Some idiot tried to debate capitalized medicine vs socialized medicine with me. He gave the same ignorant (and wrong) arguments that I've heard many times before so I laid into him and almost made him cry.

The only reason that conservative senators and such are against socialized medicine is because they have stock in the HMOs. For those of you who don't know, HMOs are basically your insurance company, it's for profit and they can choose to deny you for any reason that they see fit. Richard Nixon, the worst American president other than Bush, was the one who let this pass through, his friend John Ehrlichman propositioned it to him:

Quote Originally Posted by John Ehrlichman
Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can . . . the reason he can do it . . . I had Edgar Kaiser come in . . . talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care . . . the less care they give them, the more money they make.
Quote Originally Posted by Richard Nixon
Not bad.
All of the crap that I hear about socialized medicine from the extreme right is completely wrong.

1. There is less incentive to be a doctor because of lower salaries: While the US does have the highest income for doctors in the world, we also have the highest salaries for almost all fields. Doctors still make well more than the average salary and private practice doctors usually make more than a million dollars a year in socialized medicine countries.

2. It's more expensive because of taxes. Most countries have a about 2% higher tax than the US. But people pay absolutely nothing for health care. At $50,000 / year, 2% is $1000. The average cost of American health care is about $4000 (it's indirect, it comes out of your income usually, but for those who aren't provided health care by their provider, this comes out of their pocket) The cost of health insurance is rising 5x faster than inflation.

3. Poorer quality. For some reason the extreme right keeps saying that doctors aren't as careful because their money comes from the government. I don't even understand their logic for this. Doctors get paid for their patients. Patients are free to switch doctors at any time if they do a poor job (unlike some HMOs.) And hospitals are free to fire doctors at any time if they do a poor job. Perhaps someone would like to explain the right wing's logic here?

4. Longer wait. Everyone always cites England's waiting for surgery as a downside of socialized medicine. That's english law, it has nothing to do with socialized medicine, and it's for non-emergency surgery only. Most countries will do surgery within a week or two, just like the united states.

5. Less medical advances. I also don't understand this one. Insurance companies don't fund research centres, the government and universities do. The funding for this type of research is exactly the same in capitalized and socialized medical systems

6. It'll lead to socialism. I never heard this one until UM and I debated about this during the last election. We already have socialized schools, police, fire departments, and a few other public services. Those didn't lead to socialism, providing health care won't either. Saying this is stupid.

7. Higher prescription costs. The people that say this has never looked at anything other than Fox News. Prescriptions are up to 100x more expensive in the United States than socialized medicine countries because they can jack the prices because insurance companies will pay for them

8. Unnecessary visits. While it's true that people will get medical care for more things because it's free, they are treated in order of severity, not first come first serve. Going to the hospital for a migraine might make someone wait a while if there are other people there.

Any other right-wing propaganda arguments that people would like to throw at me?