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India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

nytimes.com

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Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#101

Post by coliveira »

victor106 wrote: post #74
kumarm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely Aarogyasri in AP saved millions of Lives. Current administration tried to remove the program since its not introduced by them and can't take credit for. So they are trying to kill it slowly (By removing people from program, cutting benefits etc). I wonder what will happen to this Free Health insurance program when central government changes next time.

The current state government is pro business and don’t have any money to implement or continue any past programs. Whatever money they have is spent on pet projects and making themselves rich. The previous government even though was corrupt at least did something for the poor. I personally witnessed AROGYASHRI being used by the poor and the amount of stability it bought to their daily lives. I also agree that there wa…

> If the choice is between saving the lives of the poor with corruption vs letting them die without I would choose the former any day

This is very important. We need to finally realize that corruption is endemic to the system, and when corruption is raised as an issue it is generally to disadvantage the poor (last time I looked Wall Street is still doing fine even under the highest levels of corruption one can imagine).

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#102

Post by freeflight »

IanDrake wrote: post #66
wavefunction wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The left" makes me curious who you're referring to. Billing fraud is of course a problem with private health-care providers as well.

Strange that you don’t know “the left” means, but here you go... http://slideplayer.com/slide/726731/2/images/1/The+Political... I didn’t say billing fraud was a problem with government run healthcare, so I fail to understand the “as well” part of your statement.

That doesn't mean or say anything at all, for a far more useful breakdown try this: https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2

If more people would expand their horizon and realize there's more to politics than "left vs right" then all this bipartisan crap flinging might get toned down a bit.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#103

Post by eitally »

ucaetano wrote: post #9

Giving free healthcare is a good step, but the important question is how good will it be and how much will be covered. Brazil has 100% of its population (210M people) covered by free, single-payer, universal healthcare, resulting in a life expectancy of 75 years (US is 79, Japan and Switzerland with 83 IIRC). But your experience can vary dramatically. It all depends on how much money is actually being put on it (in h…

You can say this, but that doesn't mean it's high quality or used by anyone who has the option of private insurance.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#104

Post by thetruthseeker1 »

They say Proof is in the pudding.

I am wary of applauding before seeing how well this is implemented. India is known to come up with lot of big programs that make good rhetoric, but not all of them are implemented with equal amount of vigor or commitment.

I am sure part of the motivation may be to help next election cycle which is coming soon.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#105

Post by dragonwriter »

freeflight wrote: post #102
IanDrake wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange that you don’t know “the left” means, but here you go... http://slideplayer.com/slide/726731/2/images/1/The+Political... I didn’t say billing fraud was a problem with government run healthcare, so I fail to understand the “as well” part of your statement.

That doesn't mean or say anything at all, for a far more useful breakdown try this: https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 If more people would expand their horizon and realize there's more to politics than "left vs right" then all this bipartisan crap flinging might get toned down a bit.

There's actually very little empirical evidence that the particular two-axis model offered by political compass (or libertarians in general) is much better at modelling real-world distribution of political ideas that the one-axis left-right model.

That's not to say that there aren't other axes of variation than the left-right axis, though.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#106

Post by Gibbon1 »

tejaswiy wrote: post #33

The govt. of Andhra Pradesh (a state in India) has pioneered a state backed insurance program several years ago with reasonable success ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarogyasri ). The problem however with these programs is that corruption within the healthcare industry is still endemic and doctors create fake diagnoses and perform unnecessary surgeries on patients to get their reimbursements from Aarogya-sri. If th…

Nice thing about corruption when it involves the government and not just two corporations is the government occasionally throws people in prison. In the US commit insurance fraud against a private insurance company and they'll just drop you at most. Commit medicare fraud and the government will claw back what you took, fine you, and maybe throw you in jail.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#107

Post by Gibbon1 »

ucaetano wrote: post #9

Giving free healthcare is a good step, but the important question is how good will it be and how much will be covered. Brazil has 100% of its population (210M people) covered by free, single-payer, universal healthcare, resulting in a life expectancy of 75 years (US is 79, Japan and Switzerland with 83 IIRC). But your experience can vary dramatically. It all depends on how much money is actually being put on it (in h…

> It all depends on how much money is actually being put on it

Other hand a lot of public health stuff is really cheap as long as everyone gets it and it's timely. AKA people go to the hospital and get IV fluids and sent home vs going in two days later and spending a week in the ICU (or up and dying).

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#108

Post by devnonymous »

devnonymous wrote: post #75

This is a blatant lie. The devil is in the details and the detail is there has been no specific funds allocated in the budget for this nor are there any specifics about how the funds will be allocated in the future.[1] This is just a vague expression of intent. Precisely the type that every politician will make when in desperate need of good will - exactly what Modi is in need of. [1] thread about this https://twitte…

To whoever downvoted, here's an exercise -- download all the pdfs from http://www.indiabudget.gov.in/index.asp do a quick search in any of the documents for "National Health Protection Scheme" and let us know if you find it any where other than the speech.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#109

Post by spynxic »

victor106 wrote: post #74
kumarm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely Aarogyasri in AP saved millions of Lives. Current administration tried to remove the program since its not introduced by them and can't take credit for. So they are trying to kill it slowly (By removing people from program, cutting benefits etc). I wonder what will happen to this Free Health insurance program when central government changes next time.

The current state government is pro business and don’t have any money to implement or continue any past programs. Whatever money they have is spent on pet projects and making themselves rich. The previous government even though was corrupt at least did something for the poor. I personally witnessed AROGYASHRI being used by the poor and the amount of stability it bought to their daily lives. I also agree that there wa…

> If the choice is between saving the lives of the poor with corruption vs letting them die without I would choose the former any day.

Corruption inherently makes the system insolvent, and in the worst-case, will result in a major debt if not addressed early on.

Re: India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care

#110

Post by omegaworks »

spynxic wrote: post #109
victor106 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current state government is pro business and don’t have any money to implement or continue any past programs. Whatever money they have is spent on pet projects and making themselves rich. The previous government even though was corrupt at least did something for the poor. I personally witnessed AROGYASHRI being used by the poor and the amount of stability it bought to their daily lives. I also agree that there wa…

> If the choice is between saving the lives of the poor with corruption vs letting them die without I would choose the former any day. Corruption inherently makes the system insolvent, and in the worst-case, will result in a major debt if not addressed early on.

>Corruption inherently makes the system insolvent

False. Profitable private companies have to deal with loss all the time. It's called shrinkage. It can be mitigated, but like everything the costs of mitigation must be weighed against the benefits.

http://fortune.com/2015/06/05/walmart-theft/

Keep in mind, right-wing governments actively exploit this "corruption exists, therefore the entire social program is worthless" bug in our national consciousness. It's an effective political tool to transfer wealth away from the poor.

I agree with parent:

> Let’s us not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

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