These tea party people....

[Hassled]

Nutters? In this BBC blog, one woman says "This progressive agenda (Obama's economic policies) has progressed to the tipping point in the United States, where we either stand up for the constitution of the United States or we accept socialism, tainted with Marxism."

How can she interpret Obama's policies as socialism tainted with Marxism? Is it just down to lack of education? I really, genuinely, don't understand. I don't understand the fear they seem to have. And they're doing well - they've got the Delaware Senate nomination, NY, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky and Alaska. Meanwhile they're being funded by billionaires who clearly have a vested interest keeping the focus on tax cuts for the rich.

I don't know what my point is really - I get that many people want smaller government, lower taxation, less govt spending etc, but that view is already well represented. I don't get this extremism.

the French system is part insurance based, so it is not all state. I want a greater percentage of our taxes being spent on health and less on the bureaucracy of councils with waste disposal officers and their bin police and all the other regulators that have proliferated under the progressives. Let's cut the waste and spend a higher proportion on health. Let's manage these fatcat bosses better so that they don't get £200,000 to be in charge of hospitals where 26 patients starved to death

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1110054/Starved-death-NHS-hospital-Damning-inquiry-highlights-case-patient-left-food-26-days.html

Who was managing this hospital? Why didn't somebody see what was going on? It is a disgrace.

I don't care if the fatcats are paid £1,000,000 if they do a good job and people get treated and don't catch MRSA and don't spend months on waiting lists. Then £1,000,000 would be worth it. I want competent management and government oversight of what is going on. The people deserve that.

sorry, error, 26 didn't die, one patient died after 26 days without food

I found this on Frenchtree.com

"Unlike in the UK in France treatment, whether private or public, is not free at the point of delivery.......on seeing a doctor or specialist (specialiste) you first pay the full bill (tarif) and are then reimbursed at a later date (about 10 days). Generally speaking, Sécurité sociale refunds 70 per cent of the cost of a visit to a médecin traitant (a GP or family doctor) and most specialistes."

The state pays more per capita in France than in the UK. Most people pay even more on top to "top up" their insurance. If they are doing that, one can only surmise that the "basic" cover afforded to the less wealthy is not brilliant. Otherwise why bother to pay for a top-up.

So what you have is a system more expensive that ours from a tax POV, which still does not do the job, and leads to a two-tier system.

I am interested to know why you think that private hospitals will be better than NHS hospitals, with the same amount of money to run them, less some being siphoned off for profit.

Thomas Frank writes good books on why Americans support political movements which promise pitiful public services.

Eldest aunt had a chunk taken out of her nose due to skin cancer and had to wait months for reconstructive surgery.

Last Christmas in California another aunt tiraded that the long wait was typical of what would happen if there were universal socialised medicine (if everyone were on Medical like eldest aunt is).

Then the family tried to drag me into it .

Problem is that Medical is underfunded because of how it's funded, and because it's not universal (most people have good private health insurance, instead). So most people get quick treatment, and the wait for treatment is nothing to do with clinical need. Aunt would have had quick treatment under the NHS... but the system that Obama brought in is more like the previously existing inadequate, under-funded, inefficient and slow-to-deliver safety nets for the working poor :(.

Interesting jackstar. What happens if you can't afford to pay the "tarif" upfront? And/or can't afford to pay 30% of your treatment fees yourself?

I want more money spent on health, because I think that people count. I am not an expert on the French health system, that's what we supposedly employ our quangos and committees for. We have thousands of rich and famous ex-pats living in France. I wonder how many of them them look forward to coming back to the UK NHS system?

The WHO rankings of world health services, puts France number 1 in the world and the UK at 18. Don't the hardworking British people deserve as good a service as the people 30 miles away across the Channel? Do the progressives want to stop us changing our NHS for the better? Do they lie to us by telling us that we have the best system in the world? Don't we have the best of everything in the world? or have we started not to believe it any longer?

WHO world health ranking

ISNT - From Wikepedia

"In its 2000 assessment of world health care systems, the World Health Organization found that France provided the "best overall health care" in the world.[1] In 2005, France spent 11.2% of GDP on health care, or US$3,926 per capita, a figure much higher than the average spent by countries in Europe but less than in the US. Approximately 77% of health expenditures are covered by government"

So the French spend less than the US - but achieve more.

I don't know what happens to those who can't pay. Are there any French residents around?

Claig - x-posted

claig - you can't have a more expensive health service without paying more for it.

No maternal death in the US isn't low but Albania might be higher as it depends on how many days past birth a death is counted as maternal. And the figures for the developing world are often estimates as there are no reliable records.

The US medical system is the best in the world for private healthcare providers and insurers.

Let's spend more on health and less on global warming, as an example. Let's create jobs here using nationalised companies and let's keep the tax revenue here and use it for health. Let's become a wealthier country, so that we are able to spend more on health. Let's support business and enterprise to generate wealth for the people. Let's vote Tory.

Claig - how much is 'spent' on global warming as a % of health care? It wouldn't touch the sides. I don't think nationalisation is a traditional tory policy.

Yes, let's become a wealthier country. Lets ban murder while we're at it.

Nationalised companies? What do you mean?

Conservative policy is not as outlined in your last post.

So far they have:

Decided to spend a vast amount of money that we haven't got on restructuring the NHS, in a way that the BMA and other groups say won't work

Taken a universal benefit and made it non-universal in a totally unfair fashion

Randomly given back the savings from that as a tax cut for people who happen to be married

Cut welfare payments for the most deprived people in society, disconnecting this type of payment from need for the first time in teh history of the welfare state, deciding instead how much money people can have based on whether the govt approves of them or not

For their next trick

Thousands and thousands of people to be made unemployed due to huge public sector cuts

ooooh yes vote tory

I hope Sir Philip Green finds out what we spend our money on. I want to cut the inessentials and get our priorities right. I support nationalisation, I am different to Cameron and Gordon Brown. We can become wealthier by creating more incentives for business and creating a better environment for business. The best party for that is the party of business - the Conservative Party.

I also don't understand why it is a bad idea to move away from reliance on oil and other fossil fuels and move towards methods of generating energy at home, creating stacks of jobs, improving our independence and self-sufficiency.. What's not to like

I don't understand.

Nationalisation

Party of business

=

opposites

I don't believe everything the Tories say. But I watched the Progressives at their party conference, with their slogan of "building a progressive future". All you have to do is look at their progressive past to realise that the Coalition is the best chance that the British people have got.

Claig - your talking in platiudes. Everyone wants to make the country wealthier and not to waste money. It's like saying your in favour of nice weather and lovely food.

You can have nationalised industries and support private enterprise, the two are not mutually exclusive. I think that's what they should do.

The green movement imposes taxes on industry and the public. It is the progressives way of thwarting capitalist enterprise. Sarah Palin is on the money. I think Sarah Palin will become President of the United States, in spite of the dersion heaped on her by progressives. I think we will see some changes then.

'Everyone wants to make the country wealthier and not to waste money'

I think you're wrong. I don't think the progressives do want that, otherwise they wouldn't do the things they do.

Up until a couple of years ago private enterprise was doing just fine without a tory goveernment.

2 years to go, then Sarah palin will be President of the United States. There's no contest, the more the progressives mock and jeer at her, the more Americans will flock to her. It's a dead cert and the times they are a changing.

Palin for President - Time Magazine

I just cannot see how developing a thriving industry, full of small businesses, original scientific and engineering progress, enterprise and initiative, can possibly be a bad thing.

And at the same time we reduce our dependence on oil, which is a good thing for loads of reasons.

I can't see a downside, really I can't.

I also don't understand why you keep banging on about how great the tea party are, and how great sarah palin is, and yet whenever you are asked a specific question about their ideas and policies, you say "well I'm not american it's nothing to do with me". that doesn't make any sense.

Do you agree that the US should drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?