Yes, Dubai and Thailand are well known for their massive and ethnically diverse populations.

And this is another example where cash payment for services is working out really well.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

There are vastly poorer ethnically diverse countries that have better outcomes, since the entire populace has access. Looking across states (which are more easily compared), states with higher coverage have better outcomes, taking into account various other factors. Then entire "I can't ever make any comparisons of any type" is a front for implacable ideological rigidity. You are welcome to a world utterly devoid of any evidence that you are willing to accept.

MakeAmericaEvidenceproof

BTW, You need moderate pragmatic liberals like me (and moderate Republicans), more than you can ever admit. Without us, short-sighted ideology inevitably loses, and it is really ugly.

What is the cost for bringing a malpractice suit against doctors in those medical tourist destinations? A lot of other countries also allow, or unknowingly allow doctors to practice procedures that are not approved in the US. Folks will travel there if they cannot get what they want in the US.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

I don't know what is up with all the prison shows on MSNBC. Anyway, MSNBC is a liberal network and they admit it. Since Fox News has taken the conservative position CNN tries to position itself right in the middle to try to capture everyone else but in trying to not offend liberals or conservatives CNN has become so lame they aren't worth watching.

I think that the string of your responses clearly answers your rhetorical question: "Please tell me what you think my views are on the major political issues of the day and explain how the views that I have are "right wing". Read through them again. The only answer, "Yes, I'm right-wing, and I'm right too!"

Pro choice, atheist, pro drug legalization, anti death penalty, pro SSM, for equal rights for all, pro-free speech...

Yup, crazy right winger, I am.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

and pro-free market, pro-states rights, anti-taxation, anti-climate change regulation, anti-gun regulations, pro-vouchers (not sure about this). You are a libertarian. The most important aspect of this entire list is the taxation/free-market/state policies, because all of the other ones only apply to small segments of the overall populace. In that you are most definitely on the right. Most importantly, your posts take the far "wing" rather than ever really acknowledging that there are two sides to every issue. In that way, you invariably live out on "the wing" of every debate. Reread all of your posts on health care.

Yes.


Meh, more like pro individual rights. I'm not too hopped up on state governments either.


I'm not anti-tax, I'm anti-more tax. I believe the revenue collected by governments at all levels is way more than enough. I live in the real world and realize that taxes are needed. And our level of taxation (those of us who pay taxes) is more than enough.


Again, we have more than enough gun regulations. More gun regulations only affect law abiding gun owners. I'm not against gun regulation. We just don't need anymore.


If you mean school vouchers, no. I'm against school vouchers.


My opposition to government run healthcare is based on my experience working with government agencies of all levels. It's not ideological. In fact, part of what inspires me to oppose government run healthcare is the fear of idiology mixing with healthcare decisions. If you think this fear is unfounded then you simply lack the experience that I have with government employees. Another thing I fear is the complete lack of accountability or liability or recourse we would have when a rouge government employee makes decisions about my healthcare based on ideology or personal vendetta.

Don't think that will happen? Again, I will assume you lack experience in dealing with government agencies.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

This is a good way to approach libertarianism anyway. It's much easier to argue where we are on the liberty/authoritarianism continuum, and argue that we need to either stay where we are or move a little toward more liberty. Usually libertarians get pulled into an argument about how Somalian level anarchy would be good for the United States.

Yeah, well I'm not an anarchist (anymore).

I've posted numerous times here that if we laws they should be strictly and equally enforced.

The fastest way to get shitty laws repealed or changed is to enforce them vigorously.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Umm, relying on anecdotalism over demographic data is pretty much a defining characteristic of extreme ideology. In a mixed economy there is always government involvement. We are simply choosing how to fix glaring shortcomings, namely soaring costs and the question of how do you provide necessary healthcare for all citizens? "I oppose government-run healthcare" isn't really in that discussion, that ship sailed long ago.

And the fact that you think our government can do it cheaper shows a degree of willful ignorance.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

What's exciting about this argument is that it looks more and more like we will get "single payer" (that's a classic Newspeak term if there ever was one) healthcare fairly soon.

You and I just may get see how right I am.

My only hope is that people who support "single payer" suffer the most.

Hopefully some conservative right wing bureaucrat sees democrat voter registration and denies cancer treatment and pain killers. And thousands of cancer stricken democrats die a long agonizing death, all the while wondering why they aren't getting their "free" treatments.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Duffy is right concerning government agencies. Bureaucratic nightmares!

Anyone who wants to see an example of a single payer healthcare system only has to look at the Veterans Affairs medical system. Yes those guys get medical care but it is now heavily dependent on the private medical world to make sure it's done in a timely fashion. Before all this recent controversy with wait times became a hot media topic, vets would have to wait months and months to see a specialist. A friend's father needed cataract surgery and was told the next available appointment was 4 months away. Now Congress has mandated the vets must get an appointment within 30 days (and within 40 miles of their location). This is why so many vets are referred out to the private docs because the VA system cannot handle this. If we become single payer, you can bet we will have the same backed up waits as the VA used to have (and it will depend on a private portion to alleviate the stress).

If you really want to see a shit show you should tag along with me when I'm doing contracted work for one government entity that is being overseen (inspected) by another government entity.

It would be comical if it wasn't so sad.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

There is a seed of truth to what Duffy says. When I worked at a state University procurement was part of my job. I had an IBM Selectric typewriter on my desk because our purchasing department would only accept their own 5 part carbon form. One professor got so sick of having to type out purchase orders on a typewriter that she had a print shop make copies in all 5 colors so she could use a word processor and print her purchase order out on each color and use this but the purchasing department still rejected it because "it wasn't our form." Usually the form would go back and forth between my department and purchasing a few times for corrections and justifications and when they were satisfied with it they would retype it on their own slightly different 5 part carbon form and send this off to the state capital. There they took the form from our purchasing department and retyped it on their own form before but they would use their own verbiage and sometimes things were lost in translation that caused more delays.

Funny thing was that even with all this bureaucracy and inefficiency we still did better than area private schools. Even without subsidies we would still be cheaper than local private colleges because we were more efficient and did more with less. Bureaucracy exists in private corporations, companies and universities as well.

I've been to Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England and Ireland. Their system has problems but they do manage to provide better health care to their citizens for less money than the US spends.

The problem is news is "infotainment" now. Fox News tells conservatives what they want to hear while MSNBC tells liberals what they want to hear. CNN tries to forge a path between them hoping to pick up everyone in the middle. News used to be seen as a public service but now it is just another program trying to attract more views. There are still journalists in other countries are more committed to truth than popularity.