New, Improved Obamacare Program Released On 35 Floppy Disks

America is a pharmaceutical powerhouse.

As for medicines, of course we need all of these medicines - the market shows this to be exactly the case. If there were no demand, then there'd be no new medicines. I think they'll become more personalized and even better in the decades to come. Perhaps, within our lifetimes', people will live for centuries or longer?

As for overall health, Americans generally suffer from lifestyle health related problems: obesity (2 out of 3), type II diabetes, smoking, drinking, drugs (many pain pills / Rx), and etc... there's also some evidence that Americans are becoming more susceptible to these diseases. A child born today, even if they did follow their parents diet and do as much exercise, they're more likely to end up obese, which leads to other complications.

 

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Actually, they have.

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They have lowered the growth rate. That's huge.

 

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Actually, that material is from a specious source. So it should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure you can find instances where drug prices have risen dramatically and for a host of reasons including outright avarice (e.g. Daraprim from Turing Pharmaceuticals). But what does that prove? That's your free market Michael. Now another company is entering the picture and will produce the drug to compete with Turing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/b...ncrease-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html

The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals,

 

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World Health Organization ranking of health systems in 2000

Ranking on the left, GDP expenditure on the right. Japan reaches rank 10, and spends 13% GDP. Australia ranks 32, and spends 17% GDP (lots of fact Australians), the USA ranks 37% and spends 1% GDP.

10

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Japan13
25

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Germany3
32

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Australia17
37

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United States1
41

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New Zealand20

What this means is in AU, they have to cut from other social services. You know, like less quality higher education.

 

The US spends more than 17% of its GDP on health care. Not 1%.
{original # b/4 edit was correct, but arguable}

And the US has a much higher per capita GDP than most. The US is probably wasting more money on health care, per capita, spending for no return, than Australia is spending.

Edit in: yep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita Australia spends less than half as much, gets (outcome based) better results. So the US arguably throws away on health care, for no gain, 7% of its GDP every year.

 

An Undergraduate degree in Australia is not equivalent to an Undergraduate degree in the USA and will only count as credit towards a degree (minus an Honours degree). In the USA, higher education is also effectively free until you reach a certain level of income. And then you gradually pay back your debt to the government - that made the loan when you couldn't afford it.

The primary difference is, higher education at a State or top 20 private University in the USA is much better resourced. The difference would be like comparing night with day. A second less noticeable, yet distinct difference, is the pass fail rate. In the USA, most 1st year science students are not going to graduate with a science degree. My freshman class had over 1000 students. My senior biochem class had about 50. Unlike American universities where Professors can make a career by teaching well, in Australia such a person would remain as a Lecturer and possibly be fired if they couldn't publish. Effectively, Universities in Australia are less about educating the next generation and more about World Rankings based on publication output. Given the attached research institutes, many of those publishing (and raising the University rank) have almost no, or no, contact with students - and couldn't care to.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "Universal" healthcare? My Australian friend damaged his knee, has has a decent job and pays for full private insurance and he still had to pay $3600 on his knee surgery.

In the USA, I paid 12 dollars per GP visit. In AU, I paid $80 per GP visit. In Japan, I paid 0.50 cents.

I agree that the fascistic healthcare system in the USA is not working. I didn't support it, don't support it and will not support it. I am in favor of free-market medicine. As a matter of fact, there are some AMA members opting out of the insurance system altogether and performing free-market surgery. Each year, more join. Someday there will be free-market pedagogy and then insurance companies will have to work for their money, along with medical doctors, and we'll have a high quality affordable healthcare system.

Australia's economy is no where near sustainable. Australia's pharmaceutical industry is all but non-existent. As for those capitalistic drug companies, the reason why Japan can offer cheap medicine to Japanese, is because the medicine is invented by, made in, and consumed by Japanese. Australia has to import, this means Australians have to pay whatever the price is pharmaceutical companies agree to sell their drugs at. Regardless of where that medicine comes from.

Anyway, to afford its very expensive State run welfare system, Government schools and Government Universities have had to cut back. There'll be less resources for kids to learn. I don't understand why you think this is a good thing. This is happening in Australia. Australian universities are some of the least funded in the 1st world nations. I can't see how that's going to be a good thing. Yeah, you can keep selling ocean front property to Asians, along with farmland, but this isn't sustainable.

Those Australians who like to sit at an RSL club and eat chips and drink all day, who end up running up 500,000 in healthcare costs, do so at the expense of education. Is that fair to you? You do understand Australia has a budget it must live within??? There's no magic. Australia doesn't produce much and has to import most high end products: electronics, a lot of cars, and almost all medicines. Which means paying for it. Which means kids go with less. DO go with less.

 

The Government subsidizes State universities in the USA. If you are accepted, and cannot afford the tuition, the Government loans you the money. Then, when you begin making enough money, you begin making repayments. If you don't, you don't pay. The Government pays the interest that would have accrued.

As for AU, are you telling me Australians who take out a loan for, say: 20000 dollars, are not required to continue paying on that loan until it is repaid in full? What? They only pay 200 dollars and it's done? That's not fair on the tax payers who didn't attend university. Geesh, so some poor mother of 5 who works at a cash register has to pay for some rich kids to have fun at university? Wouldn't it be better for her, if that money was to remain with her? You don't care for the poor?

 

Of course not. But, it is the case that kids in wealthy families, do get accepted at Universities. But the USA has a lot more Universities than in Australia and so there are plenty of lower ranked Universities where credits can transfer into a State University.

My point about the 3 years was that, yes, Australian Government appears to subsidize higher education. But Australian higher education is no where near the level it is at in the USA. With the exception of Honours. And how many Australians have a chance at Honours? Not many. And then its all up to their supervisor whether they are trained of used as a source of cheap labor. Thus, while it may appear Australians are getting a good deal, in reality they are not getting a good deal. The government is barely supporting higher education and an Australian undergraduate degree will not count as a bachelors in the USA, Japan, etc... It will only count as credit towards a degree.

How is this good for Australia???

Essentially, there is no magic land where it's all free free free. Poor Japanese suddenly start give Australians free drugs. It doesn't work like that. You have to pay. Because Australians have a (seemingly universal healthcare, getting less so each year the boom goes by) they have less money to pay for kids in primary, secondary and higher education. How is THAT a good thing to you???


Worse still, the medical error rate in AU is probably double what it is in the USA. Were talking, really bad. Which is why many Australians want private healthcare, they don't want to take a chance in a public hospital. I know of an Australian girl who has been waiting since July to have her heart surgery in AU. Does this sound like a healthy functioning healthcare system to you? Or does it maybe sound like one under a lot of strain?


Look, we all want to live in a healthy prosperous society. You Statist Authoritarians think this comes through threatening people to do the 'right thing' through State coercion. I think we can find a better moral way.


While completely anecdotal, when I was in AU, I used to visit a sick patient every Saturday until she was better. She had attempted suicide and it was almost a year until she was able to leave hospital. No one had to force me to do this. I did it because I wanted to. This is the funny thing. A number of Australians I knew, didn't think this was appropriate. It was, as if to them, I must have had an ulterior motive. Why would I visit this girl? What could we possibly talk about? I found that way of thinking disturbing. See, I think (I can't say for sure) that because the State is there in AU to supposedly care for people, together with the mass immigration where people rarely know their neighbors, Australians don't really care for one another much. In MI, I grew up in a very poor trailer park. 40 dollars a week. I used to ask for food for Christmas

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Which was nice, Captin Crunch Berries

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Without the State, people work together. This changes the way you think about yourself and your place in society.

I've lived in 5 different countries. I can see past many social norms. We don't NEED to use violence to provide goods and services to one another. Medicine, education, etc.... BUT, I do agree, at this time, the State is needed to enforce laws. However, those laws should not include rent-seeking through regulatory capture, but instead private property and contract. The rest we will take care of. This insight has been commented on for hundred, thousands, of years. Which is why, when I'm not working, I like to work on peaceful parenting and pedagogy for teaching children basic logic. You know, like songs, games and that sort of thing.

So, it's not that I favor the 1%. I simply think a moral non-violent approach to society is the best approach. Sound money, law and free-trade will take care of any problems we have with the 1%. OR the 99%.

 

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The economy is doing just swell.
O-blah-blah

 

So, looks like ANOTHER year of massive hikes to the cost of LikeObamaCare's.

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Look at all that great inflation - don't you feel richer already? Thank the GAWDS we don't have price deflation. My gawd, that'd be horrible. You know, like your smartphone, twice the phone and half the price as 10 years ago. Obviously electronics are going broke. No no no no... we need inflation, at least 2%.... you know: "Good Inflation". Compare the cost of a smart phone in the slightly free-markets with your hyper-government-regulated DiseaseCare / ObamaCare. Double digit price inflation and, assuming you don't smoke, the reason you leave this Earth.

Thank you Givermint. Taking care of us all through rent-seeking and regulatory capture, you know, because American are too stupid to look after themselves - they needs them a Nanny State. But Deeeamn, that Nanny shaw-do cost a lots.

 

One of the most delusional claims you have ever made. And that's saying something.

And cars are free too - outside of having to pay back the loans, I mean. You can even get 0% interest on car loans - that's a better deal than student loans. And the government subsidizes the roads and the gas. Free stuff!

Health insurance from capitalist corporations sucks, bigtime. You are absolutely correct about that. Romneycare relies on market competition between insurance corporations to curb costs - a major flaw in the setup, as you demonstrate.

btw: You posted the increase in absolute spending on health care in the US in 2015 - you do realize where a lot of that increase came from, right? Millions more people getting health care, including hundreds of thousands of military veterans?

 

Unfortunately, we don't have Capitalism nor Free-Markets. We do have Progressive Central Bankism; and, we do have Crony Capitalism in the form of unconstitutional Rent-Seeking via Regulatory Capture.

Had the Progressive Statist Authoritarians not taken control over our money (trading it in for a cheap imitation / income tax backed fiat currency) we could have a thousand times better healthcare for a hundredth of the price. We could have sprinted forward. The technological advances would be astounding. Instead, we must wait many decades more, dragging this weight, called the government - like a ball and chain, forward one small slow step at a time.


Think about the Zune. If a Government bureaucrat had the job of choosing an MP3 player, they'd have contacted the largest software companies in the world: Microsoft being a favoured. At that time, they made the Zune. Apple was somewhat struggling. Even with all the backing of M$, people didn't want it. In the 'free' market (or what we have) they (we) wanted an iPod. With that *GASP* capital / profit (or what we have) Apple was able to invest *GASP* and produce the iPhone - changing the world. None of this would have happened if the Government had control over choosing our MP3 player. The world we live in, just wouldn't have happened. We'd be using the Zune, and it'd probably suck. Hell, we'd probably only now be getting the first smart phones - and they'd cost twice as much and be three times as slow.

We COULD have good healthcare.
We COULD have good education.

But we won't. You Statist Authoritarians will never let that happen. This is why, the only solution, is to let you destroy our society. Either though made up phone wars (WWIII) on everything (Drugs, Whites, Words, Men, whatever), and idiotic Welfare scams. The Welfare Warfare State.

The US Government is now the largest polluter, largest employer, runs the largest prison industrial complex, controls over 50% of our economy, regulates almost all aspects of our lives - and yet you want moar. Moar moar moar. You won't be satisfied until there are children eating their pets. And then you'll still want more. Functional illiteracy at 50% - still more. Government-run Hospitals so dangerous and expensive no one in their right mind would go in one (see; Government run Welfare ghettos) - still, you'll want more.



In the meantime - try smoking, it'll probably work out better in the long run

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Let's see how O-blah-blah Care caves in on itself.

 

The rising cost of Health care is connected to making economic sense of the high expenditure. To make your high heath premium seem more worthwhile, one needs to feel that they are getting their money worth. This means making use of the system, so you feel a sense of balance between expenditure and value. This result has been use of the system, beyond need. The increase in demand, to make economic sense of high premiums, causes price to go up, which means you need to find even more ways to get your money's worth; overuse.

A good analogy are cells phones. When cell phones first appeared, they were used in business, to make business calls in remote locations. This had practical use especially in sales. As private citizens got cell phones, they started to make more calls than with a land line, to brag they were on a cell phone. This bragging game justified the added cost. As costs went up, more gimmicks needed to be added to the phones, to help people make economic sense of the rising costs. The same if happening to health care.

Like cells phones, what was not needed 20 years ago, has become an addiction. Few people can leave their cell phone home without feeling, anxiety. The same has become true of health care.

Health Care is better served with the free market. The role of government should be to preach going retro; natural health. This is like preaching, leave the cell phone home if there is not genuine need. All the gimmicks are there to justify high costs. As demand goes down, so will prices.

 

I find it macabre that Health should be commercialized. Is there ANY reason (aside from Capitalism) why insurance companies are involved at all? What expertise (or credentials) do they bring to assist you with health problems? They only drive up the cost of healthcare shuffling paperwork around. That may be a good thing for the shuffler, but takes away from the salaries of healthcare givers, who do the actual work trying to fill the healthcare needs of the patient or client. A form of single payer health insurance, based on income, is the humane way of *protecting* the citizenry from a threat, foreign or domestic. We spend billions on wars which kill our young men and women, but yields enormous profits to the military industrial complex. We spend millions on private for-profit prisons, who have no incentive to rehabilitate, but just make more profit the longer they can keep their prisons full, somewhat like that exclusive and expensive vacation resort that offers the best care in order to keep their clientele as long as possible and encourages their return next year.
I find that sadly ironic.

 

Well theoretically they are suppose to control price by negotiating with vendors. But too often, they just pass along what ever price vendors charge. That's the beauty of insurance you can always raise your premiums if your competitors do the same.

 

Capitalist corporations do not exist. Market exchange only works if the entire economy is ideally free - no regulations whatsoever, no governance at all, not even a government backed currency. Otherwise, there's no benefit. Got it.

So tell me again why we shouldn't have single payer health insurance? If we're going to be stuck in the real world, we should at least get better care for less money than the current setup. Everyone else does. If these corporations are only fake capitalist anyway, and the benefits of market exchange and competition between them cannot be ours until the US government has collapsed, why not just cut them out of the picture in the meantime?

Free the rich from the burden of income taxes, and hospitals will become cheaper than rental cars, your doc will become twice as competent for half the fees, and the rich will sell you health insurance for pennies on the dollar you are now spending.

Some day. Meanwhile, let's have those tax cuts - right? That's always step one.

The largest polluter is the fossil fuels industry. The largest employer is the temp worker industry. The US government runs the only national prison industry - largest by default. It "controls" less of the economy than it takes in taxes, which is less than a third. And it regulates very little of my life - I'm not in the army.