www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Russo-Orthodox archpriest: Bring back the Soviet times

Just to be clear, Father, the quality of all that free care was exactly what you would expect of the Soviet system. In actuality, it was a two-tiered system, with fairly decent treatment for the nomenklatura (albeit those who could still opted to go to Western Europe for serious ailments), and an abysmal cesspit of filth, corruption and incompetence for the rest of the people. You could, of course, bribe your way into a decent facility with a decent doctor.

When my wife was in university, she attended an exchange program in Moscow and Leningrad. During the semester, another American girl got sick, was admitted to a Soviet hospital, and immediately came down with a host of complications that left her on the verge of death. She was flown out to Frankfurt on a USAF air ambulance, and made a full recovery. Thereafter, however, the policy for American exchange students, which remained in place until after the fall of the Soviet Union, was to stabilize any sick or injured students, and then fly them out immediately to the West.

My mother, a microbiologist in the New York City hospital system, began getting visits from Russian counterparts from the late 1980s. They were amazed at the equipment and instruments that were commonplace in our hospitals. In fact, they arranged a program whereby obsolete and surplus equipment that would otherwise have been trashed were sent to Russian hospitals, where they were gratefully put to use. Back in the Soviet era, disposable syringes, catheters, etc. were a luxury, and no one knows how many patients died from infections carried by poorly sterilized instruments. In other words, the Soviet Union ran the world's larges Third World hospital system.

The Russians themselves were aware of the problem, and told this joke back in the Soviet era:

A Soviet doctor and an American doctor meet at a conference. The American doctor confessed his frustration: "We admit a man to the hospital with heart disease, and he dies of cancer. We admit a man with cancer, and he dies of liver failure. We admit a man with liver failure, and he dies of pulmonary failure".

The Soviet doctor responds, "In Soviet Union is no such problem. Man is admitted with cancer, he dies of cancer".

a more direct comparison would be with the Antiochian Archdiocese, rather than the Melkites, for a variety of reasons.

Of course, that would call for a comparison of the various branches of ROCOR in NZ, AU, Western Europe, Latina America and the Far East with ROCOR in the US.

LOL.

Yes, I'm afraid a lot of nostalgia lingers on the ivory towers, embellished as a foil, and perhaps no more so than in "gender studies."

I remember the reports when the system was still operating. Not a pretty picture. I've read it claimed that it was better before Brezhnev, but that is before my time.

As someone who grew up Jewish, I was rather surprised to discover that most of what are considered stereotypical Jewish traits are in fact more generically Eastern European. So Slavs and Jews do have common ground.

The problem, Father, lies in that most said countries with populations much larger than NZ contain populations much smaller than the US. Only Brazil comes close. Next comes Russia, with well under half the US population and dropping. Most of the countries on the linked map have populations comparable to the alleged uninsured population of the US, or less.


No, most of Latin America does not provide it, although a number are "attempting," whatever that means.

each state does make its own arrangments. The problem is that the Federal government does not allow insurance to cross state lines, so there is 50 monopolies, instead of a health care market of 300+million in the pool.

You seem to be doing your own kind of math,Stuart. Whether the number is inflated or not, how could it include those covered by a spouse's policy when they are, indeed, covered? Then policy holders are the only ones included in the statistic, which seems absurd. Whatever the percentage, (and I think it is more substantial than you make it) the burden of those who are uncovered, whether they deliberately opt out or not, falls on those policy holders who have to pay higher premiums as a result of the health services the uninsured may receive. I think it makes eminent sense to mandate health insurance coverage. A penalty is payed for their uncoverage whether they pay it or not.

Because of the way in which those wanting to nationalize health coverage did their math. They came up with the number of 40 million "uninsured". It's only when you decompose their categories that you realize how they got to that number: they included people who could have been covered but declined; those who were covered but didn't register; and those who were covered, but under someone else's policy.

Once you got down to the hard-core of those who (a) wanted or needed health insurance; and (b) could not get it at all under the present system, the problem was both much smaller and much more tractable by minor adjustments to current laws and regulations. But, since proponents of change wanted a sweeping overhaul of the system--or its replacement with a single-payer system--that answer would not do. They needed a "crisis", and lacking one, invented it with spurious statistics.

The US Census Dept comes up with these figures, not the people who want to nationalize health care. There are over 40 million uninsured Americans, or about 16.3%. How or why they are not covered is irrelevant. They are uninsured, and are a drag on the system, nationalized or not. The statistic certainly does not include people who are covered by a spouse's policy as you stated. It seems like you are inventing spurious statistics of your own to advance your point of view.

Oh, please, as if they are not the one and the same, at least for the 2010 cycle. There was plenty in the news about the politicization of the census.

The census does not collect insurance information. The US Census Bureau does collect but not publish information from surveys. Unlike the census, which is mandatory, the surveys are voluntary, and are conducted for different purposes and time frames, using different methodologies. Plenty of room to play with data, like is happening with unemployment (the rate is going down because people have lost benefits. If they do not continue to certify-and most do not if there is no check coming-they are no longer counted as "unemployed," although they are not working.

because we will just thrown huge undirected sums of money at them and the "problem" will magically disappear?

Devil in the details. Ignoring them does not change that.

if he were, it would be no more than what the census bureau is doing now, fact made evident when Obama ordered it to report to the White House, and not the Commerce Secretary as before.

Politicized or not, the statistics of the Census Bureau in 2006, during the previous administration pegged the figure of uninsured at 47 million, some 15% plus. In 2011 the number rose to some 49 million, but I'm sure the bureau is loaded with leftists, and the earth is flat...or, at least, it used to be, until those junk scientist came along.

In as apolitical manner as may be possible, ask your your family physician, or the nurse-practitioner, at your local general care practice about the issues and challenges posed by the un- or under-insured and the impact those segments of the population are having on the health care system. There is a problem and pretending it is political or doesn't exist isn't going to make it go away. There may indeed be better solutions or options available to deal with this than the one adopted, but just saying 'no' isn't going to solve things. (It works about as well as saying no did with the drug abuse problem.)

It is always good to read your refreshing and reasoned posts, DMD. Here's a personal little anecdote I'll share with the forum and readers can make what they want of it. I used to work for the National Park Service not too long ago, and, as a uniformed federal employee, was often a target for citizens to unleash their opinions of the federal government. A few years ago a couple approached me to express their fears that people in government were trying to "nationalize" their health care. After this rant, they began to extol the virtues of the Park Service. I smiled and said that they seemed to enjoy nationalized recreation.

After thirty years in local government administration, I run into that all of the time. For example, our area of upstate NY is very conservative, especially the rural towns. We had over one billion dollars of river and flash flooding last September and FEMA has been here helping enormously. In rural Tioga County, NY the locals are up in arms because they obtained an estimate to redo a dirt road and embankment from their town engineering firm in excess of $ 500,000. FEMA's people said they didn't need as lavish of a fix for a dirt road with four houses and $9,000 worth of grading and rip-rak (rocks) would stabilize the roadway and restore it to what it was before the storms. They've gotten the media, the congressman (conservative Rep. from Utica) and two Senators in the mix.

It is my observation that people only hate big government when it deals with others than themselves. When it is them or their family, they LOVE it.

Who doesn't love a good tax-funded abortion plan in your government-mandated health care plan?

I for one welcome our new Health and Human Services Department overlords.

Both those charges are myths. The public option is not tax-funded. Furthermore, most private health plans cover abortion services. Whether these are used or not, one pays for the coverage. Check yours.