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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

#181

Post by austincheney »

commandlinefan wrote: post #128
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…

I've always wondered to what extent the high cost of health care in the US is subsidizing universal health care in other countries. If it actually costs millions of dollars to create and test a single medication, but that medication is cheap in other countries and expensive in the US, universal health care in the US may drive up the actual cost everywhere else.

Economically speaking I am ok with that. Easier access to a product universally will lower its cost per consumption on average even if that average is a price spike for certain locales. This is a way of saying the outcome benefitting the most people isn't necessarily universally beneficial.

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

#182

Post by java_script »

patrickmay wrote: post #24

Universal health care doesn't require government coercion. Many more people in the US would have access to health care, including insurance for catastrophic events, if the state and federal governments stopped interfering in the supply side. The same groups that use force to prevent new hospitals being built, restrict the number of doctors, prevent nurses and nurse practitioners from treating many problems they're mo…

Wow good points. I’m sure those tens of thousands of people a year who die due to lack of health insurance are so glad nobody got coerced into helping them out. What a useful definition of liberty, that allows the richest country on earth & in history to deny its citizens preventative care so that they end up dying of easily preventable diseases. We have the liberty to beg on GoFundMe! Health insurance companies have the liberty to insert themselves as middlemen to suck up profits for pushing cash around and denying care!

To not quote a fucking TV magician, “Why not err on the side of every first world nation except us?”.

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

#183

Post by ams6110 »

walrus01 wrote: post #36

$5700 ER bill for an ice pack and refusal of treatment: https://www.vox.com/2018/5/1/17261488/er-expensive-medical-b... this is what's broken in America today.

OK. An ER is a very expensive facility. It is fitted out with staff and equipment to handle almost any conceivable trauma or life-threating condition. That all amortizes into a baseline cost-per-patient. If you go there for something that requires just an ice pack, you are wasting a very expensive resource.

It's like calling for a helicopter to take you across town and wondering why it isn't as cheap as a taxi.

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

#184

Post by dnomad »

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.

This is a lie. By virtually every measure the VA is the most cost effective and best quality care that Americans can get.

* The VA is very cost effective. It is much cheaper than any private sector health plan or Medicare. Instead of buying into the propaganda go straight to the source [1] and look at the actual facts.

* The VA enjoys very strong customer satisfaction. You wouldn't know this because the media and conservatives work together to denigrate the VA every chance they get but you should actually talk to people on the VA plan. Surveys of actual VA customers [2] indicates they're quite happy with their free, comprehensive government healthcare. (Shocker.)

* Study [3] after study [4] has shown that VA hospitals are better than private, profit-driven hospitals.

Most Americans would kill for VA coverage. It far exceeds anything they will ever receive unless they make it to the 1%. And this is why it's so very important to keep spreading this lie that the VA is this gross, evil system where all the patients are just waiting to die and ignored by incompetent and indifferent government bureaucrats.

And this is the real problem. You can't have real discussions about health care in America because, frankly, most Americans don't live in the real world. They've been led to believe objective nonsense and you simply can't build anything off such a foundation.

[1] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49763

[2] https://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=2537

[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-016-3775-2

[4]https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl...

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

#185

Post by maxsilver »

Fomite wrote: post #100
merpnderp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For a large number of different outcomes, the VA is superior to private care. It has a disproportionate footprint because "The VA does something bad!" is national news, while "SmallSizeMidwestCity Memorial does something bad!" isn't. It's not perfect, by any means, and struggles with cost constraints (veterans are sympathetic, but sympathetic doesn't mean well supported), but many of its quality outcomes are superior…

Your getting downvoted for this, and I have no idea why.

Have other folks actually stepped inside a VA facility? Many of them are old/outdated/underfunded it's true. But some of them truly do offer superior care to a typical private hospital (in staff, facilities, and outcomes). The VA system could use significant improvement, absolutely. But if the fear-mongering 'worst case scenario' is that everyone gets VA levels of healthcare, that's still a huge win for all of America. That's a great baseline standard to start with, that no one should ever fear falling below.

If an uninsured American is critically injured, the options today are "A: Die" or "B: Bankruptcy". Having a new option "C: Universal VA-levels of healthcare" would be a win for literally every American, even for Americans who are lucky enough to already have great private insurance and who would never need/use this option themselves.

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

#186

Post by coolaliasbro »

sykh wrote: post #166
Beltiras wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a principal reason why the US was crossed off my list of countries where I would work and live. I fight against the privatization that is occurring within healthcare in my native country, Iceland. We used to have the Scandinavian model but decades of attacks from the right-wing Independence Party has broken our healthcare system. The next phase described by Chomsky is handing it over to private capital since…

I don’t understand why you were downvoted. That you were downvoted for your comment suggests how bad things are in the U.S. for a progressive like me.

[flagged]

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

#187

Post by knz »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #118
sykh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They don't face financial ruin, unless they don't have health insurance

In the age of high deductible plans I'm not sure this is accurate. For many Americans the $5,000+ for a deductible each year is unsustainable, especially if someone on the plan has an ongoing issue or they have to meet the deductible multiple times (changing jobs or an issue than spans calendar years).

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

#188

Post by mac01021 »

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.

> We _ALREADY_ spend more than enough on healthcare as a nation to fully fund healthcare for everybody.

I would like to see a study or article demonstrating this. Do you have any links?

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

#189

Post by chimeracoder »

creaghpatr wrote: post #164
sykh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people on TRICARE don’t seek to leave the system, do they? That’s a government run healthcare system. Do Medicare recipients seek to leave it? That’s a government run healthcare system. Universal healthcare can be implemented poorly but it doesn’t have to be. It can be done right. There are lots of examples of this.

>Do Medicare recipients seek to leave it? No, because it's free, but 1/3 of Medicare recipients opt to receive their coverage through private insurers that typically add on additional coverage, an indicator that Medicare alone is not enough for a large segment of the population, or that they prefer a private insurer even with government subsidization. https://www.kff.org/medicare/fact-sheet/medicare-advantage/

> No, because it's free, but 1/3 of Medicare recipients opt to receive their coverage through private insurers that typically add on additional coverage

They don't simply add on coverage; they replace it. Most people on Medicare Advantage don't opt for coverage above what Medicare itself can provide - they simply receive their benefits from a private entity instead of Medicare, because Medicare provides such a bad experience for patients.

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

#190

Post by mter »

Pharylon wrote: post #46
merpnderp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The VA has gotten a lot of bad headlines, but I work with a vet who absolutely loved the VA. He brags about the quality and speed of his healthcare all the time. This is in Charlotte, NC. Different offices might be different.

The thing with the VA isn't that it's all bad. It's that the percentage of completely inept people seems higher than in a normal hospital.

Normal hospitals don't have multiple scandals of reusing insulin pens on different people, reusing colonoscopy bags, killing people, paralyzing people and periodically losing all of our records.

A lot of veterans who are covered by the VA are like me. Technically covered because of service connected disabilities, but I will never use it.

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