> For instance, the health care is a centralised system. Those never work.
Seems to work great for all my relatives in Norway. However, if your statement is more that a centralized system is not perfect I agree.
The single payer system in Norway works generally so well that health-care is something a norwegian does not have to worry about. This is very different from the USA where it has to be on the top of your mind, and a significant portion of the population has no insurance.
> Doctors don't have time/incentive to diagnose problems unless they are obvious (or you're related to a politician -- yes, like in Soviet)
You are still buying in to the cold world propaganda where socialism equals communism, and because soviet was communist then all socialism is bad?
Even america has socialism in all it's confusing array of emergency and social support infrastructure. However, the system here is not well organized and therefore confusing and inefficient.
I think the discussion would be more productive if we focus on if there should be more more socialism in the US, and if that is a good thing. Pretending that socialism does not exists in the US government is not productive.
> From my own and friends' experiences -- simple knee problems that stopped favorite exercise, lack of iron/vitamines that gave depressions, hard to recognize allergies that resulted in tiredness, thyroid problems etc.
I know people that have been diagnosed and treated for all of these and more complex issues in Norway. And no, the people that got treated was normal working-class families with few connections. However, anecdotes are not very useful since I am sure you can find those in any health-care system.
I see a lot of these anecdotes from opponents of single-payer health care, and I am sure you can find plenty of anecdotes in any health care system. However, do you have any study comparing health care systems that supports your claim that a single-payer system can never work?
Evidence seems to suggest otherwise and Dr Danielle Martin answered some of the more common "evidence" given by opponents like e.g Sen. Bernie Sanders:
First, I explicitly mentioned that I'm not familiar with Norway, but it is similar to Sweden/Finland, where I have lived.
Second, I argue that lots of cases, but hardly a majority, fall between chairs in Sweden/Finland. Diagnosis (access to doctors etc) is bad in Sweden, according to international benchmarking.
No one knows how large these problems are since this is not researched, which is typical for Sweden with the big Ol' Boys networks where media, politicians and big corporations have understandings.
>>However, do you have any study comparing health care systems that supports your claim that a single-payer system can never work?
You are reacting by reflexes on internal US discussions here. See my other comments.
I am arguing something else: Centrally planned systems, like the Swedish/Finnish health care, are inefficient with lots of problems. This is not controversial. And have nothing to do with all possible "single payer systems".
See my other comments for a link to the Economist, re British health care.
Seems to work great for all my relatives in Norway. However, if your statement is more that a centralized system is not perfect I agree.
The single payer system in Norway works generally so well that health-care is something a norwegian does not have to worry about. This is very different from the USA where it has to be on the top of your mind, and a significant portion of the population has no insurance.
> Doctors don't have time/incentive to diagnose problems unless they are obvious (or you're related to a politician -- yes, like in Soviet)
You are still buying in to the cold world propaganda where socialism equals communism, and because soviet was communist then all socialism is bad?
Even america has socialism in all it's confusing array of emergency and social support infrastructure. However, the system here is not well organized and therefore confusing and inefficient.
I think the discussion would be more productive if we focus on if there should be more more socialism in the US, and if that is a good thing. Pretending that socialism does not exists in the US government is not productive.
> From my own and friends' experiences -- simple knee problems that stopped favorite exercise, lack of iron/vitamines that gave depressions, hard to recognize allergies that resulted in tiredness, thyroid problems etc.
I know people that have been diagnosed and treated for all of these and more complex issues in Norway. And no, the people that got treated was normal working-class families with few connections. However, anecdotes are not very useful since I am sure you can find those in any health-care system.
I see a lot of these anecdotes from opponents of single-payer health care, and I am sure you can find plenty of anecdotes in any health care system. However, do you have any study comparing health care systems that supports your claim that a single-payer system can never work?
Evidence seems to suggest otherwise and Dr Danielle Martin answered some of the more common "evidence" given by opponents like e.g Sen. Bernie Sanders:
Also, the wikipedia page on the topic cites plenty of studies that seems to cotradict your conclusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_health_care_s...