Why Are You All Still Alive? |
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Why Are You All Still Alive? |
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Aug 8 2009, 06:17 PM
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You are saying you dont want a universal health plan? (Excuse me if I am getting this wrong!)
This post has been edited by Sondre: Aug 8 2009, 06:17 PM |
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Aug 8 2009, 06:31 PM |
I can't comment on Canada as I'm not au fait with their system.
However, whilst the UK has long been proud of the NHS it is not the exemplar of a state run medical system in Europe. Many of the other member states of the EEC have better state medical systems and as such a comparison should really be made against one of them. Nonetheless what we may say of the NHS is that it presumes a socialist value of 'each according to need from each according to ability'. Thus the system presumes that wherever possible patients are provided medical care regardless of their ability to pay. Where this unravels somewhat is that the state fiscal provision in the UK to the NHS has not kept pace with need and advances in medical science and this has been exacerbated by the - arguably excessive - costs of some pharmaceuticals. That the current, and previous, English government underfunds the NHS does not itself demonstrate that a state run medical care system fails. ------------------------------------------------- On a personal note I actually have a medical condition called 'inherited emphysema' (or alpha 1 ATD) despite never having smoked in my life. Whilst I lived in the UK I was on the 'at risk' (or whatever it's called) list for any respiratory infection. So for example I was prioritised for annual 'flu/pneumonia injections. I cannot get any medical insurance because of my condition - none will insure me - and I cannot afford the cost privately since one consequence of my condition is that I can no longer work full time. Six years ago I contracted pneumonia in conjunction with pleuresy and chronic bronchitis (plus a few other tertiary conditions). I was unconscious for 3 days, hospitalised for 6 further weeks and nearly died, I remained unable to work for 12 months. Without the UK NHS I hesitate to even contemplate what care I would have received. -------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
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Aug 8 2009, 08:36 PM |
I'll come back and reply properly in a bit fkalich - got a family issue that needs sorting in the mean time though
-------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
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Aug 8 2009, 11:27 PM |
And back...
It seems a particularly salient indicator that life expectancy of those in the US, UK and Ireland are so low compared with the G20 countries. It is not however surprising given the social policies pursued by these countries over the last 30 odd years. Personally I was brought up with the general ideological notion of 'from each...' coupled with the similar notion that 'there but for the grace of God go I'. As such I'm a sad old socialist who believes in a common good rather than an individualistic position and I will not blame the poor for being disadvantaged. Nonethelesss some 'hard' data rather than rhetoric: In 1981 the UK conservative party argued that the UK needed to move away from a Keynesian fiscal economic system to a monetarist policy based on entreprenurialism as it would 'level up' society and 'create wealth'. And so the UK bought in to free market neo-Liberal (in the capitalist sense) economics of Milton Friedman. This was coupled with this neo-Liberalism being mirrored in UK society more widely. Some 30 years ago 92% of all wealth in the UK was owned by just a little over 10% of the population; 2007 census data demonstrates that now 97% of the wealth is owned by less than 5%. If we then look at social disparities on other fronts they have widened and deepened to a point where many UK charities connected to the poor and homeless report on how English society is more structurally divided then ever before. The whole argument that anyone can make it to the top 'with a bit of hard work' in a free market economy just doesn't recognise the major social inequities that pre-exist it and furthermore is not born out by prevailing evidence: Whilst a few individuals may do well the majority will not. Wealth creation has not leveled up English society - it has leveled it down AND broadened by driving a far greater percentage of the population in to poverty. In the UK, we have moved away from a NHS that aimed to provide the best medical care free for all to one that repeatedly is more based on cost benefit. Within the widening social inequity of modern English society this becomes more and more a situation where the poor will in the not too distant future be in a position where they receive only basic medical care. This is then exacerbated by the other social inequities wrt housing, education, and so on. For the poor, and particularly the very poor (and the % of those classed as such increases year on year in both the UK and US), their life expectancy, health and quality of life worsens year on year. There has for example been a considerable rise in cases of TB, malnutrition etc in the UK of late - particularly within marginalised communities. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ On a more personal level - my father-in-law had a private medical insurance for some 40 years. He was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in 2004 and died some 15 months later. In the last 9 months of his life his medical care was provided by the NHS, with palliative care paid for by us privately. His insurance company pointed to the list of illnesses that were not included in his 'all risks' cover and declined to pay for anything. In 2005 the same happened to my mother-in-law. As I said previously I can't even get medical insurance as I have a notifiable illness. It isn't just a case of having and being able to afford medical insurance but what is covered. -------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
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Aug 14 2009, 12:14 AM |
Apologies for the late reply fkalich...
Yes and no. Yes as it pulls out both the material structural conditions and the immaterial psychological, cultural and social ones. As such there is - if I read you correctly - a recognition of both what Engels termed the 'false consciousness' of the working class and, somewhat differently, what Gramsci developed as a critique of hegemony. No because it perhaps overplays the above and runs the danger of leaving us either trapped or even (perhaps) worse quiescent. For me I would like to think, that as Foucault once put it, that we are not dominated by power but that not only do we all have the potential to resist but that resistance is concomitant with the exercise of power. To offer an example, years ago I lived and worked in Runcorn New Town (NW England near Liverpool). At the time the New Town had one of the highest rates of unemployment in the UK and had the highest suicide rate in Western Europe. In my experience people there at the time were very aware of their position viz. society more widely and often gave up all hope. That however isn't the same as suggesting that they were unaware of their position, needed education, suffered from a 'false consciousness' and so on... Arguably very much the opposite and their burden was being too aware of their predicament. Some give up and succumb to despair, some look for ways out (I went to Uni), some look for ways to resist the dominant culture/hegemony (some a mixture). ------------------------------------------------------------------ As a piece of anthropological observation on the level of despair that I witnesses. (What follows is not a NICE story so people may not want to continue to read this...) ------------------------------------------------------------------- At the time I worked in a pub in the New Town. If you've ever seen C4's TV series 'Shameless' you'll know about the estate's pub 'The Jockey'. The one I worked in however made 'The Jockey' look like 'The Savoy'. There was nothing 'easy' about the pub, it was a place to drink and forget so room wasn't wasted on things like decorations, a juke box, a pool table, etc. There were a few, cheap tables and chairs and the bar. The doors in to the pub were steel reinforced and all the windows were bricked up. We usually worked with the bar security screen part down and in the evening we had the cash register locked behind its own security screen. Many, maybe all, of the regulars were hardened drinkers. They weren't there to socialise but to drink as much and as quickly as possible. Random violence was common place. I've seen people fight over nothing. I've seen people glassed for spilling someone's drink and I've had a few people try to glass me. These were regulars btw we didn't get random customers wander in off the street - this wasn't violence aimed at strangers. Violence here was usually a result of boredom fueled by alcohol - random violence as entertainment. The worst example happened one night when one regular came in. He sat and drank for about 1 hour before getting up and going to the toilet. When he returned to the bar he pulled out a box of matches and torched himself. He died 3 days later from 97% burns. We think that he doused himself in petrol in the toilet. He'd been a regular in the pub for 5 years yet I only knew his first name. After he died we found out that he'd lost his job 3 months earlier and that that week his wife had left him. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Despair so strong permeates your being and eats you alive and part of that despair is being all too aware of your 'place' in society and the futility of your situation. Such a despair we must resist, or, like Kierkegaard would perhaps have argued, the important thing when faced with despair of this magnitude is the manner in which we continue to live our lives. It too often seems to me that part of the hegemony exercised by the dominant in society is the ability to induce despair and hopelessness and to so make people give up. Remove social medical care from all but those that can afford it and you may well induce despair in those who need but can not afford it at a time when they are most vulnerable. Exacerbate this by then blaming these very people by telling them it is their own fault for not working hard enough/well enough/long enough. It is, imho, the most abjectly nasty ressentiment going. I'm just a sad old socialist who understands far too little but still refuses to go gently in to the night . -------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
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