The term "socialism" is so fraught with negatives. The concept of actions for the common good isn't all that bad.

Agreement on definitions is everything.

Astute observation, Ian.


Russ

But who will pay for it if you remove the ability to strive to better yourself in a capitalist society? You will have no one to pay the taxes to pay for the "free health " etc for all the people. You and I will live in the same small single bedroom home with partner and kids plus parents ( since they can't look after themselves).

It sounds great but it's the application that has proven elusive, even by what I can see the Democratic states today.


Allan

Who will pay for it is the standard healthcare statement by those who never ask who is going to pay for endless wars, and tax cuts for billionaires.

Somehow every other civilized country in the world finds a way to offer healthcare for all. And no, it's not free, and yes taxes will be higher, but unlike high insurance rates, you won't be denied care, and you won't have to make a decision to pay the rent, or pay for surgery.
I personally would be happy to pay my share to those in need.


And there is no evidence that having universal healthcare for all will produce a lazy, and non productive citizenship. That's still another talking point by Politicians who want to keep their healthcare insurance companies alive and well with their political contributions (bribes). In fact today, without healthcare for all, families are currently living together, because they can't afford everyday living, and for many, that includes health care costs that has to be paid.

Finally, maybe, just maybe employers that currently offer healthcare, will pass on the savings of not having to pay that "benefit" and increase wages for their employees.

Socialized medicine has already proven to work in the USA, with Medicare, Medicaid, VA care, and Politician Care. It's time to let everyone who lives in this, the richest country in the world, have that basic human right too.

Anyway, it's a good debate

Real socialism as present in the Soviet Union, East Germany etc. until 1990 was characterized by the total absense of markets. The government planned and ran the economy, tried to figure out needs, shortages, fixed prices (if prices were used at all), gave out production targets to state-run factories, and everything failed as there were no incentives to produce efficiently, no market prices that gave incentives and regulated the balance of supply and demand.
I wonder what country still has a system like that. What some seem to define as "socialist" in this discussion, is actually what has been coined "social market economy" in Germany, a market economy in which the state interacts when there are market deficiencies and in which some areas such as healthcare are not left to the free market without some control.
But social market economy is far from being socialist in the sense that incentives to work efficiently are eliminated. I don't think general health insurance makes people lazy...

Edit: Found a good link about social market economy:
https://www.dw.com/en/can-germanys-socia...ears/a-50490937

It is not the healthcare that I am disagreeing with you really, it is the paying for it and the ability to "enforce" the same mentality on equalness on everyone to get it done.

Even here in Australia, we have free medical ( to a point) it is very cheap and then when you get past a threshold it is free. That includes hospital and dential and medicatrions etc.

But here the paid medical or if you pay your own (and get your choice or surgeon/ doctor ) and treatments is far lower than in the USA by far. When Barack Obama was in office his Obamacare pushed costs through the roof for those who paid; as someone has to pay.

Here is an article that states three (3) countries that tried Socialism and then rejected it since it failed......and it will surprise you which countries; but Crossover ha mentioned one already.

https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/three-nations-tried-socialism-and-rejected-it

Three key points of the article are:-


1. Israel, India, and the United Kingdom all adopted socialism as an economic model following World War II.

2. Socialism is guilty of a fatal conceit: It believes its system can make better decisions for the people than they can for themselves.

3. Socialism has failed in every country in which it has been tried.

Conclusion for them:- Israel’s socialist miracle turned out to be a mirage, India discarded socialist ideology and chose a more market-oriented path, and the United Kingdom set an example for the rest of the world with its emphasis on privatization and deregulation. Whether we are talking about the actions of an agricultural country of 1.3 billion, or the nation that sparked the industrial revolution, or a small Middle Eastern country populated by some of the smartest people in the world, capitalism tops socialism every time.

Healthcare for all is awesome, but a socialist state can't work for long and people being people, the rich minority will take all and the middle class and poor will all suffer and be poorer in the end; leaving a very unhealthy healthcare system.

But, if you can find a country that it has worked for years for all equally, please prove me wrong, since I still would love to get people a better system for the average man, woman and child. Then we can get the Pollies to make it happen........


Allan

So who pays that in Australia? As far as I know it is simply paid for through taxes. And that makes sense.

Too many people focus on one or the other, both of which are absolute and complete failures on their own, however put the 2 together so that they work in tandem and you have the best of both worlds. (The art is finding the balance which the UK is still working on)

Regarding healthcare, all countries that have free health care (In reality it’s actually paid for by everybody through taxes and/or compulsory insurance) actually pay (From the public purse) approximately half per person than those countries where most healthcare is private. (Or in other words if you can’t pay you die)

Bill

I totally agree, the pure form of each system is a complete failure.
In many cases, leaving developments to the decisions of the individual alone creates bad situations in which everyone loses.
In economics, this is sometimes expressed by individual rationalism leads to collective irrationalism. This regularly happens in the case of public goods (such as natural resources), as consumption of these goods cannot be controlled individually (like private goods, where you only get it if you pay the price).
Take the example of a football stadium, in which the spectators don‘t see everything pf the pitch when staying seated. Individual rationalism makes a spectator stand up to have a better view. As a consequence, the one behind him also has to stand up to see at all, and eventually everybody is standing and nobody has a better view than in the beginning, but everybody is less comfortable. Here the state comes in by regulating that nobody is allowed to stand up.

Here in the United States we have the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) that guarantees insurance for those with previous medical conditions. Before that, private insurers' could, and most of the time would, reject insurer's who were unfortunate to have such a condition. Hard to put a price on that.

The ACA could be better with the originally included "Public Option", that includes a choice of either private or government coverage for those in need. This was rejected because most American Politicians do not want donors, such as Private Health Insurance Companies to loose out, and thus they, the politicians, would lose out on contributions (bribes).
Also as part of the ACA, individual States have a choice to accept money from the Federal Government for individuals who need help to pay for the Affordable Care Act. Most GOP States rejected that money simply because it had Obama's name attached to it. Bottom line, Obama Care can be greatly improved by at least allowing for the Public Option, either private or government covered insurance. Your choice. Nice to have choices. Either that or start over with a simple plan of Medicare for All.

Speaking of...

Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand, Netherlands, UK, Germany, Austria, Canada, Australia, and every other civilized country are quite happy with government assisted "socialist" healthcare coverage. I doubt very much they would ever want to have to pay directly for, and deal with, private insurance companies, unless they want to. Again, nice to have choices.

Who's going to pay for Universal Health Care? The same citizens who currently pay for all other government run programs, you know, those socialist Roads and bridges they build, the socialist Police and Firemen that protect us, those socialist run Libraries, Medicare, Social Security, the VA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Energy. And yes the Socialist Military. (Speaking from experience, nothing is more socialist run than the U.S. Military.) The Department of Healthcare for All needs to be in that group and will actually reduce overall healthcare costs.

I'm done, I've said enough, This is a nice bar, but I talk too much, especially after having one too many.

Larry: Good, reasoned opinions about an involved, critical subject.

I appreciate the well articulated analysis.

Be well,


Russ