Remember that cohort study on VE done by Covidistan's CDC-FDA equivalent? I wrote about this in Nov., now it's time for a Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics Edition of Austrian mainstream news outlets
If injections do not provide much protection against infection (and thus transmission) and no sterilizing immunity, but only provide protecting against severe illness, then whether to take them or not should absolutely be an individual decision.
Those of us who've been opposed to socialized medicine our entire lives have repeatedly warned that once it was in place, it would be used as an excuse to ban some things and force others. We can clearly see the latter happening right now.
As to the other aspect, well, the problem is perhaps better understood in terms of monopoly-cartels in health care, and that means, in my opinion, that to frame the issue as 'socialised' vs. 'privatised' healthcare is a false, if not misleading, dichotomy.
Why, you may ask? Well, I don't think it really matters (for 'consumers') if the stakeholders are private citizens holding shares as opposed to politicians holding influence over top-level appointments. Both hierarchies give rise to unwarranted influence over decisions unrelated to individual healthcare (which, I think, is one of the most individual facets of live).
There is no one-size-fits-all 'solution' to personal circumstances, which is obvious, hence also a blanket 'vaxx' mandate isn't going to cut it, for reasons that are, logically, totally unrelated to either Sars-Cov-2 (the virus) or Covid-19 (the disease) or the logistical burden resting on, say, supply chains, esp. small and medium-sized businesses, the (int'l) travel and hospitality industries, and the healthcare sector.
Since there's no one-size-fits-all 'solution' to any of these (and many others), I don't think about it in terms of 'private' vs. 'socialised' healthcare, it's about freedom, liberty, and personal responsibilities vs. dependency on either 'government' and/or 'private enterprise'.
This doesn't disqualify, in any way, shape, or form, your statement 'that once [socialised medicine] was in place, it would be used as an excuse to ban some things and force others', for this is obviously true, if not an outright truism.
Please allow me to illustrate this with an example from my past: I used to live in Switzerland for a decade, and there's no public healthcare option there (theoretically, the best analogy for the Swiss system is to think about it as a fully-implemented and quite-rationally organised Obamacare, with the same problems, i.e., lack of competition across state lines, monopoly rents for regional providers that lead to price gouging, and a gov't forcing all residents to buy insurance while also dictating each autumn how high premiums for 'basic insurance' must be (if that's not your impression of 'free market' and 'competition', that's apparently your problem, isn't it?). It's hardly surprising that the Swiss healthcare system is the second-most expensive in the world, but I doubt you'd find the fact that healthcare-related financial worries are the single-leading reason for individual bankruptcies (and if that doesn't sound familiar to US-based readers, I don't know what else might).
So, to wrap this up, I remember a private healthcare insurance provider offering lower rates IF one installed an app on one's phone and counted calories eaten and steps taken per day; if a 'customer' performed accordingly, he or she would be rewarded by lower premiums. That is in the 'private' sector, mind you. The same issue is, for instance, also at work in Austrian healthcare, which is 'socialised': as the example of my father-in-law (by now a retired former SME business-owner) shows, if your blood work and BMI is within a reasonable range, there are lower co-pays.
Bottom line: it's not so much about 'private' vs. 'socialised' healthcare, to me the issue is much more about monopoly rents deriving from the incestuous relationship between 'big gov't' and 'big business', financial, healthcare, pharma, and other.
If injections do not provide much protection against infection (and thus transmission) and no sterilizing immunity, but only provide protecting against severe illness, then whether to take them or not should absolutely be an individual decision.
Those of us who've been opposed to socialized medicine our entire lives have repeatedly warned that once it was in place, it would be used as an excuse to ban some things and force others. We can clearly see the latter happening right now.
Hi UM Ross,
agreed without reservations on the first part.
As to the other aspect, well, the problem is perhaps better understood in terms of monopoly-cartels in health care, and that means, in my opinion, that to frame the issue as 'socialised' vs. 'privatised' healthcare is a false, if not misleading, dichotomy.
Why, you may ask? Well, I don't think it really matters (for 'consumers') if the stakeholders are private citizens holding shares as opposed to politicians holding influence over top-level appointments. Both hierarchies give rise to unwarranted influence over decisions unrelated to individual healthcare (which, I think, is one of the most individual facets of live).
There is no one-size-fits-all 'solution' to personal circumstances, which is obvious, hence also a blanket 'vaxx' mandate isn't going to cut it, for reasons that are, logically, totally unrelated to either Sars-Cov-2 (the virus) or Covid-19 (the disease) or the logistical burden resting on, say, supply chains, esp. small and medium-sized businesses, the (int'l) travel and hospitality industries, and the healthcare sector.
Since there's no one-size-fits-all 'solution' to any of these (and many others), I don't think about it in terms of 'private' vs. 'socialised' healthcare, it's about freedom, liberty, and personal responsibilities vs. dependency on either 'government' and/or 'private enterprise'.
This doesn't disqualify, in any way, shape, or form, your statement 'that once [socialised medicine] was in place, it would be used as an excuse to ban some things and force others', for this is obviously true, if not an outright truism.
Please allow me to illustrate this with an example from my past: I used to live in Switzerland for a decade, and there's no public healthcare option there (theoretically, the best analogy for the Swiss system is to think about it as a fully-implemented and quite-rationally organised Obamacare, with the same problems, i.e., lack of competition across state lines, monopoly rents for regional providers that lead to price gouging, and a gov't forcing all residents to buy insurance while also dictating each autumn how high premiums for 'basic insurance' must be (if that's not your impression of 'free market' and 'competition', that's apparently your problem, isn't it?). It's hardly surprising that the Swiss healthcare system is the second-most expensive in the world, but I doubt you'd find the fact that healthcare-related financial worries are the single-leading reason for individual bankruptcies (and if that doesn't sound familiar to US-based readers, I don't know what else might).
So, to wrap this up, I remember a private healthcare insurance provider offering lower rates IF one installed an app on one's phone and counted calories eaten and steps taken per day; if a 'customer' performed accordingly, he or she would be rewarded by lower premiums. That is in the 'private' sector, mind you. The same issue is, for instance, also at work in Austrian healthcare, which is 'socialised': as the example of my father-in-law (by now a retired former SME business-owner) shows, if your blood work and BMI is within a reasonable range, there are lower co-pays.
Bottom line: it's not so much about 'private' vs. 'socialised' healthcare, to me the issue is much more about monopoly rents deriving from the incestuous relationship between 'big gov't' and 'big business', financial, healthcare, pharma, and other.
What do you think?
Are you aware of covid stats from any jurisdiction which can be prima facie relied upon?
Yep, I don't take any of these numbers at their 'face value', hence my consideration of what 'media people' make of these.
In this context, the evidence of journalistic malpractice is particularly evident, even if it's neither surprising nor extraordinary.
Journalism, by its very nature, is unreliable. Watch a game or an event in full and then read reports about it, and you will see what I mean.
And most journalists are of the political left -they have admitted that themselves in surveys.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Covid Edition