Comparing Italy

"Giusi" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
That's fascinating material! You'd have to know the cost of public service
to know the total cost of health care. As well, you need to know the
categories where public service via taxes pay for a fraction of any item.
I'd never have guessed that the birth rate is less than 2.0 in Italy,
amongst ethnic Italians. Is the population of Italians in Italy shrinking as
it is in Germany, France, causacian USA, and Japan?

I'd sure like to repeat that drive down the Appian Way to Rome years ago and
all that followed.

Kent
 
On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:10:20 -0700, sf wrote:


So where do you think they go now? And the hospital does not get paid
for it.
--
Susan N.

"Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral,
48 percent indignation, and 50 percent envy."
Vittorio De Sica, Italian movie director (1901-1974)
 
sf wrote:

I would rather close attention be paid to cost control effecting the
long term price trend. With a single supplier there is no competition
and that historically allows prices to climb out of control. With an
entitlement approach people start viewing medicine as free and it isn't.

I know that in the US we already have a form of "everyone is covered"
system and that it is broken. You pointed out going to emergency rooms.
I will add the county hospital system. I suggest that the history of
single supplier systems has not been positive.

Thus I want competing suppliers. Right now HMOs compete for Medicare
coverage. It better than I initially expected. I also want people to
not think medicine is free. Right now my employer has a "health savings
account" system. I don't know how that could possibly work for the
unemployed but "act like it's free" sure isn't working.
 
On Apr 18, 10:44?am, Ran e at Arabian Knits
wrote:

So you're arguing that universal health care would be bad for America?
Let's identify your objections to it, and I will show you which ones
the Israeli argument applies to.
 
sf wrote:

Unfortunately, more than half the population seems to have less than
half a brain.

As I've said before, health care can never be an "entitlement" or a
"human right" like some loons try to call it. Nothing that requires the
labor of others can ever be a "right".

Everyone has a right to health care access, i.e. a health care provider
can't turn you away because of race/religion or the like. Access does
not equate to free services, and everyone has an equal right to pay for
the services they want, just like they have an equal right to buy
whatever products they want in a store, provided they can pay for them.

What is needed is better regulation of insurance companies and some
regulation to guarantee that everyone is charged the same price for the
same services. The current situation where someone paying for services
on their own vs. with insurance paying 10x what the insurance company
would pay should be just as illegal as a store charging a higher price
for someone paying cash vs. with a credit card.

As for the uninsured, per the government stats, that is 14% of the
population and that 14% includes a large portion who choose not to have
insurance for various reasons. That certainly does not constitute the
crisis the promoters of socialized health care try to hype it up to be.
 
On Sun, 17 Apr 2011 09:08:24 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:


Tell that to the hospital emergency rooms where people take their
children for asthma attacks because they don't have a regular doctor
to consult and tell it to the taxpayers who pay for those visits.

--

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
 
On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:02:20 -0400, The Cook
wrote:


Did it seem like I didn't have a clue? They go to the emergency room
at SF General here. The hospital is paid. We pay taxes and our taxes
run the hospital.

--
I love cooking with wine.
Sometimes I even put it in the food.
 
On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:39:14 +0000 (UTC), Doug Freyburger
wrote:


The history of private medical insurance has been abysmal.

Nobody with half a brain thinks it's free. Even Kaiser gives you an
itemized receipt, even though it's just a co-pay.


--
I love cooking with wine.
Sometimes I even put it in the food.
 
Pete C. wrote:


That's stupid. Rich people feel "entitled" to their wealth
but unless people are laboring for them they don't have
anything. The banking system that stores people's wealth
requires labor. (It might be minimal labor, like opening
a till and handing you the cash, but it's there.) Same with healthcare.
It's an entitlement if/when expected for one person or persons
to deliver it to other persons or persons. It is no different
from any other asset or entitlement. An insurance contract,
or a medicare entitlement, is no different from assets, cash,
investments, real estate title, or anything else that confers a benefit
to someone. It's there because it's there and society has agreed
to it -- nothing more, nothing less.

The talking head / tea party likes to pretend that dissing "entitlements"
somehow doesn't apply to the truly entitled capiltalist/imperialists/
upper middle class. Only when a family has almost nothing to
begin with are they suddenly not entitled to their entitlements.



Steve
 
"Giusi" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Interesting facts, but the energy is a bit off for practical home use
comparison. They give total consumption for the country divided by
population. They are taking energy used for industry and spreading it
amongst the general population. That includes steel mills, metals
processing, digging in mines, logging, etc. We have more of that available
to us in natural resources that most countries in Europe.

The typical home in Italy does use less energy, but they don't give that
number for comparison. While most US homes are heated to 66F to 70F in
winter, I find much lower typical in Europe. Our first time renting an
apartment in Rosana, the owner turned the heat "up" to 14C. I wondered
why we were so cold the next morning and did the calculation. That is the
temperature that we turn our heat "down" to at night. Of course, the price
of heating oil was about $6.00 US so we did not turn it up very high either.
Smaller cars, less travelling, etc account for more savings per household
use, a better indicator. Energy is much cheaper here, another reason we
use more, be that right or wrong.

More important are figures on life span, healthcare costs and so forth.
Another questionable statistic is the likelihood of having HIV/AIDS. With
my particular lifestyle, it is about 0% no matter where I live. Aside
from some hospital accident, it is very controllable by the individual.

They also state there is a 58% less of a class divide and later state:
Persistent problems include illegal immigration, organized crime,
corruption, high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and the low incomes
and technical standards of southern Italy compared with the prosperous
north.

All that said, I'd not mind living in Italy. In general, it is a nicer
lifestyle, more relaxed. Good food. I'd also want a domestic car like a
Lambo.
 
On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:53:10 -0500, Janet Wilder
wrote:


Wow, Janet, that sounds like it was a nightmare! That's one of the
reasons I never intend to travel in Europe. Murphy's Law says my next
heart attack would be there and I would receive the same type of care
that your husband did.

I'll stick to the USA. Its a huge country and I haven't seen but about
20% of it. It'll take the rest of my life to see the rest!

I wish I had an outfit like you had. That would be really fun. The gas
costs would be scary right now though. Not to mention the insurance
costs must also be high.
 
In article , Kent wrote:




Not really; you'd mostly just have to compare the total dollar
volume of the two nations' health care systems, and divide by the
population.

How much is public vs. privately funded is not directly relevant to the
average cost per person. What you would have to careful about is
accounting for imports, exports, and health tourism. (e.g. Americans
spend some amount of what they spend on healthcare outside of the U.S.)


Steve
 
Pete C. wrote:

Absolutely. That's my point. I've talked to a lot of people who act
like it's supposed to be free. Every so often one of them mentions not
minding a 50% income tax rate to cover it. Extremely rare but that does
happen.


A very large fraction of the discussion is about free health care when I
am listening. Who pays is almost always missing.


It sure doesn't mean that 14% have no access. As SF pointed out it
means they go to the emergency room. That costs more. Costs can be
reduced if the program is run carefully. SF and I disagree over what
careful means in this context. Part of the deal to disagree on such
topics.
 
You're right, Dave, I did have to pay.

My insurance has a one thousand dollar deductible so I had to pay the
first thousand dollars.

I was in the hospital for four days. I went in through the emergency
room. I thought I was having a gall bladder attack. Turned out I was
having a heart attack. Also turned out the gall bladder attack I thought
I had a few weeks prior (that I hadn't sought treatment for) was also a
heart attack.

After discharge from the hospital I paid, and continue to pay, for
doctor visits. And since this is a new year I am faced with a new
thousand dollar deductible should I have tests, etc. done.

Your health plan in Canada far surpasses the one I have in Michigan.
 
"Ran?e at Arabian Knits" wrote:

Beyond that, the US gives significant amounts of foreign aid to pretty
much every country that the proponents of socialized health care try to
use as examples. So beyond the issues of country size and population
density that make socialized health care unworkable in the US, the fact
that the US effectively subsidizes all of those "shining examples of
socialized health care" is further indication that such a system is not
self supporting or practical.
 
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