SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the good-news-for-some-bad-news-for-others dept.
EU ministers demand complete restart of the controversial trade deal that has sparked mass protests across the continent. European Union ministers today admitted that a giant EU-US trade deal is dead in its current form, with drastic change needed to salvage any hope of a deal going ahead.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership [TTIP] has sparked a widespread backlash and now lies in tatters in the wake of massive protests across the continent.
Austrian Economy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner said that the pact now has, "such negative connotations", that the best hope was to "completely relaunch with a new name after the US elections. Mitterlehner also demanded "more transparency and clearer objectives." Negotiations for the free-trade zone have so far been held behind closed doors.
Slovak economy minister Peter Ziga, was similarly pessimistic, saying that a "new start or some new approach [was] needed, while EU trade commissioner " Cecilia Malmstroem said the likelihood of a deal was "becoming smaller and smaller", as she entered the talks.
Several EU representatives blamed US intransigence for the gridlock. The deal now has "only a small chance of success unless the United States starts to give a bit of ground," Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said.
Public services, especially the NHS [National Health Service], are in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europe's public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS. The European Commission has claimed that public services will be kept out of TTIP. However, according to The Huffington ost, the UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston has admitted that talks about the NHS were still on the table
[...] The EU has admitted that TTIP will probably cause unemployment as jobs switch to the US, where labour standards and trade union rights are lower. It has even advised EU members to draw on European support funds to compensate for the expected unemployment. Examples from other similar bi-lateral trade agreements around the world support the case for job losses. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico caused the loss of one million US jobs over 12 years, instead of the hundreds of thousands of extra that were promised
(Score: 2, Disagree) by zugedneb on Sunday September 25 2016, @10:53PM
There are some problems with the tax funded health care, and one of the biggest of them is the fact that it is mostly about the elderly.
There is a big taboo about talking loud about how the cost is distributed over the age of patients, but I will tell u my story.
When I was student, I got a job as cleaning guy in a hospital, and later on the logistics department in the same hospital, with the job of filling the shelves various wards in the hospital with stuff: bandages, diapers, clean cloth, and such.
The most shocking thing for me was the emergency ward...
In US docus about the ER you see lots of dramatic things happening to young people, but this is mostly not the case.
What I saw was mostly this: in the waiting room, you have the same age distribution as in a bus stop, give or take some oldies. These people can sit and wait for many hours.
At the ambulance reception part of the ER, sometimes 2-3 ambulances can come in a row with hyperventilating old people, and it is they who will take the beds in the ER.
The same thing at the Thorax intensive ward, where worked as cleaning guy: lots and lots of really old people getting bypass surgery and other shit.
Same as the urology department, lots of old people taking up the space...
Same at the surgery ward, many old people who fell and broke something...
Same at the neurology ward, many old people with brain damage because of blood clot and shit...
These old people are "high priority" patients, since they mostly arrive unscheduled.
If you have a problem and want to have a hospital place, the waiting time is the same as the time it takes for your problem to become an emergency. As long as it is only about tax money, the hospital can not discriminate, and has to take the most in need...
What some would like to see, is private insurance companies and private hospitals, so that the young people in need of healthcare can sidestep the admission rules of the tax funded hospital.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Sunday September 25 2016, @11:16PM
Or we could just kill all of the old people.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Monday September 26 2016, @01:49AM
Or we could just kill all of the old people.
Yeah, I think it was obvious that is where he was going.
Maybe the janitor needs a short course in Triage. [wikipedia.org]
Young strong people with minor cuts and bruises or (far more likely) colds and sore throats, can in fact sit there and wait with no ill effect while medical staff treat people for whom intervention may make a difference between life and death.
Just because everybody can call upon state funded medical treatment doesn't mean that all medical needs are the same.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by houghi on Monday September 26 2016, @03:55PM
Perhaps not kill, but make conscious decisions if it is actually worth the trouble. In several cases it will be, in other cases it will not be the case. A real life example:
My mother has cancer. She was proposed chemo and she declined. Why? Because at her age even if it would have been successful, the value of life would be extremely low as she would likely be bedridden for the rest of her life.
Instead she can enjoy life for the period that she will be able to have with cancer. She is 82.
Much has to do with quality of life and that does not mean that you need to kill old people, but also not that you need to keep everybody alive at any cost.
This is not an easy discussion and much will depend on case by case. Not talking about it will result in the doctor prolonging life at any cost.
This had nothing to do with money as my mother would not have needed to pay. This is (again) about quality of life. Do you rather live 2 years normal or (hopefully) 5 years is agony, because that would have been the outcome. 5 years in bed with much pain and chemo or 2 years having a normal life with friends and family?
And also note that setting records of how old you are is something that already has been done in our family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrikje_van_Andel-Schipper [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @11:17PM
Translation: They want their money to let them skip ahead of the people that are far more frail and likely to suffer complications.
IE: Poor people should just die so the rich (relatively speaking) can get their sprained ankle looked at a bit faster.
(This is why it's considered taboo by the rich to talk about it. Most of them realize they're going to look like huge, insensitive, self-absorbed dicks.)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @12:58AM
Translation of translation:
Money is evil. Governments are good. Health care should be run by bureaucracy.
What on earth is wrong with the idea that someone could walk up to a doctor who is not otherwise occupied, and say: "Listen, man, I got this pain in my knee. If you check it out, I got a crisp benjamin for you." as opposed to waiting in line while what used to be a simpler problem becomes compounded?
And why would people with money always throw all the money at it, rather than cherry-picking the urgent concerns as opposed to when they'll just pop an aspirin and wait for the edge to be taken off?
And if people with money do throw it at the medical industry, and we all get better medical care for it because now they can afford better equipment, rather than what a government budget decides they can get on any given year, why's that so bad?
Referring to the other post that pointed out canadian medical tourism, you're not going to prevent money from being spent, just dictate that it can't be spent in your country. Brilliant thinking at work.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday September 26 2016, @03:02AM
The doctor is not otherwise unoccupied unless it's because people couldn't afford to have then look at their severe chest pain radiating down their arm. 'Grats, your pampered tushie got a band-aid and gramps got a pine box.
And why would people with money always throw all the money at it, rather than cherry-picking the urgent concerns as opposed to when they'll just pop an aspirin and wait for the edge to be taken off?
And yet the best example you could come up was exactly throwing money at a condition that is far from urgent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @04:33AM
Oh, right. All doctors that aren't working 24/7 are slacking off.
.... wait, what?
Bullshit. Doctors have variable workloads. Things happen in bursts, or in cycles. Twelve car pile-up? Yeah, it's going to be busy in the ER and the OR. College kids went home to be drunk and stupid somewhere else? It'll be quieter.
If every doctor is constantly overbooked and overworked, you have a massive systemic problem to which the answer is to get the AMA to let people educate more doctors, not prevent people from negotiating for services rendered.
Even freaking Canada had to admit that just maybe the sky wouldn't fall if a private individual and a licensed physician came to a private arrangement for care.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday September 26 2016, @05:40AM
If there really is slack time, why would you pay a Benjamin to go to the front of the non-existent line?
Meanwhile, I do hope "A Benjamin" was meant colloquially since you'll need 3 of them to get a dose of Tylenol at a hospital.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday September 26 2016, @01:56PM
Usually in the civilized world, we like to think that it goes without saying why bribery and corruption are bad.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Sunday September 25 2016, @11:46PM
Some people I know who work in hospitals in Michigan state that there are hordes of wealthier Canadians who come across for care rather than wait for government hospitals. Likewise several Americans travel south of the boarder for cheaper medical care.
Regardless of the system, it will serve some group poorly as even the best markets have to make compromises with either regards to flexibility or standard of care.
Older folks will be the mainstay of medical costs just due to demographics. Any adjustments you make to make things more fair for younger people now just screws another group down the line.
A combination of public and private would be ideal, but in the end you have private competing with government that can afford deficit spending for years on end and people lobbying for more to be covered publicly.
There really isn't a good solution, just a question of what deficiencies you are willing to accept.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday September 26 2016, @04:53AM
The argument can be made that by forcing everyone (though you can't stop people from leaving the country), including the rich, to use the public system, they'll be more in favour of supporting it. And of course the opposite, when the rich can go to private, they won't want to support the public system.
There is some truth in this argument, both for healthcare and education.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @05:55AM
This is the same crap argument they put forward for banning homeschooling, private schools, alternative schools, charter schools and just about every other proposal people put forward for something, anything other than the shitty public schools they didn't want ruining their kids' futures.
It's also the same anti-minority argument every time.
People want private schools? ELITIST RICH FILTH!
Alternative schools? CRAZY HIPPY FILTH!
Homeschooling? RELIGIOUS NUTCASE FILTH!
Charter schools? ANTIESTABLISHMENT FILTH!
You don't want to be one of those nasty, filthy people, do you?
And so on and so forth. All the stigmatising and shamegaming didn't work in the end, because people kept on wanting their kids to be well educated, and the public system wasn't serving their needs. (I'm talking about the USA here, not Finland. Obviously.)
And every time the various shills for the system do stand up, they wring their hands, and through barely suppressed tears tell sad, sad stories about almost bankrupt teachers spending their own pitiful salaries to supply their pupils when in actual fact that's an argument for there being massive misallocation of funds, given that the US of A spends more per child than any other nation on earth, with the possible exception (depending on where you draw the line on things like trade schools, and purchasing power parity) of Switzerland. (Very, very expensive place to live, in case you were wondering.)
So, explain to me again how putting the same geniuses that spend money like drunken sailors, can't get value for that money, and can't suppress the massive swell of discontent and disengagement in charge of healthcare will make it all so much better?
Take your time. Write a whole book explaining how this time will be different. I will read it.
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Monday September 26 2016, @06:55AM
I'm often surprised that people can understand the abuses of monopoly in business can turn around and support them for government. Somehow moving to a different country or getting 150 million of your countrymen to agree on a course of action is better than crossing state lines or changing companies.
For nearly any public service, it would be nice government systems were responsive to the demands of the public, but especially in the case of the poor government serves as an effective bulwark against change.
The most effective means for keeping monopoly power in check is choice, whether it is healthcare or schooling or even government.
It is more a question of ensuring a fair field of play than exclusively rich vs. poor.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday September 26 2016, @12:33AM
Perhaps the real problem is people going to the ER when they don't really have an emergency? This is certainly the case in the USA where uninsured (yes, they exist, even with Obamacare) have no alternative except to go to the ER.
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Monday September 26 2016, @12:45AM
Soo... you could have just written: "Old people need more medical care"
You would have saved us a lot of time, Captain Obvious.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @01:31AM
Hope you die 'fore you get old?
Talking 'bout my generation
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday September 26 2016, @02:35AM
A little something to keep in mind. Unless you kill yourself first you will eventually be an old person. Also, your parents are old people (or nearly so depending on your age).
You might think it sounds good to switch to a system where financial wherewithal trumps actual urgency for medical procedures (yes, that's what your proposal boils down to), but there will always be someone richer than you that has a hangnail.
As someone in the U.S., I can tell you the wait times don't get any shorter when you have insurance, the eventual treatment just gets more expensive. Eventually it gets so expensive that the wait times go to infinity. You will find yourself wondering if perhaps you can get away with a DIY solution rather than risking a totally out of control medical bill. If you hit a little snag such as a layoff, DIY might be the only choice you have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @03:29AM
wondering if perhaps you can get away with a DIY solution rather than risking a totally out of control medical bill.
Even something simple like 'i have a bit of a headache can I get some Tylenol' is fucking out of control at a hospital. My mother brought her own bottle and they charged her 250+ *PER PILL*. It was going to be 350+ per pill but she brought her own. Needless to say that charge had to be renegotiated. For what they wanted to charge her she could buy my entire family a lifetime supply of the name brand stuff.