertyplayground]

just fascism in the sense of there is somewhat of a vestige of private ownership, but it's controlled and given favors by the state with the effect of reducing competition.

since early 20th century, hospitals have been nationalized, fda has started and its regulation has caused an epic genocide and raised costs tremendously for drugs, IP legislation actually reduces competition , insurance companies have mandates to cover every condition, extreme regs which create barriers to entry...

[libertyplayground]

insurance companies can't face competition across state lines, licensing of doctors , fda prevents natural medicine from being freely sold and advertised, the government controls and price fixes for medicare and overall pays for over 50% of medical costs, in which there are absolutely no fluctuating prices, no competition.

Draconian antitrust rules restrict doctors from freely forming pacts with insurance companies... Insurance companies use the lack of doc's antitrust exemption against docs

[libertyplayground]

for example, my chiropractor cant see medicare patients because it was banned in the pelosi-bush farm bill as a giveaway to the AMA cartel.

[ohmyliver01]

You might want to look up 'fascism' in the dictionary then. As that's not fascism you are describing there.

What hospitals have been nationalised in the US? All evidence I can find says hospitals are owned by private businesses as profit making institutions, and also owned by health insurance companies.

Have you any evidence of the 'epic genocide' caused by the FDA? .

[libertyplayground]

Some years ago, the Nobel-laureate economist Milton Friedman studied the history of healthcare supply in America. In a 1992 study published by the Hoover Institution, entitled "Input and Output in Health Care," Friedman noted that 56 percent of all hospitals in America were privately owned and for-profit in 1910. After 60 years of subsidies for government-run hospitals, the number had fallen to about 10 percent. It took decades, but by the early 1990s government had taken over almost the entire

[libertyplayground]

hospital industry. That small portion of the industry that remains for-profit is regulated in an extraordinarily heavy way by federal, state and local governments so that many (perhaps most) of the decisions made by hospital administrators have to do with regulatory compliance as opposed to patient/customer service in pursuit of profit. It is profit, of course, that is necessary for private-sector hospitals to have the wherewithal to pay for healthcare.

[libertyplayground]

Friedman's key conclusion was that, as with all governmental bureaucratic systems, government-owned or -controlled healthcare created a situation whereby increased "inputs," such as expenditures on equipment, infrastructure, and the salaries of medical professionals, actually led to decreased "outputs" in terms of the quantity of medical care.

[ohmyliver01]

you know the entire text of Friedman's 1992 essay is on google books, with a search function. Search for "Input and Output in Health Care,"

Nowhere does he note percentages of hospital essays.

Don't you bother to fact check your dodgy cut and pastes?

[libertyplayground]

it's copied from an essay by dilorenzo... i don't think he's making it up

[ohmyliver01]

hate to break it to you, but it looks like he is making it up

look go to google books and add this to the url for the essay

books?id=VWNNYqZMqMkC&printsec­=frontcover&source=gbs_navlink­s_s#v=onepage&q=hospitals&f=fa­lse

and see for yourself

Prove me wrong if you can, go on... :)

[libertyplayground]

didn't see it there, i saw some of the other info that dilorezno used there, maybe the percentages came from somewhere else. if i cared enough, i would email him.

re: fda, you are using faulty 'cetaris paribus' analysis, saying the fda has helped keeping drugs off the market - because you are imagining a scenario where bad drugs are on the market, but people take them cause they outsource their diligence to fda.... but if fda is removed, info on drugs will be provided by competing companies.

[ohmyliver01]

No, he clearly says 'In a 1992 study published by the Hoover Institution, entitled "Input and Output in Health Care," Friedman noted that 56 percent of all hospitals in America were privately owned and for-profit in 1910.... "

He was either lieing or such a poor scholar that he didn't check his main source.

Both aren't a good look. You look up to him, why?

[ohmyliver01]

re: fda. explain how I'm using a 'with all other things being equal' analysis.

I'm just saying that even with the FDA, and competiting companies, there have been toxic harmful drugs sucessfully sold. Without the FDA you think people would be protected by info on drugs provided by competing companies? Really? Even though they could only get this info after the drug has gone to market? Even though the competing info claims would be a gift to lawyers? It wouldn't matter how diligent people were

[libertyplayground]

with no fda, people's actions in regard to determining which drugs they want to take changes. they don't just assume that drugs on the market are good - which is a dangerous proclivity even when there is an fda.

finally, fda is a monopoly, and as such, will suck at its job and take way too much money. And block natural medicines cause its beholden to the pharma companies.

peace out.

[ohmyliver01]

But you expect any drug released in such a FDAless market wouldn't be aggressivly marketed? Getting rivals to fact check would take years (and probably millions of dollars in legal fees) after said drug had been released to the general public.

So, the US Army sucks then? The fireservice? The police force? Do they all suck? They are all monopolies in the same way that the FDA is.

The influence of large companies upon the governing of the US is a different mater

pease out to you sir as well...

[ohmyliver01]

sorry 'note percentages of hospital ownership' rather than "hospital essays".

[libertyplayground]

For example, while medical expenditures rose by 224 percent from 19651989, the number of hospital beds per 1,000 population fell by 44 percent and the number of beds occupied declined by 15 percent. Also during this time of almost complete governmental domination of the hospital industry (19441989), costs per patient-day rose almost 24-fold after inflation is taken into account.

[libertyplayground]

re: fda, watch?v=Nt0tKl0J-S4#t=14m20s

re: fascism, google "healthcare fascialism", fascism is system whereby private enterprise is comprehensively regulated and regimented by the state, ostensibly in the interest of the people, but always in the interest of key special interests

it seems like you have much learning to do - you didn't know about hospital de facto nationalization or the tragic effects of the fda genocide.

[ohmyliver01]

That youtube video is interesting but fails to take into account how many lives were saved by not letting unregulated and untested drugs onto the market.

You may want to look up 'genocide' in the dictionary. Unless the FDA's legislation was the cause of death of a specific ethnic/religious group in the US it's not genocide.

Don't cheapen the word.

re: your leaning comment: people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Mr "cut and paste without verifying the facts "

[libertyplayground]

free markets in contact lenses and cosmetic surgery have driven down prices and increased quality.

if there was freedom in other segments of healthcare, they would be getting cheaper too.

[ohmyliver01]

how much is this shrill getting payed for this rubbish. Fact of the matter is that the NHS is so popular in the UK that no party would get rid of it because it would be political suicide... It's amusing that he brings up privatization of the railways which has been proved to be more expensive to the tax payer and provide worse service than when it was owned by the people.

I'm astounded by the unChristian nature of the US healthcare...

[n66178]

We need a constitutional convention and an ammendment.

[chucktube90]

This is not a standardized product like energy, and even there the government allows competition. This is disturbing that a version has passed the house.

[phchartrand]

The Boston Tea Party is coming up on December 16th and there's going to be a moneybomb just like in the old days, this time for Rand !

randsteaparty(.)com

[waldentree]

Drug Companies

They love a government monopoly in health care for obvious reasons.

[HeinousOne101]

Ok, the argument is that a free market for health insurance is going to drastically increase the competition the insurance companies have to face. Competition will serve to force the insurance companies to be more fair with their pricing. If you know anything about the insurance situation currently, you realize it is a bit like an ancient feudalistic society. The country is carved up into little fiefdoms and insurance companies can only sell in their fiefdom.

[karkelkhan]

Well said sir.

[grumpone]

Not just competition between insurance companies, doctors too.

[LastStandforLiberty]

Exactly, our efforts should be focused on state legislatures. Get the states to legalize competition (hard to do, unfortunately, because obviously the elected officials want to serve the interests of insurance companies headquartered in the state they serve). However, the states should be more receptive to the people than the federal government. I'm worried that if we get a flawed program at the federal level, it will never be changed or discarded, only amplified.

[josephsystempro]

exactly, it is a megalopoly, much like energy companies, phones, etc...same thing...most people just don't get it that open and truly free trade will naturally drive the cost down to keep the corporations in competition so the customer buys their product...the corporations DO get it and that is why they have formed these megalopolies in order to force the consumer to compete instead of the way it was meant to be in our country, which is open and free trade competition with stable prices...

[LBRTRN89]

Agreed but government regulation of our health care and the pharmaceutical industry is the cause of this monopoly. So why give the federal government more control.

[bearhuntaa]

can you explain more? is this in the US? what regulations are these called?

[HeinousOne101]

Yes, this is in the US. The way it works is that the insurance industry is heavily regulated and these corporations have to be approved to sell insurance in your state. Sound alright in theory but the problem is the states generally limit such to a very small amount of companies. What this allows is much easier price fixing. It is easier to fix a price between five "competitors" then it is between an unregulated amount of companies because some will always truly compete instead of just...

[HeinousOne101]

...playing along with the rest. I do not know a name for these regulations, I would encourage you though to do that research as these regulations truly do exist. The problem is that our government is no longer an actual Representative Republic in that the voters are represented. All that is represented in this country is Money.

[billyjoeallen]

PACTIO OLISIPIENSIS CENSENDA EST!

[MaurDL]

lol, elevator interrupts the interview...

Would be nice if he mentioned how exactly a free market alternative benefits the poor better than a socialized one.

[PairoftheSocks]

Because everybody is poor in a socialized system. Thats at least what I would say.

[utbeaker]

@MaurDL

Quality goes up, price goes down (LASIK eye surgery, for example).

[josephsystempro]

when they allowed the non-megalopoly phone companies to exist, it drove cost down...before that you had one company per region and the bills tended to outgrow the usefulness of the technology...advent of the cell phone and the inherent competition there proves the point that free competition improves quality and drives costs down every time technology improves...same thing would be true if applied to health care and energy...