The accurate numbers aren't possible to put out because the virus doesn't appear like 80% of the time. China is definitely not upfront about them though.

You will lose choice when it comes to determining your level of insurance coverage, but you will gain choice in which physician you can see, what hospital you go to, what jobs you can take, etc. etc.

You are being very dishonest by just flat out ignoring the ways in which a national healthcare system allows for more choices that aren't related to your insurance provider.

ITT: people are confused as to what choices are

This argument is well-thought, detailed, and has given me much to reflect on.

The Northern European countries do NOT have democratic socialism, they have social democracy. This sounds like splitting hairs, but it's actually a huge difference!

In social democracies, like e.g. Sweden or Denmark, you have a capitalistic free market system with high taxes and a generous welfare state facilitating a large degree of redistribution.
In democratic socialism, the state owns the means of production and steers large parts of the economy. In contrast to Soviet-Union-style communism, the government figures responsible for this planning and steering process are still subject to democratic elections, at least in theory.


In particular, note that politicians like Bernie Sanders or AOC are indeed democratic socialists, they propagate a political and economic model which is significantly to the left of Sweden/Denmark/etc.!






A single payer system isnt necessary to achieve higher coverage and cost efficiency. Countries like the Netherlands, Germany or Austria have very successful healthcare system which arent single payer (specifically, what we have is "universal multi-payer"). In fact, single payer systems like the British NHS or the Australian Medicare have their own problems and disadvantages.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 25 2020 10:32pm

Except Bernie and AOC don't advocate for the state owning the means of production, and Bernie has many times said he wants "Democratic Socialism like what the Scandinavian countries have".

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Mar 25 2020 10:57pm

Then he's an idiot who's either ignorant of the right terminology within his own "field of expertise", or he's intentionally using wrong terminology to pander to a particular segment of the Democratic party which has drifted so far to the left that 'socialism' has become a positively connotated word for them.

AOC is advocating for full-blown socialism btw if you read between the lines, see for example her calls for a "universal jobs guarantee" or total government control over rents.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 25 2020 11:01pm

Or.... we can accept that words don't have objective meanings and are used to communicate ideas, and he has spelled out what he is trying to communicate by "Democratic Socialism" many times in the past and you were just unaware of that.

Australian medicare was actually the pride of our country before 12 years of conservative attacks on it made it a shadow of what it was.

no lol