The irony is that the republican puritans pushing for a market-style solution have created a system that operates as a centrally-planned economy. Lenin would be proud. And Americans get screwed. Why, despite a demographic advantage over the rest of G7, does the US spend more per capita on healthcare and yet the standard of healthcare is measured inferior to, say, France and Germany? Some of you aren’t prepared to let the facts get in the way of a good story… Why are Americans so wedded to ideological non-sense (“universal healthcare is favoured by lazy pikers” is how I would summarise many of the above posts)? In the UK, I am conservative, I am generally in favour of smaller gov’t, I pay tax in the highest bracket, I have full private health cover, AND I am in favour of the NHS even if I’ll never use it (unless I have to visit an emergency room).
It’s too bad the whole world doesn’t have private care! Without it how will we ever be as skinny, and live as long, as you do?
Anderson Silva destroyed Henderson… Anyway Mr. Pink I’m not suggesting that private health care creates skinny people as can plainly be seen that it doesnt do this in America. Americans are fat b/c of our eating habits and culture not b/c of our lack of universal healthcare. Im simply suggesting that Universal Health Care will cause serious tax burdens b/c in this case people will be able to eat poorly and not have to worry about the consequences. Not like they do much of that now, but at least I wasn’t paying their entire bill. My point is that it shouldn’t be my responsibility to help pay for someone’s health bill b/c they made terrible decisions. I have no problem helping those that have unforseen and almost unavoidable health problems. But how do you establish who these ppl really are?
Etienne Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The irony is that the republican puritans pushing > for a market-style solution have created a system > that operates as a centrally-planned economy. > Lenin would be proud. > > And Americans get screwed. Why, despite a > demographic advantage over the rest of G7, does > the US spend more per capita on healthcare and yet > the standard of healthcare is measured inferior > to, say, France and Germany? > > Some of you aren’t prepared to let the facts get > in the way of a good story… > > Why are Americans so wedded to ideological > non-sense (“universal healthcare is favoured by > lazy pikers” is how I would summarise many of the > above posts)? In the UK, I am conservative, I am > generally in favour of smaller gov’t, I pay tax in > the highest bracket, I have full private health > cover, AND I am in favour of the NHS even if I’ll > never use it (unless I have to visit an emergency > room). Agree with this. I think the US spends twice as much per capita on health care as the UK, but probably does get a better service. You should note that in the discussion above, the US regards Canada as a socialist country, and their medical system as socialist, but in Canada you still have to pay for ambulances and the poor take taxis with all manner of injuries! Also, in Canada there is no private health care system as it is illegal. This is a problem for the US as they look at the Canadian system, which is inheritantly flawed by the absence of private health care, and feel justified with the status quo. Hence discussion.
a few thoughts on the issue. i think the fact that it creates incentives for people not to take care of themselves is one issue, but not the more important one. to me the biggest issue is that is the whole system, both the way it is now and the way it would be under some kind of universal coverage plan, removes incentives to shop for the best price. we don’t like to think about price when it comes to healthcare, but we should. it should be a consideration from top to bottom. for example, when my kid has a fever at 3 in the morning, i could take him to the er, but i wait to take him to the minute clinic in the morning to save money. another example is that (i’ve heard) different doctors charge different insurance companies different amounts for the exact same procedure. if i as a consumer am looking around for a certain procedure, don’t you think i’ll consider going to the less expensive place? i might not, but why shouldn’t it be a consideration, especially if i’ve heard equally good things about both doctors? that forces the higher cost doctor to lower his costs to compete? is that a bad thing? if someone else is paying and the copays are the same, i won’t care. i haven’t seen the sources of the numbers relating to percent of gdp going to healthcare, but i’d imagine that medicare and medicade are included in the figure. those numbers are huge and are likely a significant part of the total amount. those are two of the most messed up programs we have. besides, i’ve heard that they are a bigger risk of bankrupting the country before social security. these are a few reasons i think the rest of our healthcare is so expensive, in no particular order: 1. the doctors have a crazy monopoly going on. the have their boards that approve medical schools and consequently limit the number of medical school graduates and by extension, competition. there are plenty of people smart enough to do some of the low end stuff we pay docs for. who hasn’t been to the doctor, seen him for 2 mins and all he does is confirm what the nurse or someone else lower than a nurse has already noted? 2. since the insurance company is paying for it, we don’t care how much a procedure costs so we just go ahead and get it procedure done, regardless of how much it costs. imagine yourself at a dinner for 500 people and the tab is split evenly among everyone there. you know that half of the people are are vegetarians are planning on getting a salad. do you get the steak or the chicken pasta? 3. mandates. several states require insurance companies to cover all of these different things in your policy that you may or may not care about. this forces you to buy the cadillac policy instead of the accord, which is what you’d rather buy. if you don’t want your policy to cover the cost of a wig if you have chemo, why should you have to buy it? an idea i heard once that i liked, although i’ll admit i haven’t researched it much, is for everyone to be required to buy insurance that covers everything over a certain dollar amount, say $3k, kind of like car insurance. everything that costs less than that, you pay for it yourself, or buy a policy you want. that way, if you get cancer or some other disease, your insurance helps cover the costs. smaller expenses you are forced to shop around for yourself. again, i don’t know all of the ins and outs of this, but it made sense to me when i heard it (it was over three months ago, so i could be remembering something incorrectly, so please forgive if that’s the case.)