i dont see the problem with it at all, i think its a good think why is it bad? i just want to hear peoples opinions on it the only people that are complaining that i can see are the employed healthy people

Why are you against total government control?

http://img6.footnote.com/img/thumbnail/52623006/400/400/0_0_323_237.jpg

instead of the goverment controlling it right now the companies are whats the difference?

Why are you against total government control?


Having more choices is not control. Most of the Western societies (I know, news for you) have government subsidized health care. Why should the US be the only one without it?

what has healthcare to do with nationalism? if somebody can´t pay for healthcare, the goverment will help. you surely don´t think, that those who can´t afford it, just should die ... do you?

agreed sweet and even if your middleclass or even upper if you dont have healthcare and something major happens to you your looking at medical bills up in the 6 digits

indeed, few people can afford cancer and such.

The way goods and services in US have become part of a competition, is not through government. In the U.S., competition has come from the private sector competing for the dollar of value-seeking consumers. And that private-sector competition has promoted innovation, meanwhile that innovation has benefited Americans with better and cheaper products and services.

So this whole government run deal will just hold any competition and providing quality care to Americans.

Having more choices is not control you idiot. Most of the Western societies (I know, news for you) have government subsidized health care. Why should the US be the only one without it?

as far as i know that isnt "most" its ALL except for the US. Furthermore its not even just the first world who have UHC, even some of the third world like cuba do as well

and A.M.A agrees with me.


As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/us/politics/11health.html

I sort of enjoyed reading this:

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/rnr/1574293261.html

Hey you. You there in the Glenn Beck T-shirt headed off to the Tea Party Patriot rally.

Stop shouting for a moment, please, I want to explain to you why you're so very angry.

You should be angry. You're getting screwed.

I think you know that. But you don't seem to know that it doesn't have to be that way. You can stop it. You can stop it easily because the system that's screwing you over can only keep screwing you over if you keep demanding that it do so.

So stop demanding that. Stop helping the system screw you over.

Look, you can go back to yelling at me in a minute, but just read this first.

1. Get out your pay stub.

Or, if you have direct deposit -- you really should get direct deposit, it saves a lot of time and money (I point this out because, honestly, I'm trying to help you here, even though you don't make that easy Mr. Angry Screamy Guy) -- then take out that little paper receipt they give you when your pay gets directly deposited.

2. Notice that your net pay is lower than your gross pay. This is because some of your wages are withheld every pay period.

3. Notice that only some of this money that was withheld went to pay taxes. (I know, I know -- yeearrrgh! me hates taxes! -- but just try to stick with me for just a second here.)

4. Notice that some of the money that was withheld didn't go to taxes, but to your health insurance company.

5. Now go get a pay stub from last year around this time, from January of 2009.

6. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld for taxes in your current paycheck is less than the amount that was withheld a year ago.

That's because of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, which included more than $200 billion in tax cuts, including the one you're holding right there in your hand, the tax cut that's now staring you in the face. Republicans all voted against that tax cut. And then they told you to get angry about the stimulus plan. They didn't explain, however, why you were supposed to get angry about getting a tax cut. Why would you be? Wouldn't it make more sense to get angry at the people who voted against that Obama tax cut?

But taxes aren't the really important thing here. The really important thing starts with the next point.

7. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is more than it was last year.

8. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is a lot more than it was last year.

I won't ask you to dig up old paychecks from 2008 and 2007, but this has been going on for a long time. Every year, the amount of your paycheck withheld to pay for your health insurance goes up. A lot.

9. Notice the one figure there on your two pay stubs that hasn't changed: Your wage. The raise you didn't get this year went to pay for that big increase in the cost of your health insurance.

10. Here's where I need you to start doing a better job of putting two and two together. If you didn't get a raise last year because the cost of your health insurance went up by a lot, and the cost of your health insurance is going to go up by a lot again this year, what do you think that means for any chance you might have of getting a raise this year?

11. Did you figure it out? That's right. The increasing cost of health insurance means you won't get a raise this year. Or next year. Or the year after that. The increasing cost of health insurance means you will never get a raise again.

That's what I meant when I said you really should be angry. That's what I meant when I said you're getting screwed.

OK, we're almost done. Just a few more points, I promise.

12. The only hope you have of ever seeing another pay raise is if Congress passes health care reform. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will swallow this year's raise. And next year's raise. And pretty soon it won't stop with just your raise. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will start making your pay go down.

13. I wish I could tell you that this was just a worst-case scenario, that this was only something that might, maybe happen, but that wouldn't be true. Without health care reform, this is what will happen. We know this because this is what is happening now. It has been happening for the past 10 years. In 2008, employers spent on average 25 percent more per employee than they did in 2001, but wages on average did not increase during those years. The price of milk went up. The price of gas went up. But wages did not. All of the money that would have gone to higher wages went to pay the higher and higher and higher cost of health insurance. And unless Congress passes health care reform, that will not change.

Well, it will change in the sense that it will keep getting worse, but it won't get better. Unless the problem gets fixed, the problem won't be fixed. That's kind of what "problem" and "fixed" mean.

14. Sadly for any chance you have of ever seeing a raise again, it looks like Congress may not pass health care reform. It looks like they won't do that because they're scared of angry voters who are demanding that they oppose health care reform, angry voters who demand that Congress not do anything that would keep the cost of health insurance from going up and up and up. Angry voters like you.

15. Do you see the point here? You are angrily, loudly demanding that Congress make sure that you never, ever get another pay raise as long as you live. Because of you and because of your angry demands, you and your family and your kids are going to have to get by with less this year than last year. And next year you're going to have to get by with even less. And if you keep angrily demanding that no one must ever fix this problem, then you're going to have to figure out how to get by on less and less every year for the rest of your life.

16. So please, for your own sake, for your family's sake and the sake of your children, stop. Stop demanding that problems not get fixed. Stop demanding that you keep getting screwed. Stay angry -- you should be angry -- but start directing that anger toward the system that's screwing you over and taking money out of your pocket. Start directing that anger toward fixing problems instead of toward making sure they never get fixed. Instead of demanding that Congress oppose health care reform so that you never, ever, get another pay raise, start demanding that they pass health care reform, as soon as possible. Because until they do, you're just going to keep on getting screwed.

And it's going to be that much worse knowing that you brought this on yourself -- that you demanded it.

Thanks for your time.

P.S. -- I didn't mention this because I'm trying here to be as patient with you as I can, but you might also want to keep in mind that in addition to screwing over yourself and screwing over your family and screwing over your own children by demanding that Congress oppose health care reform so that you will never, ever see another pay raise, by doing that you're also demanding that I never, ever see another pay raise, which means that you're also screwing over me, and my family, and my children. Not to mention the millions of poor and uninsured and uninsureable people I didn't even mention above because they don't seem to matter at all to you. And for that, let me just say the only appropriate thing that can be said to someone so determined to do direct, tangible harm to the welfare of my family: Fuck you, you fucking moron.

as far as i know that isnt "most" its ALL except for the US. Furthermore its not even just the first world who have UHC, even some of the third world like cuba do as well


UNIVERSAL CUBAN HEALTHCARE

was that bold in enough letters? :rolleyes: sounds solid Gold healthcare for all those people in Cuba, real quality.

http://777denny.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/cuba_healthcare_under_castro.jpg

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH

Oh god, of COURSE the AMA agrees with you. They are a lobby group for christ sake. Why the hell do you think the Australian MA was so against "Job subsitution" which was recomended in the intergenerational health review? Because it would take jobs away from DOCTORS and give them to the other proffessions who would probably do a better job in a lot of areas than the doctors are

Note: Job subsitution means moving other health services into the front line. For instance:

-Psycologists would be seeing pts for psycological problems without ever seeing a GP
-Nurse practitioners (very senor nurses who have done aditional study) would be running clinics equivlant to GP clinics and treating people for minor bacterial infections ect
-Midwives would take on primary responcability for low risk pregancies including ordering pain relief and ultrasounds ect without the pt ever needing an obstrition
-Paramedic practioners would take over running emergency rooms and push doctors back to treating the more serious cases after paramedic assesments
-Phsio's would be ordering there own imaging (x-rays and the like) and treating without the pt ever needing to see a doctor

Further more why is it that the AMA shot down a goverment plan to alow nurses, pharmisits and psycologists to write "medical certificates" without the need to see a GP when it can take up to 3 or more DAYS to get into see a GP?

The answer to both is THEY WOULD LOSE MONEY AND POWER

and government will gain money and power as a result. no change in healthcare.

UNIVERSAL CUBAN HEALTHCARE

was that bold in enough letters? :rolleyes: sounds solid Gold healthcare for all those people in Cuba, real quality.

http://777denny.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/cuba_healthcare_under_castro.jpg

Ever herd of the "Getto Ambulances" in the US?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4U-ez-bk7Q

Having more choices is not control you idiot. Most of the Western societies (I know, news for you) have government subsidized health care. Why should the US be the only one without it?

including two of the most pro business states taiwan and switzerland.

Adding a public option would increase competition. Why are the insurance companies afraid of it?

Adding a public option would increase competition. Why are the insurance companies afraid of it?

because than they would have to compete rather than dicatating who lives and who dies with their hyper inflated prices.

indeed, few people can afford cancer and such.

so i take it if u had diabetes u could pay for inculin without healthcare?

so i take it if u had diabetes u could pay for inculin without healthcare?

i have no idea what it would cost ... but i´m sure that i could actually not even afford a broken leg, if i would have to pay for it :eek:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20100209/cm_thenation/20100222hc_forum;_ylt=Aiejy9WJMMx4yUIW9yA9A_ce_8QF ;_ylu=X3oDMTJ0NTBlNWVjBGFzc2V0A3RoZW5hdGlvbi8yMDEw MDIwOS8yMDEwMDIyMmhjX2ZvcnVtBHBvcwM5BHNlYwN5bl9wYW dpbmF0ZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA3RlbGx0aGVuYXRpbw-- to all the people who bitch at the cost of universal health care here is the cost of what you want, of your beliefs, and of your ideas. tell me which is cost is higher; a little cash out of you pockets or these peoples lives. if you and the rest of the people who oppose UHC have a shred empathy, a shred of decency, and a shred of humanity you will answer the later.
signed
phi.... ....... ..........i jr.
a human being

UNIVERSAL CUBAN HEALTHCARE

was that bold in enough letters? :rolleyes: sounds solid Gold healthcare for all those people in Cuba, real quality.
Yeah, the embargo has nothing to do with the quality of life in Cuba.

to all the people who bitch at the cost of universal health care here is the cost of what you want, of your beliefs, and of your ideas. tell me which is cost is higher; a little cash out of you pockets or these peoples lives. if you and the rest of the people who oppose UHC have a shred empathy, a shred of decency, and a shred of humanity you will answer the later.
signed
phi.... ....... ..........i jr.
a human being

Well at least you play peoples emotions in both directions, however your plea rings just as hollow as your crude analogies.

From your link...


Particularly striking is the near-total absence of the voices of those most acutely affected by the capriciousness of our current healthcare system, the millions who have no insurance. Despite the fact that 30 million of these folks have arguably the largest stake in the legislative outcome, they're almost totally absent from the national conversation over its fate.

Doesn't sound like the uninsured are fighting for their lives.

The majority of those 30 million make $50k+ or more than the median income. In most of those cases if they wanted or needed health ins. they could get it.

Doesn't sound like the uninsured are fighting for their lives. did you read the whole thing?


The majority of those 30 million make $50k+ or more than the median income. In most of those cases if they wanted or needed health ins. they could get it.

that is a down right lie. but honesty its what i expected from your side of the aisle.

i dont see the problem with it at all, i think its a good think why is it bad? i just want to hear peoples opinions on it the only people that are complaining that i can see are the employed healthy people

I have no problem with it at all

AS LONG AS

You organize and run it privately on user donations and fees



If the government gets involved, it

a)distorts the market
b)means more spending, and increased taxation
c)is socialism
d) is unfair on the wealthy


UHC, like most programs, is just a means of the masses to exploit and leech off of the wealthy. It's sickening that you WOULD support socialist policies.

If the government gets involved, it

a)distorts the market

The government is already involved. The anti-trust exceptions for insurers, subsidies of R&D, FDA process, endorsement of AMA boards, etc. already represent massive govenment distortions.

And the market cannot exist in the first place without government support.



b)means more spending, and increased taxation

In the case of health care reform, it means less spending and less taxation.



c)is socialism

So what? The United States has been a welfare state for generations now. Get over it.



d) is unfair on the wealthy

Nonsense. Any additional costs the wealthy bore would be more than offset by the benefits they'd accrue by living in a healthier, safer, more stable society with a healthier, more productive, more mobile workforce. They'd likely end up richer than before.

Which is why opposition to universal health care is not coming from "the wealthy," or "the business community" or anything like that. It's opposed by private insurers and other components of the medical industry that would stand to lose their privileged positions, right-wing ideologues that want to destroy government, and the ignorant rubes they manage to fool with FOX news propaganda about socialist death panels. The rest of the business community is in favor of it, since it solves all their headaches about employer-provided healthcare (which is a major factor driving payroll costs) and provides a more productive, more mobile workforce.

The only reasons to oppose universal healthcare are either a craven self-interest (for those who profit from the current system), or an irrational opposition to government.

The government is already involved. The anti-trust exceptions for insurers, subsidies of R&D, FDA process, endorsement of AMA boards, etc. already represent massive govenment distortions.

And the market cannot exist in the first place without government support. The market requries that the government enforce contracts and protect property rights. Nothing more. The rest is unnecessary and needs to be cut; of course, because we are so addicted to welfare and "programs", the cutting will have to be gradual, not overnight.


In the case of health care reform, it means less spending and less taxation. Then it depends on what you mean by reform. If you mean less government involvement and more privatization and free market, then that's great. If it's more "universal", then no.


So what? The United States has been a welfare state for generations now. Get over it.
One could easily have said to the Jews: "So what, Germany has been a Nazi country for years now. Get over it"

No, we don't need to get over violations of the Constitution and attacks on our freedoms. Government is inefficient, wasteful, bloated, and institutionalizes poverty and mediocrity. Get over it.



Nonsense. Any additional costs the wealthy bore would be more than offset by the benefits they'd accrue by living in a healthier, safer, more stable society with a healthier, more productive, more mobile workforce. They'd likely end up richer than before.
How would they be any healthier? They're wealthy: they can already afford health care. And you can force "benefits" on them and make them pay, but that's not any more legitimate than washing your car without permission and forcing you to pay.

Again, it's a parasitism by the vast majority of non-wealthy, moronic people on the entrepreneurial and ownership class. It's pretty sickening, but then again, so is all socialism in general.

I see no reason why the wealthy businessman ought to pay for the lowly lazy pothead gang-banger to get health treatment.

You say "reform", but reform just means change. Universal health care? Bad. But health care reform? It could be good, depending on what you mean by that. Less government involvement, less corporatism and protectionism, less bureaucracy = good. The only people that want government control are lazy, irresponsible people that have no problem spending others' money.

The market requries that the government enforce contracts and protect property rights. Nothing more.

The market for healthcare requires significantly more than that. It requires anti-trust enforcement for the insurers and hospitals, enforcement of requirements for professional certifications, provision of safety and efficacy testing for new drugs and treatments, exemptions from traffic laws for ambulances, etc. etc. etc.

This is not some simple commodities trade we're talking about here.


Then it depends on what you mean by reform. If you mean less government involvement and more privatization and free market, then that's great. If it's more "universal", then no.

No, privatization and reduction of government's role have resulted in exploding costs without comparable improvement in outcomes. This has been occurring for years now, so is not a matter for speculation. You're offering nothing besides reality-free affirmations of ideology here.



One could easily have said to the Jews: "So what, Germany has been a Nazi country for years now. Get over it"

Way to go for Godwin.

And a Jew would have been just as assinine to advance "But that's Nazism!" as an argument against a government policy in Nazi Germany, anyhow.


How would they be any healthier? They're wealthy: they can already afford health care.

I said they'd live in a healthier society, not that they personally would be healthier.

Although their increased wealth, and the decreased cost of care, would presumably result in increased health for them as well.



And you can force "benefits" on them and make them pay, but that's not any more legitimate than washing your car without permission and forcing you to pay.

And yet it's apparently legitimate enough for us to apply progressive income taxation.

The wealthy benefit more from the system than anyone else, by definition, and so have a greater responsibility to maintain and advance it.

More to the point, a good reform of healthcare would lower costs for everyone. Everyone - even the rich - would end up with more money in their pockets.

Would you consider it illegitimate if I washed your car, and then gave you $10 for the trouble?



Again, it's a parasitism by the vast majority of non-wealthy, moronic people on the entrepreneurial and ownership class.

For it to be "parasitism" it would have to harm the "entrepreneurial and ownership class." Healthcare reform would benefit everyone, in all classes.

Which makes it symbiosis.



I see no reason why the wealthy businessman ought to pay for the lowly lazy pothead gang-banger to get health treatment.

He already does that, so that's irrelevant to the issue. Although the reason is that any sane wealthy businessman would rather live in a society where people have healthcare - it's a nicer place to live, and he'd stand to make more money to boot, in the long run.

Universal health care would mean that the wealthy businessman pays less for the healthcare of the poor, while getting wealthier himself. And it would create more wealthy businessmen, as the leading cause of individual bankruptcy would be eliminated, along with the leading cause of corporate payroll growth.


Universal health care? Bad.

I'd point out here that Universal Health Care does not have to be government-operated healthcare, or even government-operated health insurance (although those options seem to work better than government-mandated health care). So you're literally saying that it would be a bad thing, in the abstract, for everyone to have access to health care, independent of how that is achieved. Do you really think that?



Less government involvement, less corporatism and protectionism, less bureaucracy = good.

That's exactly what we're talking about. A universal, single-payer healthcare system would eliminate the multiple, overlapping layers of bureaucracy that comprise the private insurance system, as well as got the corporate protectionism that sustains them. And in doing so, it would save everyone - except for the insurance companies - big money.

Or are you only bothered by bureaocracy when it's located in government?



The only people that want government control are lazy, irresponsible people that have no problem spending others' money.

More naked ideology.

/yawn

that is a down right lie.



Wrong again, page 28 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf)

Actually almost 10 million uninsured make $75k+.

No, privatization and reduction of government's role have resulted in exploding costs without comparable improvement in outcomes. This has been occurring for years now, so is not a matter for speculation. You're offering nothing besides reality-free affirmations of ideology here. Nonsense; when have we had true free market health caer? The status quo is a corporatist mess of protectionism, monopolism, and wasteful bureaucracy.


Way to go for Godwin. It applies.


I said they'd live in a healthier society, not that they personally would be healthier.

Although their increased wealth, and the decreased cost of care, would presumably result in increased health for them as well. Fine, but only if you ask their permission individually before raising their taxes. Make it voluntary to pay for this thing.


And yet it's apparently legitimate enough for us to apply progressive income taxation. That's parasitism


The wealthy benefit more from the system than anyone else, by definition, and so have a greater responsibility to maintain and advance it. Nonsense. How do they "benefit more"? They are not given free money. They work and have their own enterprises that give them money; the thing they are giving back to society is the enterprise, which they are deriving wealth from. They don't "owe" society any more because they have already given! Otherwise they would not be wealthy. Nobody "owns" the system; and the system is just micro-transactions on a large scale.


More to the point, a good reform of healthcare would lower costs for everyone. Everyone - even the rich - would end up with more money in their pockets. ...but only if they need to, as opposed to everyone paying for something they aren't using.


For it to be "parasitism" it would have to harm the "entrepreneurial and ownership class." Healthcare reform would benefit everyone, in all classes.

Which makes it symbiosis. Then, no increased taxes? No increased spending? No government involvement?

If you can achieve health care reform without the above, then you have my support.


He already does that, so that's irrelevant to the issue. Although the reason is that any sane wealthy businessman would rather live in a society where people have healthcare - it's a nicer place to live, and he'd stand to make more money to boot, in the long run. People can have health care. It's called buying it. Just like people can have cable service: they just have to buy it.

And if he is so concerned with providing free access to health care to everyone, then he ought to take the initiative and organize privately with others to meet that end.


Universal health care would mean that the wealthy businessman pays less for the healthcare of the poor, while getting wealthier himself. And it would create more wealthy businessmen, as the leading cause of individual bankruptcy would be eliminated, along with the leading cause of corporate payroll growth. As long as government doesn't do it, it's fine. If government does it, then it will be unfair as it will be forced on everybody.

If universal health care is provided privately by contributions and donations, then that's fine.




I'd point out here that Universal Health Care does not have to be government-operated healthcare, or even government-operated health insurance (although those options seem to work better than government-mandated health care). So you're literally saying that it would be a bad thing, in the abstract, for everyone to have access to health care, independent of how that is achieved. Do you really think that?

If it is achieved exclusively by private parties, then that's fine. Thus, it would operate on user donations and government would not get involved; plus, the actualy industry wouldn't be affected.

Nonsense; when have we had true free market health caer? No one has ever had true free market health care, except the very, very rich.

No one has ever had free market health care, except the very, very rich.

That doesn't even make sense....I said, when have we ever had free market health care?

you know what i find ammusing in a sad way. The constantly made argument about "breurocrats making health care desisions rather than the doctor and pt". I have NEVER been rung up on swiping my medicare card to be asked by the federal goverment what i was there for in order to decide if its important enough for them. In fact the ONLY reason medicare cards are used at all for doctors (the qualifier is simply because at pharmacies they are used to double check perscriptions against names) is to ensure that doctors dont lie when they bill medicare for the pts.

you know what i find ammusing in a sad way. The constantly made argument about "breurocrats making health care desisions rather than the doctor and pt". I have NEVER been rung up on swiping my medicare card to be asked by the federal goverment what i was there for in order to decide if its important enough for them. In fact the ONLY reason medicare cards are used at all for doctors (the qualifier is simply because at pharmacies they are used to double check perscriptions against names) is to ensure that doctors dont lie when they bill medicare for the pts.

Asguard, when will you EVER get it through your head that America is the subject in this debate - and you know practically *nothing* about how things operate in America!! This is NOT Australia, and as Americans we know full-well how our government would set it up here. There would be all manner of exclusions and conditions for treatment here along with TONS of read tape.

So until such time as you come over here and live for at least ten years, please STOP assuming you know anything at all about how our systems work!!!!

But seriously....


I have no problem with it at all

AS LONG AS

You organize and run it privately on user donations and fees

that isn't government healthcare, so you DO have problem with it.



a)distorts the market
b)means more spending, and increased taxation
c)is socialism
d) is unfair on the wealthy

a/ Fedex and UPS doing just fine with the existence of the Postal Service.
b/ I am sure we could cut in military spending.
c/ like in every capitalist Wester Societies? This one is pure stupidity.
d/ the current system is unfair on the poor

You have any other non-problem?

Wrong again, page 28 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf)

Actually almost 10 million uninsured make $75k+.

you said a majority

Asguard, when will you EVER get it through your head that America is the subject in this debate - and you know practically *nothing* about how things operate in America!! This is NOT Australia, and as Americans we know full-well how our government would set it up here. There would be all manner of exclusions and conditions for treatment here along with TONS of read tape.

So until such time as you come over here and live for at least ten years, please STOP assuming you know anything at all about how our systems work!!!!

its called a comparison. Its a way of show how something would work. And now read we would have exclusions or red tape (well unless we let the right wing design it) That only exists in your head all the while people pay the human cost that you ignore.

its called a comparison. Its a way of show how something would work. And now read we would have exclusions or red tape (well unless we let the right wing design it) That only exists in your head all the while people pay the human cost that you ignore.

Dude, you're almost as bad as Asguard. We all know why YOU would like to see government sponsored health care paid by taxes. It's because it would cost YOU nothing - you've never had a job, probably never intend to get one and therefore DO NOT pay any federal taxes!!!

Asguard, when will you EVER get it through your head that America is the subject in this debate - and you know practically *nothing* about how things operate in America!! This is NOT Australia, and as Americans we know full-well how our government would set it up here. There would be all manner of exclusions and conditions for treatment here along with TONS of read tape.

So until such time as you come over here and live for at least ten years, please STOP assuming you know anything at all about how our systems work!!!!

pjdude1219 beat me to the punch but as it was aimed at me i will still respond. When looking for ways which something will work and when looking for evidence as to wether something CAN work we ALWAYS look for examples. When the goverment (or the oposition for that matter) talks about introducing a program they tend to be asked "how do you know it will do x?" and in the majority of cases there examples fall back to how things are done either well or badly in other juristictions (either state or other countries and i dont paticually care WHAT country your in this happens). Nothing happens in isolation and it is only a person who simply oposes for the sake of oposing who would have no intrest in how things are handled else where and how that could be improved upon or incorperated in order to make a program in juristiction x the best possable. Further more i find it facinating that people who make broud statments like "the US has the best standeds of health care in the world" (a blanketly INCORRECT statement) are the same people who when DETAILED analyisis is made of other juristictions and how that could be incorperated in order to improve dismiss it out of hand if it comes from another country. The only conclusion which can be drawn from this is either a) they simply dont want to know so they can cuddle there own fears to there chest or b) they are so arrogant that they dont belive that ANYTHING could POSSABLY be done better anywhere else other than the US

Dude, you're almost as bad as Asguard. We all know why YOU would like to see government sponsored health care paid by taxes. It's because it would cost YOU nothing - you've never had a job, probably never intend to get one and therefore DO NOT pay any federal taxes!!!

I have had a job. I intend to get one and currently pay federal taxes. Not some fancy high paying thing like you had. a real job that involved work. I would have gladly given my entire pay check universal healthcare.You know nothing of my reasons. Not having it cost me my cousin and yet you fucking presume to lecture me on the costs involved. You haven't the right. Tell me how much his life was worth to you? 200, 300 dollars? You talk about me supporting UHC because I wouldn't pay the cost and yet here I am having paid the cost for what you support; I think I paid a little more than you would have. You get to lecture me on this when you have to grieve over the human costs of what I believe. Until than go back to your ivory tower with your fine wines and caviar and quit shitting on every day americans.

I have had a job. I intend to get one and currently pay federal taxes. Not some fancy high paying thing like you had. a real job that involved work. I would have gladly given my entire pay check universal healthcare.You know nothing of my reasons. Not having it cost me my cousin and yet you fucking presume to lecture me on the costs involved. You haven't the right. Tell me how much his life was worth to you? 200, 300 dollars? You talk about me supporting UHC because I wouldn't pay the cost and yet here I am having paid the cost for what you support; I think I paid a little more than you would have. You get to lecture me on this when you have to grieve over the human costs of what I believe. Until than go back to your ivory tower with your fine wines and caviar and quit shitting on every day americans.

How many jobs - one? And I don't like wine and caviar AT ALL.

I'm sorry you lost your cousin - but it was hardly MY fault. I worked long and HARD - often more than 80 hours a week - to get what I have. The difference is that while I supported a wife and three kids and put myself through college at the same time, I *USED* my money wisely instead of blowing it like the average Jack/Jill/Pjdude. And I started with absolutely NO help from my family because they were as broke as I was when I left home and joined the Army the VERY day after I was graduated from high school.

So don't sing any hard-luck songs to me, Bub, unlike you, I worked for every penny I own.

This is NOT Australia, and as Americans we know full-well how our government would set it up here. There would be all manner of exclusions and conditions for treatment here along with TONS of read tape. If the US government cannot provide the standard first world industrial government services, then it's time for another government.

Would we accept no public roads, because the government would screw them up? No post office, because the government is incapable of delivering mail? No fire department? Police?

It's a presumption, this governmental incompetence peculiar to the US, that has brought us the most expensive and least comprehensive medical care in the first world. We actually have citizens dying in the street for lack of medical care routine in far poorer countries, because we cannot govern ourselves as well as other people can. I mean, that's what we ourselves say, right out front.


So don't sing any hard-luck songs to me, Bub, unlike you, I worked for every penny I own. Priorities are personal, of course, but if I had worked that hard, with no help from anyone except the people who paid for the army benefits and most of my college education and so forth, I think I would have better uses for 8 or 9 % of my income than preventing bums from seeing a doctor. Granted there's a certain satisfaction in denying the unworthy and the unlucky something they need, but that's kind of expensive - be cheaper to deny them the use of the sidewalks on alternate Wednesdays, wouldn't it?

If the US government cannot provide the standard first world industrial government services, then it's time for another government.

Would we accept no public roads, because the government would screw them up? No post office, because the government is incapable of delivering mail? No fire department? Police?

It's a presumption, this governmental incompetence peculiar to the US, that has brought us the most expensive and least comprehensive medical care in the first world. We actually have citizens dying in the street for lack of medical care routine in far poorer countries, apparently because we cannot govern ourselves as well as other people can.
All I can tell you is just hang on and see WHAT you wind up with. My prediction is that you will be very, very disappointed.

All I can tell you is just hang on and see WHAT you wind up with. My prediction is that you will be very, very disappointed. I'm already disappointed. What I won't be is surprised.

I watched the core political body of my country, the demographic center of its nature and governance - the white male jobholding population between 30 and 60 - control the successive federal and state governments of the Reagan era (1981 - 2010 and counting), and what they haven't learned from that experience they never will.

They voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin, in 2008. These men, my fellow citizens, the best and the brightest, couldn't govern a county fair.

you said a majority

Ok lets walk through it.

The study you linked said there were 30 million uninsured. The census shows 17 million of the uninsured make $50k+.

17/30=56%

Ok lets walk through it.

The study you linked said there were 30 million uninsured. The census shows 17 million of the uninsured make $50k+.

17/30=56%

study? I linked to the opinion pages of the nation. and if your going to use your sources number for uninsured why don't you use their number of total uninsured. around 47 million.

Priorities are personal, of course, but if I had worked that hard, with no help from anyone except the people who paid for the army benefits and most of my college education and so forth, I think I would have better uses for 8 or 9 % of my income than preventing bums from seeing a doctor. Granted there's a certain satisfaction in denying the unworthy and the unlucky something they need, but that's kind of expensive - be cheaper to deny them the use of the sidewalks on alternate Wednesdays, wouldn't it?

Nice try at zooming off on a tangent - but NO cigar!

8 or 9%? I'm ALREADY paying FAR above that. As I told pjdude earlier, my federal tax last year was just over $200,000. And I'm sure that at least some of that money (and the money from others like me) went to assist the "unlucky and unworthy" (as you call them - not me) through various "entitlement programs."

You really need to move into the realm of reality and stop attempting to use such absurd examples to support your unsupportable agenda against a few people who have a little money.

There's too much government control, an economy and a health care system functions better without the government dictating how things should be run. Our government is full of stupid people who think they understand the economy. The government should be more like a watchdog, make sure no one comes to kill us and make sure we don't kill each other.

8 or 9%? I'm ALREADY paying FAR above that You misunderstand:

That's the percentage you are paying on top of what first class first world health care costs for universal coverage, to deny coverage to the undeserving in your view.

That's the extra, on top of what you are paying out for actual health care received by yourself and the others you pay for, that you pay out to deny and ration coverage to others.

If you simply covered the entire population of the US with a single payer system of standard first world quality, using any of the several standard European or other comparable arrangements, you would have about that much extra of your gross available for other expenditures or whatever.

This is quite puzzling, from an outsider's perspective. But your fellow Americans understand.

study? I linked to the opinion pages of the nation. and if your going to use your sources number for uninsured why don't you use their number of total uninsured. around 47 million.You only get 47 million if you include illegal aliens. And President Obama specifically said illegal aliens wouldn't be covered. Remember, that's what prompted thet rude Republican to yell, "LIar!"?

There's too much government control, an economy and a health care system functions better without the government dictating how things should be run. Our government is full of stupid people who think they understand the economy. The government should be more like a watchdog, make sure no one comes to kill us and make sure we don't kill each other.

Why is health care where you draw the line, and not all the other government agencies and services that most people depend on these days? Even if you think government should be limited, I would think an exception could be made for saving the lives of our citizens.

If you simply covered the entire population of the US with a single payer system of standard first world quality, using any of the several standard European or other comparable arrangements, you would have about that much extra of your gross available for other expenditures or whatever.


I'd like to see some hard, reliable source to confirm that claim.

You only get 47 million if you include illegal aliens. And President Obama specifically said illegal aliens wouldn't be covered. Remember, that's what prompted thet rude Republican to yell, "LIar!"?

I think you are missing the point. This is not about universal coverage. It is about cost reduction and reigning in federal spending. The solution to healthcare in the US have been for the federal governement to step in and pay for it since it has not been affordable for average Americans for some time now. So as time passes the federal government is increasingly on the hook for healthcare cost. It simply cannot continue.

We have to have a more efficient way of delivering healthcare in this country. Other industrialized countries have a much more efficient and effective delivery system. If we are smart and if we kick out the influences of special interests we will copy the more efficient systems reducing healthcare expenses from 17 percent of our economy to something more in line with other industial countries (8-9 percent) of GDP.

Further with healthcare costs so out of line, it is an impediment to trade. It adds to the level of taxation and to the costs of goods and services produced in this country. It is indeed a sad state of affairs. And it is a matter of now or latter. Would we like to address it now and save us some expense or would we like to let if fester a bit longer and pay more? I choose lets deal with it now. If universal healthcare is a byproduct so be it. The bottom line is we need to get our healthcare expenses in line with that of other countries. We need a better more efficient form of healthcare delivery in the US. It is time to wake up and deal with the problem.

I think you are missing the point. This is not about universal coverage. It is about cost reduction and reigning in federal spending. The solution to healthcare in the US have been for the federal governement to step in and pay for it since it has not been affordable for average Americans for some time now. So as time passes the federal government is increasingly on the hook for healthcare cost. It simply cannot continue.

We have to have a more efficient way of delivering healthcare in this country. Other industrialized countries have a much more efficient and effective delivery system. If we are smart and if we kick out the influences of special interests we will copy the more efficient systems reducing healthcare expenses from 17 percent of our economy to something more in line with other industial countries (8-9 percent) of GDP.

Further with healthcare costs so out of line, it is an impediment to trade. It adds to the level of taxation and to the costs of goods and services produced in this country. It is indeed a sad state of affairs. And it is a matter of now or latter. Would we like to address it now and save us some expense or would we like to let if fester a bit longer and pay more? I choose lets deal with it now. If universal healthcare is a byproduct so be it. The bottom line is we need to get our healthcare expenses in line with that of other countries. We need a better more efficient form of healthcare delivery in the US. It is time to wake up and deal with the problem.

OK, I think I can buy into that thought. So for starters, can anyone put the actual numbers to where all the current health care (private and government) dollars go?

For instance:

Insurance
Hospitals
Doctors
Drugs
Assisted Living
etc.

Healthcare a la Hawaii

Healthcare a la Hawaii

?????

Just what is that supposed to mean?

OK, I think I can buy into that thought. So for starters, can anyone put the actual numbers to where all the current health care (private and government) dollars go?

For instance:

Insurance
Hospitals
Doctors
Drugs
Assisted Living
etc.

Read only, i cant find them right now due to how slow this computer is being but if you search you can find the OECD figures for health expenditure. It actually shows that as goverment expenditure goes up as a percentage of total health expenditure total expenditure comes down (for the same level of treatment). Now the problem the US faces is that you ignore private expenditure compleatly when in reality it is putting a HUGE burden on the countries economy even if not a single tax $ is spent.

Why?
because it forces up wages and expenses and there for drives up inflation which further increases buiness costs and there for consumer goods which FURTHER fuels wage rises ect ect. By shifting it to the public purse and making it a tax expenditure you can cap the inflationary effects by driving profit motives out of health care. I constantly hear US citizans complaing that public servants cause increased costs but the same points compleatly ignore the section of expenditure which has to be set asside currently for profit (so that would be what? 45%?). Even when dealing with companies (such as pharmacutical companies) if its goverment paying the bill then there is a huge DOWNWARD pressure on price because the orders are so large and the companies know that if they push prices to high then the goverment can just go elsewhere for the same drugs. Inderviduals just dont have that sort of buying power.

Further more there is the increased costs to buiness (and other tax payers) to a) pay for nessary tax increases to increase social programs for people who are unable to work because of illness and injuries that should be easerly treated but arnt because of the massive costs on those inderviduals and b) the direct loss of prodivity caused by those losses either for long periods of time or even permidently caused by poor health in the workforce because the inderviduals cant afford proper treatment and there for "solder on".

These translate both to higher taxes and higher costs for consumer goods because of the higher taxes AND the loss of productivity both of which then fuel inflation.

So the community already pays for the fact that you have higher costs and there for poorer health but rather than this expenditure going towards FIXING the problem, insted it just bandaids the social problems if that.

OK, I think I can buy into that thought. So for starters, can anyone put the actual numbers to where all the current health care (private and government) dollars go?

For instance:

Insurance
Hospitals
Doctors
Drugs
Assisted Living
etc.

http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358

Checkout the pie chart. Hospital and physician fees account for over half of healthcare expenses.

http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358

Checkout the pie chart. Hospital and physician fees account for over half of healthcare expenses.

Very well. Instead of trying the silly shotgun approach that congress has been taken, efforts should be made to regulate THOSE costs instead.

Read only, i cant find them right now due to how slow this computer is being but if you search you can find the OECD figures for health expenditure. It actually shows that as goverment expenditure goes up as a percentage of total health expenditure total expenditure comes down (for the same level of treatment). Now the problem the US faces is that you ignore private expenditure compleatly when in reality it is putting a HUGE burden on the countries economy even if not a single tax $ is spent.


That sounds more like crowding out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowding_out_(economics)

That sounds more like crowding out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowding_out_(economics)

In the specific sense it refers to as being the correct use of the word, no its not. Its not a drop in consumer demand caused by an increase in tax. If you mean reduction in private spending because goverments are spending it then DUH. However if thats what your talking about then you compleatly missread my post.

Lets say that total health expenditure in the US is 1000 (it can be 1000 gold coins, 1000 tons of gold, or 1000 cocnuts for all i care, its just an example)

Of that 1000, 10 come from the goverment and 990 come from people and companies. The goverment decides to increase its share of that 1000 by 490. Now you would expect to see either a total expenditure of 1000 still and "private" contribution fall to 500 OR you would expect to see total expenditure rise to 1490 but that isnt what the OECD statistics show. Insted total expenditure would now become 900 (or 800, the exact amounts dont matter its a principle im trying to show). The important thing though is the level of care indicators actually STAY at the same rates as you were on for the 1000 OR ACTUALLY INCREASE.

This isnt a bad thing, actually its a very good thing (except if you happen to be a private health insurer)

Goverment expenditure in health care is deflationary in both the direct costs of health AND in the burden these costs cause the community there by increasing other compnay profits and peoples take home wages.

You only get 47 million if you include illegal aliens. And President Obama specifically said illegal aliens wouldn't be covered. Remember, that's what prompted thet rude Republican to yell, "LIar!"?

So your calling someone on your side of the evidence bs? does that mean we can ignore it in its entirity?

Very well. Instead of trying the silly shotgun approach that congress has been taken, efforts should be made to regulate THOSE costs instead.

I am not a fan of cost regulation. I would rather make the industry more competitive by eliminating trust exemptions; elimination of government restrictions limiting the number of individuals who can receive medical trainning; and opening up the prescription drug markets giving consumers the right to purchase prescription drugs from overseas - from places like Canada. Unfortunately, these are ideas the industry would rather have us forget about. But it would make the industry more competitive and more affordable.

Additionally, there has to be some enforced ethics. For example, if a physician owns a lab they tend to order more lab tests. In this case the physician has a conflict of interest. Those conflicts need to be eliminated as well. I think the bill proposed by the Democrats is better than nothing. It does, according to CBO, reduce projected deficits. But it needs to go a lot further to achieve the aforementioned goals.

In the specific sense it refers to as being the correct use of the word, no its not. Its not a drop in consumer demand caused by an increase in tax. If you mean reduction in private spending because goverments are spending it then DUH. However if thats what your talking about then you compleatly missread my post.

Lets say that total health expenditure in the US is 1000 (it can be 1000 gold coins, 1000 tons of gold, or 1000 cocnuts for all i care, its just an example)

Of that 1000, 10 come from the goverment and 990 come from people and companies. The goverment decides to increase its share of that 1000 by 490. Now you would expect to see either a total expenditure of 1000 still and "private" contribution fall to 500 OR you would expect to see total expenditure rise to 1490 but that isnt what the OECD statistics show. Insted total expenditure would now become 900 (or 800, the exact amounts dont matter its a principle im trying to show). The important thing though is the level of care indicators actually STAY at the same rates as you were on for the 1000 OR ACTUALLY INCREASE.

This isnt a bad thing, actually its a very good thing (except if you happen to be a private health insurer)

Goverment expenditure in health care is deflationary in both the direct costs of health AND in the burden these costs cause the community there by increasing other compnay profits and peoples take home wages.

Crowding out isn't about the government increasing its share of the total spending on X, its the decrease in private spending on X that is of a larger magnitude than the increase in government spending on X.
It's not a decrease in costs, its a distortion of spending patterns.

You are attributing the decrease in spending to the increase in government spending theoretically leading to a reduction in costs but the increased government expenditure has to come from somewhere.
That somewhere is either via taxation or from borrowings (which would then be repaid via taxation).
So even though the total expenditure on healthcare may fall, you aren't really decreasing the cost to the community because of the increased tax burden to pay for both the health care they would buy anyway, plus at least one other layer of bureaucracy that wasn't in the picture previously.

You can reduce the end user cost of something by paying for it via taxation but that doesn't actually reduce the cost of it, and is not a good idea from the perspective of incentives.

Also, I'm not at all convinced that increasing the level of government involvement in healthcare will lead to an improvement in quality (or at least not to the extent that quality would increase with a reduction in government involvement).
Privatisation generally leads to an increase in quality and a decrease in costs, whereas nationalisation generally has the opposite effect.

Privatisation generally leads to an increase in quality and a decrease in costs, whereas nationalisation generally has the opposite effect.

On this I would generally agree with you. However, in order to improve quality and reduce costs, free market forces must not be constrained as is currently the case in the United States.

It is also important to note that most nations including industrial nations have not nationalized their healthcare (Great Britian excepted). They have instead converted to a single payer system. There is a big difference.

On this I would generally agree with you. However, in order to improve quality and reduce costs, free market forces must not be constrained as is currently the case in the United States.


So reducing (or ideally, eliminating) the constraints on the free market seems like the obvious solution to me.



It is also important to note that most nations including industrial nations have not nationalized their healthcare (Great Britian excepted). They have instead converted to a single payer system. There is a big difference.

Point taken, however one would expect that to be similarly inefficient for similar reasons (large bureaucracy, information problem, etc).

So reducing (or ideally, eliminating) the constraints on the free market seems like the obvious solution to me.

I don't know about you but I am leery in putting things that effect people's lives to such a magnitude in the hands of something so capricious as the market.

I don't know about you but I am leery in putting things that effect people's lives to such a magnitude in the hands of something so capricious as the market.

Markets, specifically free markets, are not all bad PJ. I take it you have not had problems getting food to eat or clothes to wear. Those are all the product of free competitive markets. It is when industry colludes with government to skew the markets so that one side wins (industry) and one side looses (consumer) that you have problems and such is the case in the US.

Markets, specifically free markets, are not all bad PJ. I take it you have not had problems getting food to eat or clothes to wear. Those are all the product of free competitive markets. It is when industry colludes with government to skew the markets so that one side wins (industry) and one side looses (consumer) that you have problems and such is the case in the US.

the market only works when people are willing and/or able to walk away. with health care they are not. Their is near infinite demand because of that which would cause prices to sky rocket.

So reducing (or ideally, eliminating) the constraints on the free market seems like the obvious solution to me.).
Agreed, but it is not going to be easy or very practical because of the 10th Admendment (states rights issues). A good deal of market manipulation occurs at the state level as well. The disentanglement of this industry from government is not going to be easy or fast.



Point taken, however one would expect that to be similarly inefficient for similar reasons (large bureaucracy, information problem, etc).

Even so, it appears to beat the heck out of the US system in terms of quality and efficiency.

Crowding out isn't about the government increasing its share of the total spending on X, its the decrease in private spending on X that is of a larger magnitude than the increase in government spending on X.
It's not a decrease in costs, its a distortion of spending patterns.

You are attributing the decrease in spending to the increase in government spending theoretically leading to a reduction in costs but the increased government expenditure has to come from somewhere.
That somewhere is either via taxation or from borrowings (which would then be repaid via taxation).
So even though the total expenditure on healthcare may fall, you aren't really decreasing the cost to the community because of the increased tax burden to pay for both the health care they would buy anyway, plus at least one other layer of bureaucracy that wasn't in the picture previously.

You can reduce the end user cost of something by paying for it via taxation but that doesn't actually reduce the cost of it, and is not a good idea from the perspective of incentives.

Also, I'm not at all convinced that increasing the level of government involvement in healthcare will lead to an improvement in quality (or at least not to the extent that quality would increase with a reduction in government involvement).
Privatisation generally leads to an increase in quality and a decrease in costs, whereas nationalisation generally has the opposite effect.

um no, thats illogical. The tax burden is EXACTLY the sum total of the health care budget and not 1 $ more. It CANT be anymore, you dont have the goverment comming along and saying "well we need 1% for the health budget so we will tax you 5% for health" thats inncorect. Yes there is generally a budget surplus but thats from the WHOLE budget and you could just as easerly (and just as incorectly) claim that came from defense expenditure as health. When the OECD rate expenditure they include ALL costs INCLUDING the health department itself and im sorry but if you dont think there is any bureaucracy in the US system your compleatly WRONG. Its just for the US system there is a profit margin on EVERY SINGLE LEVEL.

In Australia there are really 3 systems. The private health insurance and private hospitals, the Medicare system and the public hospital system.

Public hospitals are paid for by the states, and the doctors ect are all public employees (there are SOME contracted out services like for instance laundry goes to Spotless). There for the only profit margins that are included are the ones for the contracted services and the companies which surply the medications and equiptment.

Now if we flip to the private sector there is a profit margin at EVERY level.

Now lets say the profit margin is 10% (to pull a figure out of my ass). There for Spotless charge x (cost of service) + 10% and in the public sector thats the cost to the public for laundry. In the private sector on the other hand the cost of laundry is ((x * 110%)(spotless) * 110%) (Hospital) * 110% (insurance company) AT LEAST (assuming there is no subcontracting going on)

THAT is where the goverment options cut costs, the further down the chain you put the money in the cheeper health becomes and the greater the govermental share the more downward pressure the goverment can applie to the companies to reduce profit margins.

One way they did this in GP services (which are private companies paid for by medicare) is bulk billing. If a GP agreed to bulk bill then they got the money directly from medicare as soon as the form came in (now its even quicker because the medicare card can just be swiped like an ATM card). In return the GP couldnt charge even $1 more to the pt. If they chose to charge ABOVE the medicare rebate (ie charge the pt as well as medicare) they could freely do that BUT the goverment wouldnt pay ANYTHING directly to the GP. Instead the ENTIRE amount had to be paid by the pt UP FRONT who then had to go and stand in a que at medicare to get the goverment portion back as a rebate.

What effect did this have? Insted of the pt having to find $10 they now had to find $60 and the time to stand in a medicare office to get that money back. This makes GPs who charge above the rebate VERY unpopular and there for market compition favors those who only charge the goverment for there service. Ie downward pressure on prices:) Its one of the ideas im most proud of the goverment for thinking up.

It will ALWAYS cost more to do things in the private sector than it will for goverment and this is bourne out by a recent move by the SA goverment which was oposed by the Public Sector Doctors association (rather than the AMA who represent ALL doctors, this union only represents those who work in the public sector). Because of doctor shortages there are some specialties which are increasing there waiting lists (practically for most things the waiting lists are almost non existant but for a few specalites its to long because there are very few doctors in these specilites). As a stop gap measure the state goverment was thinking about either a) hiring a private company (i belive one from the US but im not sure) to come into the public hospitals (so using public facilities and staff) and run extra procidures or b) to contract these out directly to the private hospitals. In both cases the pts would still be public pts and the costs come out of public funding not the pts purse. BOTH options turned out to be MASSIVILY expensive compared to the costs of doing it with public sector staff in a public hopsital. Why? because of the companies profit margins which arnt there for goverment

If you simply covered the entire population of the US with a single payer system of standard first world quality, using any of the several standard European or other comparable arrangements, you would have about that much extra of your gross available for other expenditures or whatever.
”
I'd like to see some hard, reliable source to confirm that claim. You've seen dozens.

European countries that provide universal first world medical care do so using about 10% of their GDP, on average.

The US currently uses 18%, to provide partial coverage. That percentage is increasing, and will pass 20% in a couple of years. The percentage of coverage is shrinking.

These numbers are in almost universal, everyday, common circulation. They have been published repeatedly in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and every major newspaper or news magazine in the country AFAIK.

The difference is 8%. Notice that we are completely ignoring the fact that the US per capita has at least half again more GDP in the first place, so the difference in absolute cost is more like 12% of US GDP wasted. We are accepting, in other words, much higher US expenditures on medical care as unavoidable and for the best.

That 8% is paid by you and every other economically productive US citizen. Whether it is a fraction of your taxes, your prices, your fees, or whatever, it is being extracted from the US total production you contribute to.

I don't know about you but I am leery in putting things that effect people's lives to such a magnitude in the hands of something so capricious as the market.

Yet you have no objection to placing it in the hands of bureaucrats and elected officials who have no training in this area nor any personal stake in the matter? who have no interest in or inclination to behave in your best interests?


the market only works when people are willing and/or able to walk away. with health care they are not. Their is near infinite demand because of that which would cause prices to sky rocket.

Those arguments apply equally to food production, and almost as much to clothing and housing/shelter.
Government involvement in those industries has invariably resulted in worse outcomes, please explain why I should expect healthcare to be any different?

Agreed, but it is not going to be easy or very practical because of the 10th Admendment (states rights issues). A good deal of market manipulation occurs at the state level as well. The disentanglement of this industry from government is not going to be easy or fast.


I'm not arguing that such a course of action would be easy, just that it is the best course of action.



Even so, it appears to beat the heck out of the US system in terms of quality and efficiency.

Even so, I recall Fraggle arguing that the size of the bureaucracy of such a scheme increases with the square or even the cube of the population, meaning such a proposal would be ruinously expensive in the long run for a country the size of the United States.
He went on to say that if one were to implement such a scheme it would make more sense to implement it at the state level, so as to control costs and allow states to compete with each other.

Yet you have no objection to placing it in the hands of bureaucrats and elected officials who have no training in this area nor any personal stake in the matter? whop says they wouldn't be trained. and they would be the ones having a say the doctors would.
who have no interest in or inclination to behave in your best interests? why wouldn't they have people's best interests in mind. they wouldn't have any other concerns that would conflict. it sounds to me you've taken to the corporate line that those who would stand to lose by actually caring for our citizens are presenting




Those arguments apply equally to food production, and almost as much to clothing and housing/shelter.
Government involvement in those industries has invariably resulted in worse outcomes, please explain why I should expect healthcare to be any different?

Well first off you have other options in those. beef to expensive buy chicken. this companies shirts to much go to another one. this fabric to costly go to another. housing is the only one that the analogy works with and that only loosely. Right because Upton Sinclairs' The Jungle was written after the government got involved. In every other country that has universal health care. It costs less with better outcomes

um no, thats illogical. The tax burden is EXACTLY the sum total of the health care budget and not 1 $ more. It CANT be anymore, you dont have the goverment comming along and saying "well we need 1% for the health budget so we will tax you 5% for health" thats inncorect. Yes there is generally a budget surplus but thats from the WHOLE budget and you could just as easerly (and just as incorectly) claim that came from defense expenditure as health. When the OECD rate expenditure they include ALL costs INCLUDING the health department itself and im sorry but if you dont think there is any bureaucracy in the US system your compleatly WRONG. Its just for the US system there is a profit margin on EVERY SINGLE LEVEL.


I don't know if you've been paying any attention to US politics recently but the US government has been pretty consistently running large deficits for virtually every year for the last few decades.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=US%20Federal%20Deficit%20As%20 Percent%20Of%20GDP&year=1900_2010&sname=US&units=p&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&col=c&spending0=-0.20_-0.27_-0.34_-0.24_-0.06_0.01_-0.12_-0.30_0.02_0.09_-0.11_-0.12_0.01_0.02_0.20_0.56_0.31_1.82_11.88_16.86_-0.68_-0.91_-0.68_-0.66_-0.73_-0.47_-0.67_-0.98_-0.68_-0.46_-0.96_0.17_2.78_3.27_3.11_4.12_4.76_2.84_1.42_2.32_ 3.02_3.73_12.04_28.05_22.35_24.06_9.05_-1.32_-4.33_-1.48_0.43_-2.30_-0.06_1.52_0.49_0.37_-1.21_-1.15_0.01_1.59_-0.48_0.65_1.22_0.77_0.89_0.20_0.47_1.04_2.76_-0.33_0.27_2.04_1.89_1.08_0.41_3.25_4.04_2.64_2.58_ 1.59_2.65_2.53_3.93_5.88_4.71_5.03_4.96_3.16_3.04_ 2.78_3.81_4.49_4.58_3.83_2.87_2.22_1.37_0.26_-0.79_-1.37_-2.37_-1.27_1.52_3.47_3.48_2.58_1.90_1.17_3.24_9.92_10.64&legend=



In Australia there are really 3 systems. The private health insurance and private hospitals, the Medicare system and the public hospital system.


I live in Australia, I know we have a different system.
This thread is about the US system, not the Australian one.



Public hospitals are paid for by the states, and the doctors ect are all public employees (there are SOME contracted out services like for instance laundry goes to Spotless). There for the only profit margins that are included are the ones for the contracted services and the companies which surply the medications and equiptment.

Now if we flip to the private sector there is a profit margin at EVERY level.


Profits are the "success signal" for a business, it is information that tells them to either continue producing at current levels or increase them.
Losses are the "failure signal" for a business, it is information that tells them they are producing too much and to lower their levels of production or stop altogether.

If profits are very large than this is also a signal to other entrepreneurs that the market wants more of this product and that they should go into business in this industry.
The large profits are what creates the competition that then drives down prices and hence profits.

Profits are not simply wasted money they are the signals that the market uses to determine the correct level of production and the correct price for a given good or service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_equilibrium



Now lets say the profit margin is 10% (to pull a figure out of my ass). There for Spotless charge x (cost of service) + 10% and in the public sector thats the cost to the public for laundry. In the private sector on the other hand the cost of laundry is ((x * 110%)(spotless) * 110%) (Hospital) * 110% (insurance company) AT LEAST (assuming there is no subcontracting going on)

THAT is where the goverment options cut costs, the further down the chain you put the money in the cheeper health becomes and the greater the govermental share the more downward pressure the goverment can applie to the companies to reduce profit margins.


This kind of action, while apparently helpful, wouldn't even be relevant if government didn't also drive *up* profit margins by artificially reducing the supply of health care, via licensing, etc.



One way they did this in GP services (which are private companies paid for by medicare) is bulk billing. If a GP agreed to bulk bill then they got the money directly from medicare as soon as the form came in (now its even quicker because the medicare card can just be swiped like an ATM card). In return the GP couldnt charge even $1 more to the pt. If they chose to charge ABOVE the medicare rebate (ie charge the pt as well as medicare) they could freely do that BUT the goverment wouldnt pay ANYTHING directly to the GP. Instead the ENTIRE amount had to be paid by the pt UP FRONT who then had to go and stand in a que at medicare to get the goverment portion back as a rebate.

What effect did this have? Insted of the pt having to find $10 they now had to find $60 and the time to stand in a medicare office to get that money back. This makes GPs who charge above the rebate VERY unpopular and there for market compition favors those who only charge the goverment for there service. Ie downward pressure on prices:) Its one of the ideas im most proud of the goverment for thinking up.

While I agree that keeping costs down is helpful, this kind of action, as mentioned previously is in place to combat the effects of other government policies that reduce the supply of healthcare and thus increase the price.
Also, reducing the end user costs, i.e., the out of pocket costs, is possible by paying for the product via taxation, that in and of itself doesn't reduce the costs, and, as i've said before, is not a good idea from the perspective of incentives.



It will ALWAYS cost more to do things in the private sector than it will for goverment and this is bourne out by a recent move by the SA goverment which was oposed by the Public Sector Doctors association (rather than the AMA who represent ALL doctors, this union only represents those who work in the public sector). Because of doctor shortages there are some specialties which are increasing there waiting lists (practically for most things the waiting lists are almost non existant but for a few specalites its to long because there are very few doctors in these specilites). As a stop gap measure the state goverment was thinking about either a) hiring a private company (i belive one from the US but im not sure) to come into the public hospitals (so using public facilities and staff) and run extra procidures or b) to contract these out directly to the private hospitals. In both cases the pts would still be public pts and the costs come out of public funding not the pts purse. BOTH options turned out to be MASSIVILY expensive compared to the costs of doing it with public sector staff in a public hopsital. Why? because of the companies profit margins which arnt there for goverment

Firstly, the shortages are the result of government interference in the market.
Secondly, why would you assume that bringing in staff from overseas cheap?

Wrong thread.

whop says they wouldn't be trained. and they would be the ones having a say the doctors would.


The people who should be having a say is the patients, by choosing between competing health care providers and competing treatments.



why wouldn't they have people's best interests in mind. they wouldn't have any other concerns that would conflict. it sounds to me you've taken to the corporate line that those who would stand to lose by actually caring for our citizens are presenting


Right. Bureaucrats are somehow different from everyone else in the world and immune to all conflicts of interest.

A business in a free market has an incentive to satisfy its customers, otherwise it wouldn't make any money and would go out of business. So it's incentive line up with the interests of it's clients.
They have a constant feed back loop of information from their customers as to how satisfied they are with the product; profit equals success, loss equals failure. They must correct the situation if they are taking losses or they will go out of business.

A government agency has no such incentive to satisfy its "clients", its funding is principally or entirely from taxation, so it lacks the feed back loop of information that a business has in the form of profit and loss.

A business can only increase the amount of resources available to it by satisfying its customers, a government agency can increase its available resources by lobbying for more funding.

The incentives of the bureaucrat are not the same as the businessman or the worker.
The "success signal" for the bureaucrat is an increase in funding and power, the "success signal" for the businessman is an increase in revenue. They both are succeeding by gaining more resources but only one of them is forced to satisfy his customers in order to achieve this.



Well first off you have other options in those. beef to expensive buy chicken. this companies shirts to much go to another one. this fabric to costly go to another. housing is the only one that the analogy works with and that only loosely. Right because Upton Sinclairs' The Jungle was written after the government got involved. In every other country that has universal health care. It costs less with better outcomes

Competition is what drives down costs and increases quality in a market, if the government restricts the degree or competition (typically by artificially reducing the supply) than you end up with high prices and low quality.
If you want low prices and high quality, than don't restrict the market.

who said goverment limits numbers of doctors? god you say you live in Australia but you have NO idea how doctors are trained do you? why exactly do you think the goverment THREATENED the AMA with moving medical schools into the universities?

Because the universities DONT TRAIN DOCTORS. They produce medical degrees yes but the specialties require training at the medical colleges. Who controls the medical colleges? Well the MEMBERS of those colleges do, ie the doctors who have previously been trained there. That is a MASSIVE conflict of intrest.

The goverment pays for the training, the goverments are the ones who need the graduates of those colleges but the colleges themselves are under the control of the other graduates which means the insentive is to train LESS specialists rather than MORE because every single one of those graduates will be compeating for a job with the people who are running the colleage. What would the difference be if it was moved to the universities? well university places are decided by a) goverment funding (for HECS places) and b) industry requirements. If the goverment needs more teachers trained they just give the uni's more money for teaching degrees. The goverment can do that for Batch of med\ Batch of Surgury but that would make no difference because they have limited control over the number of internships and even less control over the post grad training places.

Please get your facts straight before you look like a compleate ass

The people who should be having a say is the patients, by choosing between competing health care providers and competing treatments. They don't always have the ability too hence the need for doctors to have a say.




Right. Bureaucrats are somehow different from everyone else in the world and immune to all conflicts of interest. no but if they don't have an incentive to dick people over than gernerally they won't.


A business in a free market has an incentive to satisfy its customers, otherwise it wouldn't make any money and would go out of business. so than why so businesses that treat their customers as a necessary evil?
So it's incentive line up with the interests of it's clients. No they don't. a for profit inncentive is to make as much money as possible for as little cost to them while a cunsumer incentive is to get as much product for as little cost as possible.

They have a constant feed back loop of information from their customers as to how satisfied they are with the product; profit equals success, loss equals failure. They must correct the situation if they are taking losses or they will go out of business.

[QUOTE]A government agency has no such incentive to satisfy its "clients", its funding is principally or entirely from taxation, so it lacks the feed back loop of information that a business has in the form of profit and loss. first off any government UHC will have some sort of direct funding from its users. secondly this entire notion is based on people will fuck youy over for shits and giggles. i just don't buy into it.


A business can only increase the amount of resources available to it by satisfying its customers, a government agency can increase its available resources by lobbying for more funding. so?


The incentives of the bureaucrat are not the same as the businessman or the worker.
The "success signal" for the bureaucrat is an increase in funding and power, the "success signal" for the businessman is an increase in revenue. They both are succeeding by gaining more resources but only one of them is forced to satisfy his customers in order to achieve this. The business has to make sure it can get enough people to pay its costs the government employee having his funding based on taxation links his incentive to a strong all around economy.




Competition is what drives down costs and increases quality in a market, if the government restricts the degree or competition (typically by artificially reducing the supply) than you end up with high prices and low quality.
If you want low prices and high quality, than don't restrict the market.
So than why do countries with Universal health care spend less and have better care? The free market doesn't ensure low costs or high quality. It only ensures that demand and supply reach equalibriam. plus given the lack of perfect info the market cannot function properly in regards to health care.

who said goverment limits numbers of doctors? god you say you live in Australia but you have NO idea how doctors are trained do you? why exactly do you think the goverment THREATENED the AMA with moving medical schools into the universities?

Because the universities DONT TRAIN DOCTORS. They produce medical degrees yes but the specialties require training at the medical colleges. Who controls the medical colleges? Well the MEMBERS of those colleges do, ie the doctors who have previously been trained there. That is a MASSIVE conflict of intrest.

The goverment pays for the training, the goverments are the ones who need the graduates of those colleges but the colleges themselves are under the control of the other graduates which means the insentive is to train LESS specialists rather than MORE because every single one of those graduates will be compeating for a job with the people who are running the colleage. What would the difference be if it was moved to the universities? well university places are decided by a) goverment funding (for HECS places) and b) industry requirements. If the goverment needs more teachers trained they just give the uni's more money for teaching degrees. The goverment can do that for Batch of med\ Batch of Surgury but that would make no difference because they have limited control over the number of internships and even less control over the post grad training places.

Please get your facts straight before you look like a compleate ass

I would argue that it is in fact you that needs to get your facts straight.

The Australian government severely restricts immigration, this prevents doctors who are trained overseas from coming to live and work in Australia.
If they didn't do this than any attempts of Australian doctors to reduce the supply of health care in Australia (and thus drive up their profits) would be futile as doctors and nurses and any other profession would have an incentive to come here because of the high profits in that industry, thus increasing the supply and therefore reducing the cost.

The government restricts the market in one way and then attempts to counteract it in another way.
All these shenanigans with medical colleges and universities would not be necessary or relevant.

They don't always have the ability too hence the need for doctors to have a say.


They would have it, in a free market.



no but if they don't have an incentive to dick people over than gernerally they won't.

first off any government UHC will have some sort of direct funding from its users. secondly this entire notion is based on people will fuck youy over for shits and giggles. i just don't buy into it.


It's not about "dicking people over for shits and giggles", its the fact that they have no incentive at all to behave in a way that benefits the 'customers' and have every incentive to behave in a way that is contrary to the interests to the 'customers'.



so than why so businesses that treat their customers as a necessary evil? No they don't. a for profit inncentive is to make as much money as possible for as little cost to them while a cunsumer incentive is to get as much product for as little cost as possible.


Necessary evil? I have no idea what you are talking about.



so?


So....they have to satisfy their customers...or they go out of business...



The business has to make sure it can get enough people to pay its costs the government employee having his funding based on taxation links his incentive to a strong all around economy.


In the sense that imminent governmental collapse would mean that the bureaucrat stops being paid than yes, but barring that scenario the bureaucrat doesn't get any benefit from improving quality and decreasing cost.
S/he benefits most from increasing the number of staff under them, increasing their pay, etc. There is no direct link between this and improving quality and decreasing costs and indeed is often the exact opposite.



So than why do countries with Universal health care spend less and have better care? The free market doesn't ensure low costs or high quality. It only ensures that demand and supply reach equalibriam. plus given the lack of perfect info the market cannot function properly in regards to health care.

As compared to what?
There are currently no examples of an actual free market operating on any kind of scale anywhere in the world today.
You are arguing that x% of government involvement is better than y%, i'm arguing that 0% is better than either of those.

Trade associations like the American Medical Association (as an example) are to blame for a lot of the bullcrap, actually. They insist that only a certain number of professional schools (like medical school, pharmacy school) be allowed to exist in each state, with a very strictly limited number of seats in those schools. They also periodically increase educational requirements. EXAMPLE: before 2006, pharmacists needed only a BS in pharmacy (4 years) in order to practice. In 2006, a Doctor of Pharmacy degree (6 to 8 years) became the requirement. Now, we have an acute shortage of pharmacists in the USA.

Day in the life of a drug store or hospital pharmacist: sit on your ass all day in a basement verifying physicians' orders at a computer and periodically standing up every couple of hours to signature the IV's, unit doses, and pre-packaged pills left out on the counters by the min-waged pharmacy techs who mixed/measured them.

The trade associations try to explain away these rules as being "required to increase the quality of our healthcare in the country" but they are little more than attempts to limit the labor supply, in order to increase salaries and further the status of their profession.

They would have it, in a free market. well except for the insurance company people whose jobs are to limit their choices.




It's not about "dicking people over for shits and giggles", its the fact that they have no incentive at all to behave in a way that benefits the 'customers' and have every incentive to behave in a way that is contrary to the interests to the 'customers'. Name or explain these incentives to dick over people?




Necessary evil? I have no idea what you are talking about. Didn't think you would. Why do you think custermer service at alot of places sucks and they are still in business?




So....they have to satisfy their customers...or they go out of business... ort they are the only game in town and don't have to worry about such silly things.




In the sense that imminent governmental collapse would mean that the bureaucrat stops being paid than yes, but barring that scenario the bureaucrat doesn't get any benefit from improving quality and decreasing cost.
S/he benefits most from increasing the number of staff under them, increasing their pay, etc. There is no direct link between this and improving quality and decreasing costs and indeed is often the exact opposite. if your going to take the time to respond rather than push your ideology address what was said. the governmental employee as an incentive to see the economy as strong as possible because that means more tax revenues and more chances for funding.




As compared to what?
There are currently no examples of an actual free market operating on any kind of scale anywhere in the world today.
You are arguing that x% of government involvement is better than y%, i'm arguing that 0% is better than either of those.

and you would be wrong. you have the same problem as norse your pathogically incapable of seeing the flaws in the free market. You know why there are no pure free markets in the world. BECAUSE PEOPLE GOT TIRED OF BEING FUCKED OVER IN THAT SYSTEM. Systems that go away do so because they failed.

well except for the insurance company people whose jobs are to limit their choices.


1. No is forcing you to buy insurance.
2. If the government isn't distorting that particular market in a variety of ways than the insurance companies would actually have to compete with each other on price and service and coverage, people could choose the plan they wanted that fit within their budget.



Didn't think you would. Why do you think custermer service at alot of places sucks and they are still in business?


I don't know about you, but if I go somewhere and the service sucks then next time I go somewhere else.
The aggregate of this behaviour among many people means if people think the service sucks at a particular business than they are going to loose a lot of business to their competition and will eventually go out of business if they continue.



ort they are the only game in town and don't have to worry about such silly things.


As I have attempted to explain previously, high profits are the signal for competition to arise.
Even just the threat of competition can be a powerful motivator.



Name or explain these incentives to dick over people?

if your going to take the time to respond rather than push your ideology address what was said. the governmental employee as an incentive to see the economy as strong as possible because that means more tax revenues and more chances for funding.


The government *as a whole* might have an incentive to have a strong economy, but 'the government' is not a person and no one person within it has that incentive, except perhaps the person at the top.
However the problem with that is that the person at the top can only stay there for a strictly limited period of time, they can't still be in that position 10 years down the line, so their incentive is to maximise short term benefits, rather than think about the long term, because by then they are no longer able to reap any benefits and it's someone else's problem.
In the case of bureaucrats who may be trying to make a career of 'public service', their incentive is try to rise up through the hierarchy of the bureaucracy, to increase their power and the number staff working under them. That is how they benefit, that is what they work towards.

It has nothing to do with "incentives to dick people over" and everything to do with the fact that a business has an incentive to discover what the consumer wants and act on those consumer desires.
If they succeed they are rewarded with profits, if they fail they are punished with losses.
This is in sharp contrast to a bureaucracy, which has no incentive to satisfy the users of the products it is overseeing the production of.
Increase the departments budget doesn't correlate well with "makes users happy" whereas for a business; increase revenue correlates perfectly with create value that people want.

In order to continue existing, a business has to create value, and it has to do so in a way that customers value enough to pay its costs.
In order to exist, a bureaucracy has to acquire enough funding via political machinations to fund its activities.

The former must satisfy customers to continue existing and grow, the latter does not and has no reason to act in a way that benefits it's 'customers'.



and you would be wrong. you have the same problem as norse your pathogically incapable of seeing the flaws in the free market. You know why there are no pure free markets in the world. BECAUSE PEOPLE GOT TIRED OF BEING FUCKED OVER IN THAT SYSTEM. Systems that go away do so because they failed.

1. I have yet to see you make a case demonstrating any such flaws that are actually a product of the free market, rather than a result of the government. So I hope you will forgive my lack of psychic powers.
2. How can you get sick of something you've never experienced? When and where has there ever been a genuine free market operating on any kind of scale?

Trade associations like the American Medical Association (as an example) are to blame for a lot of the bullcrap, actually. They insist that only a certain number of professional schools (like medical school, pharmacy school) be allowed to exist in each state, with a very strictly limited number of seats in those schools. They also periodically increase educational requirements. EXAMPLE: before 2006, pharmacists needed only a BS in pharmacy (4 years) in order to practice. In 2006, a Doctor of Pharmacy degree (6 to 8 years) became the requirement. Now, we have an acute shortage of pharmacists in the USA.

Day in the life of a drug store or hospital pharmacist: sit on your ass all day in a basement verifying physicians' orders at a computer and periodically standing up every couple of hours to signature the IV's, unit doses, and pre-packaged pills left out on the counters by the min-waged pharmacy techs who mixed/measured them.

The trade associations try to explain away these rules as being "required to increase the quality of our healthcare in the country" but they are little more than attempts to limit the labor supply, in order to increase salaries and further the status of their profession.

That explains a lot.

1. No is forcing you to buy insurance. well except for that little thing called exorbent medical expenses

2. If the government isn't distorting that particular market in a variety of ways than the insurance companies would actually have to compete with each other on price and service and coverage, people could choose the plan they wanted that fit within their budget. god you fanatic. Its not the governments fault. its the flaws in the system of the free market causing the high prices and low quality.




I don't know about you, but if I go somewhere and the service sucks then next time I go somewhere else.
The aggregate of this behaviour among many people means if people think the service sucks at a particular business than they are going to loose a lot of business to their competition and will eventually go out of business if they continue. and yet places with crap serive remain when you say their should be none.




As I have attempted to explain previously, high profits are the signal for competition to arise.
Even just the threat of competition can be a powerful motivator. and with those high profits comes the ability to prevent competition from arising.




The government *as a whole* might have an incentive to have a strong economy, but 'the government' is not a person and no one person within it has that incentive, except perhaps the person at the top.
However the problem with that is that the person at the top can only stay there for a strictly limited period of time, they can't still be in that position 10 years down the line, so their incentive is to maximise short term benefits, rather than think about the long term, because by then they are no longer able to reap any benefits and it's someone else's problem.
In the case of bureaucrats who may be trying to make a career of 'public service', their incentive is try to rise up through the hierarchy of the bureaucracy, to increase their power and the number staff working under them. That is how they benefit, that is what they work towards. so because their government bueracrats their evil. according you just place them in a corporation and suddenly they become caring indviduals. the real world doesn't work like that. most people in the governmental employee recognize that their service is to the people. unlike a company for profit whose only desire is profit.


It has nothing to do with "incentives to dick people over" and everything to do with the fact that a business has an incentive to discover what the consumer wants and act on those consumer desires.
If they succeed they are rewarded with profits, if they fail they are punished with losses. maybe in the fantasy world your thinking of. maybe in a perfect world but fantasy and this isn't a perfect world. when the chance for profit arrises at diminishing service they take it.

This is in sharp contrast to a bureaucracy, which has no incentive to satisfy the users of the products it is overseeing the production of.
Increase the departments budget doesn't correlate well with "makes users happy" whereas for a business; increase revenue correlates perfectly with create value that people want. Why do you exclusively use the term bureaucracy to refer to the government? corporations that would work in the "free" market are also bureaucracies. why don't they suffer from these flaws? and first of the government bureaucracy has an incentive to satisfy the citizens. if they don't they lose their jobs when they or their appointers get elected out of office.


In order to continue existing, a business has to create value, and it has to do so in a way that customers value enough to pay its costs.
In order to exist, a bureaucracy has to acquire enough funding via political machinations to fund its activities. Or it has to get money from the corporation its in. their are nongovernmental bureaucracy. and you just showed why their is the incentive to dick custermors over. to get more money. if they are in a bind you increasely ignore the cunsumer.


The former must satisfy customers to continue existing and grow, the latter does not and has no reason to act in a way that benefits it's 'customers'. But they do. Just because you keep saying it doesn't




1. I have yet to see you make a case demonstrating any such flaws that are actually a product of the free market, rather than a result of the government. So I hope you will forgive my lack of psychic powers. interestingly I have yet to see you make a honest real world case against the government and for the free market in health care.

2. How can you get sick of something you've never experienced? When and where has there ever been a genuine free market operating on any kind of scale?

the robber baron era was the free market in action.



1. if your going to keep pushing the "free" market recognize this isn't the perfect world you imagine it in. it has real world flaws. You and all the other fundamentalist free marketers here all seem to refuse to see that. don't use that cop out oh their have never been a free market system because your perfect idealized version has never happened. it won't ever happen grow up and deal with. any system must cave to the realities of the world and human nature. their are no perfect examples.
2. quit using bureaucracy and bureaucrat to only refer to the government its the height of dishonesty because every single large corp is one too. unknowingly the entire time you have built a frame work against your position even if we accepted you views on the free market as right we still would have had to reject it because not only would it have the flaws of the "free" market but the ones of a bureaucracy as well.

well except for that little thing called exorbent medical expenses
god you fanatic. Its not the governments fault. its the flaws in the system of the free market causing the high prices and low quality.


Apparently I'm a fanatic if I refuse to just take your word on an issue.
From my perspective you are the one behaving like a fanatic.
Is it actually impossible for you to conceive that another rational person might disagree with you?



and yet places with crap serive remain when you say their should be none.


Since, as you appear to have by now conceded the fact that, there is currently not a free market, why would you automatically assume features of the free market to be present when we don't have one and then claim the lack of these features in a system that is not a free market as proof that a system we aren't using is faulty?

Also, the free market doesn't guarantee that every business everywhere will always have good service, it merely gives them all an incentive to provide it.



and with those high profits comes the ability to prevent competition from arising.


That's simply not correct. I have yet to see or hear of any evidence at all that suggests that simply being the largest player in a given market gives you the ability to prevent competition from arising.
In order to do that one would have to coerce your potential competition from not competing with you, something which is antithetical to a free market.
Can you name even one example of an actual monopoly that has existed without any support from a government, without the use of coercive force? No tariffs, no quotas, no price controls, no licensing, etc.
I would be colossally surprised if you could name even one example of this ever occurring.



so because their government bueracrats their evil. according you just place them in a corporation and suddenly they become caring indviduals. the real world doesn't work like that. most people in the governmental employee recognize that their service is to the people. unlike a company for profit whose only desire is profit.


Firstly I never said they were evil, you are putting words in my mouth.
Secondly, it has nothing to do with being caring or evil or any other adjectives you care to attach to the situation and everything to do with what the individuals incentives are. People respond to incentives.
Thirdly, the very existence of attainable power attracts those who desire to those positions more frequently than those who don't so one would expect to see a greater proportion of those who are likely to abuse power in a government.



maybe in the fantasy world your thinking of. maybe in a perfect world but fantasy and this isn't a perfect world. when the chance for profit arrises at diminishing service they take it.





Why do you exclusively use the term bureaucracy to refer to the government? corporations that would work in the "free" market are also bureaucracies. why don't they suffer from these flaws? and first of the government bureaucracy has an incentive to satisfy the citizens. if they don't they lose their jobs when they or their appointers get elected out of office.


I use that term primarily to refer to government bureaucracies because they are typically much larger and hard to get rid of / cut the size of because there is little downward pressure on their size.

Elected officials rarely exercise direct control over the bureaucrats that work for the state, at least not to the extend of selectively hiring and firing specific people. Even if they have the power to exercise such control they rarely, if ever, have the time or inclination to do so, plus it may not be easy to get rid of people.
Furthermore, the entire bureaucracy is not fired and restructured every time a new elected official takes over, that's simply not how its done.
Bureaucrats who do a poor job are not kicked out with the new elected official, they may stay on indefinitely.



Or it has to get money from the corporation its in. their are nongovernmental bureaucracy. and you just showed why their is the incentive to dick custermors over. to get more money. if they are in a bind you increasely ignore the cunsumer.


There are indeed non-governmental bureaucracies but the owners of a particular corporation and those they appoint have a direct incentive to minimise expenses and so will typically control the size of such a bureaucracy.
If a business is 'in a bind', they have every incentive not to "dick over" their customers, at least not in anything but the very immediate term, because it simply invites the competition to attract away all their customers.



But they do. Just because you keep saying it doesn't


I'd love to hear you explain how any individual bureaucrat has a direct incentive to constantly: improve quality; increase quantity and reduce costs.



interestingly I have yet to see you make a honest real world case against the government and for the free market in health care.


The health care industry is no different from any other industry.
The market is a process that allocates resources to those who are best at forecasting consumer demand. Every business is competing directly with every other business in a particular industry and indirectly with every other business in the entire economy.
As this process continues over time, resources are allocated in as efficient manner as can be achieved with the information available to market participants, additionally the market continuously distributes information back and forth from consumers and producers in the form of price signals as to the correct level of production for every good and service in the entire economy.
There is nothing intrinsically different between health care and anything else that makes it immune to this process or that would indicate that the market forces which so efficiently allocate resources for every other industry suddenly cease to function when they encounter this particular one.



the robber baron era was the free market in action.


The fact that you could describe a period with vast involuntary slavery, massive subsidies for specific industries and companies and a variety of other government interventions in the market as " the free market in action" at the very least demonstrates you have no understating of what constitutes a free market.



1. if your going to keep pushing the "free" market recognize this isn't the perfect world you imagine it in. it has real world flaws. You and all the other fundamentalist free marketers here all seem to refuse to see that. don't use that cop out oh their have never been a free market system because your perfect idealized version has never happened. it won't ever happen grow up and deal with. any system must cave to the realities of the world and human nature. their are no perfect examples.
2. quit using bureaucracy and bureaucrat to only refer to the government its the height of dishonesty because every single large corp is one too. unknowingly the entire time you have built a frame work against your position even if we accepted you views on the free market as right we still would have had to reject it because not only would it have the flaws of the "free" market but the ones of a bureaucracy as well.

If I refuse to accept your particular view of "reality" I must be a fundamentalist and therefore I should "grow up".
Right.
I am trying to have an intelligent discussion here, I'm not simply declaring you to be wrong and refusing to converse further.
I am not not repeatedly declaring you to be a fundamentalist or demanding that you "grow up".
Is it too much to ask that you at least try to be civil so that we can actually discuss the matter at hand? If it is than I think we are done here.

Apparently I'm a fanatic if I refuse to just take your word on an issue.
From my perspective you are the one behaving like a fanatic.
Is it actually impossible for you to conceive that another rational person might disagree with you? Yes but i don't think your a fanatic because you disagree with me. I think your a fanatic because your refuse to believe what you believe in has flaws.




Since, as you appear to have by now conceded the fact that, there is currently not a free market, why would you automatically assume features of the free market to be present when we don't have one and then claim the lack of these features in a system that is not a free market as proof that a system we aren't using is faulty???? so pointing out a major flaw in your logic is conceding a point. I was asking you to explain how places with crappy service remain when you say their shouldn't be any.


Also, the free market doesn't guarantee that every business everywhere will always have good service, it merely gives them all an incentive to provide it. So now your arguing that what is incentives are don't matter its what happens that matters




That's simply not correct. I have yet to see or hear of any evidence at all that suggests that simply being the largest player in a given market gives you the ability to prevent competition from arising. Microsoft Vapor ware.

In order to do that one would have to coerce your potential competition from not competing with you, something which is antithetical to a free market. nothing of the such look at my previous example. Microsoft knows because they are the big dog with market share people will wait for any announced product of theirs. Someone starts a word processing software with a whole bunch of features word doesn't have microsoft announces new version of word people wait for it and not buy another companies it goes out of business never here about the microsoft product again.

Can you name even one example of an actual monopoly that has existed without any support from a government, without the use of coercive force? No tariffs, no quotas, no price controls, no licensing, etc.
I would be colossally surprised if you could name even one example of this ever occurring. Well considering my dad worked for one for years before the government broke them up AT&T.




Firstly I never said they were evil, you are putting words in my mouth. its called implications and connations

Secondly, it has nothing to do with being caring or evil or any other adjectives you care to attach to the situation and everything to do with what the individuals incentives are. People respond to incentives. but you your self admitted that just because their is an incentive to do so doesn't mean it happens. Maybe because other incentives have greater pull or maybe because the incentive doesn't exist.

Thirdly, the very existence of attainable power attracts those who desire to those positions more frequently than those who don't so one would expect to see a greater proportion of those who are likely to abuse power in a government. Their are other avenues to power. Your anti governmental crusade with out reflecting it back at other avenues of power is begining to get tiring.







I use that term primarily to refer to government bureaucracies because they are typically much larger and hard to get rid of / cut the size of because there is little downward pressure on their size. So you in other words you don't want to think about how your undercutting your own arguement.


Elected officials rarely exercise direct control over the bureaucrats that work for the state, at least not to the extend of selectively hiring and firing specific people. Even if they have the power to exercise such control they rarely, if ever, have the time or inclination to do so, plus it may not be easy to get rid of people. well yes that is true but not for the reasons you say. the reason it is so much harder is because people kept getting fired every time some new controlled it.

Furthermore, the entire bureaucracy is not fired and restructured every time a new elected official takes over, that's simply not how its done. that's actually how it used to be done.

Bureaucrats who do a poor job are not kicked out with the new elected official, they may stay on indefinitely. define a poor job. You keep saying beuracrats are these lazy people with no incentive to do their jobs well show it.




There are indeed non-governmental bureaucracies but the owners of a particular corporation and those they appoint have a direct incentive to minimise expenses and so will typically control the size of such a bureaucracy. not really. its why the mangement parts of corporations get bloated

If a business is 'in a bind', they have every incentive not to "dick over" their customers, at least not in anything but the very immediate term, because it simply invites the competition to attract away all their customers. They have every reason to jack up prices and shit when their in a bind and lower service standards.




I'd love to hear you explain how any individual bureaucrat has a direct incentive to constantly: improve quality; increase quantity and reduce costs. because they get rid of them when they don't. HE doesn't get rewarded for cutting jobs and lower peoples saleries. He has no incentive to use negative means of inflating his worth so he must use positive means.




The health care industry is no different from any other industry. You could be farther from the truth. next to no ability to walk away and complete asymmetry in information is completely different to most indutries.

The market is a process that allocates resources to those who are best at forecasting consumer demand. Every business is competing directly with every other business in a particular industry and indirectly with every other business in the entire economy. the market relies on information being in the hands of the buyers and sellers equally you don't have that in health care.

As this process continues over time, resources are allocated in as efficient manner as can be achieved with the information available to market participants, additionally the market continuously distributes information back and forth from consumers and producers in the form of price signals as to the correct level of production for every good and service in the entire economy.
There is nothing intrinsically different between health care and anything else that makes it immune to this process or that would indicate that the market forces which so efficiently allocate resources for every other industry suddenly cease to function when they encounter this particular one. so custermors in health care can accurately determine what kinds of surgeries and medications they need?




The fact that you could describe a period with vast involuntary slavery, massive subsidies for specific industries and companies and a variety of other government interventions in the market as " the free market in action" at the very least demonstrates you have no understating of what constitutes a free market. Well sorry I couldn't find a perfect example. perhaps if you could show me fairy land I could. I understand the free market. the 1880's didn't have slavery. oil, coal, rail, and steel weren't subsidized all that much espcially relative to what you claim as closer the a pure free market today it. the government was hands off than and things were shit.




If I refuse to accept your particular view of "reality" I must be a fundamentalist and therefore I should "grow up".
Right. NO. You just have to accept some view of reality. which your not. You think the free market is perfect it isn't.

I am trying to have an intelligent discussion here, I'm not simply declaring you to be wrong and refusing to converse further. No you aren't. An intelligent conversation would be one that recognizes the pro and cons of two competing systems and a debate over why the pros outweigh the cons you refuse to admit any possible flaw in the system you want.

I am not not repeatedly declaring you to be a fundamentalist or demanding that you "grow up". Your right your just saying I stupid because I don't think the free market is perfect

Is it too much to ask that you at least try to be civil so that we can actually discuss the matter at hand? If it is than I think we are done here.I am being civil. Calling you out on your bordering on religious adoration for something that never existed and cannot ever exist isn't being uncivil. Your right we are done here because I can't have a debate with you. You wish to compare the real world version of the other economic systems to the theoritical perfect form of the free market and cannot accept the real world applications and failings of it.

EntropyAlwaysWins:
"Can you name even one example of an actual monopoly that has existed without any support from a government, without the use of coercive force? No tariffs, no quotas, no price controls, no licensing, etc.
I would be colossally surprised if you could name even one example of this ever occurring.
”
pjdude:
"Well considering my dad worked for one for years before the government broke them up AT&T."

Dude, I could call you hand on MANY things you've posted but I decided to take you to task directly on this one item. Evidently, you understood NOTHING about AT&T.

I was with them in various capacities for over 20 years and there was an entire DEPARTMENT that did nothing but negotiate tariffs and rates with the FCC. It was a TOTALLY government-controlled monopoly. They were TOLD what their rate-of-return could be, and every major capital expenditure was scrutinized because it figured into the base which was used to compute that return on investment.

So crawl back into your little corner and spend some time learning before you continue spewing total nonsense. (And I just may decide to expose even more of your garbage later...)

trade associations like the american medical association (as an example) are to blame for a lot of the bullcrap, actually. They insist that only a certain number of professional schools (like medical school, pharmacy school) be allowed to exist in each state, with a very strictly limited number of seats in those schools. They also periodically increase educational requirements. Example: Before 2006, pharmacists needed only a bs in pharmacy (4 years) in order to practice. In 2006, a doctor of pharmacy degree (6 to 8 years) became the requirement. Now, we have an acute shortage of pharmacists in the usa.

day in the life of a drug store or hospital pharmacist: sit on your ass all day in a basement verifying physicians' orders at a computer and periodically standing up every couple of hours to signature the iv's, unit doses, and pre-packaged pills left out on the counters by the min-waged pharmacy techs who mixed/measured them.

The trade associations try to explain away these rules as being "required to increase the quality of our healthcare in the country" but they are little more than attempts to limit the labor supply, in order to increase salaries and further the status of their profession.

major MEGA dittos!!!!!!!

EntropyAlwaysWins:
"Can you name even one example of an actual monopoly that has existed without any support from a government, without the use of coercive force? No tariffs, no quotas, no price controls, no licensing, etc.
I would be colossally surprised if you could name even one example of this ever occurring. No corporation of any kind, monopoly or not, has ever existed without a government supplying coercive force.

No capitalistic market, "free" or otherwise, has ever existed without a government supplied legal infrastructure. Nor has any realistic attempt ever been made to establish one.

Possibly the closest we've ever seen to such a fantasy market would be the loan derivatives market in the US between 2000 and 2008. There was almost no constraint on that market of any kind - geographical, legal, cultural, anything.

Any properties of capitalistic business that depend only on the presence of a market-establishing and regulating government are inevitable properties of capitalistic business.

Health care is among the economic goods that cannot be handled by a "free" market. It lacks the necessary property of an informed consumer capable of rejecting any one proffered deal and repeatedly choosing among alternatives. It lacks the attribute of repeat business allowing quality judgment. It lacks the attribute of distributing costs and benefits among direct producers and consumers - much of its benefit is gained by non-buyers, much of its costs borne by non-producers.

And as always when there isn't, the pretension that there exists a market mechanism to control costs and oversee delivery is a very expensive delusion, providing merely opportunities for greed and theft and self-enrichment among those in control of the actual decision making mechanisms.

i love how the anti UHC group here refuse to get out of there own theory and into the real world. How many of you work in the science fields? what is science based on? having a great theory and then ignoring the evidence against it or evaluating your theory AGAINST real world empirical data?

The OECD publishes MASIVE amounts of health data across its member countries, only 1 of those countries doesnt have UHC and yet the US ranks poorly on all those indicators.

Lets look at a comparision (my apologies if this comes out a little screwy, im trying to translocate a table into the post)

Life expectancy
Australia 81.4
Canada 80.7
France 81.0
Germany 79.8
Japan 82.6
Sweden 81.0
UK 79.1
US 78.1

Infant mortality rate
Australia 4.2
Canada 5.0
France 4.0
Germany 3.8
Japan 2.6
Sweden 2.5
UK 4.8
US 6.7

Healthcare costs as a percent of GDP
Australia 8.7
Canada 10.1
France 11.0
Germany 10.4
Japan 8.1
Sweden 9.1
UK 8.4
US 16.0

% of government revenue spent on health
Australia 17.7
Canada 16.7
France 14.2
Germany 17.6
Japan 16.8
Sweden 13.6
UK 15.8
US 18.5 (and thats even with the massive US millatry budget)

% of health costs paid by government
Australia 67.7
Canada 69.8
France 79.0
Germany 76.9
Japan 81.3
Sweden 81.7
UK 81.7
US 45.4

There are also per capita figures there but that would take me to long to transcribe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada#Comparison_to_other_countrie s

I just found this page too:


Cross-country comparisons
Direct comparisons of health statistics across nations are complex. The Commonwealth Fund, in its annual survey, "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall", compares the performance of the health care systems in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and the U.S. Its 2007 study found that, although the U.S. system is the most expensive, it consistently underperforms compared to the other countries.[11] A major difference between the U.S. and the other countries in the study is that the U.S. is the only country without universal health care. The OECD also collects comparative statistics, and has published brief country profiles


It also contains the same infomation in tabular form as well as more detailed infomation on LOTS of countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_compared#Cross-country_comparisons

In my opinion, if people want universal health care, the best route would be to provide it privately. People could file for a non-profit 501(c)(3) and operate it as a charitable, private organization.

There you guy: if you want UHC, go and fund it, privately, and leave everyone else alone. Government need not get involved.

major MEGA dittos!!!!!!!

there is more to it than that

In my opinion, if people want universal health care, the best route would be to provide it privately. People could file for a non-profit 501(c)(3) and operate it as a charitable, private organization.

There you guy: if you want UHC, go and fund it, privately, and leave everyone else alone. Government need not get involved.

but that's the problem norse americans want it( and want it through the government getting involved) but those in power refuse to give it to us.

In my opinion, if people want universal health care, the best route would be to provide it privately.

I think the same about NASA and national military deffense. After all why the taxpayers pay for military? Wouldn't private companies run it better with their own money? They get all the loots anyway.

What about the health care system in Hawaii (see my other thread)? It has been working just fine for 4 decades!!! I know, you didn't know that....

P.S.: And what about this free school system shit? Every school from kindergarten should be private and those bastards pay for it! What kind of notion is that education should be free? After all they don't learn nothing right now, so once they pay for it, they have the incentive to learn....

[lots of relevant statsistics]

Hey Asguard, don't confuse a conservative with numbers, it never works. There is simply no good answer why the richest Western society shouldn't have government provided health care when everyone else has.

The simple answer is that it is against corporate interest, end of story....

I think the same about NASA and national military deffense. After all why the taxpayers pay for military? Wouldn't private companies run it better with their own money? They get all the loots anyway.


I would actually agree with you entirely on that point.

Hey Asguard, don't confuse a conservative with numbers, it never works. There is simply no good answer why the richest Western society shouldn't have government provided health care when everyone else has.

The simple answer is that it is against corporate interest, end of story....

heheheh. Concidering i dont think anyone on the right even READS my posts im going to go off topic a bit here:p

You know maybe concervitisium is a religion or a faith because it never seems to stand up to empirical evidence and unlike a science when empirical evidence shows a scientific theory to be incorect then it is modifided to acount for the new evidence. There is amble data to show that the conservitive view point is wrong yet i have never seen it modifided or abandoned collectivally. Concidering this is a science site people HERE (especially those like Mad who proffess to be from a science based background) should be more willing to put there theories to the test. Instead we have the duck and weave routine as shown by read only's comment "The data from other countries is irrelivent because we are talking about the US". To a certain point he is correct, scientific studies can be subject to cultural bias which is why you must always be critical before automatically apliying it directly to a different culture. For instance the study in the US which found "getto ambulances" (ie the gansters droping off gun shot victoms at A&E doors with no treatment at all) have better health outcomes than EMTs. This was pointed out to me by a friend in St John to which my responce was "yes but before you aplie that to Australia you have to concider the fact that US EMTs arnt trained to anywhere near the same standed as Australian Paramedics, further more EMT is a min wage job which means that the EMTs are probably working at least one extra job on top of being an EMT which increases fatigue and there for lowers efficancy".

However (to get back on topic) as Cochrane shows, the wider the cultural groups you take your evidence from the more it becomes directly universally aplicable. OECD statistics arnt from one country, they arnt the US v canada or the US v UK alone, they take data from ALL there member countries and its consistantly shown that the US ranks close to (or at) the bottom time and again. It cant be avoided by simply saying "oh but the US is a large spread out country" well you cant get much further from metro health care than the center of Australia (actually thats a lie, Alice springs actually has quite a good public hospital, its the areas further out from the actual center which have distance problems:p), or whatever other excuses the right likes to come up with


Lastly a side note: It always slightly annoys me when the right uses that word, conservitive in politics should really be equivilant to death because "concervitive" simply means "no change". The right is just as quick to push for change as the left is (as they should, any polly who simply wants things to stand as they are with NO change might as well be dead politically)

heheheh. Concidering i dont think anyone on the right even READS my posts im going to go off topic a bit here:p

You know maybe concervitisium is a religion or a faith because it never seems to stand up to empirical evidence and unlike a science when empirical evidence shows a scientific theory to be incorect then it is modifided to acount for the new evidence. There is amble data to show that the conservitive view point is wrong yet i have never seen it modifided or abandoned collectivally. Concidering this is a science site people HERE (especially those like Mad who proffess to be from a science based background) should be more willing to put there theories to the test. Instead we have the duck and weave routine as shown by read only's comment "The data from other countries is irrelivent because we are talking about the US". To a certain point he is correct, scientific studies can be subject to cultural bias which is why you must always be critical before automatically apliying it directly to a different culture. For instance the study in the US which found "getto ambulances" (ie the gansters droping off gun shot victoms at A&E doors with no treatment at all) have better health outcomes than EMTs. This was pointed out to me by a friend in St John to which my responce was "yes but before you aplie that to Australia you have to concider the fact that US EMTs arnt trained to anywhere near the same standed as Australian Paramedics, further more EMT is a min wage job which means that the EMTs are probably working at least one extra job on top of being an EMT which increases fatigue and there for lowers efficancy".

However (to get back on topic) as Cochrane shows, the wider the cultural groups you take your evidence from the more it becomes directly universally aplicable. OECD statistics arnt from one country, they arnt the US v canada or the US v UK alone, they take data from ALL there member countries and its consistantly shown that the US ranks close to (or at) the bottom time and again. It cant be avoided by simply saying "oh but the US is a large spread out country" well you cant get much further from metro health care than the center of Australia (actually thats a lie, Alice springs actually has quite a good public hospital, its the areas further out from the actual center which have distance problems:p), or whatever other excuses the right likes to come up with


Lastly a side note: It always slightly annoys me when the right uses that word, conservitive in politics should really be equivilant to death because "concervitive" simply means "no change". The right is just as quick to push for change as the left is (as they should, any polly who simply wants things to stand as they are with NO change might as well be dead politically)

Your empirical evidence does not take into account the response and overall effectiveness of the health care administered, thats also a criteria that belongs in your list.

I can only guess that little fact was missing from your list because the US is #1?:shrug:

IMO, it really trumps all those statistics by focusing on healthcare quality and not how fairly it is distributed. Adding any social-economical criteria to rate health care quality and you imediately dilute the absolute results, which should be, the response and effectiveness of treatment for the sick and diseased.

your joking right?

Infant mortality rates, life expentancy are BOTH indicators of efficasy of health AS A WHOLE. That means not just "can you stich this arm up" or "can you give me a new nose" its about community health, law enforcement, Traffic enforcement, OH&S saftey, Mental health, drug and alchole treatment, imunisation programes, education, housing primary health and primary health care (which are different), SES, Sanitation, nutriction, Human rights ect ect. How many hospitals you have is probably the single worst indicator to use for the health of a population, disease rates, life expectancy, quality of life indicators, and infant mortality rates are used because these measure the health of the whole population which is something the US just dont seem able to comprehend.

After all, as the old saying goes "its better to have a fence at the top of the cliff than an ambulance at the bottom". Health is a whole of goverment issue, the health departments are only the smallest portion of this. For instance the WHO defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health

This means that its about alot more than "did the doctor cure your cold".

Aborigionals go even further in definining Health:


...Health does not just mean the physical well-being of the individual but refers to the social, emotional, spiritual and cultural well-being of the whole community...
http://www.who.int/bulletin/bulletin_board/83/ustun11051/en/

THIS is why universal health care is so important, until goverments take on "Health" as one of there core responcabilities a holistic "whole of goverment" aproach to health becomes impossable because its "not there responcability"

i dont see the problem with it at all, i think its a good think why is it bad? i just want to hear peoples opinions on it the only people that are complaining that i can see are the employed healthy people
I actually have had both. Universal option health care (which I was happy with) and Private health care (which I was somewhat happy with).

In certain populations of people I think it works very well. Like Australia where there a small number of people with a huge number of resources. Or Japan where Japanese Nationality means everyone is "Japanese".


Will it work in the USA? I can't see it happening. That said, we do pay for health care one way or the other. I think the best approach would be a massive increase in trained doctors and more hospitals. I afraid as soon as we help people we'll end up with a massive welfare system similar to the 3 generation welfare system we already have.

In certain populations of people I think it works very well. Such as every Western industrialized first world country, except one.

So what's wrong with that one?

your joking right?

Why does a differring opinion have to be a joke?



Infant mortality rates, life expentancy are BOTH indicators of efficasy of health AS A WHOLE.

The results from those criteria are based on stats from different countries, that use different definitions of stillbirth. Some use length, weight, gestation period etc. to label a premature infant that shows signs of life, but later passes, as a stillbirth. I don't know what definition Austrailia uses, but previous to '00, when the WHO released their global healthcare ratings, many states in the US have loosened their definition closer to those found in the EU. Some states still use the strictest definition: complete expulsion from the mother, regardless of weight, length, gestation period etc., with the placenta and umbilical cord still attached, if the baby shows any signs of life it is recorded as a live birth. If the sign of life lasted for just 1 second that state would report that as an infant mortality. In other states and countries if the infant did not meet the weight and/or length and/or gestation levels then the birth is labeled as a stillbirth, even though there was a sign of life. So your really comparing apples to oranges and since the WHO compiled the data prior to some states loosening their definitions, it actually speaks volumes of how good the pediatric care is in the US considering the high death rate in premature live births.

As far as the life expectancy criteria, if you toss out the deaths caused by transportation accidents ie, auto accidents, plane crashes, train wrecks etc., the results would be much different. The US is also the most obese country in the world.

While they may be small indicators, the findings are skewed because there are aspects of different cultures that are not accounted for. This makes them difficult to compare, unless your standard allows comparing apples to oranges and calling it empirical evidence.

When you look at the absolute quality of heathcare, responsivenesss and overall effectiveness are real indicators. Infant mortality and life expectancy stats are just window dressings used for propaganda.

As far as the life expectancy criteria, if you toss out the deaths caused by transportation accidents ie, auto accidents, plane crashes, train wrecks etc., the results would be much different.

The plane crashes don't make a difference, and train wrecks would actually favor the US. But the car crashes are a different story.

The other big factor to equalize for is guns. If you exclude auto accidents and firearm deaths, the US supposedly jumps to the front of the pack in life expectancy.



The US is also the most obese country in the world.

I thought that Australia had passed us by on that measure?

The plane crashes don't make a difference, and train wrecks would actually favor the US. But the car crashes are a different story.

The other big factor to equalize for is guns. If you exclude auto accidents and firearm deaths, the US supposedly jumps to the front of the pack in life expectancy.

Your right, thanks. I knew I was forgetting something so I added window dressings to the car crashes.:D



I thought that Australia had passed us by on that measure?

And I thought the US was at the top; not according to this list...




November 25, 2009

1) American Samoa, 93.5 percent (of population that's overweight)
2) Kiribati, 81.5 percent
3) U.S., 66.7 percent
4) Germany, 66.5 percent
5) Egypt, 66 percent
6) Bosnia-Herzegovina, 62.9 percent
7) New Zealand, 62.7 percent
8) Israel, 61.9 percent

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/commerce/091125/obesity-epidemic-fattest-countries

The common fat-o-meter among nations is body mass index (BMI), a calculation based on a person’s height and weight. The World Health Organization defines “overweight” as an individual with a BMI of 25 or more and “obese” as someone with a BMI of 30 or higher. (To see how you weigh in, use this calculator by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.)

Today, one in three of the world’s adults is overweight and one in 10 is obese. By 2015, WHO estimates the number of chubby adults will balloon to 2.3 billion — equal to the combined populations of China, Europe and the U.S.

The rise in obesity coincides with increased modernization and a worldwide explosion in the availability of highly processed foods. In the past 50 years, more of us have started driving to work instead of walking, opening a box of mac ‘n cheese instead of cooking, pushing computer keys instead of plows and taking the elevator rather than the stairs.

“The combination of these factors is driving obesity all over the world,” said James Hospedales, coordinator for prevention and control of chronic diseases at the Pan American Health Organization. “What’s really alarming is that it’s not just the middle aged, it’s children and adolescents. That’s new.”

In honor of Thanksgiving, a U.S. holiday dedicated to eating until we can’t breathe, we decided to take a look at the Top 10 Fattest Countries in the world, based on national health surveys WHO compiled between 2000 and 2008.

As far as the life expectancy criteria, if you toss out the deaths caused by transportation accidents ie, auto accidents, plane crashes, train wrecks etc., the results would be much different. The US is also the most obese country in the world.

While they may be small indicators, the findings are skewed because there are aspects of different cultures that are not accounted for. This makes them difficult to compare, unless your standard allows comparing apples to oranges and calling it empirical evidence.

When you look at the absolute quality of heathcare, responsivenesss and overall effectiveness are real indicators. Infant mortality and life expectancy stats are just window dressings used for propaganda.

I wonder if you read my whole post. Car carshes, suicideds and gun deaths are just as much a part of "Health" as TB, Meningitis and the flu. Health is not simply what happens once you walk through the doors of a hospital, that is only the smallest portion. Its the diease prevention the doctor does with you to help you lose weight, its the OH&S saftey checks work safe (or equivilant) does on your place of employment, its the Graphic TV adds and random breath testing that the Traffic Acident Commission and the police do to lower the road toll, its ensuring that all people have access to clean drinking water and healthy food (and the inspections, the goverment funding ect which goes into this) ect ect. All these things which fall under the definition of "Health promotion" are JUST as if not MORE important than the doctors and the hospitals. After all, prevention is better than cure

I wonder if you read my whole post.
Car carshes, suicideds and gun deaths are just as much a part of "Health" as TB, Meningitis and the flu.

Car crashes are unintentional/accidents that have no bearing on quality of health care. As far as suicides and gun deaths, I would be interested to see what steps the Australian government has taken and the results to improve their rates of suicide and gun death.



Health is not simply what happens once you walk through the doors of a hospital, that is only the smallest portion.

Agreed, thats called responsiveness the overall effectiveness comes next, in the treatment and quality of subsiquent care.



Its the diease prevention the doctor does with you to help you lose weight, its the OH&S saftey checks work safe (or equivilant) does on your place of employment, its the Graphic TV adds and random breath testing that the Traffic Acident Commission and the police do to lower the road toll, its ensuring that all people have access to clean drinking water and healthy food (and the inspections, the goverment funding ect which goes into this) ect ect. All these things which fall under the definition of "Health promotion" are JUST as if not MORE important than the doctors and the hospitals. After all, prevention is better than cure

We have all those things, what many do not want is a government that forces you to buy healthcare.

We want people in the wealthiest country in the world to die for lack of health care. That's civilization. Every man for themselves is what characterizes a great society.

We want people in the wealthiest country in the world to die for lack of health care. That's civilization. Every man for themselves is what characterizes a great society.

Using that line of thought, you would also have to agree that the US became the wealthiest country in the world by following the every man for himself principle.

Using that line of thought, you would also have to agree that the US became the wealthiest country in the world by following the every man for himself principle.

yeah except that line falls apart when you look at the greatest expansion of wealth in this country happened when we were furthest from those ideals.

I'm not, I think it's GREAT!!

I have never had to worry about paying any medical bills. It doesn't matter
if you are working or not, everyone gets the same treatment.

I'm not, I think it's GREAT!!

I have never had to worry about paying any medical bills. It doesn't matter
if you are working or not, everyone gets the same treatment.

Exactly. It's GREAT. Morons that do nothing for society get FREE treatment whereas rich entrepreneurs are left picking up the tab. OH, and it means more government control and more market interference, and lower salaries for doctors!

IT'S GREAT!

Using that line of thought, you would also have to agree that the US became the wealthiest country in the world by following the every man for himself principle.

This happened in the post war period when the top marginal tax rate was between 70% and 90%. Republican mythology just doesn't hold up to the facts.

This happened in the post war period when the top marginal tax rate was between 70% and 90%. Republican mythology just doesn't hold up to the facts.

Good job comparing two totally different situations. The growth experienced during those eras was not due to "high taxes" (high taxes can't create growth; use some common sense, 'kay?). It was due to emerging markets and increased industrialization.

Exactly. It's GREAT. Morons that do nothing for society get FREE treatment whereas rich entrepreneurs are left picking up the tab. OH, and it means more government control and more market interference, and lower salaries for doctors!

IT'S GREAT!

So you think that everyone who is unemployed is a moron, feeding off the system?

What about a father that gets laid off from his job?

What about a mother who decides to stay home with her kids?

What about someone who is self employed (like myself) ?

You don't think those ppl deserve to have free medical treatment?

I don't think anyone deserves free anything. They have to work for it. Let us not forget the words of John Smith, "He who does not work, shall not eat!"

That being said, I am not against helping the needy in their time of need; but, why through government bureaucracy, interference, and inefficiency? If you are truly so interested in helping the father laid off from his job, then go and help him yourself. And get your neighbors, and let them get their neighbors; charity is much nobler than welfare, and you don't sacrifice your independence with it.

Good job comparing two totally different situations. The growth experienced during those eras was not due to "high taxes" (high taxes can't create growth; use some common sense, 'kay?). It was due to emerging markets and increased industrialization.

Actually, they do.

Actually, they do.

Actually, they don't. I don't see how taking money from people leads to growth.

When you look at the absolute quality of heathcare, responsivenesss and overall effectiveness are real indicators. Infant mortality and life expectancy stats are just window dressings used for propaganda. Life expectancy is s bit dodgy, but infant mortality (including stillbirths, etc) is a basic stat used to measure welfare across the board.

The US rates far below first world average on responsiveness and overall effectiveness, as well. You have to remember that those denied care are included in such averages - the treatment of at least a third of the population of the US rates a 0 or near 0 on the responsiveness and effectiveness scale. I'm working with a guy who is currently in his fifth year of living with a dislocated collarbone, for example. That is very, very poor "responsiveness" and "effectiveness".

We have all those things, what many do not want is a government that forces you to buy healthcare. Try taking away their Medicare, see what they say.

Why don't car crashes count? It's all part of our infrastructure. Europe invests in rail, which means fewer people are driving.

Why don't car crashes count? It's all part of our infrastructure. Europe invests in rail, which means fewer people are driving.

"Europe" isn't a country or a person. "Europe" doesn't invest in anything. People do. And people can invest in it here, too! It's called the stock market.

The governments of the EU do indeed invest in public services. Some things are too important to gamble with.

The governments of the EU do indeed invest in public services. Some things are too important to gamble with.

Great! Since they're so important, people shouldn't have a problem getting together to voluntarily invest in these things.

I don't think anyone deserves free anything. They have to work for it. Let us not forget the words of John Smith, "He who does not work, shall not eat!"

That being said, I am not against helping the needy in their time of need; but, why through government bureaucracy, interference, and inefficiency? If you are truly so interested in helping the father laid off from his job, then go and help him yourself. And get your neighbors, and let them get their neighbors; charity is much nobler than welfare, and you don't sacrifice your independence with it.

We aren't talking about sitting home on welfare. I am not for the bums sitting home, waiting for welfare checks to go and buy some beer.

I am talking about good, decent ppl deserve to have their medical needs treated without worrying about, if they can afford it or not.
How many ppl don't go to see a doctor, or to the hospital because they know they can't afford the bill.
Here in Canada that is one stress I don't have to worry about.
My second son needed surgery at 6 weeks old and was hospitalized for a few days. Who knows what the bill would have been, if we did not have the Health Care System that we have here. I had 2 kids and 2 C-Sections, which I probably would not have been able to afford either.
I have watched a few programs where ppl lost their homes, to medical expenses. One guy had a table saw accident and had to decide which finger he could afford to have reattached. I thought it was pretty sick that the Doctor told him the prices of each of the 3 fingers he lost. He ended up, only putting one back on. :bugeye: How can a Dr sit back and say ok you can only afford the index finger.....ok that's all you get then. The whole program was a nightmare. Made me thankful to live in Canada.

Shorty, you completely ignored my emphasis on charity and community involvement. If you truly care, and I truly do, then we should help the poor and help those that can't afford health care through our own personal efforts, not through government plunder and bureaucracy.

It's called personal responsibility and charity as opposed to government welfare. Thus, I do not disagree that we ought to help the poor; I am simply saying that we can do this without sacrificing our independence.

Plus, many doctors and hospitals do offer charity care. I was at Memorial-Hermann hospital only a few months ago to get my leg stitched up after a fairly deep wound; thankfully, I have insurance. But while I was there, I saw various plaques talking about the hospital's charity care policy, where eligible people can receive their treatment free of charge or for significantly reduced prices.

Great! Since they're so important, people shouldn't have a problem getting together to voluntarily invest in these things.

We are to some degree, thanks to Obama.

We are to some degree, thanks to Obama.

Obama is increasing government spending and bureaucracy. Such a thing can only decrease charity and voluntary aid.

If charity is so great, why do so many people go bankrupt due to lack of health care?

If charity is so great, why do so many people go bankrupt due to lack of health care?

Maybe because nobody is actually helping anybody. Charity is great........but our society full of fat, lazy losers isn't the ideal breeding place for charity. And more welfare will only increase apathy and dependence.


Charity is noble; thus, we few, we happy few, that do care about others ought to go out there and help.

One good idea would be to start a non-profit 501(c)(3) Corporation that could be a sort of "insurance company" that isn't for profit, and is more accessible to all. It could be community-run. That's a good idea, in my opinion.

Life expectancy is s bit dodgy, but infant mortality (including stillbirths, etc) is a basic stat used to measure welfare across the board.

You can choose to use the stat, but you can't objectively deny the disadvantage it puts the US at.



The US rates far below first world average on responsiveness and overall effectiveness, as well.

Wrong.


Responsiveness includes two major components. These are (a) respect for persons (including dignity, confidentiality and autonomy of individuals and families to decide about their own health); and (b) client orientation (including prompt attention, access to social support networks during care, quality of basic amenities and choice of provider).

The nations with the most responsive health systems are the United States, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Canada, Norway, Netherlands and Sweden.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/who_world_health_ranks.html

Maybe because nobody is actually helping anybody. Charity is great........but our society full of fat, lazy losers isn't the ideal breeding place for charity. And more welfare will only increase apathy and dependence.


Charity is noble; thus, we few, we happy few, that do care about others ought to go out there and help.

One good idea would be to start a non-profit 501(c)(3) Corporation that could be a sort of "insurance company" that isn't for profit, and is more accessible to all. It could be community-run. That's a good idea, in my opinion.

So your plan for health care is basically just a fantasy?

If charity is so great, why do so many people go bankrupt due to lack of health care?

If the libs donated charity at the rate conservatives do it wouldn't be such a problem.

If the libs donated charity at the rate conservatives do it wouldn't be such a problem. Bigger parking lots at the local Baptist church aren't going to help.

We can't afford to, we are the party of the common man, not the party of the guilty rich.

So your plan for health care is basically just a fantasy?

No, my plan is for you to get off your ass, along with others, and work together with your community to get problems solved instead of waiting for government handouts. Either that, or suffer the consequences of your laziness.

The government is the community working to solve problems. You want to ignore our existing systems to accomplish this kind of thing in favor of something haphazard and ad hoc. It's the difference between professionalism and amateur hour.

The government is the community working to solve problems. You want to ignore our existing systems to accomplish this kind of thing in favor of something haphazard and ad hoc. It's the difference between professionalism and amateur hour.

The government is a bunch of disconnected bureaucrats that like to be free with our money. The difference between charity and government is that charity is entirely voluntarily and entirely personal. Government is impersonal and it affects everyone, and usually does a poor job, too.

One guy had a table saw accident and had to decide which finger he could afford to have reattached. I thought it was pretty sick that the Doctor told him the prices of each of the 3 fingers he lost. He ended up, only putting one back on. :bugeye: How can a Dr sit back and say ok you can only afford the index finger.....ok that's all you get then. The whole program was a nightmare. Made me thankful to live in Canada.

Wow, that's disgraceful. Most physicians I know would not leave someone hanging like that. Such a shame that a lot of scum doctors are running around out there and believe me, there are A LOT. :(

The thing is, the government doesn't take your money. When the government has it, it's still yours. You tell them how to spend it. That's what representative Democracy is about.

The thing is, the government doesn't take your money. When the government has it, it's still yours. You tell them how to spend it. That's what representative Democracy is about.

Really? I don't recall telling them to spend it on wars, bailouts, and a welfare state.

So, then, this is the solution: we can choose how much we pay in taxes and where it goes, individually. That's fair: I'll give you that.

That's where the representative part comes in. We all choose who will makes those decisions. That's the only fair way.

That's where the representative part comes in. We all choose who will makes those decisions. That's the only fair way.

Nah, then it's unfair, if we can do it another way; and we can! It's a good idea, too: we each, individually, choose how much we feel like paying in taxes and where our money gets to go.

just fuck off

So when I show how we can have choice, you get mad? Because you WANT it to be exploitative. I knew it all along. Even though we can have it so that we all can choose, you still don't want that.

Will, go watch sicko again and tell me that is "Ethical med"

We do have choice, it's call voting. I want to build a good society, not the kind of society that existed for hundreds of years before this great experiment called the United States.

Why are people against universal health care?


Cost vs: Bennifits.

There is no such thing as free health care, it all has to be paid for.

There is no such thing as free health care, it all has to be paid for. There is such a thing as paying for it, and not getting it.

That's the current setup.

Wow, that's disgraceful. Most physicians I know would not leave someone hanging like that. It isn't their decision, often.

Why are you calling that disgraceful, anyway - it's exactly the situation being promoted and advertised as the American way, the free market way, what every true American wants instead of socialism: you walk in with your medical condition, price the services offered, and pick the one that best suits your needs and ability to pay.

I mean, there was no problem there, none of the common little complicating circumstances: he wasn't in a coma, he was mobile and could take his business elsewhere, he was an adult and mentally competent, the situation was comprehensible to a layman, he was receiving full and accurate information, he had time to make up his mind, his life wasn't on the line, he wasn't in great pain,

that was about as close as one can get to free market medical care in real life. What's the problem with it?

that was about as close as one can get to free market medical care in real life. What's the problem with it?

Obviously, in a free market goods and services are don't have any costs associated with them.

That's why it's called a "free market."

Duh.

There is such a thing as paying for it, and not getting it.
That's the current setup.
It isn't their decision, often.
But often it is. It's called pro bono. They just don't file the paperwork necessary for billing. Doctors treat patients as a form of charity a lot.

Why are you calling that disgraceful, anyway - it's exactly the situation being promoted and advertised as the American way, the free market way, what every true American wants instead of socialism: you walk in with your medical condition, price the services offered, and pick the one that best suits your needs and ability to pay.
For what reason do you believe I prefer healthcare being served as a free market commodity, if that is the implication..? Not sure I'm following you.

It isn't their decision, often.
”
But often it is. It's called pro bono. They just don't file the paperwork necessary for billing And often it isn't - reattaching fingers would require tying up an operating room's full resources and several people for quite a while, and doctors as employees of modern health care organizations don't necessarily control the paperwork or billing decisions.

There is such a thing as paying for it, and not getting it.

That's the current setup.


The fact that single payer health systems deny life saving care everyday, Tarceva for example, seems to have escaped you.

The real difference is often times those patients are not informed of more expensive, but life saving treatments, because the government officials deemed those treatments as not being cost effective and don't want to "confuse" anyone.

There is such a thing as paying for it, and not getting it.

That's the current setup.
It isn't their decision, often.


Actually in the current system it is all to often, getting it and not paying for it.

The simple answer to insurance companies who refuse to pay for covered conditions is to just make it absolutely illegal for them to do so, we don't need a whole new system, just make it impossible for insurance companies to refuse payment on their policies.

Illegal Aliens, and those who choose not to carry insurance, go to emergency rooms where they cannot be refused care, and then run up bills that they have no intention of ever paying.

That cost has to be passed on, and it is passed on in increased cost to you, with both increased cost for services, and higher taxes from the government.

Report estimates county's illegal immigrant cost at $256 million ...
Sep 8, 2007 ... Supervisors sought the study in the hope of presenting federal officials with a bill for the costs of illegal immigration in the border ...
www.nctimes.com/.../article_a5e39c0e-7a15-5f02-bde8-182ec511a8c2.html -


ALIPAC - Illegal Aliens cost Florida Hospitals $100 Million
Apr 23, 2009 ... money campaigns cost illegal immigration Florida Hospitals have to write off $100 million dollars in unpaid medical bills because of illegal ...
www.alipac.us/article4161.html

Immigrants Cost Neb Town 500K In Unpaid Medical (illegal aliens ...
Apr 23, 2009 ... Immigrants Cost Neb Town 500K In Unpaid Medical (illegal aliens, economy, ... are paying out $300000 to $500000 a year to cover unpaid medical bills from ...
www.city-data.com/.../illegal.../428250-immigrants-cost-neb-town-500k-unpaid.html -

State holds bag for record $1.2 billion in unpaid bills - Chicago ...
About $500 million in medical bills are piled up at the state Public Aid ... Although the practice may not be illegal...letting this problem build. ... If left unchecked, the cost of unpaid bills could end up being passed onto other. ...
www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-4103394.html -

Actually in the current system it is all to often, getting it and not paying for it. Another source of rising costs, that would disappear with single payer or some such setup.

Illegal Aliens, and those who choose not to carry insurance, go to emergency rooms where they cannot be refused care, and then run up bills that they have no intention of ever paying. Something else that disappears with single payer. Are we beginning to get a clue to the reasons US health care is twice as expensive for 2/3 the coverage?


The simple answer to insurance companies who refuse to pay for covered conditions is to just make it absolutely illegal for them to do so, we don't need a whole new system, just make it impossible for insurance companies to refuse payment on their policies. That's already in force, has been for decades.

Why are people against universal health care?


Cost vs: Bennifits.

There is no such thing as free health care, it all has to be paid for.

ok buff ill give you an example of a former co worker who had a pre exsisting condintion..

he was an elderly man who had been working for this company for 35years.. last year he got laid off.. obviously his medical went with it.. he had well over 500k in his retirement. a house that was paid for, everything you need to live a good retirement.. he tried picking up medical.. no one would pick him up, he had 2 choices, pay for it himself out of pocket.. or die.. choice is obvious.. how is he now? alive for the time being. lost all of his retirement. his house everything everything is gone he doesnt have a cent to his name and is living with relatives.. all this because of a pre exsisting condition..

thing that pisses me off is the only people who are bitching about it are heatlhy and employed i gaurentee if you gave all of thoes people a pre exsisting contition and got laid off they would jump ships from anti to pro before you could get a whisper out.. they way it stands now.. if you have a pre exsisting condition get laid off. your f@#%d no matter how many years of hard work and paying your bills ontime you were

for thoes of you who are against it

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/critics_say_39_hike_in_health.html

comming to a health insurance agency near you.. no reason for the increase either

Here is a site that lists the immediate benefits of heatlhcare reform as proposed by the Democrats:

http://pingree.house.gov/issues/healthcare/14-immediate-effects-of-reform.shtml