If McCain Wins Will You Leave the Country? - Page 2

Which laws would these be?

WHOOSH! Over the head. Missed my entire point.

Going to the doctor in the US costs you, or an insurance company, or the government, $100 plus.
Going to the doctor in Hong Kong (and many other countries) costs you, or an insurance company, or the government $20-$40.

How do you address that problem?

The poor do not "take advantage of the ER system" or depend on Medicare because they are cheats. They "take advantage of the ER system" or depend on Medicare because without the option of doing so, they can't get any treatment at all. Is that what you want?

Actually, I understand your entire point completely, and I addressed all of your concerns. I will reduce to soundbites and reiterate:
-The high costs are largely wrapped up in middlemen.
-The poor in general don't abuse ERs, illegal immigrants do. There are systems in place for american poor, which I also mentioned in the post (first sentence, in fact).

I know I'm on your black list because I don't like The One, but the post is about as objective as gets for AO/PO. While I'm at it, I'll also mention that the higher price of US doctor visits, in comparison with HK visits, I bet you're not reading this, is also affected by the greater difficulty in getting the degree, here. Hence there are fewer doctors, hence higher cost. Supply and demand. But the real driver is the mess that is the insurance system, and because of graft in washington, it's unlikely that this will be solved by nationalizing healthcare.

Requiring prior assessment of ability to pay before treatment adds a middle step. As you say, we need to remove middle steps/middle men.

In order to do that we have to balance abuse of the system with simplification of the process. The more abuse-proof the system, the more complex, and hence, more expensive the process needs to be.

This is why I explained the situation in Hong Kong, where you don't have to present any financial documents or immigration documents to get treated. If the US adopted this approach, much red tape could be removed. What you've described suggests adding red tape.

You're not on my blacklist, Spliney. If I had a blacklist, however, it would include:

1) Single issue voters.
2) Theocrats.
3) War hawks.
4) Supply-side economists.
5) Those who blame the poor for being poor.

With regard to "the greater difficulty of getting the degree" in the US, exactly how much, if anything, do you actually know about this, and how much of what you're saying is conjecture?

You're partially right but the cost of medical care in the US is more complicated than that.

See the cost of a medical education here. And those are figures for 2005. I'm sure that they've gone up since then.

Look at the costs for malpractice insurance:

While these figures are from 2001, I doubt they've gone down and with losses in the financial markets are likely to go up in the future.

Oh and here are numbers on average nurse's salary in the US here.

While these costs aren't all of the costs incurred to keep a medical office open I throw them out to give you an idea of the costs associated with healthcare in the US. Its not cheap and likely never will be. Consider this. If an internist has 2000 billable patient encounters a year and his insurance cost is $10000 per year, the cost just to cover malpractice insurance alone is $5 per visit. For surgeons and Ob/Gyns the cost is much greater.

Honestly, I laugh when people wonder why they can't go into a doctors office and be seen for $20. They have no clue.

I know a lot of doctors, medical students, and residents in the USA. Some support McCain. Some support Obama. They all tell more or less the same story. I can't point you to an authoritative, written source, but nonetheless I'm confident you'll get the same feedback if you do your own study.

Also (aside), you may want to consider changing "supply-side economists" to "Reaganomics" on your blacklist. I don't think there's such thing as an economist, these days, who doesn't see value in supply-side economics per se. Reaganomics is more specific to the trickle-down approach.

So you're listening to a one-sided story, or have all of these doctors, students and residents studied medicine overseas as well, so they have something to compare their experience to?

What you originally claimed is not that getting a medical degree and a position is teh hard™ but that it is harder in the US than it is in other countries, leading to higher medical costs, aside from insurance and operating overhead. What I'm asking is for you to tell me where you got that idea (that it is harder in the US than it is in other countries). Instead you say you've heard stories that it is teh hard™.


You've lost me there... supply-side is the "trickle down" approach, and yes it is a part of an economic policy that is necessary. By "supply-side economist", it's clear that I'm referring to people who think that supply-side should be the main part (or the only part) of the economic approach, and people who believe that demand-side policies should be avoided.

It's pretty lame how standard of living issues frequently just turn into debates about health care systems. It's really just one issue among many and there are a variety of health care systems to choose from when choosing to settle in any of the increasing number of places with a higher standard of living than even the best parts of the US.

The biggest issue, IMO, is the double taxation on earnings over $85K that the US forces on citizens living abroad. Fuck that shit.

lolhttp://forums.appleinsider.com/images/smilies/lol.gif

LOL! Hey, live your life. Just don't expect to find better than California girls in Europe.

I think the sooner the world realizes that poor people (Mac Mini's), middle class lower and upper (MacBooks and iMac's), and rich people (MBP and MP), exist and will always exist, life would be better.

That and we need to ship all the lawyers to the sun in a space shuttle with one way tickets. Which would effectively do away with all politicians.

You don't want to go there...

Would it really hurt Americans to stop looking at either themselves in the mirror or cartoons of what the "Rest of the World" is like?

Lots of valuable lessons can be learnt by seriously studying numerous experiments in public policy, and their results around the world.

Given what America has got now, thinking outside of the box has to be a good thing.

Whatever you do, DON'T CLICK THE RED PHONE!

Tina Fey: If McCain/Palin wins, I'm leaving the planet.

Man, I'm almost starting to hope that Obama wins now. I think there are going to be riots, mass suicides, etc. if McCain wins.

WOW more reason to vote against Hussein Obama. If all the liberals would leave the country [or better yet...the planet] we could fix everything the Democrat controlled congress has screwed up!!

Yeah! Back to the way everything was during the previous 6 years! That rocked!

To all of you that say you would leave the country if Mc Cain won, I say save us the trouble of dealing with you now and leave. If your patriatism extends to who is in office, your not really an American anyway.

So GTFO now and stop taking up my free air and free speech.

Goto another country that allows you to say whatever you like about the current authorities without worry of reproach, harassment or retribution.

But thats right, you wouldnt leave even if we had voted Hitler in, because you know that if you moved out of OUR country (I capitalized that to show its not really yours) you wouldnt make it but a few months or years before you mouth got you in a jail or worse.

I guess thats the greatness behind our country is the ablility to freely speak our minds, isnt it. Just dont make threats you dont truly plan to keep.

I don't mean to be... well. I don't know. Provocative.

But you've never actually been out of America, have you?

beinseth doesn't have a very acurate picture of other countries, but he hit the nail on the head about the people HERE who say they would leave... they wouldn't... it's all talk, with nothing behind it.
Even the OP on this thread won't come back and defend his/her position.

Ireland, Germany, Japan, England, Kosovo, Mexico, Canada, Iraq, and soon to be Korea. I have been around, excluding England and Canada most of these countries still have stricter speech laws than the US. So yeah, I have been around the block.

More likely then not, yes. Canada, here I come!

Oooo Errrr. Who's got a monopoly on "Freedom of Speech"?

America likes to talk about it without actually encouraging it, just as it loves to talk about "Democracy". I've never seen a people so keen to censor any criticism, outside of the Soviet Union.

In England you can walk down the street chanting 'The Queen is a Teutonic ho, death to Gordon Brown' and you'll end up in an advert for crisps. Elsewhere:


has no restrictions on freedom of speech.

has no restrictions on freedom of speech

has no restrictions on freedom of speech

appears to have problems

has no restrictions on freedom of speech.

In point of fact, looking at this years'sWorld Index of Press Freedom, all of these nations, apart from Mexico, are higher than the United States, which comes in at 48 (one place above Togo and one place behind Nicaragua.

Here's the top 50, in case you're interested. Still a way to go.

Rank\tCountry\tNote\t
1\tIceland\t0,75\t
-\tNorway\t0,75\t
3\tEstonia\t1,00\t
-\tSlovakia\t1,00\t
5\tBelgium\t1,50\t
-\tFinland\t1,50\t
-\tSweden\t1,50\t
8\tDenmark\t2,00\t
-\tIreland\t2,00\t
-\tPortugal\t2,00\t
11\tSwitzerland\t3,00\t
12\tLatvia\t3,50\t
-\tNetherlands\t3,50\t
14\tCzech Republic\t4,00\t
15\tNew Zealand\t4,17\t
16\tAustria\t4,25\t
17\tHungary\t4,50\t
18\tCanada\t4,88\t
19\tTrinidad and Tobago\t5,00\t
20\tGermany\t5,75\t
21\tCosta Rica\t6,50\t
-\tSlovenia\t6,50\t
23\tLithuania\t7,00\t
24\tUnited Kingdom\t8,25\t
25\tMauritius\t8,50\t
-\tNamibia\t8,50\t
27\tJamaica\t8,63\t
28\tAustralia\t8,79\t
29\tGhana\t9,00\t
30\tGreece\t9,25\t
31\tFrance\t9,75\t
32\tTaiwan\t10,00\t
33\tSpain\t10,25\t
34\tBosnia and Herzegovina\t11,17\t
35\tItaly\t11,25\t
36\tMacedonia\t11,50\t
37\tJapan\t11,75\t
-\tUruguay\t11,75\t
39\tChile\t12,13\t
-\tSouth Korea\t12,13\t
41\tCroatia\t12,50\t
42\tRomania\t12,75\t
43\tSouth Africa\t13,00\t
44\tIsrael (Israeli territory)\t13,25\t
45\tCape Verde\t14,00\t
-\tCyprus\t14,00\t
47\tNicaragua\t14,25\t
48\tUnited States of America\t14,50\t
49\tTogo\t15,17\t
50\tMauritania\t15,50

It's odd that Canada is ranked higher than the US considering Canada has one of those bogus "human right commissions" that sits in judgement of content of publishers. Basically in Canada you can be hauled into court for publishing something politically incorrect.

really?? .. I can remember standing in the street in front of the parliment building listen to folks screaming at passers by... actually threatening insurrection and encouraging violence... yes, really! In todays environment, I really doubt you could get away with that in front of the US Capitol building... arrest would come quickly (or at the very least, one would be run off by the police.)

My experience (and the list is long, but distinguished) has been that most foreign countries allow people to speak pretty freely... until they actually start threatening other people or groups.

In the military presumably?

Ever make it off the base?

With the proper permits for holding such an event, they would more likely send police to protect you from those that would want to hurt you.


Yes, have made it off post at every country listed and I have been warned in every country I have been to, to be very careful as to what I say and to who I say it to. The only issue I am aware of in the US, that restricts your freedom of speech is where it would cause a public panic, or in the case of slander.

And to Hassan, that list is probably as bogus as it gets. Its a list of PRESS freedom, not speech freedom, coming from the Press without borders. And how does this, "and the murder of Chauncey Bailey in Oakland in August mean the United States is still unable to join the lead group."- source http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24022, have to do with press restrictions? I did alil of my own research and it appears that city and federal officials did everything they could to find his killers and had nothing to do with his death? And as far as those in Getmo go, my government does alot of stuff we know alil about. The fact of the matter is, the press wants us to treat them as civilians where it suits their needs, then bashes the military for not treating this more like a war. The enemy has no uniform and blends in with the populace. Unless you have some handy dandy peice of equipment that can tell the difference between a combatants and non-combatants, I find no fault in the US government holding those they feel are responsible behind the terrorist acts of 9/11

Fantastic.

As we start to move into specifics regarding what actually constitutes "freedom of speech", it starts to turn out that whatever restrictions are happening in the US are right and proper and necessary and patriotic.

This is how it always works. "We're the freest most moral people in the world!" "What about this and this and this?" "Had to! Bad men forced our hand!"

"Bad men forced our hand" is, of course, the rallying cry for every despot that every was.

The massive police presence during the Republican Convention, for instance, with its summary round-ups of peaceful protestors and journalists, preemptive raids on homes and general marital law vibe, can't be counted against America's "freedom" because they had to. I mean, all these hippies showed up and it was totally scary.

When wingers talk about American freedoms, they mean "freedom for people like me, you can drag off the commies next door in the middle of the night any time you want."

National martial law and the suspension of the constitution would be perfectly fine with freedom loving patriots, as long as it was understood that it was done in the name of breaking the back of the liberal menace.

Ha ha, now we know you, having run into more than a few "Base Refugees".

That wasn't you that I had a drink with in the Lord Nelson pub in The Rocks was it?

The one who couldn't hold up a conversation about anything except his ship and when we politely talked about what it was like living on a big ship, we got accused of being communist spys!

Or maybe that was you in Kaiserslauten, eating in the Wienerwald because you can point at the pictures of the food, which you can't pronounce let alone identify despite being based in Germany for nearly 2 years.

Or the neighbor from the US Embassy who won't answer the door because we are all terrorists out to get her.

It's hard to see anything as it is, when you always hide behind your Stars and Stripes sunnies.


And IF they "feel" YOU are responsible, would you find any fault with what they did to you?

Who exactly have they got in Guantánamo (under the fiction it isn't US territory) that holds a rank above Kabul taxi driver?

Dudes, chill. It's fun to pick sides, but do you really have an option? As nice as it would be, there's no developed nation you can flee to that will provide salvation. The free world is built onto two things: the trade provided by the US free market and the deterrent of hostility provided by the US military. Borrow-spend, imperialist republicans will kill it, and tax-spend, anti-war democrats will kill it just the same.

There are many countries that have the luxury of fielding nominal militaries and largely nationalized economies, because they have NATO to rely on and are small enough to mooch of the trade network without disrupting it valuations too much. The USA is not one of these. As it changes, the world changes, and I can't say it will likely be a better place for anyone.

Maybe you should all live in this other USA the one which has the free trade and free speech?

No, seriously. These countries have absolutely no restrictions on freedom of speech. Absolutely none. OK, I don't know about Korea, but I do know that there's no country in Europe where you can't say anything you please. You can shout at politicians, you can make huge banners calling for the overthrow of Parliament, or the monarchy, or the any political party. You can say what you want. There's almost nothing you can't say or write or broadcast (I don't think you'd get away with a full-page newspaper advert saying 'JESUS IS A CUNT', for example, but that's a matter of editorial taste and hate speech or obscenity laws. And I did see a boy wearing a t-shirt that said that a few years ago.)

I'm pretty sure it's similar in Japan, although I fancy they're more touchy about the royal family than they are in Denmark or the UK, say. And you won't get far making speeches that deny the Holocaust or call for the death of Jewish people in Germany, but they have certain... sensitivities which in my opinion are absolutely right to be written into law, although we can argue about that.

Seriously. There's nothing exceptional about the right of the American to free speech. Nearly everywhere else in the world it's absolutely taken for granted. In Denmark they pride themselves on having the 'freest speech in the world', hence the furore over the cartoons of Muhammad, but that's a whole nother thang...

Warned by the US military which would have an international incident on its hand if you got into even a bar fight. Look, I have travel more extensively than you have as a civilian, and while you cannot insult the king in Morocco, every other place I have been has been as free if not more so than the US. In fact, Morocco was the most similar in restrictions given that we really cannot call for the death of any public official in the US without committing a felony...

I think your limited perspective here is from the fact that you are being forced to follow US rules in foreign countries. Remember, the restrictions on speech are coming from the US army as opposed to the governments of your host country...

You sir know not of which you speak. You don't live in America right? All you do is bash our great country. Where exactly do you live? Has your country ever done anything for any other country? Give millions in aid?

You are so proud of your country you don't even want anyone to know where you are from.

Obviously I am not an American, and there are aspects of America that I admire but not the extreme and mostly ill informed jingoistic patriotism that mostly goes into denigrating or abusing other countries and cultures. Particularly when it is clueless and based on a far too typical and blatant "never been there, don't care" wilful ignorance.

I'm Australian and yes Australia, small as it is, has done a great deal for many, many other countries including your own, which you probably wouldn't even know about. For a start we gave you the only part of your democracy that probably actually works, the Secret Ballot. If you'd only listen perhaps you might get more.

We are not the most generous aid giver, that title goes to many of the European countries, although we do our best, which is considerably more generous than the Queen of Mean, which is the USA. Typically this is part of the lies that Americans feed themselves, that as a nation they are generous and caring.

Even when America does give aid (when it isn't military) it is tailored to the needs of itself and not the recipients. For years you dumped your surplus maize on 3rd world countries, whether that was good or not, now you don't even bother with that sham as you pour it into your cars' fuel tanks.

We would love to love you and find the friend we used to know, but America has taken selfishness, meanness, and sheer bloody minded obsession with the idea that you are the only ones that count to astronomic heights.

If you find yourselves unloved, try not to perpetually claim the credit for everything and anything, get informed about more than your idle local gossip and contribute instead of just take.

The reason the world is far more excited by the prospect of Obama as President is that he is more worldly as well as intelligent and informed. We see it as a dawn of a new America that we can once again admire and support whole heartedly.

We are not deluded that he won't be an American President working in America's interests, however his respect for others will earn him respect right back.