Things Dems Hate About Baucus' Bill

Agree with both of you. Other things they could (and never will) discuss in depth: a) the truckloads of cash delivered to congress' door by the corporations concerned, b) the 2.4$ trillion the wars in I/A will cost by the time we pay them off (CBO). Why is half that amount, to properly fix a thorougly broken system, why is putting gov't to work for Americans judged to be profligate but putting it to work in countries they DO NOT give a flying sh!t about a great investment?
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Imagine if for every Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin post over the last 9 months, for every MS fluff piece, they'd been spending time and energy doing what SZ does, researching how other countries do things and reporting it to their readers. Well, that's better left to music, "imagine"ing.
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“All great historical ideas started as a utopian dream and ended with reality. Whether a particular idea remains as a utopian dream or becomes a reality depends on the number of people who believe in the ideal and their ability to act upon it.”

Rustydog:

Simply put, the Government insured countries of the OECD clearly point out in their own studies that rationing is how they also curb costs. We do not have rationing in the US simply because if you can't afford healthcare, you do not go to the hospital or doctor. With rationing, the OECD countries are able to keep costs low because people simply know the wait is way too long and will die anyways.

I'd like to take what you're saying seriously (I'm still mulling over the OECD's data you've helpfully provided), but this assertion is absurd --a poor, crude, pejorative reduction, given the facts.
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If it were remotely true that people are left to die in the rest of the world, could this http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778.html

As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.

or this

In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment. One Thursday morning in Tokyo, I called the prestigious orthopedic clinic at Keio University Hospital to schedule a consultation about my aching shoulder. "Why don't you just drop by?" the receptionist said. That same afternoon, I was in the surgeon's office. Dr. Nakamichi recommended an operation. "When could we do it?" I asked. The doctor checked his computer and said, "Tomorrow would be pretty difficult. Perhaps some day next week?"

or this

The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.

or, perhaps most tellingly, this http://www.gallup.com/poll/122393/oecd-countries-universal-healthcare-gets-high-marks.aspx

On availability of quality local healthcare, the median percentage of satisfied respondents among countries with universal health coverage is 79%, 13 percentage points higher than the median percentage among those without universal coverage (66%). For those that have confidence in their national health system, the difference is again 13 points (73% for those with universal coverage, 60% for those without).

also, simultaneously be the case?
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Your ideology and presumptive storylines are getting the better of your ability to absorb all the facts about this issue, Rustydog.
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Try not leaping to the conclusion that the richest countries in the world have populations that are living and mercilessly dying in Iron Curtain-style totalitarian poverty, simply because their governments may have --may have-- set the prices for their health care vendors at reasonable levels.
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Price controls don't seem to make the rest of the developed world into suffering miserables, Rustydog, so it's not likely that the North Korean souplines you imagine exist, even if your favorite scary word (non-priced based) "rationing" can be truthfully applied.
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Maybe "rationing" doesn't really mean what you think it means, i.e. wartime scarcity, when the price of something is actually affordable for citizens.
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Ever think of that, Rustydog?

You're right... the Soviets never invented anything once the Iron Curtain was drawn because there was no economic incentive to do so.
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...oh, wait.

Most countries regulate health-sector prices and service volumes in one way or another. Government regulators may impose wage controls, as is common in systems where most of the health care workers are public-sector employees, like the Nordic countries, Greece, Italy, and Portugal. In other systems, prices for medical services, supplies and institutional care are usually set administratively, or with government oversight, when prices are agreed between health care purchasers and providers. Most countries take measures to influence the system's capacity to furnish services by controlling medical school admissions and the provision of equipment for high-tech care, and so on.

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If this doesn't mean rationing stuart, I don't know what else it could possibly mean.
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Rationing as defined: "is the controlled distribution of resources and scarce goods or services."
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It is in BLACK and WHITE stuart. I respectfully disagree with you. The way you get from $7400 / year in the US to your $3400 / year in Japan that you tout all the time is for "services to be rationed". Period.
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While the Japanese do see the Doctor more for routine visits, you claim does not state how much of the more expensive, hospital stays they do or rather do NOT use.
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A simply routine visit 15 times a year to a doctor's office, is a big difference to the length of stay in a hospital. Do you have stats on how often the Japanese go into the hospital? I do know they use and have more MRI's than we do in the US.
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I will keep searching for a study that compares how much OECD countries populations go without needed care due to rationing. I'm not optimistic that they will publish this type of information on their site.
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http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/1054/Health_care:_A_quest_for_better_value_.html
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Rustydog:
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sigh...

Rationing as defined: "is the controlled distribution of resources and scarce goods or services."

Of course it's "controlled distribution"...what do you think is going on in the world? There isn't a huge pile of health care goodies out there somewhere, and there isn't a free-for-all where sick folks are whacking at pinatas for drugs. Everywhere there's controlled distribution. What do you think Medicare is? How about Wellpoint? Know about those things called "Out of Network Specialists"?
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You're making some kind of mental leap between rationing, which is how governments handle precious, scarce resources in times of great crisis or economic hardship, so that national unity is preserved (poor folks don't gang up and kill rich folks to get the hoarded necessities), and organized distribution, which is what service-providing systems do. We have organized distribution, the Germans have organized distribution, everyone in the developed world has organized distribution.
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It seems that you're getting bent out of shape because of words, not concrete, practical goings-on, Rustydog.
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Why do you suddenly have this idea that the rest of the industrialized, fabulously wealthy world is going through the kind of extreme, World War II hardship suggested by the word "rationing"? It's not Stalingrad in the winter of 1942 everywhere! Ordinary people just don't have those kind of problems --they get sick, and they see a doctor, and they get better...that's it.
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Are you under the impression that the German people are unhealthy? Do you think that Germans are suffering under the yoke of heavy oppression, and are desperate to have a system like ours? Do you really believe that "rationing", at least the proto-soviet kind with which you are strangely obsessed, is going on in the Federal Republic of Germany?
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Have you ever been to Germany?
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Just out curiosity, when was the last time that you were in Europe, and where were you, Rustydog?
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...and thanks for the civil discourse, many could learn from your example.

Are you banging your head against the keyboard yet?
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I know you're big on trying to reach out to rusty's demographic, so maybe try this:
You're acting like he's a rational member of 21st century American society.
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Maybe imagine him as some backwoods priest, mysteriously transported from 1450.
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This hypothetical person would have no idea about the Enlightenment, hygiene, democracy, human rights, or the outside world (apart from a few wars fought years and years ago).
He would be terrified of the plague, but utterly ignorant as to its roots.
All arguments would begin and end with the Bible.
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He would be unable to conceive of justice outside of the routine torture of peasants. He'd have no idea why you might think bear-baiting repugnant. He would declare birth control an abomination as it encourages sins of the flesh.
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Obviously this is a gross exaggeration of rusty's demographic, but I think a lot of these qualities are there in kind, if not in quantity.

No stuart, I am not comparing 1942 rationing to healthcare in OECD countries today with their healthcare.
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I hope that people in these countries are obtaining regular, routine healthcare. But it is documented that there are waiting lists in most all the OECD countries you cite as being "less than half" the cost of what we have in the US.
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I am just saying that by postponing care, 6 or 8 months, in the long run over the course of many years, this would save money. People would die as a result. Especially when you have a country such as the US which is the world's largest non-communist industrialized country, with the largest population of any OECD country, the possibility of rationing is a very real possibility in my opinion.
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Treatment A could be withheld and instead what is ordered is Treatment B. Treatment B being less costly and less invasive. Elective surgeries could be kept waiting until it turns into an emergency for lack of staffing or availability in an operating room.
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I do believe as you do that costs must be controlled in some way. Although it grates on every free enterprise nerve in my body when I say it. Hopefully, if the idiots in Washington DC pass legislation that opens up competition, and break up the mega-hospital complexes that have replaced the smaller individual hospitals of 20 years ago we will see a return to more hospital beds. Open up more slots in medical and nursing schools.
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Drugs most specifically should be cost-controlled. I have read other resources lately that show in the other OECD countries, putting on price controls on just drugs would make a huge impact on curbing costs for Healthcare. I just worry that it would impact research, and the development of new drugs.
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I also appreciate your civil discourse as always.

Cliff:
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What is the essence of liberalism?

The essence of liberalism?
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The desire to see the benefits of society made available to everyone?
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If you've got an official one, let me know, but otherwise I think it's difficult to pin down.

The desire to see the benefits of society made available to everyone?
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That's interesting, I wouldn't have said that.

That's the problem, is that there's so many arenas that feed into politics - economy, military, justice, environment, education, etc. etc.
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And please note I said "made available," not "redistributed" - lest I be called socialist.

These are the facts, according to impartial, absolutely reputable, economics-types at something called the OECD:
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Americans spend $7,421 per person per year on health care.
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Everyone else spends less than half of that, like Japan, for example, who spends about $3400. They live longer than us, they see the doctor more than us, they're older than us, and they're healthier than us, they're happier with their system than we are with ours --yet they pay much less.
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The bottom line is that we, as a country, are getting a really, really bad deal for our dollars. We're being over-charged in a way that other countries aren't.
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Will health care reform change that? If not, then we'll continue to go broke, but it will just happen a lot sooner after we cover everybody.

...and neither will centrist Democrats.

Oregon JC:
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Can you at lest concur with the notion that what Mencken so aptly described is not what constitutes the American spirit as it has manifested itself to date?

SZ, the above, or the passage I linked to on 104-05 yesterday? And I should say I'll be teaching from 8-11pm your time, so if you elaborate, I'll try to get back to you over lunch. And please define "American spirit"

...are you saying you don't know what American spirit is (not the cigarettes)?

SZ, buddy, are you being elliptical or is it just me?
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Spell it out for your obtuse comrade--the entire Mencken essay, the above section, the two pgs. I linked to yesterday? And there are surely as many definitions of "the American spirit" as there are Americans--what's your definition. I eschew mono-meanings.