False. Canadian health care, while sometimes not the fastest service, is far better than the LA hospital practice of dumping non-paying patients in front of homeless shelters in nothing but their hospital gowns and slippers. There are countless stories of people becoming sick through no fault of their own and then becoming absolutely destitute paying for care - even with insurance from an HMO, the profit-based model of the company will try to eliminate candidates who are likely to become sick and will try to deny as many medical procedures as possible to keep their costs down. That is nothing short of barbaric.

I won't argue that America was founded on capitalism; I think it has been one of the best working systems in the world. Ayn Rand's vision of a capitalist utopia is as beautiful and yet as pie-in-the-sky as a Marxist communist utopia. However, capitalism and it's externalities are not a perfect system and have done serious damage in areas that they can avoid being accountable for. We are not discussing socialism vs. capitalism however as much as we are discussing government-funded health care.

Good post, it's a shame Engels didn't get to see the 20th century, he would have had to really rethink his views. Socialism is a wonderful concept, but it is so obviously flawed in that it strips people of motivation at a certain point and thus brings down the quality of life. As Lenin would find out with socialism he who does work may still not eat. Socialism in my opinion works best in small groups for small periods of time, otherwise it's bound for eventual failure.

As for capitalism, you're only describing one of the relationships and a few demographic's that make it work and doing so with a rather preconceived slant. My experience doesn't fit into your archetype at all. Despite the numerous flaws in the system it presents more options than any other system and that's what I value, choice, to try something else if I don't like whats behind door number one.

@ Wayfarer

Engels would have watched communism and socialism fail all over the globe in the past century and would have realized that people are all different and assuming each person will work just as hard as the others and that the same amount of money is necessitated and warranted for each individual are simply wrong and have been proven wrong in practice.

To your second question (How so)it's common sense really. If you're compensation is tied to the success of the industry on the whole and the guy next to you is working half ass what motivates you to work to your own potential?

Thirdly, the basis for my opinion is multiple decades of studying and teaching world history and watching a pattern of imperialistic and socialistic governments crumble after initial boons.

Finally, capitalism in the United States offers more options because it's a free market and when an industry fails or struggles their is less red tape for a new more adept competitor in that or a competing industry to get past and eventually thrive. The same is true for personal career choices. I changed careers twice and was able to do so while still supporting a family because of the system I live in.

Because of this system, my family and many like them came to America in the the 20th century with nothing and now have wonderful lives, families and careers here, something the vast majority of us could never have achieved in our countries of origin.

Back on topic:

I think the primary flaw with our health care system in the US is medical malpractice litigation and what it does to the insurance costs of even basic care.

Socialism hasn't failed...Cuba has better health care than the United States, Sweden is at the forefront of innovation and Norway is doing way better than any capitalistic country right now. I don't really understand how people keep saying it's been proven to fail as a governmental structure when it really hasn't. Socialistic countries have thrived.

Sweden and Norway are not socialist countries, Norway's constitution and system of government are modeled after the United States and they are a free-market economy just like us, the difference being their governments admits to owning and being owned by major industry giants. As for thriving, if you just mean health care then yes they have but people also pay nearly 60% of their income in taxes which would not be okay with very many Americans who are in favor of socialized health care.

If you do mean the system of government:

The most significant examples of failure in the last century are the USSR and China of course, but you can also look at places like Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cuba which health care aside, I can't agree that it is an example of a successful government.

This is in my opinion why so many people look at socialism as a failure and are probably scared away from, perhaps wrongly, the concept of socialized health care (or anything for that matter) as a whole.

I said Sweden and Norway are thriving because compared to the United States and every other country in this economic downturn they are thriving and it's because of the socialistic aspects of the Scandinavian Model. Which is closer to Socialism than is to the United States idea of capitalism - I don't know how you can argue that it's failed. Social Democracies seem to be weathering bad times (created by capitalism) far better than people who are all gung-ho about the free market.

You're talking specifically about Communist nations, not socialistic nations and in many cases those countries are mired in third world status (Cuba is a prime example of this) because of US intervention and economic sanction. I don't think I need to explain what we did to them - it's well documented in history. It has nothing to do with the validity of the ideas and flaws in the system but a superpower which loves to stick its nose where it shouldn't.

I think the notion that Marxist ideology has failed in favor of strict laissez-faire principles is silly. If you look at the key victories for the free market (the coup in Chile, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the soviet union, Tienanmen Square and Poland in 1989, and so on.) You'll see that the free market was never really the definitive victor. What did Polish voters want in 1989? It wasn't privatization it was for worker ownership. South Africans voted, in 94, for redistribution of their rich resources which were in the hands of a few elite. In the nineties Russians believed privatization should happen through worker ownership. Leftist ideology didn't lose because it didn't work it lost because of propaganda, economic sanctions, war, intervention, etc.

I don't agree with your assessment of the Scandinavian model, I believe it's the general freedom allotted to their citizens and the people's willingness through generations of acclimation to carry such a heavy tax burden that has lead to the majority of those nations being so productive in the last decade.

I was specifically talking about Communist nations in response to a quote Wayfarer used from Lenin. I tried to make a note of that in my earlier post suspecting you simply meant socialistic aspects of government. If you think the US is the bad guy and Cuba the good guy in that match-up then I have no interest in any further discussion, so lets just stop that right here.

This sounds like twisted history to me and I really can't think of anyway to productively respond to most of it. It wasn't propaganda that murdered millions of it's own people, and held millions more of them below the poverty line in favor of imperial aspirations.

I do agree that it's foolish to force capitalism or any other government or economic system on any nation, but that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion on what works best.

Why can't freedom and socialism coexist? They're not mutually exclusive in fact it's what everyone from Trotsky and Orwell argued for and I believe that democracy is completely vital and should be the center of any socialist state.

What did Cuba do to make them the bad guy? Overthrow a US backed and oppressive dictator?

You're right I should have worded things better. I was more referring to the leftist ideology itself as opposed to specific regimes. Stalin, Pol Pot and all of them were clearly deeply evil men but again I point to Orwell who argued against totalitarianism better then I ever could. It turns the supposed good proletariat into the elite bourgeois, or turns former piggish leaders into humans.

You guys really need to move that **** to another thread.

Yeah sorry. I have to go do my laundry but when I get back I'll move it all.