@Bozza dude, back before government interference and meddling caused costs to skyrocket and the necessity of insurance and HMOs, American citizens used to pay doctors out of pocket. A modest fee would cover a house call.

Doctors haven't done house calls since I was a small child, and they were rare even back then.

Our shit's expensive because of government, and the solution sure as shit isn't "moar government!".

It's almost like they've deliberately made it suck so that people would adopt attitudes similar to yours, and say "we should just have the government handle everything! Because they've been totally competent at everything they've ever done!"

Oh, wait, that's exactly what they did.

And your emotional plea doesn't change the fact that government interference isn't the answer. It'll make things worse.

Just look at how bad your health system is, and Canada's. The wait time for anything is ridiculous.

People leave countries with nationalized healthcare to come to the US and use ours, even as bad as ours has become. That should tell you something.

@Bozza I think that socialist and capitalist are really a bit 20th century. They were part of a class struggle that is over now. The socialists largely won the moral argument and their views became the accepted moral views of the establishment. This was not because they were right about notions of universal equality but in fact was because they stood for the working man who was the crucial foundation of capitalist prosperity.

Capitalism did not work without the worker and so it was fair that the worker was compensated. Then socialism got on top and the doctrine of universal equality took it to places its founders had never imagined. Socialism tried to make people who were not contributors equal to those who were, it even tried to make those who were not in the group equal to those in the group. Socialists were now burdening the worker, the contributor, unfairly not rewarding him. The worker was returning to where he started -working for the big state and not seeing a fair share.

Mean time there was an computer revolution. Less skilled jobs were being mechanised, some middle class gate keeper jobs were also under threat. The world that gave socialism its power is crumbling.

Something new is needed.

@Bozza @Kloi

1) there's no such thing as free. Someone pays. In the case of nationalized healthcare, taxpayers get raped.

2) I've known enough Canadians who came to the US to get away from their system. They say it's like going to the DMV to renew your driver's license: long-ass lines and inefficiency, and the quality of care sucks.

3) countries with nationalized healthcare start offering assisted suicide, and not just for the terminally ill. It's fucking ghoulish. Examples:

• Norah Vincent used Switzerland's assisted suicide to end her own life due to depression, and the world lost a valuable voice for men.

• a Canadian Veteran who needs a wheelchair to get around requested one of those mechanical chairs for getting up and down time stairs in her house. When she expressed frustration at how long it was taking, they offered her assisted suicide instead. Thanks for your fucking service, bitch!

• just a few days ago, and the story is still developing, Spain used assisted suicide to end the life of a gang-rape victim while her rapists remain free. Her father sued to stop it and lost. Here's Carl Benjamin talking about it. I never finished the video because it was just too goddamn depressing.

On top of all my objections to nationalized healthcare, the problems the US healthcare system has all stem from government interference. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. our government has meddled to make things better, things only get worse. The solution isn't more government. It's less.

@Bozza

Look I'm not going to moralize, and as one of the guys on the forum who's probably done more substances than anyone else

I've always said it'd be easier to tell you what I haven't done, than list all the niche drugs I've sampled throughout my life.

I often wonder if there is any point in writing on the topic of addiction for TRP as someone who has personally suffered through it. I know there is no point in discussing it with people who aren't ready to quit.

I have used and have heard all the rationalizations for not stopping. From using systems, to not drinking hard liquor, to cycling between substance. It's even worse for the highly functioning addicts because on paper, life looks good if you ignore the elephant in the room

it's certainly not my place to judge (not that I am).

I think it is our place to judge, not be judgmental. Daily dependency of any substance is counterproductive to growth. When I get asked about usage, there are very few drugs I am willing to recommend. 95% of them can be avoided without missing out on anything in life.

The few I do recommend always come with the cavoites, right place, right people, right mindset. That you do not need these to experience what you are looking for.

@Bozza I think both countries have systems that are close to failing the normal people. The west is due a reset. I may not be pretty when it happens.

AI in prescribing is scary. Not so much because it may mess up -it will soon be better statistically than a human and that should reduce one smug set of the liberal middle class. What worries me is who will be funding the AI development? -large companies, probably already in healthcare. They need to see a return from it and they will have an unconscious (or conscious) bias towards money -either cost saving or revenue generating for pharmaceutical companies.

Our health is not a product or a component but it is an essential component and product of the current model where all the research is done by big companies. You can't patent health or the natural things one might eat and do to promote health, so these things are barely on the radar of the companies.

Britain got its NHS at the wrong moment in a fit of optimism. It has become like so many nationlised things amazingly inefficient. You want to see your GP about a problem. To do this you know you must phone the surgery at 8.00 am. You are actually starting work at 8.00 or driving to work but you know that if you call at 8.03, all the appointment swill be allocated. So you screw your clients about or drive distractedly and probably illegally trying to toggle the keypad options the surgery give you just to get in the god cursed queue to see if you get an appointment. Good news, second day of trying you score an appointment! woo hoo!

Your GP, who statistically is a woman who works a 2 or 3 day week because why would a well paid woman who has a happy middle class life and a rich husband want to work more than 3 days? This means you may wait a bit to see her and you will probably have to take the morning off work to do so because she wants to work when everyone else works and to be home to make avacado salad to go with the dinner her husband will cook, before she must take Tarquin to his piano lesson.

GP taps her keyboard and computer says "yes" "Ah Mr Bozza, you need to be referred" Then she writes (yes well into the 21st century she writes to the local hospital). They then write back to you and her to give you an appointment. At least this keeps the ailing Royal Mail in work (if they deliver it in time for you to read it before the day of course). You take another day off work to go to the appointment "Thank you Mr Bozza, we will send the results to your GP" You fight the 8.00 scramble to make a third appointment to see your GP "Ah Mr Bozza, good news, all clear on the tests from the hospital, lets try a different drug/ different hospital department" and so on. You are 6 weeks down the line. You have missed 3 days of work and you have a prescription for a different drug but you are not actually any weller.

The NHS in Britain is a self greasing machine to devour tax revenue. It works very well by the time you are unable to work and are on benefits or have stage 4 cancer. Then you can miss as many work days a you like but probably they will see you at once by then. They have prioritised those people as really needing care. They never prioritised health when it actually mattered, only the care of the very sick. The rest of your life they just ate your tax. Imagine if women could easily get free appointments in this system. They burden the current system as it is but if you cut out the faff, some women would be there weekly.