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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

#351

Post by learc83 »

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

Without the ACA, this wasn't possible for millions of people. With the ACA it was still too expensive for millions of people. With the ACA minus the individual mandate it will be too expensive for even more.

Also before the ACA, health care plans came with yearly and lifetime coverage limits. Coverage limits that were far below what care would cost in many cases. So even with insurance you could still face financial ruin.

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

#352

Post by e40 »

RangerScience wrote: post #129
e40 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the straw men that is often brought up. There are a million reasons why the VA is messed up, most of which have NOTHING to do with healthcare. Congress has underfunded our troops for decades, related to healthcare and not. Something as simple as body armor is often purchased with personal money. A woman that works for me is high up in the Marines and I hear stories that disgust me. I do not know how Co…

I haven't heard these stories and would like to. Where can I find more?

Here's one

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/02/26/lacking-basic...

Do a search for "us troops buying own". You'll find lots.

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

#353

Post by e40 »

imglorp wrote: post #174
e40 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the straw men that is often brought up. There are a million reasons why the VA is messed up, most of which have NOTHING to do with healthcare. Congress has underfunded our troops for decades, related to healthcare and not. Something as simple as body armor is often purchased with personal money. A woman that works for me is high up in the Marines and I hear stories that disgust me. I do not know how Co…

I'm curious why there are more than one public health system. There's the VA, the IHS (Indian Health Services), and of course medicare/medicaid. Why are these not all the same system? It's not like we're different species.... edit, If this is a benefits/paperwork thing, then shouldn't that be separate from the care provider network?

It's the nature of the beast, in the US, I think. I believe if there were a Universal system, all of the others would go away. That would be a good thing.

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

#354

Post by sykh »

fastball wrote: post #316
beagle3 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but since there is an example (tens of them, actually) where it does work well, then the prior should be that it could and should work in the US, and if one thinks it wouldn't work in the US, it should come with an explanation.

The explanation is that the US is huge and UK/Germany/Sweden/whoever is not. Efficiency doesn't scale proportionally to size, unfortunately.

That, even if true, does not support your argument. You need to show that the inefficiency in a universal care system in a country as large as the U.S is greater than the current system that we have. The evidence is that this is not true.

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

#355

Post by vilmosi »

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.

Drug costs are a fraction of healthcare costs though.

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

#356

Post by TheCoelacanth »

fastball wrote: post #249
arcticbull wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, my bad, in re-reading I can see how this wasn't clear. I meant along the lines of: I can't see how allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices, letting nurses do more of what doctors do and publishing prices gets the US medical system anywhere close to a 50% reduction in per capita spend, or gets the US any closer to covering 100% of the population. The US should do each of these. Each would make a difference. W…

Centralized systems are more efficient when they're smaller. The bigger a centralized system becomes, the more you need to spend on intermediary layers of bureaucracy that don't actually help achieve whatever goal it is you're going for (in this case, medical care). The US has ~330 million people. The US has ~13 million undocumented immigrants. The US is the size of Europe. You're not going to magically get the effic…

That completely goes against the idea of economies of scale. If smaller organizations were inherently more efficient, mom-and-pop stores would be beating Walmart and people running online stores out of their garage would be beating Amazon.

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

#357

Post by AstralStorm »

fortythirteen wrote: post #297
rflrob wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t get cancer, where would you rather live? Life expectancy is significantly higher in Europe for lower average cost of medical care. There’s not necessarily a conflict between checkups and chemo, and surely some of the difference is due to population-level differences in poverty, diet, and lifestyle. But it’s worth remembering that it can be rational to trade slightly worse specialty care for better genera…

> Lower average cost of medical care All derived from figures that don't account for how much more you pay in taxes for that "free or cheap" healthcare.

Actually it is a perfectly visible item in budget. We pay less for whole of medical care than total US budget for just VA.

Someone is paying for this in tax.

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

#358

Post by rogerb »

mistermann wrote: post #253
rogerb wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a different question which is outside of the scope of healthcare in the US IMO.

The underlying reasoning for universal healthcare is based on a principle, does this principle end at the US border, which I'm told is just some arbitrary, meaningless line right? If it's not clear, my tongue is firmly in my cheek as I say that, but where it isn't in my cheek is when I'm telling you some people don't just buy your simple pro-universal-healthcare argument wholesale, especially when you refuse to defen…

I live in the US and I pay taxes in the US, so yes - healthcare for US citizens/residents paid for by US/citizens residents ends at the borders. If there is a better, more efficient system that is morally right (i.e. provides basic healthcare for it's citizens) than universal healthcare I would like someone to propose it ?

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

#359

Post by shawabawa3 »

wl78393 wrote: post #165

Tell that to little Alfie. When you have an unconditional "right" to consume someone else's labor, the inevitable result is tyranny, rationing and the force of government determining outcomes.

I see this argument a lot, but in no country with socialised medicine is any doctor ever "forced" to treat someone.

Doctors can choose employers, work in private practises, and quit at any time.

Much like many employees, when they're employed they may have to perform duties relevant to their position such as treating sick people

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

#360

Post by ibeckermayer »

clarkevans wrote: post #94
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…

> It seems the public interest is subordinate to private interests and often times with immoral consequences. This perspective of public vs private interest is rather puzzling to me -- it's more a matter of short-term vs long-term thinking. In the long-term, it's in the private interest of those having sustainable companies to have a broad base of educated and healthy workers to employ. The short-term interest of any…

My problem with you isn’t that you want to fund long term interests, my problem with you is that you want to force me to fund your idea of long term interests with your preferred long term fund (i.e. whatever our moronic legislators can cook up).

It’s not about the goals, it’s about the coercion.

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