We're Number One!

[redietz]

SOOPOO is a doctor who is either retired or close to it. He's responding to redietz:

Mickey, I don't know why you even bothered with this. This is what's called a false equivalency. I wasn't comparing socialized medicine anywhere with the U.S. for-profit system. I was paraphrasing multiple doctors who were explaining publicly why there was a shortfall of equipment in the U.S. when the U.S. is such a rich country. And the answer is that for-profits have no motive to stockpile equipment that will be in use only for emergencies. The military, for example, isn't for-profit, so it can stockpile equipment that may only be used in very rare circumstances or never. For-profit models don't allow for that unless subsidized by the federal government, in which case they are really not pure for-profits. They are socialized. The point the doctors were making is that if U.S. medicine was a more socialized model, the U.S. would have more emergency supplies, including ventilators, ready in a national stockpile.

Do you mean like the European countries with their socialized medicine were all stocked up for the virus? Then why are countries like Italy and Spain letting old folks die without treatment?

You are trying to make the case that the United States, with its resources and history and personnel, would have a significantly inferior health care system if it were operating on more socialized models. One could make the exact opposite claim, that the more socialized health care systems of a place like Italy would provide better care if it had the resources, history, and personnel of the United States.

The countries, their history, and their personnel, are not equivalent. Their GDPs are not equivalent. Their tech is not necessarily equivalent.

You are trying to say that the usually fine U.S. health care system is what it is because it's for-profit, not because of it's resources, history, tech, and personnel. You are trying, at the same time, to argue that the failures of the health care system at this time are somehow not a result of the for-profit model.

What the doctors were saying is that the for-profit model of the United States is the reason supplies were short. because, for all of the resources and riches of the U.S., there is no motivation for companies to stockpile rarely needed resources for emergencies. This is unlike the military, which is not for-profit, and which routinely does research and stocks munitions that are rarely and sometimes never used. In this case, as with most emergencies of this nature, a more socialized model would have been better prepared with supplies and ventilators.

It was increasingly obvious that, this century, at some point and probably multiple points, the for-profit health care system in the U.S. was going to face these threats, in which a military model would have done significantly better than a for-profit model. It was inevitable.

Some of you seem to be feel threatened anytime the word "socialized" is inserted in a sentence. Maybe the word "military" would be better. The U.S. health care system would have been better served for COVID-19, and will be better served for future pandemics, with a military not-for-profit model.