Thank you for responding to the request made below

Responding to this

Healthcare & education are good things. We can all agree on that. & improvement in the quality of healthcare &/or education is a good thing, while a decline in the quality of either or both is undesirable.
I'm glad we agree here. But I think you should have quit while you were ahead.

However, government involvement is not necessarily a good thing in the long run. What it does is create a dependence on government, which to some degree or another government exploits.
The assertion to be tested. We will refer back to it at the end of the discussion to see how ell it held up.

As far as education goes, we have government imposed standards that, while in areas such as math, aren't detrimental, in areas such as history are devastating. They impose the view the govenrment wants the students to have onto the curriculum.
No argument here. However, as has been famously said, history is written by the victor. Assuming a Libertarian social victory, the history that has been corrupted by "government" will be corrected and a new story will be taught, correct?

So what's the diference? None that I can see. So the history thing is a non-point.

Healthcare isn't much different. The partial subsidation has caused problems, mainly inflated prices. Yep, when the government offers to pay part of the bill, prices go up. So does demand. If you're in a totally privatized situation you go to the doctor when you have to. In a subsidized situation you go to the doctor when you want to. Or more accurately when the next available appointment is open.

I invite you to look at England or Canada or any other country with socialized medicine. The quality of care is much less than the quality of care here. Not to mention the quantity of health care is less over here because of less demand. I've heard some nightmare stories about Canadians & Englishmen waiting 6 months for an appointment.

This may surprise you but I did as you asked.

I went to the World Health Organization web site to get the heath statistics for Canada, the United Kindom and the United States of America. The particular data I checked was the Healthy Life Expectancy tables.

Total population

Males 2001

Females 2001

Member State

At birth 2000

At birth 2001

At birth

Uncertainty interval

At age 60

Uncertainty interval

At birth

Uncertainty interval

At age 60

Uncertainty interval

Canada

69.7

69.9

68.2

67.6 - 69.1

15.3

15.0 - 16.0

71.6

70.9 - 72.7

17.9

17.6 - 18.6

United Kingdom

69.2

69.6

68.4

68.0 - 69.4

15.0

14.7 - 15.6

70.9

70.1 - 72.4

16.9

16.5 - 17.4

United States of Americab

67.4

67.6

66.4

65.8 - 67.5

14.9

14.5 - 15.7

68.8

67.9 - 70.2

16.6

16.2 - 17.3


Socialized, single pay medical systems are giving longer healthy life spans. And they cost less…Americans are finding it cheaper to buy Canadian drugs that are made here, shipped there and shipped back.

THAT is the power of a government that properly addresses an issue.

The rest of your suggestions are bald assertions, unsupported by even anecdotal evidence. Given as the first half has held up so poorly, I'm going to bed so I can watch Yu-Gi-Oh! in the morning. But if you'd actually LIKE me to deal with the rest of it later, I'll be happy to.

I warned you. Reason is my tool. Reality is the medium I work in. Don't make any checkable statements without checking them first. You might get lucky—but you usually don't.

UPDATE: I see from the comments I'll have to deal with this in detail.

Posted by Prometheus 6 on October 18, 2003 - 4:48am :: Random rant
 
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