Lockdown diaries - COVID-19 matters!

What are you going to be doing during the lockdown?

  • At home. I’m non essential

    Votes: 70 41.2%

  • Working. The virus doesn’t scare me

    Votes: 41 24.1%

  • On standby

    Votes: 10 5.9%

  • Working from home. Too essential to take any risk!

    Votes: 66 38.8%
  • Total voters
    170
  • Poll closed .
Intuthu Kagesi said:
Shoooweeeee ... Eusebius has certainly set the stage for an interesting debate ... keep us in the loop on his follow up(s) ;)
Thanks @Adephi
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I will. He admits he is not a scientist or medical professional, so he try to steer clear of any Covid related subjects.

But every article's comment section is about "Neil Young is against freedom of speech". Those people don't know Neil Young. Some righty even commented that "Sweet Home Alabama is anyway a k@k song".

And there is so much more to it than that.
 
So off I went this morning for my booster shot. They wouldn't accept me, because it's been only 5 months since I had my second shot.
I hadn't checked the date, as I assumed the clinic in Yzer was being held specifically for boosters, for those of us who were in the first age group to be vaccinated.

Anyway, they reassured me that they would be back on 28 Feb.
 
Hooked said:
So off I went this morning for my booster shot. They wouldn't accept me, because it's been only 5 months since I had my second shot.
I hadn't checked the date, as I assumed the clinic in Yzer was being held specifically for boosters, for those of us who were in the first age group to be vaccinated.

Anyway, they reassured me that they would be back on 28 Feb.
Click to expand...

O well ... you'll just have to live with poor 5G reception until the 28th I guess :giggle:
 
Grand Guru said:
https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/553536/mediclinic-sends-nhi-warning-to-south-africa/

Mediclinic sends NHI warning to South Africa

This deserves ample attention!
Click to expand...
I feel like there's some pressing issues being raised here however; it's a private healthcare provider who as we know, commonly charge medical aids well over 150% of the actual costs to medical aids. It seems to me that Mediclinic is complaining because the board of directors and shareholders won't be able to buy a new Lamborghini every month because NHI won't pay over the quoted expenses. (Their own quote was that they expect the expenses to be covered e.g. medicines and doctors wages and then even more extra profit above and beyond just because?) They also mention rationing, why can't they take that 3bn rand profit and instead take 50% of that to increase the availability of these haemodialysis machines they liked to mention, instead of pocketing all this money. Look at discovery, they are paying a very reasonable 23million a month for their new building in Sandton don't you think? I think that's just shoving $h1t in our faces that we pay so much for medical aid on a monthly basis for basically nothing, I don't even get medicine, only doctor visits for over 2k a month... This also stinks of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy; they mention rationing as a problem but that issue surely exists already or is this more of a "Elysium" case where only the rich are receiving any decent treatment and they don't want to share?
I'm not saying the NHI is a good or bad idea, I just find it funny that the private health sector is vehemently opposed to this without thinking about the large portion of the populace who are receiving subpar healthcare from our failing government. Again, I'm not for or against this as I'm not sure what implication this will have on the taxpayers who are the vast minority here, but I just feel like this is a bunch of rich private corporate babies crying about their exorbitant overheads being minimised for what seems to be the greater good.
Slay me I guess...
 
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Spunk3yMunk3y said:
I feel like there's some pressing issues being raised here however; it's a private healthcare provider who as we know, commonly charge medical aids well over 150% of the actual costs to medical aids. It seems to me that Mediclinic is complaining because the board of directors and shareholders won't be able to buy a new Lamborghini every month because NHI won't pay over the quoted expenses. (Their own quote was that they expect the expenses to be covered e.g. medicines and doctors wages and then even more extra profit above and beyond just because?) They also mention rationing, why can't they take that 3bn rand profit and instead take 50% of that to increase the availability of these haemodialysis machines they liked to mention, instead of pocketing all this money. I'm not saying the NHI is a good or bad idea, I just find it funny that the private health sector is vehemently opposed to this without thinking about the large portion of the populace who are receiving subpar healthcare from our failing government. Again, I'm not for or against this as I'm not sure what implication this will have on the taxpayers who are the vast minority here, but I just feel like this is a bunch of rich private corp babies crying about their exorbitant overheads being minimised for what seems to be the greater good.
Slay me I guess...
Click to expand...

With respect Spunk ... SA had a world class Infrastructure in 94, and look where we are now. So now that "we" have destroyed the infrastructure, "we" expropriate from people who built an alternate infrastructure, (in this context, Private Healthcare), who built it BECAUSE the State Run Infrastructure was collapsing at the time ... and ... the current plan is to pay the opex via an additional tax burden to an already overtaxed nation.

Then to the Lamborghinis ... check out MediClinics financials they're certainly far from flashy sports car territory, more so when you look at their balance sheet and see that they run a capital intensive operation ... someone had to take the risk and put that $ on the table, and considering their returns, well ... I wouldn't invest in them, hell, a savings account offers better returns :eek:

Finally, as to Medical staff ... How many of them do you think will be prepared to stay in SA when they are in essence forced to work for the State, after having their facilities expropriated by the very government whose corruption and ineptitude destroyed the aforementioned World Class Infrastructure and spurned the Private Sector in the first place!
 
Intuthu Kagesi said:
With respect Spunk ... SA had a world class Infrastructure in 94, and look where we are now. So now that "we" have destroyed the infrastructure, "we" expropriate from people who built an alternate infrastructure, (in this context, Private Healthcare), who built it BECAUSE the State Run Infrastructure was collapsing at the time ... and ... the current plan is to pay the opex via an additional tax burden to an already overtaxed nation.

Then to the Lamborghinis ... check out MediClinics financials they're certainly far from flashy sports car territory, more so when you look at their balance sheet and see that they run a capital intensive operation ... someone had to take the risk and put that $ on the table, and considering their returns, well ... I wouldn't invest in them, hell, a savings account offers better returns :eek:

Finally, as to Medical staff ... How many of them do you think will be prepared to stay in SA when they are in essence forced to work for the State, after having their facilities expropriated by the very government whose corruption and ineptitude destroyed the aforementioned World Class Infrastructure and spurned the Private Sector in the first place!
Click to expand...
Hey dude I'm open to ideas and opinions so no hard feelings :)
I will say this, in the current situation we are in I don't trust this government as far as I could throw Jacob Zuma. And I totally agree on the fact that we are overtaxed. Look at the 4 rand per litre of petrol that simply goes into the government spending pool, not even the tax portion... Mediclinic themselves say at the end of the article that they are unsure of the implementation plan, if they decide to expropriate the private infrastructure and absorb it into the state then sure, it's a huge cockup but there is a chance for the private sector to remain intact and survive alongside this proposal as well. I just feel like they're reaching a bit here before the proposal has been cemented.
 
Spunk3yMunk3y said:
Hey dude I'm open to ideas and opinions so no hard feelings :)
I will say this, in the current situation we are in I don't trust this government as far as I could throw Jacob Zuma. And I totally agree on the fact that we are overtaxed. Look at the 4 rand per litre of petrol that simply goes into the government spending pool, not even the tax portion... Mediclinic themselves say at the end of the article that they are unsure of the implementation plan, if they decide to expropriate the private infrastructure and absorb it into the state then sure, it's a huge cockup but there is a chance for the private sector to remain intact and survive alongside this proposal as well. I just feel like they're reaching a bit here before the proposal has been cemented.
Click to expand...

Ditto ... I enjoy a healthy debate ;)
I agree that it hasn't been cemented ... YET
No matter which way you look at it, whether it be expropriation, a government run "medical aid", standardised rates, whatever ... WE are going to have to pay ... there are no free rides in life, someone has to pay for these "free services", and ... it will collapse the Private Healthcare market, meaning we will lose even more medical professionals, and end up like the rest of Africa, looking outside our borders for primary healthcare.
 
Intuthu Kagesi said:
Ditto ... I enjoy a healthy debate ;)
I agree that it hasn't been cemented ... YET
No matter which way you look at it, whether it be expropriation, a government run "medical aid", standardised rates, whatever ... WE are going to have to pay ... there are no free rides in life, someone has to pay for these "free services", and ... it will collapse the Private Healthcare market, meaning we will lose even more medical professionals, and end up like the rest of Africa, looking outside our borders for primary healthcare.
Click to expand...
Yeah I totally agree, I honestly can't say anything more because you put forward a good argument and I do agree with you. The humanitarian in me wishes it's possible... I hate to see people suffer, some of them are my own family... But at the end of the day like you said, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch (Unless you're in bed with the cronies in the cANCer party)
 
Spunk3yMunk3y said:
Yeah I totally agree, I honestly can't say anything more because you put forward a good argument and I do agree with you. The humanitarian in me wishes it's possible... I hate to see people suffer, some of them are my own family... But at the end of the day like you said, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch (Unless you're in bed with the cronies in the cANCer party)
Click to expand...

Make no mistake, I'd love to take the humanitarian approach right alongside you, however I'm a pragmatist ... IF we had larger tax base, then we could consider it like some First World Countries do, however South Africa has some 1.6Million tax payers of a population in excess of 60 Million people, (59.31 million in 2020) :eek:
The math doesn't balance ... more so when you add in the ANC's latest brainchild of a Basic Income Grant for unemployed, (that's the lions share of the aforementioned 60+Million people) ... and other freebies to connected peoples .... This is going to end very badly :(
 
I agree that the speaker is having a clear conflict of interest but the arguments are unfortunately factually true. If you look to other similar examples of NHI or NHI-alike systems throughout the world, you’ll quickly find that they tend to collapse very quickly and healthcare professionals end up charging the patients outside the system. Should I speak about our notorious tendency to poor implementation of projects due to unrealistic goals, deeply corrupt government structures and lack of accountability and the resulting failure of all government departments without exception?
 
We currently can't even manage trains something that's 200 years old, we have absolutely no chance to manage something as financially and socially complicated as "free health care".

There are several countries that actually do decently with universal health care and even universal living grants, ironically enough they are capitalist based countries with maybe somewhat of a mixed economy but they're running a profit and don't spend tax money on johnny walker and sports cars.
 
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