Anyway prices on medicine and services are high.
If Trump cant do something about it I have no idea who can.

Bezos is working on it as we speak.  Jeff Bezos is far more successful than Trump has ever been.  He will figure it out.

BTW, "socialized medicine sucks"  is the topic.

Ah, so in your racism of low expectations, you are saying that the brown people in Venezuela aren't capable of doing socialism right, but white America is.

If you reply to my posts, you have to actually engage with that post's content. You can't completely defer to an issue you claim you have greater knowledge in thinking that supports your argument better.

I never brought up Venezuela. Because I was replying to a previous poster who was talking about capitalism in - I believe - a capitalist nation.

Now you're claiming I'm a racist because I'm staying on-topic and because I realize that different people run things differently. To say nothing of how the video in my source argued that we could still live in a functioning economy under capitalism, once purged of its crony components.

Is this forum just your audition to be the new Milo Yiannopoulos?

I thought socialism was the left's utopian dream?!   I guess it's a "shit joke" by the left, then.

Of course, it's real people.   Real people that the left denies (or ignores) are suffering under their utopian dream.

Wealth inequality and inequity is capitalism's design. The video I showed you is a detailing of the suffering America is experiencing under capitalism- that is the system we're living in now, and the only segment of the left that supports it is the corporate left. Because, get this, they're rich.

We've never had socialism in America. Everyone on the gd* planet knows that.

Are you high or something? Because that wasn't even a joke. Nobody mistakes capitalism for socialism.

This is because the UK government did a bit of horse trading with drug companies and allow them to price gouge OTC drugs and nonNHS prescription drugs while keeping NHS drugs cheap.

People should have have the opportunity to pursue their own dreams. But you can't ensure the success of every pursuit.
Under free-enterprise all people live better then under socialists.

Concerning hard work - I think it is about working on your skills and investing in other longer-term capital.
Or if you have that habit of hard work - you will be better off than others in similar situation.
But that is not something I know a lot about :).

Of course, it's real people.  Real people that the left denies (or ignores) are suffering under their utopian dream.

Ah, so we become Venezuela and everything will become wonderful.

I see you think this sh*t's a joke (America-warning, this is another video centered around America.

Youtube Video

These are real people. Real. Does that mean nothing to you?

@aadam101:

They sold them a dream that if they work hard enough they will be wealthy one day.  It's not true.  The 1% doesn't allow newcomers.

Why would reasonable person care about becoming 1%? I guess it is like winning a lottery in many ways.
No socialist politician can help anybody except for themselves to achieve that.
And businesses profits are bound by competitors unless those benevolent politicians help them to be monopolistic.

Because American kids are sold this dream based on a lie.  They are told at a very young age that if they work hard they can grow up and be whatever they want to be.  It's just not true.  Its true for people who already have money but the rest of us will never be a part of that group.  They won't let us in.  Why would they?

The problem is that liberals/leftists say it's total shit and we need a UK style NHS, which is total shit.

My local GP office ("surgery" in the UK) rarely has any "non-emergency" appointments available.  You have to call every Monday to see if they have any appointments available for the week.  You have to go through a 2 point "triage" system (receptionist, nurse and then a doctor) in order to get an appointment.  You literally have to sit by your phone waiting for them to call you back.  The Triage nurse will call you back a few hours after you originally call and you have to explain everything again.  If she likes what you say, then she'll have the triage doctor call you back.  If you pass that hurdle, then you can get an appointment.  Even if it's an emergency (not A&E level) you may still not get an appointment and told to call again the next morning to see if you can get an appointment.

NHS contracts are getting worse, despite constantly increasing amounts of money being spent on it.  My local GP office was a private business under an NHS contract and they closed their doors due to not being able to keep going under the NHS contract.    The NHS now has direct control over the practice and things are far worse than before.

The UK severely restricts what you can buy OTC.  Even things that are commonly sold OTC everywhere else in the western world.  You are also restricted in how much you can buy.  You can only buy 2 days worth of cold pills at a time unless you go to several different pharmacies.

In the US, you can go into Walgreens and buy countless OTC things without thinking about it.  In the UK, you have OTC, OTC Restricted, and Prescription.

Looking at Walgreens acne page tells the story.  There are a lot of OTC products on there that require a prescription in the UK.  Sadly, you can't get an appointment to get a prescription.  Just reading the headline of the product (not the full description), just over 50% of the products require a prescription in the UK and about 25% are OTC Restricted.  If I read the full description it would probably even worse.

For reference, "OTC Restricted" is where the pharmacy tech has to ask you 1,001 question before deciding if you can buy it or not.

Leftists keep telling us how shitty the US system is while praising the world's NHS system, namely the UK's.

I imagine that everything sucks all over for healthcare. Mankind is not a reliable animal. Oh, sure, I hear "hope" stories every now and then. But in America, it's true that you just have to live carefully (even though nobody does) and cross your fingers nothing ever happens to you.

I'm an American and it's like a roll of the dice over here. If you're born into the right family, you don't worry about health care. Someone else takes care of it for you. If your parents are from the right generation, their worker's compensation includes health care through their policy insurers. Of course, my mother was rushed to the hospital when her breathing nearly stopped and at the hospital, they didn't inform the staff that she wasn't allowed to eat solid foods. For 48 hours, she had food clogging her esophagus… Guess what? SURGERY! They inserted a tube through her ribcage and... after 3 months of "recovery" from that, she was never able to sleep horizontally ever again.

She went home, where she emotionally collapsed into depression and a slow exhaustion from sleeping sitting up. She fell one night sleeping at her kitchen table, hit her head and died.

And she had fine insurance. That barely covered the ambulance ride, my father tells me. Which was more money than I make in years of my lifespan. It's certainly more money than I spend in years.

My father also has me on his insurance plan. So, if I have a fever or an infection- my stay at the hospital is completely paid for.

BUT... I had no insurance until Obama's plan made it mandatory. I said: that sounds scary. I can't afford this, that... My father arranged everything for me. My Trump-voting father. Who told me: this is so terrible.

THEN... wouldn't you know it? I get sick. I'm losing weight like the sun is eating me. My skin feels like it's on fire. They're giving me Morphine at the hospital and I don't even feel it. They stick me with so many needles, I'm on the verge of tears. And I've never cried during a shot.

But: everything was paid for. I never heard a word about bills. I don't even know how it happened. It's been a year. My father saw me sick and he started freaking out.

So... some people are lucky. But if it was easy, you wouldn't hear about people who wound up in the hospital and then are paying medical bills for decades. I hear people with bills from the 90's are still paying them. My best friend's mother was in the hospital and doing a Kickstarter / Go Fund Me for help. I KNOW HER! I KNOW THAT WOMAN! She was insanely kind to me as a child. She's not making this up. Any system where she can't afford medical treatment by herself has real problems.

So... No. I don't buy that America's system works fine for everyone. My own mother was proof of that.

They sold them a dream that if they work hard enough they will be wealthy one day.  It's not true.  The 1% doesn't allow newcomers.

Why would reasonable person care about becoming 1%? I guess it is like winning a lottery in many ways.
No socialist politician can help anybody except for themselves to achieve that.
And businesses profits are bound by competitors unless those benevolent politicians help them to be monopolistic.

Leftists think that government employees should be raking in all the dough and not private sector employees.

Ass rape is ass rape regardless of who's doing it.

The huge difference is that the private sector has to compete to keep their doors open, while the government can just shit all over the taxpayers without a care.

• Public health systems are basically not for profit. All money that comes into the system returns in some form, with no owners or shareholders taking a cut;

And that is the piece that is different in the US.  Republicans are good at one thing.  They have done a great job of convincing people that it's more important for CEO's in the 1% to get their cut of absolutely everything than it is for people to have healthcare and living wages.  We are actually at a point where citizens are valuing other peoples money over their own lives and the lives of their families.  It's really sick.  This is what Americans call "free-dumb"

They have sold people this false sale of goods.  They sold them a dream that if they work hard enough they will be wealthy one day.  It's not true.  The 1% doesn't allow newcomers.

I currently live in a contry with public healthcare (Brazil), and while it's not perfect, there are several things that surprised me about this system that I think many people in the U.S. don't realize:

• Public health systems are basically not for profit. All money that comes into the system returns in some form, with no owners or shareholders taking a cut;

• Since the govenment pays for the patients medicine, it's in its best interest to lower the medicines price. That means generic drugs are prescribed whenever possible. While generic drugs are available in the U.S., they are not ofently prescribed since the system runs for profit and brand-name drugs are far more profitable;

• Public healthcare do not completly replace private healthcare, if nothing else it makes it more competitive. By providing a base level health standard, the system pushes the private sector out of the emergencies / basic healthcare and into state of the art treatments. And because there is always a fallback option in the public healthcare, the private options need to be resonably priced to convince people that it's even worth considering.

Needless to say, those points are all incredbly threatening to the owners and shareholders of the companies running healthcare in the U.S. Running a good public healthcare system requires killing profits for some very influential people. That is always a very difficult thing to do.

I guess Brazil is free of government corruption that the rest of the world has.

As I pointed out, government employees quite often make much more than business employees do for the same work.

@raphjd:

Remember one thing.  The government doesn't care about you and your ability to pay, they will always get their money from you.   If you can't afford your insurance you cancel it.  You don't have that option for NHS payments.

Wrong.  You don't just cancel insurance in the US.  Very few people have that option.  For most people, you have the insurance that your employer provides.  Period.  You don't have a choice.

What CEO cares about you?  The governments job is to serve the people.  A CEO's job is to increase value for shareholders.  It's much easier to vote out a politician than it is to get rid of a CEO.

So you are crying about employer-subsidized health insurance?

When I lived in Houston, my employer paid 100% of my health insurance, as part of the employee benefits.

In the UK, employers say that we have the NHS, so if they offer health insurance the employee has to pay for 100% of it.  Sure, you get cheaper insurance due to being in a "group" policy.

Gordon Brown, while UK Chancellor under Tony Blair, said that if we (people living in the UK) couldn't pay our bills, to put it on credit cards and to take out loans.    This was after Labour jacked up virtually every tax in the UK.  They even moved VAT (sales tax) to be put at the end of the line so you pay VAT on all the other taxes/charges/surcharges.

The UK (like most of the US) has a 999 (911) tax, charge and surcharge (YES, all 3) added to our phone bills.  We pay VAT on all of those.

When I fill up my car, I pay several taxes, charges, and surcharges, then I pay VAT on all of that as well as the price of the fuel.

• Public health systems are basically not for profit. All money that comes into the system returns in some form, with no owners or shareholders taking a cut;

• Since the govenment pays for the patients medicine, it's in its best interest to lower the medicines price. That means generic drugs are prescribed whenever possible. While generic drugs are available in the U.S., they are not ofently prescribed since the system runs for profit and brand-name drugs are far more profitable;

• Public healthcare do not completly replace private healthcare, if nothing else it makes it more competitive. By providing a base level health standard, the system pushes the private sector out of the emergencies / basic healthcare and into state of the art treatments. And because there is always a fallback option in the public healthcare, the private options need to be resonably priced to convince people that it's even worth considering.

Needless to say, those points are all incredbly threatening to the owners and shareholders of the companies running healthcare in the U.S. Running a good public healthcare system requires killing profits for some very influential people. That is always a very difficult thing to do.

Remember one thing.  The government doesn't care about you and your ability to pay, they will always get their money from you.  If you can't afford your insurance you cancel it.  You don't have that option for NHS payments.

Wrong.  You don't just cancel insurance in the US.  Very few people have that option.  For most people, you have the insurance that your employer provides.  Period.  You don't have a choice.

What CEO cares about you?  The governments job is to serve the people.  A CEO's job is to increase value for shareholders.  It's much easier to vote out a politician than it is to get rid of a CEO.

It was committed by a nutter who, in 2010, was "sectioned" (UK term for being committed by a court) to the loony bin.  Instead of taking proper care of the then "kid", they gave him some pills and sent him on his way for "care in the community".

"Care in the community" is the NHS's way to save tons of cash by ignoring their responsibility to take care of people and leaving them to sort themselves out and/or hope there's a charity to help them.    Oddly, with this cash savings and added burden on communities, our taxes keep going up to fund the NHS.  Local councils have to spend their money to take up a lot of the slack caused by this mess.  Our taxes, of every sort and new ones always being created, keep going up while services keep getting cut.

This is part of the utopian healthcare system leftists are demanding the US go to.

++++

As noted several times before, I'm the chairman of my local council and I see first hand the shite created by the NHS failing to do it's duty of caring for people properly.