DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Christians4LessGvt on August 18, 2007, 12:45:41 AM
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(http://www.city-journal.org/assets/images/City_Journal.gif)
The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care
David Gratzer
Socialized medicine has meant rationed care and lack of innovation. Small wonder Canadians are looking to the market.
Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux?a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body?and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin?s insurance didn?t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies?in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada.
When Aucoin appealed to an official ombudsman, the Ontario government claimed that her treatment was unproven and that she had gone to an unaccredited clinic. But the FDA in the U.S. had approved Erbitux, and her clinic was a cancer center affiliated with a prominent Catholic hospital in Buffalo. This January, the ombudsman ruled in Aucoin?s favor, awarding her the cost of treatment. She represents a dramatic new trend in Canadian health-care advocacy: finding the treatment you need in another country, and then fighting Canadian bureaucrats (and often suing) to get them to pick up the tab.
But if Canadians are looking to the United States for the care they need, Americans, ironically, are increasingly looking north for a viable health-care model. There?s no question that American health care, a mixture of private insurance and public programs, is a mess. Over the last five years, health-insurance premiums have more than doubled, leaving firms like General Motors on the brink of bankruptcy. Expensive health care has also hit workers in the pocketbook: it?s one of the reasons that median family income fell between 2000 and 2005 (despite a rise in overall labor costs). Health spending has surged past 16 percent of GDP. The number of uninsured Americans has risen, and even the insured seem dissatisfied. So it?s not surprising that some Americans think that solving the nation?s health-care woes may require adopting a Canadian-style single-payer system, in which the government finances and provides the care. Canadians, the seductive single-payer tune goes, not only spend less on health care; their health outcomes are better, too?life expectancy is longer, infant mortality lower.
Thus, Paul Krugman in the New York Times: ?Does this mean that the American way is wrong, and that we should switch to a Canadian-style single-payer system? Well, yes.? Politicians like Hillary Clinton are on board; Michael Moore?s new documentary Sicko celebrates the virtues of Canada?s socialized health care; the National Coalition on Health Care, which includes big businesses like AT&T, recently endorsed a scheme to centralize major health decisions to a government committee; and big unions are questioning the tenets of employer-sponsored health insurance. Some are tempted. Not me.
I was once a believer in socialized medicine. I don?t want to overstate my case: growing up in Canada, I didn?t spend much time contemplating the nuances of health economics. I wanted to get into medical school?my mind brimmed with statistics on MCAT scores and admissions rates, not health spending. But as a Canadian, I had soaked up three things from my environment: a love of ice hockey; an ability to convert Celsius into Fahrenheit in my head; and the belief that government-run health care was truly compassionate. What I knew about American health care was unappealing: high expenses and lots of uninsured people. When HillaryCare shook Washington, I remember thinking that the Clintonistas were right.
My health-care prejudices crumbled not in the classroom but on the way to one. On a subzero Winnipeg morning in 1997, I cut across the hospital emergency room to shave a few minutes off my frigid commute. Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited five days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything that I thought I knew about Canadian health care. I soon discovered that the problems went well beyond overcrowded ERs. Patients had to wait for practically any diagnostic test or procedure, such as the man with persistent pain from a hernia operation whom we referred to a pain clinic?with a three-year wait list; or the woman needing a sleep study to diagnose what seemed like sleep apnea, who faced a two-year delay; or the woman with breast cancer who needed to wait four months for radiation therapy, when the standard of care was four weeks.
I decided to write about what I saw. By day, I attended classes and visited patients; at night, I worked on a book. Unfortunately, statistics on Canadian health care?s weaknesses were hard to come by, and even finding people willing to criticize the system was difficult, such was the emotional support that it then enjoyed. One family friend, diagnosed with cancer, was told to wait for potentially lifesaving chemotherapy. I called to see if I could write about his plight. Worried about repercussions, he asked me to change his name. A bit later, he asked if I could change his sex in the story, and maybe his town. Finally, he asked if I could change the illness, too.
My book?s thesis was simple: to contain rising costs, government-run health-care systems invariably restrict the health-care supply. Thus, at a time when Canada?s population was aging and needed more care, not less, cost-crunching bureaucrats had reduced the size of medical school classes, shuttered hospitals, and capped physician fees, resulting in hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for needed treatment?patients who suffered and, in some cases, died from the delays. The only solution, I concluded, was to move away from government command-and-control structures and toward a more market-oriented system. To capture Canadian health care?s growing crisis, I called my book Code Blue, the term used when a patient?s heart stops and hospital staff must leap into action to save him. Though I had a hard time finding a Canadian publisher, the book eventually came out in 1999 from a small imprint; it struck a nerve, going through five printings.
Nor were the problems I identified unique to Canada?they characterized all government-run health-care systems. Consider the recent British controversy over a cancer patient who tried to get an appointment with a specialist, only to have it canceled?48 times.
More than 1 million Britons must wait for some type of care, with 200,000 in line for longer than six months. A while back, I toured a public hospital in Washington, D.C., with Tim Evans, a senior fellow at the Centre for the New Europe. The hospital was dark and dingy, but Evans observed that it was cleaner than anything in his native England. In France, the supply of doctors is so limited that during an August 2003 heat wave?when many doctors were on vacation and hospitals were stretched beyond capacity?15,000 elderly citizens died. Across Europe, state-of-the-art drugs aren?t available. And so on.
But single-payer systems?confronting dirty hospitals, long waiting lists, and substandard treatment?are starting to crack. Today my book wouldn?t seem so provocative to Canadians, whose views on public health care are much less rosy than they were even a few years ago. Canadian newspapers are now filled with stories of people frustrated by long delays for care:
As if a taboo had lifted, government statistics on the health-care system?s problems are suddenly available. In fact, government researchers have provided the best data on the doctor shortage, noting, for example, that more than 1.5 million Ontarians (or 12 percent of that province?s population) can?t find family physicians. Health officials in one Nova Scotia community actually resorted to a lottery to determine who?d get a doctor?s appointment.
Dr. Jacques Chaoulli is at the center of this changing health-care scene. Standing at about five and a half feet and soft-spoken, he doesn?t seem imposing. But this accidental revolutionary has turned Canadian health care on its head. In the 1990s, recognizing the growing crisis of socialized care, Chaoulli organized a private Quebec practice?patients called him, he made house calls, and then he directly billed his patients. The local health board cried foul and began fining him. The legal status of private practice in Canada remained murky, but billing patients, rather than the government, was certainly illegal, and so was private insurance.
Chaoulli gave up his private practice but not the fight for private medicine. Trying to draw attention to Canada?s need for an alternative to government care, he began a hunger strike but quit after a month, famished but not famous. He wrote a couple of books on the topic, which sold dismally. He then came up with the idea of challenging the government in court. Because the lawyers whom he consulted dismissed the idea, he decided to make the legal case himself and enrolled in law school. He flunked out after a term. Undeterred, he found a sponsor for his legal fight (his father-in-law, who lives in Japan) and a patient to represent. Chaoulli went to court and lost. He appealed and lost again. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. And there?amazingly?he won.
Chaoulli was representing George Zeliotis, an elderly Montrealer forced to wait almost a year for a hip replacement. Zeliotis was in agony and taking high doses of opiates. Chaoulli maintained that the patient should have the right to pay for private health insurance and get treatment sooner. He based his argument on the Canadian equivalent of the Bill of Rights, as well as on the equivalent Quebec charter. The court hedged on the national question, but a majority agreed that Quebec?s charter did implicitly recognize such a right.
It?s hard to overstate the shock of the ruling. It caught the government completely off guard?officials had considered Chaoulli?s case so weak that they hadn?t bothered to prepare briefing notes for the prime minister in the event of his victory. The ruling wasn?t just shocking, moreover; it was potentially monumental, opening the way to more private medicine in Quebec. Though the prohibition against private insurance holds in the rest of the country for now, at least two people outside Quebec, armed with Chaoulli?s case as precedent, are taking their demand for private insurance to court.
Rick Baker helps people, and sometimes even saves lives. He describes a man who had a seizure and received a diagnosis of epilepsy. Dissatisfied with the opinion?he had no family history of epilepsy, but he did have constant headaches and nausea, which aren?t usually seen in the disorder?the man requested an MRI. The government told him that the wait would be four and a half months. So he went to Baker, who arranged to have the MRI done within 24 hours?and who, after the test discovered a brain tumor, arranged surgery within a few weeks.
Baker isn?t a neurosurgeon or even a doctor. He?s a medical broker, one member of a private sector that is rushing in to address the inadequacies of Canada?s government care. Canadians pay him to set up surgical procedures, diagnostic tests, and specialist consultations, privately and quickly. ?I don?t have a medical background. I just have some common sense,? he explains. ?I don?t need to be a doctor for what I do. I?m just expediting care.?
He tells me stories of other people whom his British Columbia?based company, Timely Medical Alternatives, has helped?people like the elderly woman who needed vascular surgery for a major artery in her abdomen and was promised prompt care by one of the most senior bureaucrats in the government, who never called back. ?Her doctor told her she?s going to die,? Baker remembers. So Timely got her surgery in a couple of days, in Washington State. Then there was the eight-year-old badly in need of a procedure to help correct her deafness. After watching her surgery get bumped three times, her parents called Timely. She?s now back at school, her hearing partly restored. ?The father said, ?Mr. Baker, my wife and I are in agreement that your star shines the brightest in our heaven,? ? Baker recalls. ?I told that story to a government official. He shrugged. He couldn?t fucking care less.?
Not everyone has kind words for Baker. A woman from a union-sponsored health coalition, writing in a local paper, denounced him for ?profiting from people?s misery.? When I bring up the comment, he snaps: ?I?m profiting from relieving misery.? Some of the services that Baker brokers almost certainly contravene Canadian law, but governments are loath to stop him. ?What I am doing could be construed as civil disobedience,? he says. ?There comes a time when people need to lead the government.?
Baker isn?t alone: other private-sector health options are blossoming across Canada, and the government is increasingly turning a blind eye to them, too, despite their often uncertain legal status. Private clinics are opening at a rate of about one a week. Companies like MedCan now offer ?corporate medicals? that include an array of diagnostic tests and a referral to Johns Hopkins, if necessary. Insurance firms sell critical-illness insurance, giving policyholders a lump-sum payment in the event of a major diagnosis; since such policyholders could, in theory, spend the money on anything they wanted, medical or not, the system doesn?t count as health insurance and is therefore legal. Testifying to the changing nature of Canadian health care, Baker observes that securing prompt care used to mean a trip south. These days, he says, he?s able to get 80 percent of his clients care in Canada, via the private sector.
Another sign of transformation: Canadian doctors, long silent on the health-care system?s problems, are starting to speak up. Last August, they voted Brian Day president of their national association. A former socialist who counts Fidel Castro as a personal acquaintance, Day has nevertheless become perhaps the most vocal critic of Canadian public health care, having opened his own private surgery center as a remedy for long waiting lists and then challenged the government to shut him down. ?This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week,? he fumed to the New York Times, ?and in which humans can wait two to three years.?
And now even Canadian governments are looking to the private sector to shrink the waiting lists. Day?s clinic, for instance, handles workers?-compensation cases for employees of both public and private corporations. In British Columbia, private clinics perform roughly 80 percent of government-funded diagnostic testing. In Ontario, where fealty to socialized medicine has always been strong, the government recently hired a private firm to staff a rural hospital?s emergency room.
This privatizing trend is reaching Europe, too. Britain?s government-run health care dates back to the 1940s. Yet the Labour Party?which originally created the National Health Service and used to bristle at the suggestion of private medicine, dismissing it as ?Americanization??now openly favors privatization. Sir William Wells, a senior British health official, recently said: ?The big trouble with a state monopoly is that it builds in massive inefficiencies and inward-looking culture.? Last year, the private sector provided about 5 percent of Britain?s nonemergency procedures; Labour aims to triple that percentage by 2008. The Labour government also works to voucherize certain surgeries, offering patients a choice of four providers, at least one private. And in a recent move, the government will contract out some primary care services, perhaps to American firms such as UnitedHealth Group and Kaiser Permanente.
Sweden?s government, after the completion of the latest round of privatizations, will be contracting out some 80 percent of Stockholm?s primary care and 40 percent of its total health services, including one of the city?s largest hospitals. Since the fall of Communism, Slovakia has looked to liberalize its state-run system, introducing co-payments and privatizations. And modest market reforms have begun in Germany: increasing co-pays, enhancing insurance competition, and turning state enterprises over to the private sector (within a decade, only a minority of German hospitals will remain under state control). It?s important to note that change in these countries is slow and gradual?market reforms remain controversial. But if the United States was once the exception for viewing a vibrant private sector in health care as essential, it is so no longer.
Yet even as Stockholm and Saskatoon are percolating with the ideas of Adam Smith, a growing number of prominent Americans are arguing that socialized health care still provides better results for less money. ?Americans tend to believe that we have the best health care system in the world,? writes Krugman in the New York Times. ?But it isn?t true. We spend far more per person on health care . . . yet rank near the bottom among industrial countries in indicators from life expectancy to infant mortality.?
One often hears variations on Krugman?s argument?that America lags behind other countries in crude health outcomes. But such outcomes reflect a mosaic of factors, such as diet, lifestyle, drug use, and cultural values. It pains me as a doctor to say this, but health care is just one factor in health. Americans live 75.3 years on average, fewer than Canadians (77.3) or the French (76.6) or the citizens of any Western European nation save Portugal. Health care influences life expectancy, of course. But a life can end because of a murder, a fall, or a car accident. Such factors aren?t academic?homicide rates in the United States are much higher than in other countries (eight times higher than in France, for instance). In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don?t die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country.
And if we measure a health-care system by how well it serves its sick citizens, American medicine excels. Five-year cancer survival rates bear this out. For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England?a striking variation.
Like many critics of American health care, though, Krugman argues that the costs are just too high: ?In 2002 . . . the United States spent $5,267 on health care for each man, woman, and child.? Health-care spending in Canada and Britain, he notes, is a small fraction of that. Again, the picture isn?t quite as clear as he suggests; because the U.S. is so much wealthier than other countries, it isn?t unreasonable for it to spend more on health care. Take America?s high spending on research and development. M. D. Anderson in Texas, a prominent cancer center, spends more on research than Canada does.
That said, American health care is expensive. And Americans aren?t always getting a good deal. In the coming years, with health expenses spiraling up, it will be easy for some?like the zealous legislators in California?to give in to the temptation of socialized medicine. In Washington, there are plenty of old pieces of legislation that like-minded politicians could take off the shelf, dust off, and promote: expanding Medicare to Americans 55 and older, say, or covering all children in Medicaid.
But such initiatives would push the United States further down the path to a government-run system and make things much, much worse. True, government bureaucrats would be able to cut costs?but only by shrinking access to health care, as in Canada, and engendering a Canadian-style nightmare of overflowing emergency rooms and yearlong waits for treatment. America is right to seek a model for delivering good health care at good prices, but we should be looking not to Canada, but close to home?in the other four-fifths or so of our economy. From telecommunications to retail, deregulation and market competition have driven prices down and quality and productivity up. Health care is long overdue for the same prescription.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html (http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html)
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Canadians live longer than Americans. Remember that.
If there is competition, then long drug patents will have to go. Government sanctioned monopolies of drugs and medical apparatuses will have to go as well.
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"Canadians live longer than Americans. Remember that"
did you not read the article? obviously not:
"It pains me as a doctor to say this, but health care is just one factor in health. Americans live 75.3 years on average, fewer than Canadians (77.3) or the French (76.6) or the citizens of any Western European nation save Portugal. Health care influences life expectancy, of course. But a life can end because of a murder, a fall, or a car accident. Such factors aren?t academic?homicide rates in the United States are much higher than in other countries (eight times higher than in France, for instance). In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don't die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country."
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"Canadians live longer than Americans. Remember that"
did you not read the article? obviously not:
"It pains me as a doctor to say this, but health care is just one factor in health. Americans live 75.3 years on average, fewer than Canadians (77.3) or the French (76.6) or the citizens of any Western European nation save Portugal. Health care influences life expectancy, of course. But a life can end because of a murder, a fall, or a car accident. Such factors aren?t academic?homicide rates in the United States are much higher than in other countries (eight times higher than in France, for instance). In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don't die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country."
Lets be carefull.
Are these comparisons equal?
True ,the role of medial care is better compared if murder and accident are removed from consideration , but was the number of accidetal death and murdered remove from both sides of the equation?
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If there is competition, then long drug patents will have to go. Government sanctioned monopolies of drugs and medical apparatuses will have to go as well.
Well, that would be nice to see, but as long as people keep insisting on lots and lots of government regulations, serious reductions in the length of drug and equipment patents isn't going to happen. There are too many favors to be bought on both ends of that deal.
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Seems to me that with better mental health care there are less homicides, so the frequency of deaths by homicide in the U.S. is also a reflection of poor American health care because mental health care, being free in Canada, is obviously available to a wider spectrum of the population than it would be in the U.S.A.
I think the writer of the article has a great talent for fiction -- I don't recognize any of the scenes of Canadian hospital overcrowding he writes about, and I've been through the Canadian health care system once for my own heart attack, once for hemorrhoid surgery, once for my wife's colo-rectal surgery and once for her hernia repair following the surgery. Also to visit relatives with various medical problems and after various surgeries. Didn't cost a cent, great care, great follow-up care.
This guy might as well be writing about the planet Mars. He's describing something that is so far removed from my own experience and the experience of my family and friends, I can't imagine whether he is making this stuff up or whether Winnipeg for some reason I can't imagine is way more fucked up than Toronto.
There is another point to consider: wait four months for a test, wait six months for a procedure: this test and this procedure will NEVER be made available to millions of Americans. If they can't pay and charity is not available, they're just plain dead. The facts don't lie. We live longer. Our medical care is better. Sure we have problems - - maybe he described some of them. Maybe some people wait longer for non-essentials as the price of everybody getting the essentials. But we live longer than you. EVERYBODY lives longer than you. YOUR system is the one that is really fucked up.
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Fear-mongering is the tool of the wealthy and the christian. Anything that threatens their wealth or their brittle mindset/perceived higher status must be torn down.
Liberals tend to only turn to pointing out the future horrors of possible actions only when they KNOW what will happen. For example, global warming and illegal, immoral, illegitimate invasions of sovereign nations to steal their resources.
9 times out of ten when a conservative, a christian or a mega-wealthy type is fear-mongering, they're protecting something that keeps them in some kind of power.
Liberals point out measurable facts as indicators of future horrors. Those others just make shit up.
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Fear-mongering is the tool of the wealthy and the christian. Anything that threatens their wealth or their brittle mindset/perceived higher status must be torn down.
Actually, that's largely the tactic of anyone who disagrees with them. Global warming Hystera, implimentation of Fascist Theocratic policy, out of control torture loving military, pending impliemtation of the draft, vote Republican & watch another black church burn down, are examples that come to mind, right off the bat.
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Fear-mongering is the tool of the wealthy and the christian. Anything that threatens their wealth or their brittle mindset/perceived higher status must be torn down.
Liberals tend to only turn to pointing out the future horrors of possible actions only when they KNOW what will happen. For example, global warming and illegal, immoral, illegitimate invasions of sovereign nations to steal their resources.
9 times out of ten when a conservative, a christian or a mega-wealthy type is fear-mongering, they're protecting something that keeps them in some kind of power.
Liberals point out measurable facts as indicators of future horrors. Those others just make shit up.
I am sorry to say that in this case you are dealing in hyperbole unlike the FACT that sometimes you appear to be filled with bovine excrement and only fit for the species known as Calliphora vicina. Must be the extensive humidity in Memphis. Seen Elvis pumping gas lately?
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AS usual, "professor", you have convinced no one.
Even if Canadians died slightly MORE than Americans, which is not obvious at all from this article, the amount paid is far, far less.
Every year, the percentage of Americans who have no insurance falls. The current situation is entirely untenable.
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Every year, the percentage of Americans who have no insurance falls. The current situation is entirely untenable.
I have no idea what this means.
are more americans getting insurance?
whats untenable?
my dictionary doesn`t have that word
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homicide rates in the United States are much higher than in other countries (eight times higher than in France, for instance
I love that this was used as a positive statistic in support of the current healthcare system!
Doesn't that statement say something on its own?
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homicide rates in the United States are much higher than in other countries (eight times higher than in France, for instance
I love that this was used as a positive statistic in support of the current healthcare system! Doesn't that statement say something on its own?
Tells me our need for a quicker and less bureacratic Death Sentence system. Instead of appeals that last 30+years, let's bring it down to 7max. It amazing how folks will argue that the Death sentence really isn't a deterrent, and when you consider many die of old age, when still in the appeals stage, it's no wonder. That, and how often folks found guilty in capital murder cases will attempt to plea bargain out of a death sentence. Both of which tells me that it is indeed a deterrent, when applied more efficiently, regardless of what the anti death penalty folks might wish us to believe. Yes, there should be an automatic appeals process, yes, they should have access to all DNA and other means of enhancing their appeal, but to make it indefinate pretty much negates the effect of the sentence, outisde of a stigma (or code of honor, for some convicts I guess)
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Tells me our need for a quicker and less bureacratic Death Sentence system.
Why doesn't that surprise me?
And yet France has a homicide rate 8 times lower and they don't have the great death sentence deterrent at all! How did they accomplish that Sirs?
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Tells me our need for a quicker and less bureacratic Death Sentence system.
And yet France has a homicide rate 8 times lower and they don't have the great death sentence deterrent at all! How did they accomplish that Sirs?
They have a 2nd amendment to their constitution? And their population is how much less than the U.S.?
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They have a 2nd amendment to their constitution? And their population is how much less than the U.S.?
1. We cannot blame the French for their freedoms.
2. It is a rate meaning a percentage, so that overall population does not matter.
Now, will you answer my question:
And yet France has a homicide rate 8 times lower and they don't have the great death sentence deterrent at all! How did they accomplish that Sirs?
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They have a 2nd amendment to their constitution? And their population is how much less than the U.S.?
1. We cannot blame the French for their freedoms.
2. It is a rate meaning a percentage, so that overall population does not matter.
Now, will you answer my question:
I did, in my questions. No one is blaming France for their freedoms, simply that their rights to firearms are likely not as permissive as the U.S. That and the % of law enforcement to actual criminals is also to be considered, including the # of heavy urban centers, where much of the homicides occur. I doubt very seriously that France has as many densely populated regions in their country as we do.
And yet France has a homicide rate 8 times lower and they don't have the great death sentence deterrent at all! How did they accomplish that Sirs?
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I did, in my questions. No one is blaming France for their freedoms, simply that their rights to firearms are likely not as permissive as the U.S. That and the % of law enforcement to actual criminals is also to be considered, including the # of heavy urban centers, where much of the homicides occur. I doubt very seriously that France has as many densely populated regions in their country as we do.
1. So you believe that permissive gun ownership is partly to blame for high homicide rates in the United States?
2. France is a much more densely populated country than the United States.
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I did, in my questions. No one is blaming France for their freedoms, simply that their rights to firearms are likely not as permissive as the U.S. That and the % of law enforcement to actual criminals is also to be considered, including the # of heavy urban centers, where much of the homicides occur. I doubt very seriously that France has as many densely populated regions in their country as we do.
1. So you believe that permissive gun ownership is partly to blame for high homicide rates in the United States?
Yes. The 2nd amendment does allow for more access to gun ownership. However that doesn't equate to stifling the 2nd amendment, since in fact those areas with more permissive CCW laws have a smaller violent crime rate than those locales with much stricter gun regulation. Then again, that's for another debate. This one was about ways to deter violent crime and murder rates without trampling on the Constitution.
2. France is a much more densely populated country than the United States.
They have MORE densely populated areas than the U.S.?? I find that signifcantly difficult to believe. I guess I should count out the # of urban areas of 1million+ between the 2 countries, and see which one country comes out on top. Outside of Paris, France, care to cite me how many 1+ million resident cities there are? Then I can start adding up all those in the U.S. Off the bat there are 9 cities alone with a 1+ million population to them. That doesn't include their immediate surrounding areas. France has more, huh? I'm impressed for such a little country
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I`m not sure deterents work
doesn`t it require that person to believe he`ll get caught?
except for ted bundy
I don`t recall any case which the guy fears he`ll get caught.
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(http://www.geocities.com/lord_visionary/guncontrol.jpg)
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I`m not sure deterents work. doesn`t it require that person to believe he`ll get caught?
I'm confident they do, since I'm always hearing of those facing a death sentence, attempting to negotiate life without parole, if not pleading to a lesser sentence
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They have MORE densely populated areas than the U.S.?? I find that signifcantly difficult to believe. I guess I should cont out the # of urban areas of 1million+ between the 2 countries, and see which one country comes out on top. Outside of France, care to cite me how many 1+ million resident cities there are? Then I can start adding up all those in the U.S. Off the bat there are 9 cities alone with a 1+ million population to them. That doesn't include their immediate surrounding areas. France has more, huh? I'm impressed for such a little country
I'm really surprised that this surprises anyone. The U.S. is way down on the list of population density - we have an enormous country compared to tiny France. But just to illustrate, I'm attaching a population density map that I found.
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Also, go to this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density
And you will find that on the list of population densities, France (metropolitan) ranks as number 89. The U.S. ranks as number 172.
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Yes. The 2nd amendment does allow for more access to gun ownership. However that doesn't equate to stifling the 2nd amendment, since in fact those areas with more permissive CCW laws have a smaller violent crime rate than those locales with much stricter gun regulation. Then again, that's for another debate. This one was about ways to deter violent crime and murder rates without trampling on the Constitution.
So, do our permissive gun laws increase our homicide rate or not? Is that why France has a homicide rate 8 times lower than the United States?
They have MORE densely populated areas than the U.S.?? I find that signifcantly difficult to believe. I guess I should cont out the # of urban areas of 1million+ between the 2 countries, and see which one country comes out on top. Outside of France, care to cite me how many 1+ million resident cities there are? Then I can start adding up all those in the U.S. Off the bat there are 9 cities alone with a 1+ million population to them. That doesn't include their immediate surrounding areas. France has more, huh? I'm impressed for such a little country
As with most of Europe, France is more densely populated than the United States. France has 110 persons per square kilometer versus the United States 31 persons per square kilometer. France is a more agricultural and less densley populated country than Germany or the United Kingdom, which you can see from Henny's map and data.
That really shouldn't surprise anyone.
Now, we've established that France is more densely populated than the United States and has less permissive gun laws (but according to you that may not matter). France does not have the death penalty. They do have a far lower homicide rate.
Yet you propose increasing the death penalty as the solution for lowering our homicide rate. Clearly that isn't what they do in France. Why does your logic run counter to the facts?
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It is also true that in the US, the states that have a death penalty and use it have a higher homicide rate than the states that either don't have a death penalty, or rarely execute anyone.
The death penalty, as used in the US, does not appear to be a deterrent.
Perhaps if we had public executions, as in Saudi Arabia, within a month or so of the crime, there would be a deterrent effect.
This would increase the rate of execution of innocent people more, though.
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I`m not sure deterents work. doesn`t it require that person to believe he`ll get caught?
I'm confident they do, since I'm always hearing of those facing a death sentence, attempting to negotiate life without parole, if not pleading to a lesser sentence
What does that have to do with the deterrent effect?
deterrent
adjective
Intended to prevent: preclusive, preventative, preventive.
What you're talking about is merely the convict's efforts to continue living as opposed to dying.
It has nothing to do with deterring a crime. People, criminals particularly, often do things on the spur of the moment. I doubt "Oh I won't do this, I might end up on death row" enters into their minds.
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Indeed Lanya. I would take it a step further and argue that it is simply human nature to wish to live, especially as death nears.
That has nothing to do with deterring crime (in this case homicide) in the minds of others.
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JS & Miss Henny have apparently completely misunderstood where I was coming from, made more notable by Js's reference of people per sq-k. I was speaking specifically of how many highly populated cities are there in the U.S. as compared to France. I even made a point of referencing at least 9 cities with populations of 1million+ in the U.S. A quick googling of France lists me.....Paris with over 2 million & ......Marseille with not even 1 million. OK, now do you see where I was coming from. Of course, with the U.S. HUGE desert and mountain regions, not to mention the size of the U.S. alone is going to make density quite small compared to tiny countries, but the point I was making was in sheer #'s as well as the many many locales with those huge #'s. Capice'?
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JS & Miss Henny have apparently completely misunderstood where I was coming from, made more notable by Js's reference of people per sq-k. I was speaking specifically of how many highly populated cities are there in the U.S. as compared to France. I even made a point of referencing at least 9 cities with populations of 1million+ in the U.S. A quick googling of France lists me.....Paris with over 2 million & ......Marseille with not even 1 million. OK, now do you see where I was coming from. Of course, with the U.S. HUGE desert and mountain regions, not to mention the size of the U.S. alone is going to make density quite small compared to tiny countries, but the point I was making was in sheer #'s as well as the many many locales with those huge #'s. Capice'?
Sirs, do you know what population density is?
The fact that the United States has huge tracts of desert is meaningless. Obviously, there won't be many homicides committed there.
Do you know what the definition of "rate" is? We are talking about homicide rate. We aren't talking about sheer numbers. That would be ridiculous and unfair to the United States, statistically speaking.
Yet, we've established that France is more densely populated. Yet, it has a much lower homicide rate. Those two facts are not disputable. Now, once you've looked up the definition of population density and rate then we can continue this conversation. If you cannot understand those basic definitions then either 1) you simply aren't willing to have an educated conversation or 2) you simply aren't intelligent.
We both know that #2 is not the case.
That brings us back to the original question.
"You propose increasing the death penalty as the solution for lowering our homicide rate. Clearly that isn't what they do in France. Why does your logic run counter to the facts?"
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(http://www.geocities.com/lord_visionary/guncontrol.jpg)
LOL
Anyone who has seen a professional infantry platoon in action knows just how stupid those comments are.
Jim Bob and his gun range buddies, with their six pack of Coors light wouldn't last but a few seconds.
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Paris with over 2 million
As a side note Sirs, the urban area of Paris has a population of around 12 million, plus it is the most visited city in the world with around 30 million foreign tourists per year.
Plenty of opportunity for homicide one would think...
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JS & Miss Henny have apparently completely misunderstood where I was coming from, made more notable by Js's reference of people per sq-k. I was speaking specifically of how many highly populated cities are there in the U.S. as compared to France. I even made a point of referencing at least 9 cities with populations of 1million+ in the U.S. A quick googling of France lists me.....Paris with over 2 million & ......Marseille with not even 1 million. OK, now do you see where I was coming from. Of course, with the U.S. HUGE desert and mountain regions, not to mention the size of the U.S. alone is going to make density quite small compared to tiny countries, but the point I was making was in sheer #'s as well as the many many locales with those huge #'s. Capice'?
Sirs, do you know what population density is?
Yes. Did you not understand the query I was posing when I brought about #'s of populated areas of America compared to the #'s of populated areas in France? Apparently not, since you demonstrated how more dense a tiny little country is like France, compared to a vastly larger country like the U.S. Now, coming from the perspective I thought we were going, and now clearly on, from that standpoint the potential for a greater number of both murders and murder rates are logically greater, when you factor in all the freedoms this country bestows upon in populace.
The fact that the United States has huge tracts of desert is meaningless. Obviously, there won't be many homicides committed there.
Which translates into a smaller "density", as well as those areas do have even more liberal CCW laws, thus places like Mojave, or even huge agricultural areas that include places like Bakersfield, appear to alo demonstrate both decreased violent crimes and violent crime rates. It's absolutely relevent in discussing the overall proportions of this country, to one like France.
Do you know what the definition of "rate" is? We are talking about homicide rate. We aren't talking about sheer numbers.
Yes. I was talking both, including violent crime rates as well
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Yes. Did you not understand the query I was posing when I brought about #'s of populated areas of America compared to the #'s of populated areas in France? Apparently not, since you demonstrated how more dense a tiny little country is like France, compared to a vastly larger country like the U.S. Now, coming from the perspective I thought we were going, and now clearly on, from that standpoint the potential for a greater number of both murders and murder rates are logically greater, when you factor in all the freedoms this country bestows upon in populace.
Ummm...wha???
LOL
Which translates into a smaller "density", as well as those areas do have even more liberal CCW laws, thus places like Mojave, or even huge agricultural areas that include places like Bakersfield, appear to alo demonstrate both decreased violent crimes and violent crime rates. It's absolutely relevent in discussing the overall proportions of this country, to one like France.
So, we have a higher homicide rate because of the Mojave? Oh, and our freedoms?
Sirs, do you even know what you're talking about? And besides the freedom to carry a handgun, which you've associated with increased homicides, what freedoms do the French not have that we do?
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Let's try talking apples and apples, since trying to make this about France "density" vs U.S. "density" is pretty much irrelevent when the sizes of each country is applied. How about New York with Paris, or Washington DC with Paris......or some equivalent populated U.S. city with Paris. Ball in your court, and we'll go from there
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Yes. Did you not understand the query I was posing when I brought about #'s of populated areas of America compared to the #'s of populated areas in France? Apparently not, since you demonstrated how more dense a tiny little country is like France, compared to a vastly larger country like the U.S. Now, coming from the perspective I thought we were going, and now clearly on, from that standpoint the potential for a greater number of both murders and murder rates are logically greater, when you factor in all the freedoms this country bestows upon in populace.
Sirs, just weight the averages and it won't matter who has more what and where - the numbers will be accurate.
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Let's try talking apples and apples, since trying to make this about France "density" vs U.S. "density" is pretty much irrelevent when the sizes of each country is applied. How about New York with Paris, or Washington DC with Paris......or some equivalent populated U.S. city with Paris. Ball in your court, and we'll go from there
Oh dear Lord!
Sirs, you studied biology in school, right? Density and rate are units of measurement that are comparable across the board. They put the nations on an equal footing and are hardly "irrelevant."
OK.
Paris had 181 homicides between 1998 and 2001. That gives them a rate of 2.85 per 100,000 for the same time period according to a Home Office document (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb502.pdf) produced by the British Government comparing EU capitals.
In that same time period New York had 1,977 homicides, or a rate of 8.77 per 100,000 for the period of 1998 to 2000. Washington D.C. had 733 homicides or a rate of 45.79 per 100,000 for the same period.
The same report (page 10) shows that compared to Europe (including Turkey) and a few non-European states the United States homicide rate is better than only a few countries which are:
Russia
South Africa
Latvia
Lithuania
Estonia
We aren't even comparable to another European country, including Northern Ireland.
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Oh good lord, you're the one that was falling all over yourself saying we can't compare Bush's poll #'s to Congress's poll #'s, that we had to look at Bush's COUNTRY WIDE poll #'s to some Congress critter's local district poll #'s, as if that's equivilant. ::) I realize why you're trying to push France vs U.S., because since the U.S. is so much bigger with hugh swaths of farmlands, mountains, plains, & deserts, their "density" #'s will never really amount to the density of a country hardly the size of just 1 of our states. I do appreciate you showing how certain cities with hugely restrictive gun laws, such as NY & DC have such a massively higher crime rate, here in the U.S. So, I guess the "permissiveness" of gun ownership isn't quote the kicker when it comes to gun related crimes in such cities.
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Oh good lord, you're the one that was falling all over yourself saying we can't compare Bush's poll #'s to Congress's poll #'s, that we had to look at Bush's COUNTRY WIDE poll #'s to some Congress critter's local district poll #'s, as if that's equivilant. ::) I realize why you're trying to push France vs U.S., because since the U.S. is so much bigger with hugh swaths of farmlands, mountains, plains, & deserts, their "density" #'s will never really amount to the density of a country hardly the size of just 1 of our states. I do appreciate you showing how certain cities with hugely restrictive gun laws, such as NY & DC have such a massively higher crime rate, here in the U.S. So, I guess the "permissiveness" of gun ownership isn't quote the kicker when it comes to gun related crimes in such cities.
Sirs, this is painful to watch. It's simple Mathematics that puts the comparison on a level playing field.
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That's what I'm trying to get to Miss Henny. A comparbly sized city compared to a similarly comparably sized city.
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That's what I'm trying to get to Miss Henny. A comparbly sized city compared to a similarly comparably sized city.
But the point is that the calculation of the population density of said cities or countries takes that work out of it.
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Oh good lord, you're the one that was falling all over yourself saying we can't compare Bush's poll #'s to Congress's poll #'s, that we had to look at Bush's COUNTRY WIDE poll #'s to some Congress critter's local district poll #'s, as if that's equivilant. ::) I realize why you're trying to push France vs U.S., because since the U.S. is so much bigger with hugh swaths of farmlands, mountains, plains, & deserts, their "density" #'s will never really amount to the density of a country hardly the size of just 1 of our states. I do appreciate you showing how certain cities with hugely restrictive gun laws, such as NY & DC have such a massively higher crime rate, here in the U.S. So, I guess the "permissiveness" of gun ownership isn't quote the kicker when it comes to gun related crimes in such cities.
Erm...yeah.
I gave the cities statistics with a linked source to a very reliable document.
The two cities that you're upset about were suggested by, um...you.
How about New York with Paris, or Washington DC with Paris......
And they also happened to be in that report, which worked out really well. The parallel is that NYC is the closest in Metropolitan population and Washington DC is also a capital. Otherwise neither city gets the foreign tourists that Paris does.
I don't know who this hissy fit is aimed at Sirs, but I provided the data that you asked for.
Let's try talking apples and apples, since trying to make this about France "density" vs U.S. "density" is pretty much irrelevent when the sizes of each country is applied. How about New York with Paris, or Washington DC with Paris......or some equivalent populated U.S. city with Paris. Ball in your court, and we'll go from there
See?
Sirs, this is painful to watch. It's simple Mathematics that puts the comparison on a level playing field.
Ouch. It is getting a little painful to debate, to be honest.
Sometimes you just have to admit it when you're wrong.
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<<Sometimes you just have to admit it when you're wrong.>>
Don't hold your breath.
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Oh good lord, you're the one that was falling all over yourself saying we can't compare Bush's poll #'s to Congress's poll #'s, that we had to look at Bush's COUNTRY WIDE poll #'s to some Congress critter's local district poll #'s, as if that's equivilant. ::) I realize why you're trying to push France vs U.S., because since the U.S. is so much bigger with hugh swaths of farmlands, mountains, plains, & deserts, their "density" #'s will never really amount to the density of a country hardly the size of just 1 of our states. I do appreciate you showing how certain cities with hugely restrictive gun laws, such as NY & DC have such a massively higher crime rate, here in the U.S. So, I guess the "permissiveness" of gun ownership isn't quote the kicker when it comes to gun related crimes in such cities.
I gave the cities statistics with a linked source to a very reliable document. The two cities that you're upset about were suggested by, um...you.
Which I both conceded (your source) and my point is helped driven home that much more with the fact that those cities with the significantly higher murder rates in the U.S., are those with significantly stricter gun laws ::) oy
I don't know who this hissy fit is aimed at Sirs, but I provided the data that you asked for.
No hissy fit, in fact I've already thanked you
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I`m not sure deterents work. doesn`t it require that person to believe he`ll get caught?
I'm confident they do, since I'm always hearing of those facing a death sentence, attempting to negotiate life without parole, if not pleading to a lesser sentence
What does that have to do with the deterrent effect?
It has to do with those who have been caught realize how much worse the death penalty apparently is, and will do whatever they can to plea themselves out of it. Granted, a person who's planning the murder of another, likely isn't thinking, Death Penalty vs Life, they're thinking how do I not get caught. The deterrence is validated by how those who do get caught almost universally attempt to get their sentence lessened from that of a death sentence. that tells me they see the Death Sentence as the worst punishment that can be given, and thus appropriate for the worse crimes, such as pre-mediated taking of another's life, perhaps that of a child, after they've had their way with them.
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Which I both conceded (your source) and my point is helped driven home that much more with the fact that those cities with the significantly higher murder rates in the U.S., are those with significantly stricter gun laws ::) oy
Gun laws are made at the state level, with some Federal exceptions. The point had nothing to do with firearm restrictions, which was in fact a negative factor introduced by you. The point was that you claimed the death penalty should be a deterrent to capital crimes, of which homicide is the most infamous. France does not have the death penalty. More precisely, Paris does not have the death penalty, but the state of New York does. Yet, under that parameter there were still far fewer homicides per capita in Paris than New York City.
Therefore the original question asked by me (not some tangent argument developed by you) is why do you advocate increasing the deaths by capital punishment when the data suggests that it does nothing to decrease homicides as in the comparison between NYC and Paris?
Just for interest, here are some other cities homicide statistics (note: these are from 2004):
Dallas, TX: 20.2
Houston, TX: 13.3
Chicago, IL: 15.5
New York City, NY: 7.0
San Antonio, TX: 7.6
Seattle, WA: 4.3
San Jose, CA: 2.6 (* Rated one of the safest cities in the United States)
San Diego, CA: 4.8
Phoenix, AZ: 14.1
Honolulu, HI: 2.9 (* Rated one of the safest cities in the United States)
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Therefore the original question asked by me is why do you advocate increasing the deaths by capital punishment when the data suggests that it does nothing to decrease homicides as in the comparison between NYC and Paris?
I advocate such since it is been established that it is the worst punishment for the worst crime. One last time, I don't see convicted murderers jumping up and down to get the Death Penalty. What I do see are convicted murderers doing whatever they can to get themselves out of such a sentence. That tells me plenty
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Therefore the original question asked by me is why do you advocate increasing the deaths by capital punishment when the data suggests that it does nothing to decrease homicides as in the comparison between NYC and Paris?
I advocate such since it is been established that it is the worst punishment for the worst crime. One last time, I don't see convicted murderers jumping up and down to get the Death Penalty. What I do see are convicted murderers doing whatever they can to get themselves out of such a sentence. That tells me plenty
Then why are Dallas and Houston amongst the worst in terms of homicide rates, when Texas is the state that uses capital punishment more than any other? Why is Paris so much lower than any of those cities, when France doesn't use capital punishment at all?
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There is a danger, first of all, in cross-cultural comparisons. It may be safe to say that Texas has a violent culture indeed, which the death penalty merely reflects but does not create, while France is literally worlds away. Also, two factors have to be controlled when speaking of violent crime and homicide rates in particular before a rational-basis test can be applied. First, most homicides are crimes of passion, giving little time for reflection and rationcination. Second, many, if not most, criminals, rightly or wrongly, rationally or not, just don't think they'll be caught if they do think about it.
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First, most homicides are crimes of passion, giving little time for reflection and rationcination. Second, many, if not most, criminals, rightly or wrongly, rationally or not, just don't think they'll be caught if they do think about it.
Which only lessens the likelihood that capital punishment would work as a deterrent, correct?
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True. But see my first point: Texas is more interested in perpetuating its culture than in controlling crime the way you and I think it should be done.
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True. But see my first point: Texas is more interested in perpetuating its culture than in controlling crime the way you and I think it should be done.
That is certainly possible. I think the same could be said about Sirs, which was the point I was trying to make using data.
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I advocate such since it is been established that it is the worst punishment for the worst crime. One last time, I don't see convicted murderers jumping up and down to get the Death Penalty. What I do see are convicted murderers doing whatever they can to get themselves out of such a sentence. That tells me plenty
but that don`t say much
guilty or innocent the convicted tends to not want to die.
several times it`s been proven here that innocent people do get executed.
but no one anywhere ever talks about insuring such things never happen
in fact I hear as long some guilty get executed it`s worth killing the innocent.
my source radio and people in my jobs
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guilty or innocent the convicted tends to not want to die. several times it`s been proven here that innocent people do get executed.
Examples please, here in the U.S., if you don't mind, since that's the system we're talking about
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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0408_050408_tv_dnadeath.html
not quite the right link
but the subject here is DNA test has shown quite alot of folks made it to deathrow for crimes they were not present to commit
also about not too long ago somebody confessed to a murder in texas which a 18 year old got executed for it already.
DNA only deals with specific situations.
in fact there talk about testing the bodies of executed to find out how many were wrongfully executed(depending on case)
that brought alot of negative responses .
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I'm not referring to those on Death row who were found innocent by later DNA testing, then released, Kimba. I'm refering to actual executions, you've claimed to have happened "several times", of folks who were found to be innocent. Any of those examples?
And someone confessing to a crime, doesn't automatically equate to have performed it. Espeically after the sentence has been handed out. Not saying that some folks don't get railroaded, or that some folks aren't wrongfully convicted of a crime. What I am saying is whare are all these "several" folks we (the U.S.) supposedly executed, who were later proven to be innocent?
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My Father used to tell me that it was no kindness to hang a man slowly.
Is the death penalty worse than life imprisonment?
I don't think much objection can be made to measures that determine to the most certainty availible whether the accused is really guilty or not.
But whether an innocent man were sentanced to die of a state inflicted injury or sentanced to wait for his natural death in a small box , his person is being severely injured.
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I went to google and tried to some data on it
way too many site on that subject for me to dig through.
so I`ll just give up on it
but I`d like to know how deathrow inmates in the recent past are different than those executed in the past
meaning if portion of them are found innocent now
how is it all excuted are all guilty
but those charged now are not all guilty
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I went to google and tried to some data on it way too many site on that subject for me to dig through. so I`ll just give up on it but I`d like to know how deathrow inmates in the recent past are different than those executed in the past
Because that currently, those on deathrow who are later found to be not guilty via DNA testing doesn't mean someone who was innocent was wrongly executed, since these folks are still breathing oxygen, like the rest of us. That's how its different, so until you can cite me these "several times" a wrongfully convicted man/woman was executed, this is largely non-viable tangent you're trying to lead us down.
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I don't think it'll ever be possible to prove with DNA evidence that anyone was wrongfully executed because the case is closed out once the guy is executed for the crime. If DNA evidence didn't surface in time to save the poor bugger on the day of his execution, nobody's gonna bother digging it up now. Won't save his life anyway, and the point that DNA could have made in his case has already been made in others. A later confession by someone else isn't proof of anything - - some of the guys wrongfully convicted were convicted because they themselves had falsely confessed.
The whole point of DNA testing is that juries can and do make big mistakes and that appeal courts don't always catch them. Thus, of those executed prior to the widespread use of DNA testing, some must inevitably have been innocent.
For a wrongfully EXECUTED person who was truly innocent in all respects, there is the Timothy Evans case, which effectively led to the abolition of capital punishment in the U.K. Evans was an unfortunate individual with a very low IQ who happened to room in the same house as John Christie, a notorious serial killer whom nobody ever suspected at the time. Christie befriended Evans and his wife, killed the wife, advised the dim-witted Evans that he would naturally be suspected by the police, "counselled" Evans on how he could get out of this mess by lying to the police, testified at Evans' trial, got him convicted and hanged. Years later, when Christie was finally exposed as a serial killer, it became obvious that the wrong man had been executed for the murder of Mrs. Evans. The end result was the abolition of capital punishment.
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January 31, 2000
Illinois Gov. George Ryan on Monday imposed a moratorium on the state's death penalty. All lethal injections will be postponed indefinitely pending an investigation into why more executions have been overturned than carried out since 1977, when Illinois reinstated capital punishment.
"We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system -- 13 people have been exonerated and 12 have been put to death," Ryan told CNN. "There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be studied."
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/01/31/illinois.executions.02/
"I hope this commission will truly and thoroughly and honestly examine the facts of these 13 cases," Bill Ryan, chairman of the Illinois Moratorium Project told the Chicago Tribune. "We need an investigation of why half the cases are overturned. We need to investigate what's been going on."
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So, bascially Tee has reaffirmed that no innocent people have been executed here in the U.S. under our current Death Penalty system. All we have is speculation that it must have happened, because...........well, because it just must have, minus of course any evidence or names. Boy, we've sure seen that tactic used many a time when bashing Bush :-\