Far be it from this Thompson supporter to come to Giuliani's defense but, socialized medicine is scary. Long lines, poor health care, and slow drug development is scary. Unfortunately, the liberals long for that nonsense.

What democrats want is for every man, woman, and child in the US to have access to ALL the health care they need. There are currently somewhere around 44 MILLION Americans that have no health insurance. As a result, they often get care either at an emergency room, or when they can afford to pay for it out of their own pocket. When the uninsured go to the emergency room, you and I pay, either through higher costs for care, through taxes, ro through higher insurance premiums.

Rudy is chuckling in that radio ad...guess the joke is on him.

Guiliani says he might not have survived "socialized medicine" in England. This shows his true colors. What about the poor kids who won't ever see a hospital? They will die before they get there. It is totally time for a change and Guiliani isn't part of it.

There's the bug-a-boo words again - socialized medicine. That really means government medicine, of course, and we already have that - Medicare. I participate for a premium of about $100 a month. Before my wife passed away her monthly premium for a not as good private plan was $900 - how come? I've also had an experience with the National Health Service in England a month or so ago. I went to the emergency room, then was admitted the next day, had minor surgery under anesthesia, kept overnight to make sure I was OK and then dismissed, all without a word about money. When I got home there was a bill for $3,000 which includes the emergency room, the hospital and all the doctors, probably 25% of the cost had it been with health care system. Besides that, the doctor always showed up on time and the tea lady comes around three times a day - would you like some tea, love? I'll trade our system for theirs any day.

The Canadian healthcare system is better than the US system by FAR. Long lines, etc. are pure mythology. How do I know this? I lived in Canada for 18 years. Since moving back to the US, I've learned that it's just easier to die than to expose myself to the corrupt US healthcare system in ANY way.

Guliani may have one more bullet left for his already damaged foot but he will never make it to the White House. They all play little games with the numbers and assume we're too slow to figure it out - heck, he probably couldn't figure it out if he didn't have staff telling him what it all means. The Republicans, as always, are only looking out for their rich cronies - to heck with the middle-income, hard working people. They don't need health care - just let them keep paying the bulk of our taxes. They can't make huge donations to our campaigns, so screw them.

Yawn.

The English have socialized medicine because their system actually employs doctors. The French just have government insurance with private doctors. Either one will cover everyone. Our system just makes the insurance companies rich and the taxpayers pay to insure their profits by taking the most costly group out of the private pool (the elderly thru Medicare) and we pay more per person for medical care than either of these countries. How long must the American taxpayer subsidize private profits at an exorbitant rate? Do you want socialism for the rich insurance companies or do you want sick people made well? Do you want administrators denying the sick coverage or do you want doctors to be paid for doing what is necessary to heal patients? Moan about socialism and socialized all you want - the guys in the corner offices in the tall towers are laughing all the way to the bank with your money, your employers money, and the governments money. Be a fool with your hard-earned cash! They'll gladly watch you die while denying you coverage.

As for Guiliani, he's already plundered so much money out of his previous positions he doesn't care what happens to you. He's covered with cash. He doesn't need insurance - he just needs to collect large cash donations for stopping you from getting insurance!

Look, debating the definition, or even the merits, of "socialized medicine" is kinda pointless. The US will never get it; we'll be lucky to get guaranteed insurance for poor children. What's interesting abut this story is how freely Giuliani lies -- except, of course, that it isn't called "lying" when you cite a fraudulent source. it's called "relying on faulty intelligence."

I am NO far right Bush lover and figured I'd throw that in before some of you guys attack me. Perhaps Lana above lived in an area that was doable on the wait time, but they do have issues in Canada with wait times. They also have a shortage of doctors and equipment. It's about quality of care going down hill and there is some truth to the fact that if you get cancer or something huge your odds more slim on survival than with our quality of care. Do not get me wrong - we need a fix. I'd prefer something not socialized.

I know, I love the fact that we don't have long lines in America. Why, just a few months ago I wanted to schedule a doctor's appointment. A couple months' wait. I wanted a dentist's appointment. I scheduled it in December and the appointment was in April. Thank God for the quick service when you need something here.

Of course Rudy would have survived in England. The RICH always have access to all the heathcare they need.

And the richer you are in America the more likely your illnesses will be found early.

Why do Republicans all say they think "Socialized Medicine" is bad? They are simply not using their brains. Somebody told them it's bad so they just repeat it. Part of being a "conservative" or "right winger" is being stubborn. They demonize it with that ridiculous name and then go crazy saying any BS about it. We are the ONLY country without a national health service. Everywhere else, it's wonderful. I've spent significant time in UK, France, Italy and I can tell you from personal experience, not just "Sicko," that we're Hosed in the USA when it comes to medical care, and they have it sweet over there. Don't let Republican ignoramusses and cowards fool you with their overheated ignorant noise.
Peas
Out

Ok... so Rudy cares about America, that is why he is worried about healthcare? Well... its funny cause this guy sure wasnt too worried about the health of his own first responders and police when he told them the air was safe to breath and told the FEMA workers not to hand out Breathing appartus to the first responders because it would make NEW YORK look like it was unsafe!!!!

The EPA, FEMA and several other agencies warned him that the air was NOT SAFE and yet he insisted that it was and told the firefighters and Rescues workers and First Responders that it was!!!

This guy is a crook and a liar and doesnt care about any of us!!! This man should be punished for lying to the American people! Not to mention for trying to push the North American Union on us!!!

It's very clear that a pattern has emerged in which it is patently obvious that Rudy Giuliani is a serial exaggerator on such a grand scale as to make Al Gore look like a Boy Scout.

Maybe Rudy should spend less time bashing Hillary and more time checking his facts!

As a Brit I take great exception to Giulianis comments about "socialised medicine". I am sure he got great treatment in America because he has the money to pay for it. In the UK the ability to pay is not an issue. America has the best health care in the world only if you can afford it.
I suggest he sorts out the problems in his own country before attackick other countries. I know in which country I would rather be ill in.

I am sick and tired of people telling us that social health care is scary. I was living in Germany for most of my life, and received the best medical treatment of my life, both on private and government insurances. I have juvenile diabetes and visited doctors and hospitals on a regular basis, so I know what I am talking about. Now living in the U.S., I experience the same waiting lines as in Germany, and the medical treatment is no different to what I received in Germany. It's clear to me what Republicans are trying to do (again): Scare people and don't tell the truth.

Too bad Mr. Guiliani didn't mention that here, if you don't have any medical insurance, your survival rate is closer to 0%.

"The citation is an article in a highly respected intellectual journal written by an expert at a highly respected think tank which the mayor read because he is an intellectually engaged human being" Rudy's smart dangit! hahaha I can't stop laughing at this one.

So he doesn't want the government involved in health care...that would be "socialized medicine". Guess that means the government should get out of highway building ("socialized transportation"), delivering mail ("socialized communiucation"), the military ("socialized warfare") and paying subsidies to mega-agriculture corporations ("socialized farming"). I could go on and on...but won't.

I haven't had the chance to read the original study on which the comments were based, but my guess is that these stats have nothing to do with cancer treatment or cure rates, just when the cancer is diagnosed in its natural history, a term called "lead time bias." Let's imagine two patients who are destined to die from prostate cancer on the same day, regardless of the medical care they receive. But one of them has a screening test 10 years prior to death, thus is alive for 10 years following diagnosis. The other patient doesn't have a screening test, but waits for symptoms to develop, and dies 3 years after diagnosis. The care for the first patient will look better, since he live 10 years following diagnosis, while the other patient lived only 3 years. YET THE MEDICAL CARE THEY RECEIVED DIDN'T MATTER AT ALL!!!!

You get the point....

Ken

Kind of not surprising he's getting his facts wrong--here's a guy who thinks affording lifesaving healthcare is exactly the same as buying a plasma TV.

Prostate brachytherapy--using radioactive seeds--was pioneered in the modern era by a physician in Denmark, whose student brought it to the US

You'd think a guy whose life was saved by this technique would have at least a little gratitude towards that evil socialized medicine of big government Europe.

But Rudy needs a bad guy here. He can't defend the status quo--which is what he wants to do. So he offers a non-solution and then uses fake facts to create a nonexistent boogeyman--socialized medicine--to scare people with.

The details of Rudy's healthcare policy are as follows: "eeww, foreigners."

That's all there is to it. Never mind that he was treated while covered by the NY state insurance plan. Never mind that most Americans with prostate cancer are covered by Medicare. The facts don't matter: saying that foreign healthcare is icky is all that matters to Mister Mayor.

He was sucking up to Gordon Brown not long ago. No principles, no policies, nothing but a rag to wave.

The UK health service has a problem with cancer which they are looking into. It seems a combination of less testing for early diagnosis and not enough radio-therapy machines have the 5-year survival rates as low as countries like Poland which spend much less on health care.

On the other hand, the statistics Rudy cited are bogus wherever they came from. Conservative free-market health care advocate David Gratzer is not an unbiased source.

Rudy was also using New York city government healthcare when treated.

He also was fortunate enough not to need a kidney transplant, where Canada and the UK have much better survival rates than the U.S..

MEDICARE is not socilaized medicine.

Its a government funded single payer system as is Canada's system.

The DOCs are not employees of the government. VA healthcare is close to socialized medicine where many of the DOCs and employees work for the government.

Yes we have slightly better outcomes, but that lead has been rapidly dropping.

And while the other western economies pay 6-8% of GDP, we are approaching 18 percent.. a 300 percent increase in 25 years. And our overall outcomes such as life expectancy are not as good.

Ironicly most Prostate cases are men over 65 and thus they are treated and cured under Medicare and not private healthcare!

Healthcare is now 3 times the percentage of our economy as MFG and yet 20% of the population is uninsured.. This is not sustainable.

If we spent only 12% GDP instead of almost 18%, that would be twice what other countries spend and it would be one hell of a system. Insurance companies which treat no one account for almost 50% of our healthcare costs. And then their are the drugs we buy from the same factory in Ireland that we pay 4-5 times more for. WE subsidize the healthcare of our competitors. In the rest of the world drugs are 20% of their healthcare dollar and here almost 50%.

Regards

THE BOTTOM LINE IS: THE U.S. RANKS 37th IN HEALTHCARE, IN THE WORLD...AND, THAT'S DESPITE THE FACT THAT WE SPEND THE MOST ON IT, COMPARED TO EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!!!!! CASE CLOSED!!!!! YOU, RUDY, ARE AMONGST THE ONLY GROUP OF PEOPLE (THE WEALTHY &/or THOSE HAVING JOBS W/EXCELLENT BENEFITS) WHO ARE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE BEEN ABLE TO BEAT CANCER!!!!!

(continued from my last post)......WITHOUT GOING BROKE!!!!!

Follow the money. Time the "industry" is examined. Take pills. We produce the most yet pay the highest prices in the world? Something is wrong with that. I still say this could be fixed with a combination of things that fall short of complete socialized but that would mean taking the insurance lobby to task and the politicians can't have that. I'd like to add that most I know in Canada (I lived there a couple of years) have additional insurance policies knowing full well the other won't be enough if something big happens. Yes we need a fix. I'd like to see the best choice in a fix tho.

As far as I understand the reason (or part of the reason) US health care takes so much of your GDP is because of the costs of medicine. Most other industrialized countries don't let the pharmaceutical industries dictate the price of medicines. So yes you are spending more but your not getting more.

Most of you are that sound more than happy to pony up YOUR own money to pay for someone else's insurance. If you're all for giving your money to someone else for their health care, how about starting with me. My girlfriend could use better insurance.

The medical debate and ANY other entitlement program is all about Karl Marx and wealth redistribution. Most of you seem to support this. I for one am more interested in the government getting off my back and out of my wallet. The US health care system is messed up BECAUSE the government got involved. A free market system would be the best thing for any country. Without competition, prices will sky rocket like they have.

And someone please tell me when access to health care became a human right? Actually, anyone willing to answer in any way other than "It's not a right" is already brainwashed and a lost cause. A right CANNOT require someone else to do something.

Sean, you seem quite happy that your tax money is going to ensure that insurance companies get rich. I'm sure they send you Christmas cards thanking you for your contribution, moron. Perhaps you put your grandmother on an ice floe and watched her drift out to sea - most of us actually care about the people in our families (and our girlfriends.) We also know that this country is already spending significantly more than any other country in the world on health care. Do you want your hard-earned money to go to a doctor treating your wife's cancer or to a insurance company trying to figure out how to refuse to pay for the treatment that might save her life? Karl Marx has nothing to do with this! You think you can pay out of pocket for catastrophic medical expenses? Insurance exists to spread risk and ensure that people can receive the help they need even when they can't afford it. If truth be told most of us will never make enough money to cover a life threatening illness. What should we all do? Just flipping die because you're never going to get sick? Ha! I hope you never do because like all these heartless members of the Judas (GOP) Party you'll sing a different tune if your life is at risk and you don't have funds stored up from feeding at the public trough like Guiliani.

Terrier-
"Sean, you seem quite happy that your tax money is going to ensure that insurance companies get rich."

Obviously, you don't read very well. I want a free market solution. The problem is government involvement. Insurance wouldn't be so expensive/screwed if the government would get the hell out of the way of the free market. Insurance should only exist to cover the major illnesses, not the "Oh, I have the sniffles and need to see the doctor." It's people like you and the Democrats that created the current situation.

Your ilk seem to think more government can solve the problems that government creates. Just look at everything the government gets involved in, education, health care, security, the drug war, etc. The more government gets involved the worse all of these have become.

One thing I find very telling, most liberals want all of these programs "for the children," but when was the last time you heard of one of them reaching into their own pocket and paying for someone else. Hillary wants to parade all of the "poor" families, but I don't see her reaching into her own $10,000,00+ bank account and actually helping. She and the other libs want to reach into MY pocket to help other people. How about letting ME decide what I do with MY money and life. Stopping tell me how to live and spend my money.

Terrier, so are you ready to put your money where your mouth is and pay for my girlfriends insurance, or do you just want someone else to pay?

I'm paying for her already because I'm accepting a lower salary from my company because they have to pay for my private insurance. You might think I would get that back in lower taxes but the truth is I don't because I have to pay your grandmother's insurance to keep her out of the private pool so insurance companies can make a profit off my insurance. In your free market how do you plan to cover your grandmother? Are you going to force private insurers to cover her? There is certainly nothing "free market" about requiring insurance companies to cover bad risks. What do you propose to solve that? Ice floes still sound reasonable? Why in the heck would I as an insurer even write you a policy to cover only catastrophic illness? I'm betting you'll never get sick? At some point I'll have to drop you either because you got sick or percentages tell me you soon will. What will you do then? Health care is not something that can reliably generate a profit. That is why all this bull about the "free market" is just bull. "Free market" means taxpayers ensure that insurance companies make profits so we can pretend to have choice when they make all the choice and we take all the risks. I'm not asking you to pay a dime to cover me just to join all of us in a pool that shares the risks equally. The current system has never been the liberal solution - not now - not ever. In '46 Truman tried to introduce National Health Care and a bunch of whiners about "free markets" shouted it down. I'll guarantee you that many of them lived to regret that - when they got sick.

Most men get prostate cancer at an age when they are already eligible for Medicare, our own American version of socialized medicine. Comparing survival rates for Britain and the U.S. means comparing the results of two socialized medicine systems. The U.S. won? Well, hooray for our side. It says nothing about the merits of private vs. public medicine.

Kudos to ABC for at least fact-checking Giuliani's ad. Other networks simply ran it as "news", thereby just giving him free air time.

We can eliminate lines for anything - health care, ferry rides or drinks of water at a public fountain.

Step 1: Raise the price.

Step 2: Those without the money drop out of line.

Step 3: If the line is too long, go to Step 1.

Step 4: No Lines!!!!

Well, Rudy would say that, wouldn't he? The unreflectively selfish like him love the sort of bogus demonstration that purports to show the superior efficacy of self-interest trumping that of crappy old equity. At least with respect to comparisons between and among the nations most inflected by the Enlightenment, it's almost always a misconstruction if not an outright lie.

But even if what Giuliani asserts were true, it would to me be irrelevant, because it's not just one corpus of data points joined in battle against another here; first principles are implicated in the real agon. A quotation from the late Robin Cook, the great center-left Labourite who (in a manner quite unlike the too-clever-by-half equivocating that we've come to expect from the craven, self-serving klippoth who float insubstantially around the Democratic Party and other nodes of the Amerikan system of government) had the integrity to walk away from his post as foreign minister rather than ratify Tony Blair's allying the UK with the immoral (and now obviously failed) US adventure in Mesopotamia and otherwise proskynetically capitulating to pressure from the Shrub and his cabal of Podhoretzian disassociatives to assent to an American project bent on making the world safe for unbridled capitalism through cowing it by almost exclusively martial means: “The history of social democracy can be expressed as the struggle to set limits to the market and to define those areas where priorities should be set by social policy rather than commercial forces.” Exactly so. And one of those areas is medical care.

Trapped as we are on this tiny rock with its 13-kilometer-thick biosphere surrounded by light-year upon light-year of unexploitable lifelessness, we indeed function within a zero-sum regime, and I have yet to see how that reality squares in any way with the free-market ideologues' implicit willingness to immiserate some that others may wallow in abundance. My moral stance: Every human is entitled to some minimal level of a decent material existence -- food, clothes, a roof over the head, a doctor both to prevent and to manage infirmity, and education with which to enlarge the individual's intellectual world and better his or her material circumstances, and, thereby, those of society in general -- by virtue just of being born on this planet. Each is also possessed of the right to prosecute within the limits of reason any pursuit not facially vicious -- finance capitalism or Ultimate Frisbee or the composition of villanelles: whatever. In the interstice between these two birthrights -- neither negotiable nor reducible -- arises the mediating mechanism of social democracy.

Naive? So you say. What humans will do and what humans ought to do often enough diverge. An ever-burgeoning number of Americans are arriving at the ethical view that maintains that humans could and should be social democrats -- and you free-market freebooters would do well to realize that you'll be in conflict with ever more of those who espouse this creed on into the future. Lady Thatcher was dead wrong about there being no such thing as society, and the repudiation of her dictum will be essential to the survival of humankind through this 21st century.

Kevin-

"An ever-burgeoning number of Americans are arriving at the ethical view that maintains that humans could and should be social democrats -- and you free-market freebooters would do well to realize that you'll be in conflict with ever more of those who espouse this creed on into the future."

Apparently you think this group of individuals somehow has the right to force us "freebooters" to do what you want us to do. In what demented United States do you live? Have you never read the Constitution? Please tell me where in the Constitution it gives the right or authority to the government to steal my money at gun point to pay for someone else's medical care. Oh, that's right, you think the Constitution is just archaic and out of date, doesn't apply anymore.

No one is stopping any of you getting together and pooling your money to pay for the poor's medical care. That is what a free society is, you are free to do whatever you want as long as you do not harm someone else or someone else's property. So, instead of screaming for the government to solve your perceived ills, get of your ass and DO it.

It would be must more efficient for you all to go find a homeless person and give them a room in your own house. That eliminates all of those workers in the middle who get paid out of OUR taxes. Pool YOUR money and buy a free hospital for the poor. Hell, buy a factory and give them all jobs. Oops, sorry, that's what a free market would do and free markets are bad.

I would actually GIVE to charities that I believe in, but the government has already STOLEN that money from me to waste it before giving to charity. There is a direct causation between increased taxes and decreased charitable giving. That's right, REDUCING TAXES == INCREASING CHARITY. And I wonder who is more efficient?

Terrier-

"In your free market how do you plan to cover your grandmother?"

My grandparents are dead.

"There is certainly nothing "free market" about requiring insurance companies to cover bad risks."

Your right. In a free market, insurance companies wouldn't be making most of the decisions for your medical care, you and your doctor would do that. Much of the cost of running medical facilities is tied up in all of the requirements of government and the insurance industry. A free market removes these expenses. The only expenses are those of the medical care, not of the regulation/insurance staff. This creates greater competition, which is good for everyone.
"'Free market' means taxpayers ensure that insurance companies make profits so we can pretend to have choice when they make all the choice and we take all the risks."

That's only if you assume that we currently have a free market. We don't. Government has done a very good job of making sure that didn't happen for long after getting a taste of taxes in 1913. Government has created the expensive medical care because of their meddling.

As I posted above, if you want to help the poor, then help the poor. Just don't force me to help the poor. I'm more than capable of choosing for myself to give to the poor. I don't need the government telling me how to spend my money. I'm much better at it than the government. Except when I spend my money, I get to express my viewpoint and values, I'm not force to go along with whatever the government has my viewpoint and values are.

Rudy never mentioned "5 Year" survival rates. Its been over 7 years since he was diagnosed. The 10 Year survival rate for someone in their 50s diagnosed in 2000 is lower than 60%. Rudy never said 5 YEARS. He said Survival Rate. Who is being Dishonest ? > ABC

Here in Spain we said we have the best health service in the world. I am sure that it is not, but it is much better than in US. It is universal, everyone can go there with no cost, and it goes really well in very bad diseases (perhaps worse and slow in little diseases, for that we take a private insurance).

Well, reduce the army profit and put it into the medical system, you will be happier with that.

Are you sure you are the best country in the world? I think the best country is the one people are happier.

Glad to hear the ice floes work. I may be looking for one myself soon. So essentially your argument comes down to: "I don't plan on getting sick ever and don't care about anyone who is and if I (or anyone I care about) ever is I hope to have piled up enough money to save myself (or them.)" You are so naive that I am incredulous. I wonder if you have car insurance? Tough luck for anyone that gets in your way. And if you cross the street this afternoon and get hit by a bus be happy - I will be paying your medical expenses because you obviously don't think it is worth your time or money to protect yourself now.

One source of confusion not mentioned so far is that Mr Guiliani referred to statistics for England rather than for the United Kingdom.
I don't know whether the statistics he cited actually did relate to the UK or just to England (which would exclude Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - around 10 million+ people) but the fact that a person in his position doesn't appear to know the difference between the United Kingdom and one of its constituent countries is worrying.

The problem with this story is that it fails to mention that the Democrats are NOT proposing a socialized-health care plan like they have in Britain. It's great that they point out Giuliani's numbers are off; they should also point out that his whole message is off base. By not doing so they imply that Clinton/Edwards/Obama all want socialized medicine. They do not.

Actually 5-year survival rates are misleading when one group is screened a lot more than others as any good epidemiologist will say.

You can compare 5-year survival rate when you start from the same point of origin i.e. in a trial of a drug's effectiveness. However, in trials of screening, the only acceptable measure is mortality from the desease per number of the trial's participants. When comparing US and UK healthcare, this will be similar to population mortality numbers. While not as reliable as results from a randomized controlled trial, the population mortality numbers are still better than cure rate or 5-year survival rate.

Here is an example of lead-time bias and how it affects 5-year survival numbers: two men died at the same age of 60 fromof prostate cancer. One was screened with PSA and had the cancer diagnosed at the age 53. Another was diagnosed when he started getting symptoms at age 56. There is no mortality benefit - both died at the same age, but the fact that in one man the desease was diagnosed earlier made survival look better.

Similarly, any screening, even the one that doesn't work (like neuroblastoma screening in Japan) - and the jury is still out on PSA - improves both cure/detected ratio and 5-year survival because of overdiagnosis: detection of cancers that are not going to progress within person's lifetime. As it is very easy to cure a cancer that wasn't life-threatening to begin with, but if you add them in the mist, both cure rate and 5-year survival numbers look better.

I do believe US care is better. However, I strongly dislike this outrageous misuse of statistics.

Two points.

McCanne actually agrees that if everybody followed the American System available to those able to afford it would have a superior outcome then the Brits. His complaint is it's not available to everybody.
Also the contention now being made contrary to the medical advice given over the years is that early detection is over-rated.

Give me the American system where if you plan your life, you have ability take your health care in your own hands. If we need to make it available to the less fortunate, donate money to do it.