talkpolitics | Why the ' Invisble Hand ' does not always work..

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Why the ' Invisble Hand ' does not always work..

It has been said that if Socialism ever came to the USA, there would be starvation, rioting in the streets, and the whole fabric of society would collapse. People would literally die as a result of policies.

Well, lets be honest, Americans have been dying of US government policies for a long time now.

Americans died as a result of the wars in Vietnam , Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Americans are dying as a result of the fact that many US citizens are tried for murder and end up on Death Row. Americans die, on average, at a significantly younger ge than people do in Sweden. Oh, and more babies per 1,000 die in America than in 31 other countries.
Fact: a baby has a better chance of reaching the age of 1, and the age of 5 in many European countries than a baby born in the USA. So much for the 'Free Market' saving lives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

Now, why is this, you may ask? I mean, the USA is the one nation in the developed world where there is no National Health programme. Is this a good thing or not? Let me explain something to you that you might have missed...

Currently, in the UK, there are around 2 deaths a week on average due to women being attacked by their partners or ex partners. So, you may think that there is a real need for hostels, refuges, where women can go seeking shelter and safety. Although volunteers have opened up refuges, there are few places. there are even fewer places for boys between the ages of 14 and 17. None at all for young men aged 17 and over.Now why?

Is it because these people lack the purchasing power?

I think this one question lays bare the impotence of the Free Market in tackling social problems. Sure, if you happen to be a celebrity, a place like The Priory Clinic will take you in and detox you and help you cure your alcoholism. But if you are GI Joe, just come back from a tour of duty in 'Nam or Iraq, and you are having recurring nightmares due to having seen your buddies literally blown to bits right in front of you - well, there is not much help for you and ~your~ drinking problem.

See , when I was young , I read this book by a guy named Adam Smith, who was talking about how governments didn't need to legislate so much, because if people wanted something, the market would supply it - the market, if allowed to operate freely, was like an 'invisible hand', that would solve all people's problems.

And to ~some~ extent this is true. If you have money, and can buy what you want, someone out there will try to meet that need to make a profit. But suppose you are dirt poor? I veture to suggest that , far from falling over themselves to develop a solution to your problems , the free market will not give a damn.

Let's be honest, in the USA , men of a certain age caan get Viagra, no trouble.
But a woman who wants the pill - sometimes on prescription b/coz her physician has prescribed it to cure a hormonal imbalance that causes heavy and painful periods for instance - well, some self appointed guardian of public morals can refuse to let her have her medication because he is a pharmacist who opposes contraception on religious grounds. And, if he happens to be the only Pharmacist in a small , one horse town , what use is this 'invisble hand then?

JK Rowling is the world famous Author of the Harry Potter books.A self made millionairess. yet, she says, she will never vote Conservative or become a tax Exile.
She says that it was the safety net of Social Security that enabled her to survive when times were hard, and now that she can afford to, she has no problem with paying taxes to help women who are struggling now.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7096786.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

This, to me, is the reason we need socialist policies in some areas.i dunno about the government buying up businesses like the phone system , or steel production - that sort of thing is best done by the private sector, I believe. but education, housing, healthcare - the government has a role here, and governments that can find a way to deliver these services well are doing a great job.

Americans ought to get real, there are lots of counties where the State is handling a lot of stuff, and people are having better outcomes than US citizens as a result. so, to any and all who suggest the Free market as a cure all, I suggest they stick the 'Invisble Hand' of Adam Smith somewhere that the sun don't shine.

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Insurance should be a saftey net for those who cannot save, in reality it's a money making scam! How many people have been denied payouts from insurance schemes they've paid into all their lives, when they are silly enough to get sick?

You also forgot that germany does IMRs in exactly the same way - and still beats you on IMR outcomes.
I wish I could find the link that shows that the UK does as well, but there we are.

I was also shocked to read that the USA has much more prematures per 1,000 - but it was late last night. It would seem though , that the USA has poorer healthcare for pregnant women - hence their higher figures for premature birth.

No - you won't buy that, Im sure, just like you wouldn't buy our Australian freind's data.

but the truth is out there. Universal Health Coverage is cheaper , and gives comparable outcomes in most cases, better in some , to the US system.

Yeah - I know the feeling. :)

I am all in favour of private enterprise, but if you let businesses operate without any regulations at all- well look at what BP has done recently in the Gulf og Mexico.
I can't think of a better reason for having some form of regulation in the market.

the reality is that germany has the same system - the exact same system as the USA - but better outcomes in terms of IMRs.
But lets for get them, lets focus on the guys who do things different, then claim that "we in the UShave counted our premature births", and that skews the figures.

Er, germany counts it's prematures too.
it seems your argument is invalide, but if you want to cling to your preconceptions it's your choice.

Ours are worse than yours statistically speaking.

I'm guessing the Native Americans have a similar view :)

that's funny - I am sure I included the list in my OP.

What I'm looking for is a list that shows how each country measures what a birth is.

If you want to use the data from a report to support your argument that the USA is tops, you cannot dismiss that same data when it shows that Australia is doing at least as well.

I'm not dismissing it, I'm saying that I'm not convinced the data truly shows that on a whole as you're asserting.

Try again. It's about technology and attitudes towards what a saveable baby is.

weel , we are seeing that the USA spends far more and achieves less.

you may also want to answer the second link on my latest post that shows the UK doing better than the USA , iusing the same yardstick on IMR...

personally, I think this is brilliant, and will be adding it to my ETA on the latest OP.

However, could you do me the links on cancer cure rates - the USA leads in this field, mainly due to a policy of rigourous early screening. Every country ought to b e doing this too, and we would certainly do well to emulate American practice in this area.

weel , we are seeing that the USA spends far more and achieves less.

No, we're not. We're seeing that the government apparently spends more, but the data does not show less achievement when all areas are otherwise equal.

you may also want to answer the second link on my latest post that shows the UK doing better than the USA , iusing the same yardstick on IMR...

You haven't shown that.

However, could you do me the links on cancer cure rates - the USA leads in this field, mainly due to a policy of rigourous early screening. Every country ought to b e doing this too, and we would certainly do well to emulate American practice in this area.

But other countries cannot do this because the governments run the health care system.

No - we have premature babies in England as well, we count them in our figures, and we still do better than the USA.
Go to my latest OP for all the info.

what draws you to this conclusion ? Please supply sources as well as the raw data in yr answer.

The U.S. infant mortality rate was still higher than for most European countries when births at less than 22 weeks of gestation were excluded.

When births at less than 22 weeks were excluded, the U.S. infant mortality rate dropped from 6.8 to 5.8 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2004 (2).

Figure 2 shows infant mortality rates excluding births at less than 22 weeks of gestation for the United States and selected European countries in 2004.

The U.S. infant mortality rate of 5.8 was nearly twice that for Sweden and Norway (3.0), the countries with the lowest infant mortality rates. Infant mortality rates for Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia were higher than the U.S. rate.

from the second link you gave - graph not included...

Yes you count them, but preterm rates are not quite double in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterm_birth

HAAHAHAHAH - no, I'm not doing any more of your home work for you - I've supplied you plenty of links to explore how the data is put together and why the trends occur.

point 1.
i will do more research and come back on this, if you wish.

point 2. You haven't shown that.
Please go here. please read the entire report. this was the link I was looking for earlier.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm
it will show that
a) the UK and the USA use the same system for counting all live births - like the USA, the UK does not cheat by excluding premature births. I forget the exact term , I think it's 'preterm births' in the report, but it means the same thing.
b) Britain, Germany and a lot of other European countries use the same yardstick as the USA - and get better results in terms of IMR.

Point 3.
I take your point that the USa leads the world on cancer care. However, what the Americans are doing seems to be screening and early diagnosis. no reason why a government initiate could not do this as well.

well, i have gone and pasted several links of my own , that show rather opposite conclusions. Its over o my latest OP , if you dare look...

i think you mean "almost doudle", and I wonder why the USA has more than 50% more preterm, or premature babies than us?

Either way, this issue of preterms does not account for better survival rates among full term babies - and that is also shown on the second link of my latest OP.
in fact, why not go there and put all our cards on the table.
/

The USa leads the world in terms of Cancerscreening, and better health outcomes for prostate cancer as a result. in terms of other cancers, it compares favourably also.
yet , in terms of Life Expectancy, IMRs and other markers, the European system of NHC wins.
This isn't a pissing contest. By comparing notes, we could learn from each other and have better outcomes on both sides for everyone. Agreed?

They bill insurance companies for a percentage and the rest you have to pay, how big percentage depends on how good your insurance is. Also, it is pretty common that insurance companies try to deny their responsibility and either win the claim, or put you through an extensive (and expensive) kafka-like paper haul on your way to get the right of it.

Also, if you have any form of pre existing mental illness or physical ailment, you're gonna have a bitch of a time to get affordable insurance in the US. If you have money, you can get private insurance of the pretty costly kind, which will usually cover your needs, but it costs at least a grand a month.

These last five years in the US have been interesting for me, to compare between systems. I've even seen cases where ppl have great insurance through their work, and then get long term chronic illnesses (MS in this case), where the job finds a way to get rid of them, even though they continue to be productive and do the job, and the reasons are muddled (cutbacks in this case), but very probably in part because of the medical costs. So..I dunnow, while you get good treatment when you're funded, your "funders" can withdraw the carpet from under your feet when you least expect it, and when you need it the most.

Also, something that maybe all non-US people might not be aware of, health insurance through your job can be pretty costly too, just very cheap in comparison to some other options. I've had Great West Health Insurance in the US, which is pretty good, but it darn well cost me $400 from my paycheck, and didn't in any way cover everything. It is still a decent insurance, considered better than Kaiser, which is one of the largest here.
Soon my streak of luck with this type of health insurance will end, and I'll have to see what I can afford while working as a contractor again. It's going to be tough if I get ill.

Correct - it's not a pissing contest. I suggested initially that you needed to learn more about US health care programs and the way stats were aggregated. This turned out, in fact, to be correct.

I have two parents surviving Cancer in Sweden. My dad's prostate cancer was discovered and treated very speedily, he could choose 3 different methods and is cancer free and under regular controls, 3 years later. My mom got 1/3 of her lung removed through surgery due to cancer, 10 years cancer free.

If me or my husband get the big c, we will be moving to Sweden.

Infant Mortality in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality#United_States) has the following passage:

"...in 2009, the US CDC issued a report which stated that the American rates of infant mortality were affected by the United States' high rates of premature babies compared to European countries and which outlines the differences in reporting requirements between the United States and Europe, noting that France, the Czech Republic, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Poland do not report all live births of babies under 500 g and/or 22 weeks of gestation.[6][9][10] However, the report also concludes that the differences in reporting are unlikely to be the primary explanation for the United States’ relatively low international ranking.[10]"

I did not follow the cited links as it's late and I'm tired. Good luck, though. I believe the information you are looking for is there somewhere.

Well, now we know that the USA uses the same system as the UK, and we know that preterms don't affect the IIMR figures to the point where the USA looks better than the UK, lets go back and ask why the UK looks after its black people better than the US takes care of its white population, shall we?

Lets ask why the USA spends more than everyone else, but only gets halfway up the league table in life expectancy, also.

let's look at the whole ' we don't need a UCH system in the US' argument and ask "Why not? Who benefits and who loses if we do or we don't"?

Thanks.
i will check this out and put it on my latest Op, already up.
good night and thanks for the stuff you mentioned earlier.

No worries, mate.

And thanks for the thread.

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