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There's something fucked up about this...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Did anyone see Jon Stewart's show last night? If not, here's a link, it's only valid for the next few days.
I urge you to watch the first half of the show. Seriously, the world is fucked up, or at least that little corner of the world is.
I really should have learned not to get angry about things in another country which have no impact on me, but FFS...
I urge you to watch the first half of the show. Seriously, the world is fucked up, or at least that little corner of the world is.
I really should have learned not to get angry about things in another country which have no impact on me, but FFS...
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their polticial culture is somehow even mroe detached from real life compared to ours somehow
On a sidenote, I do think Jon Stewart is a genius. I love his show.
(Incidentally, I belong in both categories)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/29/politics/main6724673.shtml
The really worrying thing is that millions of people think Jon Stewart is a news programme instead of a deeply partisan comedy - a couple of dozen of these people may even be American...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFSFembnguY&feature=related
the democrats put through a bill to help people who help out at 9-11, but to stop republicans adding pointless amendments (like barring illegal immigrants from the help, when if they helped, the quite frankly deserve it) they made it require 66% to pass automatically
the republicans blocked the bill because it closes tax loopholes that allow companies to avoid some taxes.... to pay for the extra healthcare
So you're alright with political chicanery to ramroad through legislation without proper accountability? I imagine if the UK Government introduced a major piece of legislation through a Henry VIII clause or Stat Instrument to stop it being ammended people would be screaming from the rooftops.
The Republicans have even said they'd support the bill if it was done properly. But the Democrats didn't want any awkward ammendments, so set up a nice trap which the Republicans had little choice, but to fall into as they needed to stop this route become a common way to bypass the legislature.
1. The Republicans belief that not raising tax is more important that helping the heroes of the World Trade Centre attacks. Even when those taxes are coming from offshore tax loopholes.
2. The Democrats putting political expediency before passing the law properly, in case they got some bad press from it in the coming elections, again ahead of helping the very heroes of those attacks. They would have (indeed they did get) a simple majority, if only they'd tried for that. The law would have passed and people would be better off for it.
Neither party comes out of this very well and it angers me. Hell, I'd even pay a slightly higher tax over here to help them out FFS. These people deserve the healthcare to treat the illness they picked up as a direct result of trying to save other humans.
It's a really sad day, and an indictment on a political society, when they put some thing really irrelevant ahead of helping those in need. They could learn a thing or two for the very people they should be helping. People who put other human lives ahead of their own interests.
What's missing from Stewart is how bad a law this is (the law is named after a policeman who wasn't covered he claimed his respitatory problems because of 9/11 the medical examiner said it was down to prescribed drugs). Most of the fire and police medical costs will almost be certainly covered by their employers. The act is mainly to cover the people who worked to clean up the mess, which whilst a nasty and vital job but hardly counts as rescuing.
But poor lawmaking is hardly just a US vice, look at the UK with the Dangerous Dogs Act or dozens of other pieces of similar legislation. And I'm sure we could find it in Europe if our reporting of non-English speaking countries was as in-depth as those that speak the lingo.
Now, if they argued that it was a bad law because it didn't help the people it was aimed at, then I'd be happy. NB Are you sure that all health costs are covered by employers... not the impression I've been getting, we complain about the NHS exlusions but we're nothing compared to US insurance companies.
As for poor UK laws, the DD Act is a good one as is the Criminal Justice Act, most of our tax laws and anything where lobbyists have got their hands on it, looking after special interest groups...
Not all employees are covered by health insurance, but it is extremely common even in low paid jobs. My wife even got it when she worked for one of the Supermarkets as a summer job, (though I expect small companies may offer it less). The UK press over exxagerates to make it seem that as soon as you get anything worse than an ingrowing toe-nail the insurance companies find a way to avoid paying, but that's not true. For 90% of people US Health Care is excellent, for 10% of people its very poor (figures are approximate). if everyone had relatives being kicked out of hospital or discharged because they have cancer they would change it.
The US system is very expensive though, frankly if they looked at the economics properly they'd be better off letting the State run it. Few people know that the US Government is one of the top ten spenders per capita on heathcare. In 2005 they spent $2862.0 per capita, the UK spent $2668
http://apps.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_select_process.cfm?strISO3_select=ALL&strIndicator_select=nha&intYear_select=latest&fixed=indicator&language=english
Actualu health costs in the US is about $6k, or which the US Govt is a high contributor, as you say. In the UK it's $2.5k.
The Commonwealth Fund do a regular review of health services, which is always worth reading.
ETA 2010 Update now includes Netherlands and updates costs US now £7k, UK $3k
I've always heard the US Govt pays about half the cost of healthcare (I assume it may be slightly higher as they're still climbing out of a recession which means less people are included in company insurance schemes)
Though equally of interest is Germany and Canada who are also high spenders with less than stellar outcomes. The Uk pays second least and get seconds best outcomes (though with only seven countries it hard to tell whether any of these are outliers egthere could be countries pay even less and getting better results or whether these seven are the seven worse countries and being second on them is about the same achievement as winning the school sports day 100m dash)
I'd be advocating closing tax loopholes.
Oh, hang on...
Corporatism rules . . .
http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/integration/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226500202&subSection=News