Nice argumentum ad verecundiam…She’s European, therefore her argument is authoritative because? Besides repeating the already well-publicized talking points against health care reform, what does she actually add to the debate other than looking really Netherlander with a cute euro-backdrop?
At one point she says “what should America do?” then says “I can’t tell you” becuase I’m not American. Give me a break, after spending so much time telling us what we should not do, all of a sudden she’s worried about overstepping her bounds as a foreigner?
Particularly funny is the repetition of the would-be meme “if government is the cause how can more if it be the solution–as if everyone agrees that the government is definitively the cause of the health care problem and third-party insurance companies are without sin…
Her Europeanism doesn’t make the argument, only adds to it. How many times have you heard “I’ve been to Europe, their healthcare is great”. That is an argument from experience and I would say a valid argument. Her post, from a European perspective, adds to the discussion.
If we were really getting European health care I would feel a lot better about this bill.
As it is, I think there’s a good case to be made that, for most Americans, this health care reform will not improve the status quo. It’s only saving grace, as best I can tell, is that it accomplishes the goal of ensuring a large portion of the un-insured. That’s a worthy goal, so I guess I (only just barely) support the legislation. But I’m not ecstatic about it.
By the way, I didn’t even bother to watch the video. I agree with Cockroach. Have you seen Sicko?
The point I was getting to when I asked if you had seen Sicko is that Sicko has a large number of counter-anecdotes of Europeans who love the European system and would encourage us to emulate it. Did you find these people convincing? Quite reasonably, I suspect you did not. I know I didn’t.
Because one or two Europeans saying something doesn’t really make a case, either for you or for Michael Moore. Does it?
What would be convincing for me, I think, is if you could show me some polling that would demonstrate how terribly unhappy Europeans are with their system as a whole, as opposed to Americans. Or, even simpler, perhaps you could dig up a poll that would demonstrate that the majority of Europeans in countries with government-funded health care find their health system to be unsatisfactory.
For example, click here to see a recent Gallup poll where 79% of respondents in countries with universal health care were satisfied with their health care, compared to just 63% of those lived in countries without universal health care.
And click here for a Harris poll where people from 10 different countries were asked about their health care and the U.S. came in 9th or 10th (depending on your criteria.) In the Netherlands, for example, 42% felt their health care system works well, whereas only 12% of Americans did.
There are many, many more examples of such polls, and my impression is that pretty much all of them seem to demonstrate rather clearly that Europeans are quite happy with government-funded health care. Feel free to Google.
So, I think if you want to make a truly convincing argument that this lady in your video is representative of Europeans, and not just an outlier who should, frankly, be ignored, then you probably need to find something like the above examples - except with the numbers completely reversed.
Because, otherwise, it seems like the video is pretty useless.
Just to be clear, I don’t think that anecdotal evidence makes the argument, but I do think that it adds to it. Certainly if 100% of Europeans loved their healthcare and 0% of United States citizens loved theirs, that is a powerful argument in favor of European healthcare. It’s all cumulative here.
Regarding your polls, here are others:
Eighty-three percent of Americans rate the quality of healthcare they receive as excellent or good, while only 15% say theirs is poor. Slightly less, 70%, say their healthcare coverage is excellent or good. These ratings have been fairly stable in the seven years in which Gallup’s Healthcare survey has been conducted.
Even with regard to the worst part of the United States healthcare, the costs, about 6 out of 10 find they are satisfied with what they pay. See more here.
My position on the healthcare debate is basically that it is a trade off between coverage and innovation. Universal pay healthcare systems certainly cover more people but they sacrifice innovation. It makes sense why: the more people they cover, the more expensive healthcare becomes, and the more the political rewards are for price control on goods and services - which, we all know, price controls significantly hurt innovation. This is the case with all known universal or single pay healthcare systems, they all price control. Except the United States. Which is why you can get expensive cutting edge drugs in the United States but not in Europe, atleast not for a while (for one example, see here).
So its the age old Democrat vs Republican dilemma, what do you care about most - equality or efficiency? Or to use more healthcare related terms - coverage or innovation? Both are important. But there are trade offs.
Now, regarding national comparisons. The reasons why I dont buy them are:
1. The US is culturally different than other countries, especially regarding the efficiency vs equality trade off. We tolerate alot more inequality. We also demand more from our healthcare system. So given the same healthcare system, a European will tolerate less technological and pharmaceutical innovation for more coverage and be satisfied with that result. The average American will likely not (the polls also show this personality difference, see here). In other words, a healthcare system that gets high satisfactory polling in Europe will not necessarily get the same high satisfactory polling in the USA (ISTM that the real poll we should be looking for is how Americans feel about other healthcare systems when traveling - but parsing that data and removing bias would be nearly impossible).
2. its not a fair comparison, as the national and universal healthcares are based on deficits that can’t go on forever. Many (all?) universal and single-payer healthcare systems are not deficit neutral, and since you can’t keep adding to the deficit indefinitely, they dont represent a clear steady state picture of how a universal and/or single payer healthcare system will look. It would be like the government creating a government program that gave every family in American $100/month…but adding 3 Billion to the deficit every year. If you polled Americans on that program, I’m pretty sure that it would get high approval ratings. But such a program is temporary and cannot last forever. The same is true of many single payer and universal healthcare systems. So the question isn’t what they look like early on, the question is what they will eventually look like - and it is that healthcare system I believe to be a failure, especially in contrast to a free market alternative (so the true polling we need here is how Americans feel about other healthcare systems when traveling in the future - which would in fact be impossible to get).
Yeah, this is pretty stupid to start off with a video you would out of convenience just throw away to prove a superficial point. The problem in this discussion is that there isn’t enough people informed about it. Too many people are being herded because they don’t know how to read or write anymore in the states. Also, the state way of doing things (10th admendment) is the wrong way because of many other things the Civil War and inequalities will exist even with federal intervention. The question is that can we stay sustainable with mass immigration, growing economy, lowering health and deficits and for which one should we juggle the most for and at what cost? Personally health care coverage is a given.
Nice argumentum ad verecundiam…She’s European, therefore her argument is authoritative because? Besides repeating the already well-publicized talking points against health care reform, what does she actually add to the debate other than looking really Netherlander with a cute euro-backdrop?
At one point she says “what should America do?” then says “I can’t tell you” becuase I’m not American. Give me a break, after spending so much time telling us what we should not do, all of a sudden she’s worried about overstepping her bounds as a foreigner?
Particularly funny is the repetition of the would-be meme “if government is the cause how can more if it be the solution–as if everyone agrees that the government is definitively the cause of the health care problem and third-party insurance companies are without sin…
CP,
Her Europeanism doesn’t make the argument, only adds to it. How many times have you heard “I’ve been to Europe, their healthcare is great”. That is an argument from experience and I would say a valid argument. Her post, from a European perspective, adds to the discussion.
Ever see Sicko, HP?
If we were really getting European health care I would feel a lot better about this bill.
As it is, I think there’s a good case to be made that, for most Americans, this health care reform will not improve the status quo. It’s only saving grace, as best I can tell, is that it accomplishes the goal of ensuring a large portion of the un-insured. That’s a worthy goal, so I guess I (only just barely) support the legislation. But I’m not ecstatic about it.
By the way, I didn’t even bother to watch the video. I agree with Cockroach. Have you seen Sicko?
I have.
Have you watched 20/20’s special in response to Sicko?
I’ve posted it here.
The point I was getting to when I asked if you had seen Sicko is that Sicko has a large number of counter-anecdotes of Europeans who love the European system and would encourage us to emulate it. Did you find these people convincing? Quite reasonably, I suspect you did not. I know I didn’t.
Because one or two Europeans saying something doesn’t really make a case, either for you or for Michael Moore. Does it?
What would be convincing for me, I think, is if you could show me some polling that would demonstrate how terribly unhappy Europeans are with their system as a whole, as opposed to Americans. Or, even simpler, perhaps you could dig up a poll that would demonstrate that the majority of Europeans in countries with government-funded health care find their health system to be unsatisfactory.
For example, click here to see a recent Gallup poll where 79% of respondents in countries with universal health care were satisfied with their health care, compared to just 63% of those lived in countries without universal health care.
And click here for a Harris poll where people from 10 different countries were asked about their health care and the U.S. came in 9th or 10th (depending on your criteria.) In the Netherlands, for example, 42% felt their health care system works well, whereas only 12% of Americans did.
There are many, many more examples of such polls, and my impression is that pretty much all of them seem to demonstrate rather clearly that Europeans are quite happy with government-funded health care. Feel free to Google.
So, I think if you want to make a truly convincing argument that this lady in your video is representative of Europeans, and not just an outlier who should, frankly, be ignored, then you probably need to find something like the above examples - except with the numbers completely reversed.
Because, otherwise, it seems like the video is pretty useless.
Just to be clear, I don’t think that anecdotal evidence makes the argument, but I do think that it adds to it. Certainly if 100% of Europeans loved their healthcare and 0% of United States citizens loved theirs, that is a powerful argument in favor of European healthcare. It’s all cumulative here.
Regarding your polls, here are others:
Even with regard to the worst part of the United States healthcare, the costs, about 6 out of 10 find they are satisfied with what they pay. See more here.
My position on the healthcare debate is basically that it is a trade off between coverage and innovation. Universal pay healthcare systems certainly cover more people but they sacrifice innovation. It makes sense why: the more people they cover, the more expensive healthcare becomes, and the more the political rewards are for price control on goods and services - which, we all know, price controls significantly hurt innovation. This is the case with all known universal or single pay healthcare systems, they all price control. Except the United States. Which is why you can get expensive cutting edge drugs in the United States but not in Europe, atleast not for a while (for one example, see here).
So its the age old Democrat vs Republican dilemma, what do you care about most - equality or efficiency? Or to use more healthcare related terms - coverage or innovation? Both are important. But there are trade offs.
Now, regarding national comparisons. The reasons why I dont buy them are:
1. The US is culturally different than other countries, especially regarding the efficiency vs equality trade off. We tolerate alot more inequality. We also demand more from our healthcare system. So given the same healthcare system, a European will tolerate less technological and pharmaceutical innovation for more coverage and be satisfied with that result. The average American will likely not (the polls also show this personality difference, see here). In other words, a healthcare system that gets high satisfactory polling in Europe will not necessarily get the same high satisfactory polling in the USA (ISTM that the real poll we should be looking for is how Americans feel about other healthcare systems when traveling - but parsing that data and removing bias would be nearly impossible).
2. its not a fair comparison, as the national and universal healthcares are based on deficits that can’t go on forever. Many (all?) universal and single-payer healthcare systems are not deficit neutral, and since you can’t keep adding to the deficit indefinitely, they dont represent a clear steady state picture of how a universal and/or single payer healthcare system will look. It would be like the government creating a government program that gave every family in American $100/month…but adding 3 Billion to the deficit every year. If you polled Americans on that program, I’m pretty sure that it would get high approval ratings. But such a program is temporary and cannot last forever. The same is true of many single payer and universal healthcare systems. So the question isn’t what they look like early on, the question is what they will eventually look like - and it is that healthcare system I believe to be a failure, especially in contrast to a free market alternative (so the true polling we need here is how Americans feel about other healthcare systems when traveling in the future - which would in fact be impossible to get).
So to sum up…
You think we should pay no attention to what Europeans actually think of their health care system.
Meanwhile, you think we should definitely pay attention to what this one, random, European woman thinks of her health care system.
OK. Got it.
Yeah, this is pretty stupid to start off with a video you would out of convenience just throw away to prove a superficial point. The problem in this discussion is that there isn’t enough people informed about it. Too many people are being herded because they don’t know how to read or write anymore in the states. Also, the state way of doing things (10th admendment) is the wrong way because of many other things the Civil War and inequalities will exist even with federal intervention. The question is that can we stay sustainable with mass immigration, growing economy, lowering health and deficits and for which one should we juggle the most for and at what cost? Personally health care coverage is a given.