babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Story from China about child being run over and people not helping
October 24, 2011 - 11:42am
next
I am rather surprised that there is nobody addressing this story. I assume people have heard this as it has been all over the news.
Child was run over and many people did not stop to help.
Chinese people are reported to be questioning their collective morality.
Nobody seems to be questioning the morality of a system that has allowed this to happen even though many Chinese are acknowledging indirectly the problem. The fact that this system is global should not be lost on us.
Here is a bit of background: China does not have universal medical care and has poor social supports for sick and injured people. Many Chinese responding to this story mention stories about people who have helped only to be accused of causing the accident and sued or made to pay for the medical care. Some hospitals insist that whomever is bringing a person to an emergency should pay for the care if the patient has no money and the person helping does. You can imagine the chill that could have on a population. don't think it would not happen here.
It is interesting then, that there is so much questioning of the individual morality of Chinese people rather than the questioning of a system that is modernizing, building some of the most interesting and exciting architecture in the world, building a space program, advancing the well-being of an elite with so much money that demand for luxury items is skyrocketing and hoarding tons of cash-- but cannot accept to pay for the care of people who have been hurt, or are sick -- either in hospital or following hospitalization. This is relevant in Canada as we put our money to war machiens on the sea and in the air rather than the priorities of the people.
Still there is something wrong with a state calling itself a people's state adopting the worst excesses of western capitalism, including a priority of private money over people that is no better than that of the United States.
It is sad to see people in that country reacting with fear of an inhumane system questioning their personal and collective moralities without laying any of it at the door of a political system that is socialistic in name only and capitalist in every other respect-- to the point of being a near wild-west-type capitalism where people are victimized for helping each other if that highlights the need for a hospital to take care of someone being brought in without money.
It is interesting to see the globalization of excuses being given to inhuman systems bearing many names. Our so-called democracy is not democratic. We concentrate wealth in the hands of a few as fast as we can and only our wealth (so much more than China's per capita) makes it look like we are less greedy and more moral than they. It is the same forces being driven everywhere. Canada looks particularly bad given the massive wealth in this country, incredible natural richness yet a failure to take care of our most vulnerable.
When it comes to China, I do hope that the Chinese will focus on the important questions about their system and the need for universal public healthcare over other priorities rather than being distracted by individual or group examinations of the morality of a people and a culture amid an inhumane social and political structure that has adopted western capitalist priorities in a country that struggles to find the basics to provide for its people. It does not surprise me that so many people would walk by an injured person knowing that they would have cause to fear ruination just for helping.
And for those smugly watching from Canada. Beware. There is nothing in this story that could not happen here. And this would be a common story here if the right wing get their will and we dismantle public healthcare. The reason Canadians might be more likely to help a person in distress after an accident has a lot more to do with the fact that we know they will get medical care without someone looking to bill us for bringing them in than it has to do with any moral difference between our cultures.
This story is an indictment of the global rush to put money before people and it is just as relevant here as it is in China. It is just as relevant in the United States where years ago the world saw the story of a woman giving birth on the sidewalk of a hospital because she did not have health insurance. At the time the US was considered the wealthiest in the world. Social and economic systems need to be held to account for this kind of thing. The morality in this story is no different from the morality of having hundreds of First Nations Communities without access to safe water and housing. This is the same globalized fight and it needs to be recognized as such.
Remembering Kitty Genovese
Kitty's story sounds like more of a morality tale than the story in China I am referring to.
In Kitty's case the desire to respond was at issue. I think fairly that would trigger a morality question about the people there.
In China, there are reports that the issue in this case may be less one of a lack of desire to respond than a fear of what could happen if they did respond. That fear is prompted by policies of hospitals which want to make someone pay before they provide services, the lack of universal emergency care and a legal system which found a person who was just helping guilty of having caused the injury based on the argument that they would not have helped had they not caused it (this was a legal case that received a lot of attention in China).
In the US case, a well deserved soul-searching was in order. In the Chinese case, it looks like an examination of the excess of the (now) capitalist system is needed. In other words this may be a lot less of a case to argue the Chinese are immoral than that the legal and economic system -- mostly imported from the West -- is immoral.
I think there are many recent comparisons both in Canada and the US of the immorality of the legal and economic system.
By the way there was also a story in Ottawa a few years ago when a woman who fell froze to death. People thought she was a "street person" and did not matter and did nothing to help. This is a case that deserved soul searching since if anyone had brought her to a hospital or called an ambulance, they would have had no reason to fear.
It is important that people understand the different contexts because I think if we had the same lack of universal care here we would have the same reaction from the public. This is my reason for highlighting the story as well as to show that this is not about the Chinese being immoral as so many are reporting.
Our system is hardly a guiding light for anyone including China. Lets look at your scenario above,
In BC if you phone for an ambulance you will have to give your full name and somehow convince the 911 or other operator that the situation is an emergency. If it is not a life threatening emergency then they will want to know about payment for the service beginning with the all important Care Card number of the person requesting services. With a Card you only need to cough up less than a hundred bucks but if the person you want to help doesn't have a card on them then it costs a whole lot more.
So okay lets not take an ambulance instead we will drive them to an emergency room. In our hospitals the fees are posted clearly at admissions and if you do not have a Care Card they want someones Visa up front before admission. So you have nothing to fear except the expectation that if you bring a person to the hospital without a Care Card then you will have to guarantee payment.
In BC the government collects more in MSDP premiums than it does in corporate taxes. So I try not to lecture others on their terrible political system because ours is no alternative.
What's the comparison between seeing a toddler dying in the street and passing by without doing anything and, say, watching upwards of 75 women murdered in a neighbourhood over a period of twenty years and doing nothing?
I see the point of the OP, but for me, stories like this, which are plentiful throughout history, have much more to do with alienation under capitalism than it does specific government policies.
Northern please don't read my post so selectively in order to "be the opposition."
First I was clear that this was not their system I was criticizing but a global system -- capitalism.
Second -- you are not forced to pay anywhere in Canada when you bring a stranger to an ER. It would be a national news story if you were. From there your comparison is not applicable. In Canada the hospital legally is obliged to take all emergency cases and treat them. If you are the patient they will try to extract payment for the ambulance from you after the fact but not from a stranger who just helped. They will also accept your statement that you are a bystander at the scene of an emergency when you are calling the ambulance. You would need to document a case where a helping bystander suffered in the way being discussed in the China example. I think it is safe to say this would be a front page news story if it happened here.
Of course you ignore the point of my entire post that things are bad here and could get worse -- nobody who is not reading selectively to a predetermined conclusion could get what you said from what I wrote.
As for your statement suggesting I was lecturing them on their system-- no, I was not drawing clean international borders on capitalism as you seem to want to do-- I was complaining about capitalism and its role in this and lecturing Canadians if you so want to love to use the word-- on the issue of taking the story as some kind of statement about Chinese morality which is the way the media covered it here.
Your reply Northern is a good example of what is wrong with this place-- instead of a constructive critique of what someone is writing in order to discuss it ignores the obvious thrust of what was said in order to twist a statement in to something it does not resemble in order for you to come out the hero -- the defender of what was not attacked. Your post seeks to contort the discussion in order to present an oppositional statement rather than engage what is said. Apparently the purpose is to justify through tortured logic your final lines. You use language that is obviously clever enough to make it clear that you are smart enough to understand what is actually being said but choose not to in order to make your point.
That story is largely discredited these days with a more exact examination of the facts showing newspapers exaggerated (shocked gasp) and in fact most of the 'witnesses' never heard anything or indeed did try to help
Sorry, I don't agree that this is a story of "alienation under capitalism" but rather an extreme of capitalism as presented in specific policies.
Specifically:
1) Lack of universal healthcare generally, and specifically lack of universal care for ER patients when brought to hospital in an emergency. That is what is behind the rush for payment-- without government support to do so hospitals cannot care for whomever is dumped on their doorstep. We are not talking about ambulance services-- the emergency care itself which could run many thousands of dollars is the issue.
2) The hospital policy to force anyone that brings a stranger to pay. This is a documented reality in China. Not so in Canada where most patients are covered by our universal health care system and so the few that arrive in an emergency without insurance can be covered by the hospital which has the legal obligation to treat in an emergency and look into payment after -- and no pressure to seek money from a so-called "good samaritan." If you were to remove our universal healthcare system as many are calling for us to do -- we would see this story play itself out here.
3) A legal system that punishes the bystander. Again this is related directly to the policies of the hospitals and the lack of universal care. Many of the hospitals are government owned and cannot take on the healthcare of the population because so many are uninsured. If they are not brought to the hospital they can be safely ignored. The legal system run by the government, by punishing the bystander, is protecting the hospital from having to deal with someone uninsured because there are too many there.
If you want a better example coming from North America then the one of US hospitals in California dumping sick patients without insurance on the street is a better comparison. The reason it does not happen here is that our government-owned hospitals serve a population with over 95% publicly insured.
I am drawing a straight line to the policy of no public emergency care to what happened rather than to some sense of alienation or collapsing morality. I am drawing that line because there are many people here in Canada who want to privatize health insurance so that we would end up with a large amount of people here without the means to pay for their care -- and you can bet that hospitals here would not want to receive them and then you can imagine them holding bystanders responsible for bringing people in and then you can imagine people here walking by someone in need and not helping... -- not out of apathy but out of fear.
This can happen here. That is why I bring this up.
And the problem with this alienation argument is there is no evidence to suggest the Chinese are apathetic-- that is a western conclusion based on a very different set of realities. It has been documented that the Chinese ARE fearful of helping and that is a policy-motivated fear coming from specific healthcare policies that have their proponents here in Canada. That fear is entirely justified and has been proven to be in a very public way in China. (Ask any Chinese person about the case of the elderly woman who fell down and sued the person who helped with the state legal system agreeing with her. The helper was ruined financially. And there was proof the elderly woman was on the ground before that person arrived. This was a very, very, well-covered story-- perhaps in order to get the word out that you better not bring people to hospital. This has made Chinese people absolutely terrified of helping strangers.)
We miss this point at our peril.
Sure lots of things are screwed up in Canada but at this point we have a universal healthcare system-- this is what happens when you don't have such a system. And we have a line-up of the greedy wanting eliminate our health care system. So let us not comfort ourselves making assumptions about Chinese morality and instead look at the morality of health care policy, hospital policy and universal care and specifically universal emergency care. Or the morality of the capitalist system that is calling for this. the same capitalist system pressuring EU government to abandon their social safety net. This is a global fight and it is not about individual morality of bystanders but institutional, the morality of capitalism.
I could have said. I get your point Sean. China is bad . Bad, bad third world countries. We have a responsibility to speak out against their abuses. Have they got to the point yet when we should bomb them for their own good? But instead I tries to debate respectfully.
I think your view of the situation does not align with the facts of our own system and you are comparing China to a your ideal of Canada not the reality of Canada.
We have enacted varying Good Samaritan laws in Canada because in many legal systems including our own the rule of law is, "don't touch an injured person unless you are willing to be made liable for any damage you might inadvertently do." Of course that includes having to defend against any false claim by an ingrate you try to help after they have just jumped in front of a car to get an ICBC claim.
So really all they need in China to get to where we are in Canada is the equivalent of a Good Samaritan law.
I haven't actually paid attention to the coverage of that story; I just assumed since the source was Chinese media that it was an eye-opener in their country to callous behaviour that has long been the norm here.
Anyone who would actually claim that sort of thing doesn't happen here is lying or not paying attention. After all, I live in the province where just weeks ago scores of people did nothing to help a drowning man because of their racism and hatred of the homeless.
Northern Shoveller you could have said you get my point that capitalism is bad--- to say that I am saying China is bad is an outright lie. And since I don't think you are stupid I think you know it.
Of course you then continue with the suggestion that I think bombing third world countries is a good idea even though I have never supported that-- of course that is a personal attack and you well know it.
This event is being misrepresented in the media here as a question of the morality of their people when it is not. It is a question of the morality of the capitalist system and specifically the capitalist policies in place there with respect to public healthcare.
I am not going to defend the Chinese version of the capitalist system just because it is Chinese. I respect China and the Chinese too much for that-- nor am I going to surround them with some kind of condescending no-criticize policy that I would not have towards the US or Canada or Europe or any other country.
I am going to defend them against the notion that they have a morally bankrupt nation when it is really public policy that is at fault and specifically a capitalist inspired public policy that puts profits before people.
And I damn well am going to make that point here when people are trying to replicate that policy in this country because the same story would happen here if people could be punished for helping.
I will do this in spite of all your efforts to smear me with your very condescending and irrelevant defence of China-- made with the full knowledge that China was not what was under attack -- capitalism was.
In this you put the Chinese government and the Chinese version of the capitalist system as immune to criticism implying that I should have let the argument that China is immoral stand. You seem to have more respect for the capitalist system than you do the Chinese.
It is your logic that is bankrupt here.
Smith, the problem is it is not callous behaviour.
The story is being covered in China but being horribly misrepresented here. I live with Chinese people and am following the story not just from this twisted perspective.
In Canada if you don't help an injured person it is callous. In China the motivation is quite different-- it is fear. The media here is not covering that. They have reason to fear being sued for many times their annual income -- and be ruined financially for life. When Canadians callously walk by someone in need that is not a factor.
That fear is driven by specific policies not by any cultural deficiency or lack of morality. It is unfair to compare this circumstance with a Canadian example of the same type of thing given this difference.
Please stop presuming that what we saw in China is just about callous behaviour.
Even the concept of financial ruin in China is different than here-- if you are ruined here there is social benefits, as horribly meagre as they are, there is health coverage. In China they do not have that. Financial ruin is almost life-ending in itself. If you have children- helping someone could be making a choice between them and your own kids. Fear. not callousness.
I am not defending going by a bleeding child but I will say that Canadians have no clue what is at stake or what is behind a decision to help or not over there when our context is so different.People here have no right to judge the morality of people in that context.
That capitalism is playing a huge role in this is also an essential point because it will do the same here if we let it. I choose to judge capitalism for it and Northern Defender is apparently coming to the defence of capitalism misrepresenting my words to pretend for the sake of his narrative that it is about China.
@ Sean
Yes, I got that (the issues of liability) from the Guardian article.
My comment was more directed at the outside perspective, hence my point that this is a story in China as well; that's part of the reason why I don't really want to get into that other issue.
Haven't seen anything with a child like that but stuff like this happens in the US allot... people get beaten and robbed or hurt in an accident and nobody does anything to help them for quit awhile while they lay there. I really don't think it's from the economic or political system of the nation but more it's just from people's attitudes of that area. Notice how most (I'm not saying all) of these instances happen in cities where as a mode of survival people tend to stick to their own business.
Just a thought.
I am taking the many Chinese who are saying they would like to help in a situation like that but are too afraid to -- at their word.
Sorry Sean I have a problem accepting you as an expert on the minds of most let alone all Chinese people on this issue or any other issue. I know I don't know what motivates all Canadians or most Canadians for that matter and I live here and speak the language. So my scepticism in in your analysis that presupposes you know how Chinese think. In my world no group of people can be lumped together in such a fashion. It is like some kind of stereotyping on steroids.
Sean you jumped down my throat for my first post merely because I opposed your point of view. My response to what I saw as your whining about being contradicted was I posted sarcasm.
I think a good, well-balanced OP would have the Chinese news juxtaposed against other systems internationally, and then offer some analysis as to the similarities and differences.
Northern -- you started with this "So I try not to lecture others on their terrible political system because ours is no alternative." when in fact the system I am speaking of --capitalism-- is one we share. You tried to make it a criticism of China. It never was. Early in my first post I said this "The fact that this system is global should not be lost on us."
Rebecca-- good well balanced OP? Well perhaps my intentions were different from yours.
I was not trying to be balanced. I was denying that the issue was the morality of the Chinese as the Western media is portraying it to be and laying the blame at the door of capitalism generally and the lack of universal emergency care specifically. I went on to warn that this could happen here as the issue is not something cultural but a policy decision that is being promoted here-- a withdrawal from public healthcare.
I can't imagine why I should have to provide some kind of international discussion about news to make those points. Or a discussion about systems to compare with China-- wow -- did you read my post at all? What system did you want me to compare it to-- since I already stated it was a global system of capitalism? Should I have brought in Cuba?
In fact what this thread has really turned in to is a double standard-- we can criticize capitalism as manifested in the US or here but if it is in China -- perhaps because it is nominally called a socialist country which it has not been in many years-- we cannot criticize capitalism there.
What is only mildly amusing is that the exact same statements-- had it been from California instead of China would have been accepted as just fine. Just for fun why not reread it and pretend the story comes from some other capitalist system-- like the United States?
So in this place it is not the topic but the parties that matter. Not the issues but vague sensibilities of seeing the Chinese as fellow socialists. We are only to learn about the evils of the capitalist US-- and not capitalism elsewhere. While the media can find Chinese people willing to say their declining morality is the problem -- those I speak to think it is more related to fear of what happens when they help. But it is not permitted to be of discussion here because we are to stand in solidarity with the communist party while we throw the reputation of the Chinese people under the bus.
Well at least you are marching in lock-step with the great reliable western media on this.
Sean, just step back for a minute and take a breath. You're more than welcome to forward a point of view based on your experience and the anecdotal experience of your acquaintances. And babblers are more than welcome to disagree with and challenge you without you taking it as a personal affront. You are among allies who also see the pitfalls of capitalism and are working toward their own analyses of how it works overseas and here at home. There is no need to be on the defensive. No one is attacking you or your beliefs.
If China has capitalism, then what we have here in the west must be fascism. We don't see China bombing and invading oil-rich countries on trumped-up pretexts for war. It's not the Chinese or Russians who have been aiding and abetting "al-Qaeda", from Chechnya and Azerbaijan to Bosnia, Xingxiang province, and Libya. If China has capitalism, then what we have here in the West is barbarism. What we have here in the West are mergers of state and supranational corporate power. It's neofascism on roids.
Democracy should more appropriately be referred to as corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. - George Washington
Sean sorry I just don't follow your logic. If Canada and China are equally capitalist countries and it is capitalism you are decrying in China they why does capitalism cause them to be fearful but not us.
I am proposing to you that culture and law are entwined and it obvious that the Chinese like Canada could use legal reform in many areas. And I still believe you have a very privileged view of Canada's social safety net especially our health care system as it actually exists. A view you might not share if you had no money and no Care Card and had to try to gain access to our "universal" health care. I just had knee surgery and I was admitted prior to the regular admitting desk hours so I had to get into the hospital through the emergency room admission. The signs were very clear either you produce a Care Card or you pay money up front. That is what the signs say so I believed them. Maybe Ontario is better I don't know I am just telling you that in BC you need to pay if your not insured just like in China.
Now Sean I have to tell you I was actually amazed and deeply saddened by the signs because I too had thought that anyone could walk in and get treatment in an emergency room in Canada. The Fraser Health authority disagrees with what both you and I think Canada's safety net should be and actually is. Unfortunately MBA pencil pushers run the FHA not either you or me. The Chinese government has a lot of MBA graduates as well trained at the same american schools as the people who have been hired to run all our public services in BC.
It is clear that anything remotely criticizing the Chinese government for its long march towards capitalism is not politically correct on this forum. This is not a place of open discussion where ideas are judged on merit, logic or facts. This is a place where people get to measure their pro-socialist creds to see who has the longer, bigger one rather than actually discuss what is happening to real people and why.
The argument that we should not discuss a capitalist move away from a people's agenda because there is worse elsewhere means that we can only address problems in the extreme-- and must wait till they reach that extreme before we can discuss it-- even in the context of concern over what is happening here in Canada. Given the types of discussions we are hearing from the Tea Party in the US, the same logic would conclude that we should also not address Steven Harper because there is worse than him out there. Perhaps we should avoid all discussion about privatization of our healthcare system understanding that there is worse elsewhere... Our healthcare system is the product of Tommy Douglas and must be good in every respect after all. Even the privatization of it probably should not be criticized because then we would be attacking medicare (although in a perverted form).
Maybe the only point to be made is the US is a steaming pile of shit, Harper is their tool and that is the only thing we are allowed to say. Anything that distracts from that message (even if it does not contradict it) should not be raised here. A one note song.
And in all that we should let the media report that the Chinese are really immoral and the system that threatens to ruin them financially for helping each other should be above reproach-- because the country calls itself socialist.
To half-quote from a movie about an investigation in to a serial killer in the USSR-- Capitalism is a decadent western phenomenon. It should not be acknowledged.
Given past experience Catchfire I am not surprised that you have no trouble with this:
"I get your point Sean. China is bad . Bad, bad third world countries. We have a responsibility to speak out against their abuses. Have they got to the point yet when we should bomb them for their own good?"
And that I should take a step back -- maybe I should thank Northern for helping me see my bad ways and admit that I am a hawkish right wing republican wanting to bomb the third world because that would be the only way you could interpret this as anything other than a personal attack.
Anyway, yeah sure, I am sure I am in the wrong place.
Sean, no one is attacking you. No one thinks you are a right-wing republican, and no one has inferred as much. You don't seem to be able to hear this from me, so I'm not sure it will do any good, but sometimes people just disagree with your arguments. It happens.
Northern you know nothing about me or my history. Don't you talk about me in terms of privilege.
I explained why the Chinese are fearful. The majority there have no health coverage and hospitals seek to blame the person bringing someone in if that person does not have money for care-- even if the person bringing them in is a stranger. That is not true here. I am aware that we do not have 100% universal coverage but it is very high and hospitals will try to get money from a sick person if they can and the person has no coverage but they are not so desperate that they go after a "good Samaritan". In the grand scheme of things that may seem like a small detail to you but it is a big deal if you are considering being that Good Samaritan.
There is no comparison to China:
It is illegal for a hospital to turn away an emergency case here because they have no coverage. Not true in China.
People in Canada do not have to fear liability for being a Good Samaritan and bringing someone to hospital here.
Most people have hospital coverage here.
It is essential that Canadians understand this distinction given how many right wingers there are here who would like to make it exactly like it is in China.
Too bad you feel that way Sean, because I think you are definitely more sympathetic toward China than I am. I am thinking about a certain conversation aways back about Taiwan.
But I do think you should ignore the flak. People have their opinions and you have every right to yours.
So what is your interpretation of the quote I copied in post 22?
Sean, if you'd like feedback on this thread on a post-by-post basis, I'd encourage you to take it to PMs. If you want this thread to stay open about the incident in China, stop making it about you and get back to the subject.
And my frustration Catchfire is that this is an important issue-- it illustrates in a heart-breaking way what happens when basic necessities like hospital care are not being covered. The result tears at the way people act towards each other because it moves people from human/humane interaction to survival. This is not a cultural Chinese thing. This is what happens when you have no hospital care.
Don't get me wrong I feel for the family, for the child. But I also feel for the people that walked by wanting to help a child but feeling too afraid to do so because it could mean the end of any security for their own children. It was not coincidence that the person who helped was poor and elderly (nothing to lose and no minor children depending on them). I feel for those people. I also feel for the entire people of China questioning their humanity. I don't blame them. I am trying to lay blame where it should fairly be and point out that we are only a few bad policy steps from the same place because we have the same forces at work here.
But because my example came from a socialist country-- and it would be read as a criticism even though I began by saying it is a globalized problem-- we could not discuss what this means. Instead we had to discuss by implication my disloyalty to socialism, my distraction from attacking the real enemy, the US. (By the way I consider the US as a nation only part of the problem and capitalism in general the bigger part.) So instead of even addressing the merits of the argument: do people agree that fear is the motivation? how does this work? would it happen here? Can China afford hospital care for all? or anything I raised-- Instead we had to discuss if I am legitimately allowed to criticize China when the US is worse. The discussion was stifled and placed on to a politically correct defense rather than being questioned for its merits in fact and logic.
And in the middle of that by implication was the acceptance that the Chinese must be immoral -- and that is ok because we are immoral as well. Well, we don't know if the Chinese are immoral because there is threat to them in that circumstance that does not apply here. Ironically, saying we cannot point out that difference is more insulting to the people of China than my critique of a policy.
This is a chill on the presentation of ideas.
Now in my case, I very much care about China and so I would like to be able to discuss public policy there without either having to toe a party line or be automatically accused of being mean to China.
Now you threaten closure.
If you get tired of this gig I suggest you apply for a job with Steven Harper.
In fact I have all along being trying to address a particular progressive topic only to have it derailed by a debate over whether it is reasonable to introduce an idea that in some way could be possibly maybe interpreted as a critique of China.
You tell me-- how have your posts been on topic?
Have you engaged the issue of universal healthcare and how the lack of it affects good Samaritans? Or the policy mentioned in the OP of hospitals shaking down bystanders?
Nope-- being on topic is agreeing with Catchfire. I do get your point. And I understand your POWER.
Cool.