Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "The Hill"
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@Steve Fortuna Sudan doesn't have many year-round, all-weather paved roads. They traditionally have relied on railroads, and the limited roads they do have were built with US equipment. Sudan is 2.8x the size of Texas, with a tiny fraction of the roads.
Albania didn't have private ownership of vehicles until after the collapse of Soviet socialism, even with Yugoslavia being somewhat independent. One can encounter goats, mule-drawn carriages, and vehicles in mixed traffic while development and modernization is still underway.
Zaire is the Demicratic Republic of Congo now and no longer exists. The Congo Pedicle Road that passes through it is a copper transport route with dirt roads, arbitrary fines and tolls from low-paid police, and has deteriorated over time and the elements. Do an image search and see what it looks like. There are places in Europe where entire cars fall into pot holes that are concealed by heavy rain (Ukraine), and Ukraine has better roads than much of the world.
On our worst day in the middle of natural disasters and blown-out roads from floods and earthquakes, our roads are still the envy of places like Albania, the Congo, or Sudan. To try to compare places like this is indicative of someone who is not traveled or experienced with life outside the US.
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@amano3847 There are multiple factors to consider when assessing Healthcare, starting with availability. None of the G8 or G20 nations have the same availability or timeliness of services as in the US.
Most of the advancements in medicine, diagnostic equipment, and EMS have been pioneered in the US, then shared with these other less-populous nations.
The US helped rebuild most of the G8 nations after WWII, developing infrastructure including Healthcare services and hospitals. This is especially true for UK, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy, who all suffered major losses to infrastructure and prime age males.
You can cherry-pick some of the statistics to make the US look worse if you don't account for per capita data, especially since the other G8 nations pale in comparison to the US population.
Even still, if you get hurt in the US, you have access to quick transport to a level 1 trauma center staffed by multiple specialists in EMS who benefit from the latest developments in funded battlefield trauma research, which drives equipment and diagnostic systems.
There are far more quality medical universities and programs in the US to train Doctors, RNs, LPNs, Paramedics, lab techs, Pharmacists, imaging technicians, and staff, to the extent that professionals from around the world go to school in the US so they can take that knowledge back to their home countries.
What I saw in the BC area of Canada after my cousin's accident/death was very modern and looked like it could have been in a US hospital, but the timeliness of access to care in Canada is a known issue that can't be denied and ignored.
Canada has benefitted greatly from US investments in healthcare, has negotiated its US-provided drug prices into a fraction of what is paid here (that's changing under Trump's order last week), and works jointly with the US more as a partner when it comes to this issue.
The WHO statistics on healthcare aren't structured well at all, and one would be a fool to trust anything coming from that corrupt body, which goes without saying as of late.
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@atarkus8 You can have no insurance in the US, not speak English, and you have to get an MRI or other diagnostic services for life-saving procedures in public hospitals.
Most of the US population lives in a metropolitan area and its suburbs. Since almost every single State has at least one major metro area, and many States with several major metro areas, it's better to compare US States individually with other nations-where you often have limited metro areas and unipolar infrastructure like in Finland (Helsinki).
You don't have to pay a ton of money out of pocket since almost everyone in the US is either on employer-provided health insurance, or is eligible for Medicare and Medicaid.
Indian doctors are not just as good since they don't have access to the same training and support, even if they go to school in the US. The ones that come to the US stay in the US as a general rule, due to the plague-ridden levels of poverty and infectious diseases in India.
It's impossible to receive equal care in India just from a sanitation, clean water, and infected population perspective. We're talking about a place where homeless people evict the dead from their graves to have a place to sleep.
Using extreme examples from during the COVID-19 response in the few areas that were overwhelmed is not a good position to take when comparing healthcare availability between nations.
My friend who was waiting for the liver transplant on a list was a Finnish citizen, born and raised there, spent 9 years in the Finnish Army, did de-mining work in Africa as part of a UN mission, went to school in Saint Petersburg Russia, was a small business owner, very interesting guy with a storied life. He'd probably still be alive if he lived in the US, but I can't say for sure. He was only 46.
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@RyanJones-vl1ow That's the first anecdote in a life of anecdotes, not the only. In every single experience I've had in Finland, while I was grateful for the services, they were not good compared to the US.
They are very behind the times in hospital facilities, services, diagnostics, and especially wait times. The US Veterans Administration is much faster than what you'll experience in public hospitals in Finland.
I have a lot of family in Finland right now, have lived there multiple times, and it's not on-par with the US in most areas. If it was, I would tell you how superior it is, how much faster you get treated, and how more modern everything is.
It just isn't. You shouldn't expect it to be either when the population is only 5.4 million people and the winter is 7-9 months long, with the national government running things. The Finnish parliament and their bureaucratic infrastructure is extreme inefficient in the NHS, filled with a lot of incompetent people who don't connect the dots because there is no incentive for them to do so.
When I was living there at one time, it was widely-published that their own internal audit of their NHS discovered that patient care was at the bottom of the list of priorities in practice, and due to demographic losses of young workers, there isn't a viable solution to this since immigrant workers don't learn Finnish well, and don't have Finnish work ethics.
It was brought up as a major issue in the Finnish Presidential debates, where it was pointed out that many Finnish assisted living homes have been neglecting patients as the norm due to lack of staffing and low quality of work ethic among staff.
I've watched that for decades visiting relatives in those homes.
Coming to the US from Finland is like stepping back into the modern era when it comes to healthcare. I'm usually there 2-3 times per year until 2016. You'e been lied to is all. People go through the tourist honeymoon stage when visiting foreign countries looking for all the positives. When you actually live there for years and get to see how it really is, especially the places they don't want tourists to see, your perspective becomes more informed.
There are a lot worse places, and it's one of the few places I would feel a lot more comfortable in than most other nations, but it doesn't compare well with the US.
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@atarkus8 By law, ERs have to treat you even if you're too lazy to sign up for Medicare or Medicaid. Hospitals will be sued by greedy attorneys (who will pocket most of the damages awarded by a court) if hospitals violate Federal law. Even private hospitals were banned from sending indignant patients to community hospitals by the 1985 COBRA Act (patient dumping), for unmistakable emergencies. Patients have to be stabilized before being transported from private hospitals to public ones, otherwise they can be sued.
If a private hospital provides services, then they absolutely should be able to be paid for those services. I don't understand why people think anything is free, especially healthcare. It certainly isn't anything close to being free in Europe. Not only are you taxed excessively for it, you still have to pay a co-pay that they will come after you for in collections if you fail to do so.
Millions of people in the US who choose not to have insurance do it because of laziness or they don't want to pay for it, especially college-aged kids who don't have any medical conditions and are gambling on not having any accidents.
My entire point doesn't hinge on one aspect of healthcare. It is multi-factorial like real life, complex and hard to study before one can have a valid perspective on it.
Availability
Accessibility
Professional Training
Services
Advanced diagnostics
Advanced medicine
Advanced procedures
Long-term care
Specialized fields
Research
Cost
These are some of the important metrics to look at when comparing healthcare between nations. Starting with availability and accessibility, the US dominates those and all of the other fields I have listed.
We get criticized for cost, which is another complex variable that needs full accounting, showing how we get raped on costs of drugs while nations claiming to be so better than us get our drugs at a fraction of the price we do, even after we spent all the money on R&D and trials for those drugs.
Doctors in India have access to training in the West. I never said they didn't. If you come here on a student visa and graduate medical school, chances are you aren't going to go back to a malaria, typhus, and blood borne pathogen-infested cesspool like India or Bangladesh. They aren't stupid.
COVID stresses on various hospitals in the US are not indicative of systemic failure since only a handful of hospitals have been overwhelmed. My local hospitals haven't even come close to reaching 50% capacity in ICU for respiratory therapy, and most States haven't either. It doesn't paint the picture accurately to say that because NYC has terrible police on spreading the disease (nursing homes infected neglectfully by NY politicians), that everyone else is the same.
Terminal cancer is a bad disease no matter where you live. The grass is not greener in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Denmark, the UK, or Canada. It's going to suck. Sorry about your mother. We lost my MIL to cancer several years ago and I don't like the way she was treated either, but it happened fast. She had refused to get colonoscopies for decades because she had 3 friends die from them when the procedure was still being developed.
The US definitely has all sorts of issues, but we're the cream of the crap compared to all the other "socialist utopias". Modeling out superior system on them just doesn't make sense to me after all I've seen and learned about them.
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@tellthetruthna8523 Funny how you can't make an argument without using any merits to your case, because you've been influenced by CNN, MSNBC, CBS, PBS, ABC entertainment networks who have repeatedly been caught coordinating debate questions and messaging with Democrat campaigns.
I'm not even sure what you're talking about with Krytsa Ball, FOX, and Q Anon. I spent years in DC watching things from an inside perspective when I was stationed there as part of MDW, very close to the WH and ongoings, and have studied things independently.
For example, you don't hear anyone talking about the entrenched Republicans and Democrats who have been positioning for Presidential runs and their fear of a Trump culture effect on their prospects of access to the big donor-sponsored Dem/Repub campaigns of the future.
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@theAppleWizz Hitler was selected by the military to go penetrate bars and report on what the dissident Marxist groups were discussing.
Instead of keeping his mouth shut and ears open, he stood up shouting and debating the anti-Republic groups. They recognized his charisma and recruited him into the National Socialists Worker's Party (NAZI).
He later campaigned on how weak the Weimar leadership was, how Germany's inflation was because of foreign bankers, and deployed his Brown Shirts to go start busting people up, burning places, and threatening Jews.
Intellectually, trying to form parallels between him and Trump fall apart and you'll see far more elements of the NAZI party tactics with BLM and ANTIFA, but there are key differences there too.
If you really want a close parallel comparison, look at SDS & Weathermen vs BLM & ANTIFA, and realize that the target was always the US, regardless of political parties. Financing and the agitation of black Americans are exactly the same format as before, while run by white college kids and Democratic Socialists of America members of media and government. DSA is CPUSA rebranded.
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@theAppleWizz I guess you didn't see the funding schematics for BLM and DSA backing them, with BLM being a recruiting pool for ANTIFA. There are undercover videos of people who attended recruiting meetings for ANTIFA, very well-organized with counter-surveillance and operational security measures being followed.
There is no historical parallel to the US or our status right now. The closest might be the last Czars, but they were the establishment in Russia with foreign bankers in Germany financing political and revolutionary dissidents like Lenin, so the foreign involvement fits, but the National leadership doesn't since Trump by-passed the establishment from outside of the political system.
That's the real revolution- that someone finally did what many Americans have been begging for for decades. The media is the mouthpiece for the campaign financiers behind both parties, who can be trusted to do the bidding of the lobbyists, so that's why you see 24/7 attack Trump messaging. They can't afford to have him turn over their well-oiled sellout machine for politicians.
You had nothing like this in Germany and Russia. They are entirely different demographics, geographies, and political entities.
Obama used the police State to go after political groups with the IRS scandal if you're looking for more of a tyrannical leadership style. Then there's the whole cancel Trump attempt from McCain, Hillary, FBI Leadership, CIA, NSA, etc.
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Yup. S&L Scandal was a front for laundering cocaine money coming in from Columbia, through Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, CA, etc. Governor Clinton worked with Bush41 even when he was still VP, on the smuggling operation. The main CIA hub for air transport was built outside of Mena, where they retrofitted aircraft and flew weapons down into Honduras and Nicaragua, brought cocaine back by the pallet loads.
Bush41 said Clinton was like another son to him. Clintons had their own part of S&L scandals with Whitewater $ laundering, as well as the Arkansas Development & Finance Authority in the public sector.
It was all for laundering illicit money.
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Hillary had to bail out the DNC with Clinton Global Initiative money after Obama bankrupted the party accounts for 8 years. That out her in the position to call the shots on how things would be run, starting with her placement of Tom Perez as party Chair, Keith Ellison as Deputy Chair, Karen Carter Peterson as Vice Chair of Civic Engagement/Voter Participation, Michael Blake, Treasurer William Derrough, and Finance Chair Chris Korge II. There is a lot of younger DNC leadership opposition to Hillary within, but they don't dare cross her or make it known because of her reputation of making you disappear or have cats nailed to your doorframe, tires slashed, nightly phone calls, utilities turned off, etc. So they have to hear from Hillary wherever and whenever she wants to speak. There's a lot of bad blood between Hillary and Obama after what the puppeteers behind Obama did to her in 2008, even with the placating appointment of her to SECSTATE. It's a weird party to study in-depth. Same with the DC-based Republican establishment filled with lawyers who simply chose R because all the D seats and openings were filled.
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