Seriously, why do you fear Universal Healthcare as a solution for US?

Well, my observation and personal experience says otherwise, so unless you have something more to offer, your opinion is duly noted.

 

I understand where you're coming from, since I was a hardcore libertarian in high school. My value of freedom isn't what changed so much as what I think of as the conditions that promote it. Freedom is the ability to live as you want, so long as you let others do the same. Some have interpreted this to be some kind of Darwinian, individualistic thing where people make their own way and nobody knows what's better for them than themselves. I think this was more true to life back in the time of the Founding Fathers, but when thinking about healthcare today, there are a number of complicating factors.

As society becomes more advanced, the notion of people being self-reliant and totally responsible for themselves becomes kind of a relic of a time when people really did live on their own out in the wilderness. Our notion of that time is romanticized, since it was hard to appreciate all that freedom they had when most of their children weren't growing up to be adults and they worked their butts off just to survive. It becomes increasingly impossible to be self-reliant in modern society because we become specialists in the kind of work we do, and we cannot do everything as well as people specialized in other areas.

Healthcare is a good example of this. Doctors spend a lot of time in school, and then even more time training as apprentices (resident physicians), and it is even said that they spend their whole career "practicing". In many cases, even they have to work together with other doctors and related fields specialized in various aspects of medicine to delivery the best care. And even they have trouble keeping up with the best practices and the evolving complexity of medicine. Now imagine trying to evaluate the quality of healthcare as a product for the average consumer who didn't spend an extra 12+ years training in medicine. Hypothetical question: Did my hospital/doctor do a good job? Um, I don't know. I was sedated on a ventilator. All I remember is Dr. Fung was a really nice guy once I woke up. So basically we see that the idea of people evaluating the quality of their healthcare is fundamentally absurd. Most likely, they'll just be able to evaluate how friendly the staff was. Bedside manner is important, but it is not the biggest factor in determining whether you survive a serious illness.

So it's hard to choose the right doctor/hospital, especially if you're actively bleeding out. And with insurance it's just a set of economical facts. Profit is a powerful tool to motivate people to work hard. Incentives are well aligned when we're talking about producing a quality good that people will want to buy. As I mentioned, it's hard to apply this to healthcare since people don't know if they're receiving appropriate care, or in the case of insurance whether the fine print will bankrupt them (Obamacare tried to fix that, with some success). Also, the term "want" doesn't apply to healthcare but rather "need," since people will generally pay whatever it takes, right now, to stay alive. I'm not saying that profit is all bad in healthcare in general. Overall I would say:

Health insurance: Profit is bad because it motivates companies to cover as little care as possible so that they can hand off the savings to their shareholders and executives.
Doctors/hospitals: Profit is bad if the payment scheme is based upon volume of services given, since not every patient needs a surgery. There has been a push to reimburse based upon quality, but it's difficult to get it right
Drugs/devices/tests: Profit can be good if it motivates them to create products that doctors want to prescribe/use because they actually improve health. Though often the companies spend their money lobbying congress and advertising to patients to pretend their drug is innovative and better when it isn't.

So we can see that the American system is not optimal and relies upon free market assumptions that do not neatly apply to healthcare. People cannot take personal responsibility because it is unrealistic to expect them to be informed enough to evaluate their care. If we are concerned about giving people a free pass to be unhealthy and irresponsible, the best option is going to be to align incentives with desired outcomes. This would include things like taxing unhealthy foods to help subsidize healthcare for everybody, of which consumers of such unhealthy food will disproportionately need. That is how you force people to be responsible for their own bad decisions while also leaving them free to do so, and not abandoning them with callous disregard.

Probably the best system is one that provides a high floor of universal coverage that applies to everybody. This has the potential to maximize efficiency for many reasons, including less overhead and higher bargaining power with drug companies (though in a nation as corrupt as America, might not apply since congress disallowed medicare from negotiating for better drug prices because they are whores for the pharmaceutical industry). The best system would also allow some customization through supplemental plans. Last I looked into this, this is most similar to the French system.

 

Vermont tried and gave up. I believe the reason was that with all the existing national supports for private insurance, including payroll taxes for Medicare, employer medical benefits and deductions, plus federal laws and lack of laws to control provider pricing and drug costs, they couldn't make it pencil out. They saw that we have to do it on a national scale or at least with all states and with national legislation all at once to make it possible. Otherwise there were too many expenses for the consumer that were unnecessary with a single-payer plan but there was no way to eliminate them because they are federal programs and taxes.

 

This is the thing that just drives me crazy...we have so many options to explore, but so many people's minds have been polluted with political misconceptions from pundits they only see it as one extreme or the other.

 

Eh, I don't think you're wrong. Corporations do seek to buy out competition, and the biggest of them do vie for regulatory capture. But, unless one can keep competitors from entering the market, buying up competition is not a way to achieve monopoly status, which is what it looked like you were suggesting. In essence: If there is a big player trying to achieve or maintain monopoly status by buying up all competition, that player can serve as a golden goose for would-be startups who just need to feign intent to compete only to sell out at exorbitant prices only to do it again, until that big, ambitious player breaks itself.

To prevent this, the monopolist, or would-be monopolist, would have to instantiate a regulatory scheme(by having laws made in their favor) to keep would-be competitors out of the market. But then, many of them may very well have done so.

 

You may have done and you are entitled to your opinion, but the World Health Organisation is accepted world wide as the most efficient independent arbiter of health care systems extant. Its rankings are concerned with the health care system's efficiency across the demographic concerned, not with isolated instances of individual care. I think there is little doubt that countries such as the USA are at the forefront of medical development, but this does not always translate into first class care being available, irrespective of financial ability.

<<< MODERATOR EDIT : OFF TOPIC >>>

 

I suspect you meant to write 'countries' (instead of counties) and I will take it as that, however the population of a country seldom affects the efficacy of systems, apart from the tyrannies of distance imposed in sparsely populated land masses of considerable size (such as Australia). Irrespective of its geographic or population size, each society provides a national infrastructure, and whether it maintains a world military presence is a matter of choice. So nothing there makes the USA unique. The percentages may vary, but each society also has number of unemployed, a number on social services, and a specific number of taxpayers - again nothing new there. So I'm not entirely sure what point it is you are attempting to make in respect of what you term 'obvious math/s' (the word is mathematics - not mathematic - so it logically takes the short form 'maths').

<<< MODERATOR EDIT : OFF TOPIC >>>

 

how about this, the right is worried about the insurance companies having to pay for pre-existing conditions, why not move them to medicare when they no longer qualify for reasonably priced insurance....

then the ins companies can get richer and only have to cover healthy and rich people

 

So...what you are saying is that you can't.

Okay.

That is what I thought...and I was right.

 

Not to mention in that big mixing-bowl of plans out there, some plans are corporate-exclusive, meaning that private individuals cannot get access to the same plans that businesses can offer employees. And insurance is imperative to people but for animals not so much (depending on the animal). The same drugs that require a prescription for people can be acquired direct from the manufactures for animals at a fraction of the cost without any confirmation from a veterinarian that it's actually for an animal. It's good to know people with horse and cattle farms (they know all the tricks).

 

Why did you not fully quote my post? Not only are you ignorant on the subject, but your also dishonest.

 

exactly, it's illegal to self medicate, so a person MUST see a Doctor to get permission, thus the government should help people that can't afford this permission

 

You're mistaken, the reference to wealth was that of average Americans, "Show me a nation of people other then Americans that live in average" and in no way a personal best!
<<< MODERATOR EDIT : OFF TOPIC >>>

 

I did quote your post fully. I hit the quote button.

If you are going to call someone else ignorant...perhaps you ought to learn the difference between "your" and "you're." Otherwise all you do is to cause laughter.

 

Yeah, and we have to pull our own teeth out. Where do you get this crap, out of Trumps book of facts?

 

Yeah, they get welfare to do so also. Thus the whole lot are costing us money and they get a tax credit for procreation. According to @Belch they are a drag on society…so there is a double standard at play in his “mind”

 

I have lived in countries with no national health system, such as Chile, countries with a mix, such as Australia and countries with, such as the UK. I have been unlucky enough to need treatment in each.

By far the most sensible option is a national system. In the USA for example, a huge proportion of what you pay for healthcare is spent on marketing - that is crazy.

Some of the best care I have had has been in the UK under the NHS. For example, over Christmas, my wife noticed a mole was changing shape and felt I should get it checked. So, I called my GP and was given an appointment that morning - no charge

He had a look at didn't think it was anything to be worried about, but best to be safe and said I should have a scan at hospital. He called while I was sat there and arranged an appointment for that afternoon. No charge.

I went along and was seen and in and out quickly and efficiently. A couple of days later I received a letter that the dermatologist would like to see me to go through the scan and an appointment. I couldn't make the date given, so called and they agreed to move it and move it to a hospital closer to work. No charge

I saw the dermatologist and she said she also didn't think it was anything and the scan was clear, but, to be safe, they would remove it and send for analysis. Appointment booked for surgery to happen a few days later

Oh, no charge

I went to the hospital and was treated wonderfully by the medical staff who cut it out and stitched me up and arranged a follow up for 10 days later. No charge

Now, at the time, I was changing jobs, so wouldn't have had private insurance. I don't earn enough to pay for it myself, so, I would potentially, like millions of Americans be sat just hoping there was nothing wrong.

 

"illegal" lol, our laws are policing for profit.

 

Perhaps you need to quit calling someone out for auto correct on a phone when you're confused about economic theory that has been accepted and observations have proven for over 75 years.

 

That is completely irrelevant to the question of how much of revenue goes to administrative costs vs. paying benefits.

 

If the admin for the doctor is too expensive compared to the reimbursement from medicare, then it is extremely relevant when medicare pushes it's administrative costs onto providers.

 

Under single payer these problems are eliminated. There is no one to push costs onto

 

So, the provider doesn't deal with the bureaucracy in a single payer system? This is extremely unlikely considering all other government services and how they interact with customers, providers, contractors, etc.

 

I don't think you understand what you said here as it makes no sense. You're saying if the overhead expenses at the doctor's office is more than what Medicare allows for it (which doesn't happen), then it becomes relevant when Medicare forces/pushes Medicare's administrative costs onto the doctor's office.
huh?

Try again.

 

The providers bills the government. There are no insurance companies and no negotiations over prices. It is the same for everyone. Very low administrative costs