Don't Trust Fox News About Denmark

[Lexicus]

Could you forget for a moment about the medical/health infrastructure and its organisation and simply focus on the fact that socialism tends to create bureaucratic aparatus unduly interfering in the life of the individual and society?

Except that in this context, you are stating the complete opposite of the truth. It's the capitalist healthcare system in the US which creates a private and therefore unaccountable bureaucracy that positions itself as an antagonist to the individual and society.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Except that in this context, you are stating the complete opposite of the truth. It's the capitalist healthcare system in the US which creates a private and therefore unaccountable bureaucracy that positions itself as an antagonist to the individual and society.

Okay I have no trouble to believe that but can you say that the socialist method would work in essence better? I am beginnig to think that you are thinking about implementing some hybrid between the capitalist and socialist system, right?

 

[Hygro]

I found one exception when she touches upon more abstract notion of people loosing incentive and being stripted of opportunities under socialist government. I think thats perhaps worthy of some deeper analysis.

I too would love to talk about losing incentives but she said kids are starting cupcake businesses and that smacks of entrepreneurship to me.

 

[Lexicus]

Okay I have no trouble to believe that but can you say that the socialist method would work in essence better?

I can say with 100% certainty that socialized healthcare would deliver far better outcomes than the current US system, unless you are an insurance executive or a shareholder in an insurance company.

I am beginnig to think that you are thinking about implementing some hybrid between the capitalist and socialist system, right?

No, I want absolutely no capitalist leeches sucking blood out of the healthcare system.

 

[Synobun]

Yeah, healthcare isn't really the sort of thing you approach from a profit-first perspective.

 

[metalhead]

Could you forget for a moment about the medical/health infrastructure and its organisation and simply focus on the fact that socialism tends to create bureaucratic aparatus unduly interfering in the life of the individual and society?

OK. Taking that as true - that is a risk which can be mitigated. It's not as if you can't put in checks and balances to a state-run industry to ensure it doesn't run amok.

It's a tendency. I don't disagree that socialism has excesses just like capitalism. No system is perfect, no system is immune from causing problems. But in some industries, one type of system is clearly superior to the other. That it still has potential downsides just means you need to ensure those downsides are mitigated.

I don't think socialism is automatically better than capitalism in all instances. Restrained capitalism can work very well in some industries. But for things like medicine, I have to say that capitalism is completely incompatible with providing for public health.

 

[Hygro]

My ideal system for tomorrow’s world, but definitely not to be the ultimate system of tomorrow’s tomorrow, would be one that maintains America’s free for all nature but really kicks it back into gear. And that means adopting some Danish style policies.

Here’s the thing: the problem of being stifled in Denmark is not a problem of nurturing policies but of it being an ancient European Germanic society that ran out of land and has no sunlight. We have real nature, room to grow, a willingness to fight for it, and the power to expand to space, Sky, and sea. We have diversity, different values, different desires, and a different belief of responsibilities.

America will be fine adopting universal social security and universal Medicare and a 67% top tax rate and greater subsidies the the arts and sciences. As long as we keep regulation simple and clean and let us sue it out we’re gonna stay free and motivated.

 

[REDY]

Hmm there are examples of bad healthcares in Europe too. For example British is quite horrible from what I have read and Danish also have some queues and long waiting on certain operations. I still think that compulsory insurance is better than total freedom here, but some competition and pacient financial participation are good incentives to make system better. What I really dont like is power of pharmatical companies. This seems to be problem for both types.

 

[Traitorfish]

Hmm there are examples of bad healthcares in Europe too. For example British is quite horrible from what I have read and Danish also have some queues and long waiting on certain operations.

Where the British healthcare system fails is specifically with painful but non-life-threatening conditions, and that owes a lot to an aging population. Most of the horror stories you read are older people suffering from older-people maladies; you'll hear about somebody waiting three months to have kidney stones removed, but not somebody waiting three months to begin chemo.

The United States isn't more successful in that regard because of any greater efficiency, but because it represents a system in which the age demographic most likely to develop painful but non-life-threatening conditions are the age demographic with all the money, and therefore access to priority service. Young people just have to trust that they don't get sick.

 

[Uberfrog]

Hmm there are examples of bad healthcares in Europe too. For example British is quite horrible from what I have read and Danish also have some queues and long waiting on certain operations. I still think that compulsory insurance is better than total freedom here, but some competition and pacient financial participation are good incentives to make system better. What I really dont like is power of pharmatical companies. This seems to be problem for both types.

The NHS is far from horrible. It consistently ranks pretty well compared with similar nations: sometimes above average, sometimes below average. The Nuffield Trust produced a pretty thorough comparison for the NHS’s recent 70th birthday, and I’d invite you to read their conclusions before writing off the British healthcare system. The full report can be found here https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/research/the-nhs-at-70-how-good-is-the-nhs

The report finds that the NHS performs neither as well as its supporters sometimes claim nor as badly as its critics often allege. Compared with health systems in similar countries, it has some significant strengths but also some notable weaknesses.

Key strengths of the UK’s NHS include:

• It provides unusually good financial protection to the public from the consequences of ill health. For example, it has the lowest proportion of people who skipped medicine due to cost (2.3% in 2016 compared to an average of 7.2% across the comparator countries)
• It is relatively efficient: the UK has the largest share of generic prescribing of all comparator countries, at 84% in 2015 compared to an average of 50%
• It performs well in managing patients with some long-term conditions like diabetes and kidney diseases: fewer than one in a thousand people are admitted to hospital for diabetes in a given year, compared to over two in a thousand admitted in Austria or Germany.

Key weaknesses include:

• The UK’s NHS performs worse than the average in the treatment of eight out of the 12 most common causes of death, including deaths within 30 days of having a heart attack and within five years of being diagnosed with breast cancer, rectal cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer and lung cancer, despite narrowing the gap in recent years
• It is the third-poorest performer compared to the 18 developed countries on the overall rate at which people die when successful medical care could have saved their lives (known as ‘amenable mortality’)
• It has consistently higher rates of death for babies at birth or just after (perinatal mortality), and in the month after birth (neonatal mortality): seven in 1,000 babies died at birth or in the week afterwards in the UK in 2016, compared to an average of 5.5 across the comparator countries.

The NHS is far from perfect, but also far from the basket case it is often portrayed as by American critics of nationalised healthcare. Most of its problems stem from a chronic lack of funding, which is mostly the fault of a decade of a Conservative government that is essentially ideologically committed to underfunding it.

 

[REDY]

Okay you are the authorities here. I have no experience nor research.
Czech migrants feel different about it, but ofc its about each experience.
I would rather be under US healthcare (with insurance ofc). Or Ukrainian.

 

[Angst]

I think the medical part the Danes seem to have covered through heavy taxation. I am more concerned about some rampant bureaucracy encroaching on the creative side of life and free individual expression and such...

Now this isn't all false, seeing how intricate Danish bureaucratic racism has become lately, especially in regards to immigration.

But to be blunt, this isn't what I suggest that the US should copy, nor is it even inherent to a social democracy.

The idea that Danes are unfree or unable to perform creatively is ridiculous. It's not even disputable. Even with our relatively massive government, our corruption scores far better than the US, we score far better in the US in regards to starting businesses, less people go bankrupt or buried in debt or die from easily treatable diseases due to upfront costs. Your claims aren't just baffling, they're completely alien, as if you have no connection to the real world.

This crap here

Could you forget for a moment about the medical/health infrastructure and its organisation and simply focus on the fact that socialism tends to create bureaucratic aparatus unduly interfering in the life of the individual and society?

is, well, crap. The primary function of Danish bureaucracy is to administer allocation of wealth, ie, relocating power to the poor or burdened that would otherwise be entangled with issues. Now, while the recipients are given these subsidies they are also required to fulfil certain responsibilities as is logical. For example, I'll talk about the program I'm currently on, called "dagpenge". This service gives me about 10,000 kr a month to pay rent and food and clothing and so on. The service is supposed to help people from losing everything they have or going into debt when they are between jobs. The subsidiary amount scales with different situations. This service does however not come for free; I can't get it without being part of a union, which requires some pay while I am studying or working; working or studying "saves up" time where you get these subsidies between jobs. In addition, after a month or two on subsidiaries, you're entered into free job courses that help you get jobs, where you prepare CV's, call businesses, learn how to talk during a job interview, and so on. In addition, you're required to apply to two jobs each week, and after a while, you're required to apply (and accept) jobs that are available on the market, meaning that if you don't get your act together, you'll end up cleaning somewhere. The job centers constantly get job offers from restaurants, cleaning agencies, warehouses and so on. When I was at the course, the courses were interrupted thrice a day with someone entering the room with an offer for the class. In addition, you're allowed to do internships while on these subsidies, which usually leads to people getting a job, and the job courses actively push you towards this.

And if you don't follow the rules, you don't get the subsidies. If you don't want government interference, nobody's forcing you to. Subsidies under this system is something you choose to apply for.

This all sounds complicated, and the process may scare you. But it keeps people healthy, safe, and actually it keeps people working and the economy running. Every "lazifying" subsidy like this has rules attached to it that makes sure people don't cheat the system. Infact, we have substantially less unemployment than the US. It's not surpression, it's subsidiaries that make sure people have power if they want to, while they make sure people end up working.

I don't know what to say about rights and scary big bureaucracies. We have the same rights as Americans do, infact more in a bunch of areas, and far less corruption.

But sure, watch Fox News, because watching lying propaganda is apparently equatable to CNN sometimes getting stuff wrong.

 

[Takhisis]

Could you forget for a moment about the medical/health infrastructure and its organisation and simply focus on the fact that socialism tends to create bureaucratic aparatus unduly interfering in the life of the individual and society?

I didn't know that the army draft was an instance of SOCIALISM. Thanks for enlightening me.

 

[Socrates99]

"Don't trust Fox News" 'nuff said right there. I get that I'm not the first to say this but honestly, it's really the only thing anyone needs to say here. Fox News' viewer's median age is 68. Won't be much longer before they slip into irrelevance unless there's massive change there.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I didn't know that the army draft was an instance of SOCIALISM. Thanks for enlightening me.

All the Republicans seemed to all be expert draft dodgers, with bonespurs being exhibit A.
If it were true socialism then the rich and privileged would also be those that would be doing the dying.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

From what I have learned, I believe the best healthcare system would have basic, preventative, and emergency/life-saving medicine (this includes procedures, pharmaceuticals, etc) be covered 100% by the state and truly cosmetic medicine be 100% out of pocket. Quality of Life improvements that are elective should have copays.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Don't Trust Fox News

Already done.

 

[Quintillus]

I think we can apply the thread title, more generally, like:

Don't Trust Fox News About Anything

But yeah... my friends all hate Trump and love Denmark. Even the Republicans... but they're the rare sensible Republicans, of the Kasich breed. Pretty much extinct outside of Ohio, unfortunately, and even within the state there are large swathes where they are missing. Some of us have even talked of moving to Denmark, although the logistics of finding a job there and the fact that the 2018 elections are still in the future mean that our "move to Denmark or New Zealand when America is doomed" plans have not come to pass yet.

And that's only half joking. I could see it becoming fairly serious if Trump were to win in 2020, or if Rosenstein and Mueller were to be fired with no response from Congress.

----------------

And I'd be okay with the tradeoffs. Looking at my most recent pay stub, between taxes, retirement savings, and health insurance (which doesn't cover all healthcare costs), I only actually take home 47.5% of my official salary. But I'm still saving money from that portion of it, outside of retirement savings. I don't know exactly what the figure would be in Denmark, but let's say it's 37.5% after including local taxes and everything else. But that would include healthcare, good infrastructure and public transit, often debt-free college, much lower levels of income equality... it would be a worthwhile tradeoff.

For cars, I'd love to be able to rely on public transit. I already take it to work, but have places I visit (read: visiting family or friends) that can't be reached by public transit, and thus have kept my car. But if I could take public transit almost anywhere in the city, conveniently, that would be great. And it would be even better if inter-city rail transit existed, which it does not, at least where I live. Instead of driving 3.5 hours to a city up north, taking a train would have been nice and relaxing, especially during the part of the drive with bad weather.

I don't expect the U.S. to ever change, because half the population is in love with Reaganomics and low taxes, but that's why my friends love Denmark. And why I could see myself hopping the pond in a few years. Who knows though, maybe California's high-speed rail project will succeed, and that will trigger a wave of change.

 

[Commodore]

"move to Denmark or New Zealand when America is doomed"

Well New Zealand is out for you. Just read an article today that New Zealand just passed a law that would bar foreigners from buying property in the country. And people say the US is anti-immigrant...

of the Kasich breed.

You mean the type that uncontrollably shovel pancakes and pizza into their face while on camera? I also don't see how you could have a positive view of Kasich. He has run Ohio into the ground during his time as governor. I'd rather have Strickland back than continue to live under Kasich. Sure Strickland was a Democrat, but the man knew what this state needed economically.

 

[Uberfrog]

Well New Zealand is out for you. Just read an article today that New Zealand just passed a law that would bar foreigners from buying property in the country. And people say the US is anti-immigrant...

I believe the law will actually only prevent overseas purchases of houses. Foreigners who are resident in New Zealand will be able to buy property. If you were to actually move there you’d be fine.

The way it was reported, the story initially shocked me, but it’s meant to tackle non-residents from pricing out the locals by buying up property either speculatively or as holiday homes. It’s nothing to do with immigration, as far as I can tell.