Universal Health Care Reform in the United States

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Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

Middle of the road??

That is why they got the only Conservative in the UK, Daniel Hannan, to talk about how rubbish he thinks the NHS.

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Precisely right.

Fox are the middle ground. The middle ground between Rush Limbaugh and the KKK.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

The answer to this question is contained in none other than your own post:

The basic profit motive of all businesses is in direct opposition to patient care. There is in essence only two methods of increasing profit - Either increasing end user costs, which you've already got because on a per person basis as a nation you already pay more than any any other country in the world.

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Take all the profits out of the system then. You still have to control costs. Even not-for-profit organizations, or the government have to control costs. You can't just print money to pay all the doctors, lawyers, beurocrats etc. Congressmen and Senators have the same issue. They can't raise the quality of patient care without raising taxes. Who was the last politician that got re-elected after raising people's taxes? So there may not be a "profit motive" in a government system. But there is a "cost control" motive. Just different shades of the same thing. Why do people seem to believe that government is this great and wonderful bennevolent entity that just does things for the good of everyone, and has this giant stack of never-ending money?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Or by lowering costs; how can you possibly improve patient care by lowering costs?

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I have no idea. I don't think you can. But President Obama and the Dems in Congress seem to think they can. So you tell me, how can you improve patient care by lowering costs?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Cost overruns are surely more desirable than lowered patient outcomes.

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There will be costs overruns in a government system. Huge cost overruns. Don't you doubt that for a minute. Why is that not desirable? Because this country is BROKE. Worse than broke we are hugely in debt. Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, and a whole host of other programs are just about out of money. They won't be able to pay out their obligations in about decade or so. Now you want to add $1,000,000,000,000 on top of that (and when was the last time that the government got the price right for one of their programs?). How do you pay for that?

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Originally Posted by Rollo

You can't honestly tell me that because you pay higher premiums, you're getting a better level of service, can you?

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Yes I can. You get what you pay for, most times.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Why in principle is it desirable for instance to value patients according to their level of incomes? Where's the equity in that?

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Why is it desirable for you to take my hard earned money and give it to someone that I don't know, and perhaps they are just sucking off the system, not working, not contributing anything to anyone? Where's the equity in that?

Like it or not Fox is the most un-biased and middle of the road major media outlet in the US. Unfortunately those on the left are quick to call bias any story that questions their ideals.

Of their 4 top shows only Hannity can be considered partisan. O'Reily bashed Bush as much as he does Obama and in fact has written a pro-Obama article for Parade magazine. Sustern slants a shade to the left in some issues and beck is.......well he hates everyone.

All of the other Networks either lean to the left,(ABC and CNN), Firmly left (CBS & NBC) or Radically Left(PBS & MSNBC)

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

Like it or not Fox is the most un-biased and middle of the road major media outlet in the US. Unfortunately those on the left are quick to call bias any story that questions their ideals.

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And so are those on the right, hence your ridiculous comments about Fox being unbiased and all the other networks having a left-wing bias. This is complete rubbish to anyone with all their faculties.

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

Like it or not Fox is the most un-biased and middle of the road major media outlet in the US. Unfortunately those on the left are quick to call bias any story that questions their ideals.

All of the other Networks either lean to the left,(ABC and CNN), Firmly left (CBS & NBC) or Radically Left(PBS & MSNBC)

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The question of "left and right" means something entirely different in American parlance. The left and right scale seems to refer to the Libertarian-Authoritarian axis of the "Political Compass" (see the link):
http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2

When Mr Vop talks about something being "to the left" I wonder exactly what he means because almost certainly unless he's either willing to tell us how he defines it, we'll have to accept the standard definitions.

Fox News is a News Corporation media outlet, and like the Wall St Journal, The Times (London), the Australian, the Sun and the Sydney Daily Telegraph, it would be called by the rest of the world as "Centre-Right".

The speech by James Murdoch certainly does not indicate an "unbiased" and "middle of the road" but a very very right shifted view:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2670550.htm
The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.
The free-market is the ultimate expression of the right, it is by definition the right. (see the Political Compass)

Mr Vop, everyone including News Corporation themselves rejects your notion, even the Wall St Journal admitted as such:
http://www.slate.com/id/2119864/
Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly. And those who hate us can take solace in the fact that they aren't subsidizing Bill's bombast; we payers of the BBC license fee don't enjoy that peace of mind.
Fox News is, after all, a private channel and our presenters are quite open about where they stand on particular stories. That's our appeal. People watch us because they know what they are getting. The Beeb's institutionalized leftism would be easier to tolerate if the corporation was a little more honest about it.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

Why is it desirable for you to take my hard earned money and give it to someone that I don't know, and perhaps they are just sucking off the system, not working, not contributing anything to anyone? Where's the equity in that?

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If people can not afford the system, then you've made a value judgment of those people. If you don't think that poor people are worth spending money, then I'll conceed the argument, but remember:
"When the least of society suffers, all of society suffers"
- US Secretary of State (1789 - 1793) Thomas Jefferson

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

And so are those on the right, hence your ridiculous comments about Fox being unbiased and all the other networks having a left-wing bias. This is complete rubbish to anyone with all their faculties.

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Really?

Prove me wrong.

I can prove you that I am right.

Like others have said, there is often a difference between the way "left" and "right" are defined on either side of the pond.

On Fox news, A UCLA study shows that they are the most unbiased of all media outlets in their news reporting. Please also note that this does not include commentary and opinion pieces, but as far as presenting both sides in the news room, they present the most balanced pieces.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla...UCLA-6664.aspx

As far as healthcare, a lot of our opinions revolve around whatever we view as the role of government. IMO healthcare is an individual matter and not something the Federal government should have anything to do with.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

And so are those on the right, hence your ridiculous comments about Fox being unbiased and all the other networks having a left-wing bias. This is complete rubbish to anyone with all their faculties.

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So basically anyone who isn't on the left is a sodding fool? THAT's nonsense and you know better.

Fox is not always playing to the right, and they sure as heck more fair in how they debate topics and air the other side than those idiots on NBC. Or we could talk about CBS where their anchor and his producer set flame to their careers with a fiction that Bush was in the ANG to avoid Vietnam, while they actually had some evidence he volunteered at one point to go over there. They hid THAT truth but put the fictious ppwk up there as truth, which fell apart in 48 hours. THAT's a fair media?

Keith Olbermann on MSNBC would embarass all but the most left media.

Most Ameircan Media has a slant, either slight or great to one side or the other. So does the Canadian media and the BBC in Britain. A smart person watches a few different takes and makes an intelligent estimation where the truth is, but I do know Fox at least will pay lip service to hearing the left. Anyone watching O' Reilly or Beck will notice they have spent their share of time dumping on all the politicians, not just the ones on the left....