The issue of health care

Cirdan said:

As to proving China is less developed than Belgium, again, look at the GDP per capita. Look at the average production per work-hour. One Chinese produces less than one Belgian--ergo China is less developed.

Click to expand...

This is what I'm saying you should not conclude a country's level of development with.

I will make an example using your line of reasoning.

Belgium has GDP per capita of 35,000 $.

Japan has GDP per capita of 33,400 $.

Therefore, Belgium is more developed than Japan is.

Are you saying that Belgium is more developed than Japan is, because Belgium has higher GDP per capita than Japan?

Japan has bigger population, that is all. Japan is in no way behind Belgium in level of development, despite lower GDP per capita. Neither is China.

Cirdan said:

Huh? are you being deliberately dense? Do you not agree with my summary of Chinese history? Are you telling me China had an industrial revolution comparable to Belgium's in the 19th century?

Click to expand...

History has nothing to do with this. Who cares if China's industry sucked in 19th century? This is not 19th century.

Cirdan said:

Your talk of distributing resources is absurd. It's not natural resources but human labour that underpins most economies (Qatar or Kuweït provide exceptions, because they are tiny countries located ontop of lagrlarge stocks of valuable resources).

Click to expand...

This is not what I'm talking about, god damn translation. I am talking about manpower, money, food and medical supply, electric power, civil service, transportation devices, things that the government provide people with as part of their civil welfare.

Yes, I included medical care in the 'resources'. If you have a better term, please share with us.

What's wrong with my conclusion that 'bigger the country, harder to diffuse resources.'?



Your line of reasoning that China is a less developed country because it did not undergo a significant industrial revolution during the 19th century is absurd. Japan's industry did not fare any better than China's did during that period, yet they prosper this day.

OliveTower said:

Moss said:

OliveTower said:

I think the state should pay for things you couldn't help avoid, like brain cancer (What you do hardly effects that, right?), and possibly help out more if your problem is preventing you from providing for kids. But not things that are a result of your bad decisions. Lung cancer from smoking? Pay for it yourself, fag. AIDS? Quit ****ing hobos. This, I guess, would help balance it, but I have no idea how health care works outside the states, so I can't say.

Click to expand...

Wow, I just lost all respect for you with the AIDS comment right there. Idiot.

Click to expand...

Why should I pay for the bad result of you taking a chance?

Click to expand...

By your logic, sports injuries, injuries during dangerous activities (skydiving, rock climbing) or anything else caused by "taking a chance" should not be covered by the state.

Belgium has GDP per capita of 35,000 $.

Japan has GDP per capita of 33,400 $.

Therefore, Belgium is more developed than Japan is.

Are you saying that Belgium is more developed than Japan is, because Belgium has higher GDP per capita than Japan?

Japan has bigger population, that is all. Japan is in no way behind Belgium in level of development, despite lower GDP per capita. Neither is China.

Click to expand...

Your problem is that your thinking of development as 'technology' or something like that. development is, usually, infrastructure. Sure, china might be moving up rapidly, building new highways n the like, but the simple fact is: most people still live in either a shack near a rice paddy or in a small unit in a housing block, and most down own a car and drive down a highway. China's overall level of "development" might be bigger than Belgum. But china has a ****load more people, so its "development per person" is much lower.

sneakey pete said:

Your problem is that your thinking of development as 'technology' or something like that.[/b]

Click to expand...

No. I'm not ignorant enough to think that development = technology.

I did not claim that China is technologically more advanced than Belgium, thus the more developed. No, in absence of proper inference sources, I will treat them as equals. They are both developed countries, no more, no less.

You can't say China is a third world country just because a few million of them cannot afford a proper house.  They are feeding a billion humans.

I don't think level of development should be determined by a nation's history and GDP per capita either.

I'm just going to limit my statement to this.

'Among developed countries, countries with smaller population will have easier time giving its citizens proper medical care through public sector.'

Start from there.

'Among developed countries, countries with smaller population will have easier time giving its citizens proper medical care through public sector.'

Click to expand...

Well then, i quite disagree. Size should be no limit to the effectiveness of implementing it, with todays technology (read, computers, the internet) making it pretty dam easy to register and keep track of anyone, anywhere. This can allow the public system to be broken down into individual state/provincial services while remaining usuable by anyone, anywhere.

I think the state should insure healthcare. People can hardly take the risk themselves, and the whole family can be brought down with one disease. My brother had an aneurysm, and was in the hospital for a few months, combined with brain surgery, this would easily have been enough for our family to go bankrupt, I mean sell the house and still come out short bankrupt, and we have an above average income.. Could he have done anything about it? Well, no he was barely an adult at the time, and the weak spot probably was there from birth.
A friend of mine was in a car accident, doubtful who was at fault, should he not recieve healthcare because he might have been wrong? Or if he was, and simply had a lapse of attention at the wrong time?
That said, I think there should be taxing on dangerous substances equivalent to the social cost, for instance, tax tobacco with the costs of treating cancer normalized by the amount of tobacco used. Ditto on the alcohol. It would become monstrous, but thus a price increase on tobacco can be better justified if there are more people in hospitals for it, and thus more invasive. (I'd also like for cars to have a higher price if they deliberately are a greater hazard to pedestrians and bicyclists, like pickups and SUV's with high noses. One can always dream...)

sneakey pete said:

Well then, i quite disagree. Size should be no limit to the effectiveness of implementing it, with todays technology (read, computers, the internet) making it pretty dam easy to register and keep track of anyone, anywhere. This can allow the public system to be broken down into individual state/provincial services while remaining usuable by anyone, anywhere.

Click to expand...

There are no limits. Only the difficulty of implementation. Size of the population does serve as a hindrance, even if it does not set a limit to how effective the system is going to be.



With good economy, education, infrastructure, and technology, China will be able to take care of it's citizens as well as U.S.A. can. It's just tad bit harder for them to achieve this 'good economy, education, infrastructure, and technology', because of its size.

Cloud Breaker said:

I did not claim that China is technologically more advanced than Belgium, thus the more developed. No, in absence of proper inference sources, I will treat them as equals. They are both developed countries, no more, no less.

Click to expand...

A bit besides the discussion, but as someone who's lived his whole life in Belgium I gotta say I still haven't seen anything remotely resembling development in this ****hole!
Hurgh.

Oy , matey! If you didn't liked anything in Belgium,then  you didn't ate our chocolate or our french fries .

I just finished a World Economic Geography class and we talked a lot about developed and developing countries. It should be noted that there isn't really any one measure you can use to accurately gauge a country's level of development. GDP certainly is one factor, per capita and in total, but GNI is important as well. And what are those numbers based on? Purchasing Power Parity will tell you more than simply converting the local currencies to a common monetary unit, but that can often be difficult to arrive at. And that's not even taking into account all of the non-economic factors involved like education levels and public services. However, most economists would agree that China is at this point less developed than, to use the example used in this thread, Belgium. However, it's difficult to compare them directly because China's rise has been very rapid. Economists don't even like to use their common terms, MDC's, LDC's ,and LLDC's (More, Less, and Least Developed Countries) when referring to China (and India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, just to name a few) because they don't tend to fit into the same kind of categories. They call those countries NIC's, New Industrialized Countries. But the bottom line is that China is still going through the industrial revolution that all of Western Europe already went through.

So we rule !( for now).Let's enjoy it and brag about it before they take over everything we own.