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Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

economist.com

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Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#111

Post by judah »

gadders wrote: post #35
judah wrote: post #23

A problem with government-provided healthcare is that the government will have ultimate say over a patient's care. This is not merely theoretical. Last week, Alfie Evans, a 2 year old, was put to death by the state-run healthcare in the UK.[0] "Alfie's parents had offers of care in Rome, where doctors said they would investigate different treatments. Even Pope Francis appealed to the British government to let Alfie g…

He wasn't put to death. The poor child was already brain dead. You could have left him on a machine to make his lungs go up and down forever but he was no longer there. I agree if Italy had agreed to take him then they should have let him move him.

Italy did agree to take him - they even gave him Italian citizenship. And Italian doctors said they wanted to pursue different treatments.

So this really is an example of the loss of freedom due to state-run healthcare.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#112

Post by majidazimi »

Isn't it better to design health care system based on some form of score, very much like credit score in financial systems? The healthier you live, the less you pay.

Obviously someone who drinks alcohol regularly, smokes regularly, is overweight, ... would be a burden on health care system (in long run) compared to someone who lives with a healthy life style. Why would they both pay the same amount? In a credit-based system the former pays more.

Making some exceptions in such a system is just fine. Not everyone has cancer. Insurance company can easily pay the full amount for these people. It is not the major cost for system.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#113

Post by conanbatt »

commenter1 wrote: post #28

I'd much rather pay for healthcare, infra or basically what ever benefits us, the society, than for the war industry.

As an average american citizen, you already pay for healthcare. You are not getting the bang for your buck, thats the problem.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#114

Post by austincheney »

slantedview wrote: post #69
austincheney wrote: post #51

When the issue of universal health care comes up with regards to US policy I often see those emotional arguments pulling on the heart strings. Unfortunately, this is a distraction. I know this sounds cold, but it comes down to money. Healthcare in America is expensive. The problems appear to be commonly identified by various forms of research and including things like pricing inefficiencies of drugs, malpractice insu…

Fun fact that most Americans don't know: We _ALREADY_ spend more than enough on healthcare as a nation to fully fund healthcare for everybody. It's just that, unlike in other countries, our current system routes that spending to various for profit entities that don't involve actually providing care. tldr; Lack of funding is not a legitimate argument against providing healthcare to Americans.

Doesn't that suggest health care in America is too expensive? Increasing funding to an inefficient system doesn't sound like a sustainable or extensible solution.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#115

Post by Sangermaine »

merpnderp wrote: post #10
sykh wrote: post #6

When a person gets a life threatening disease they ought not worry about whether or not their treatment will leave their family in penury. This is especially so in a nation as wealthy as the U.S. The American healthcare system is immoral and I hope it drastically changes. Americans need to change their underlying notions of what it means to be a society. An author was once made fun of for suggesting that it takes a v…

If you think the private healthcare system is immoral, you should take a look at the 100% government ran healthcare system that is the VA. You literally couldn't make up worse things than their administration has been caught doing with little or to consequence. If the VA is the best the US government can do, with some of the most sympathetic citizens, then it is incapable of doing better than our private system.

>If the VA is the best the US government can do

Who said it was?

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#116

Post by Daishiman »

rukittenme wrote: post #66
sykh wrote: post #6

When a person gets a life threatening disease they ought not worry about whether or not their treatment will leave their family in penury. This is especially so in a nation as wealthy as the U.S. The American healthcare system is immoral and I hope it drastically changes. Americans need to change their underlying notions of what it means to be a society. An author was once made fun of for suggesting that it takes a v…

> When it comes to public funding for public goods we tend to worry about some poor person getting something they don’t deserve. The go it alone I’ve got mine, fuck you attitude is unhealthy. 1/3 of our GDP goes to "the village". We spend trillions every year on the things you want most . Education, healthcare, environmental protections. You name it; we spend money on it! 70 million people use medicaid. 44 million pe…

You're not drowning. You're wasting spending on things that don't matter, like privately funded education and privately funded health care.

The solutions already exist and they're out there. Lowering spending just for the sake of it is not one of them.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#117

Post by mikeash »

merpnderp wrote: post #8
adaml_623 wrote: post #4

Just going to throw this out there. Non universal health care is analogous to half the roads in a city being toll roads. Society can still function and you can mostly get to where you're going but it's not close to efficient.

Why are toll roads not close to efficient? In my state the toll roads are by far the nicest best maintained roads and the tolls are extremely reasonable and collected without having to slow down or stop at a booth.

Try having tolls on local streets with ownership changing every couple of blocks.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#118

Post by DamnYuppie »

sykh wrote: post #93
conanbatt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When a person gets a life threatening disease they ought not worry about whether or not their treatment will leave their family in penury. You can't start any economic argument by saying that paying any cost is a must. You will get fleeced. It is not true that universal healthcare pays for everything. The most expensive and experimental treatments will not be covered ever by the system, and it shouldnt.

It is a well known fact that all medical care systems ration care. A person in America who gets cancer, say, often times faces bankrupt and financial ruin. The same can not be said of people in other wealthy nations. I fail to see your point. All healthcare systems ration care. Not all of them lead to financial ruin at the rate the American healthcare system does. My statement stands. A person ought not face financia…

They don't face financial ruin, unless they don't have health insurance and or they opt for various drugs that aren't covered by their plan. Before everyone screams that all things should be covered please consider that due diligence has actually been done and the drug was considered to either not be effective or not needed based upon other existing treatments.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#119

Post by Daishiman »

announcerman wrote: post #65

Universal healthcare is not a silver bullet, in certain Eastern European Countries we pay a large amount of our salary in taxes so that we have universal healthcare and yet you still have to give "gifts" to every nurse and doctor that treats you unless you want the bare minimum treatment and care. Doctors can also intentionally botch surgeries if you fail to pay up. Not so much that it can be called malpraxis though.

And you think private health care is going to make that better?

That's not an argument against public health care.

Re: Both in rich and poor countries, universal health care brings huge benefits

#120

Post by willvarfar »

In these kinds of discussions I like to promote this interesting TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9UmdY0E8hU "Where in the world is it easiest to get rich?"

Spoiler: the talk shows that statistically the Nordic countries lead the world in millionaires and billionaires / capita, and in rags-to-riches. The talker offers the opinion that this is because its of the strong social safety net, education and healthcare.

Living in Scandinavia of course I like to hear this ;)

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