I have just deleted a huge block of text, chock-full of links to Wikipedia articles about Travis County and Social Democracy.To summarise:
Here are some good points to discuss when talking about socialised health-care systems such as the NHS. Is it mandatory? Is it even feasible if it's not mandatory? Should the state force people to indirectly pay for abortions or drug rehab clinics they may disapprove of? Those of you who actually think it's a bad idea can probably come up with more. I ackowledge that this isn't neccesarily a situation where there is an obvious right or wrong answer, though I'm all in favour of it.
Here is an argument I find less convincing.
"I had prostate cancer five, six years ago. My chance of surviving prostate cancer- and, thank God, I was cured of it – in the United States? 82 per cent. My chance of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 per cent under socialised medicine.”
Hey, good use of facts to support your opinions! Except...
1)This fact is widely at odds with numbers in medical journals and NHS statistics
2)The fact came, in fact, from an article written by your campaign advisor
3)Said article was published in a partisan magazine, not a medical journal
4)His original source for the figure came out with a statement saying "Dude, that's totally not what we said, the UK has a better survival rate than the US."
5)Considered opinion is that this is pretty tough to judge but that neither system shows a significant advantage over the other
6)Even if it did, all it would prove is that the market system works for people who are former mayors of New York and millionaire knights.
Rudy Guiliani, loose a point for electioneering. Boo.
P.S. Not strictly related (let no-one say I engage in demonising my opponents), but I couldn't help but be reminded of this YouTube link.
