431–440 of 556 posts
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Fair enough. What is that minimum? The proposed minimum is always to grant the needed power to cover unlimited property rights, but not universal healthcare.
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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.
I think you misunderstand the statement. I wasn't referencing the comparison of the tax costs of different public healthcare systems. But while we're on that subject, I'm willing to bet that your VA comparison isn't per capita, or placed against GDP, rendering it useless. What I was referencing was the per capita or per household total cost of healthcare . The comparisons that say western countries with universal hea…
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By that measure any salary a doctor demands, whether it's paid for by the patient or the state, is coercive. Or for that matter, any salary any person demands in exchange for work is coercive. I feel like it ceases to have a useful meaning when used in this way.
It's only coercive when we're talking about the means to survive. If you offer someone a choice between death or some action, you are coercing them to act. And I don't think that "ceases to have a useful meaning". I think it just doesn't let you argue that your system is better based on absence of "coercion".
Do you or do you not believe that doctors in the UK are coercing the government by demanding a fair salary in exchange for the lifesaving services they provide?
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Europe these days, at least I'd be treated like a human being and not a cash cow. Survival rates in the USA were better in the 1960s but most of the OECD now has much lower mortality rates from a diagnosis of cancer than the USA. One exception is the UK but the margin is very narrow. What the USA is good at is over-treatment which can extend life expectancy of a cancer patient a little bit (days, weeks on average) bu…
I can understand that perspective. But are you really treated more humanely in Europe? Instead of a cash cow, you're a statistical number that determines where you will get placed in the queue and how long you'll wait. In the US, you at least have the potential for autonomy to pay the best doctor you can find you to treat you as soon as possible. That autonomy (or illusion thereof if you're a cynic) is a core compone…
You can do that in countries with universal healthcare too.
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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…
> A person ought not face financial ruin. The logical consequence of this is that any cost must be paid. And if the person cant pay it someone else does. So if someone gets a rare cancer whose treatment has 1% effectiveness and costs millions, it should be paid by someone else. The principle is wishful thinking, not economics. We as people every day make trades of our life for money. We pick a means of transportation…
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…
Enforcement requires a beneficient panopticon.
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>> every qualified, trained medical professional agreed Except there were offers from international hospitals and doctors who disagreed and wanted to treat him. It's in the article I linked to. And, as you point out, the UK legal system shut that down.
No. Those hospitals were not offering anything other than palliative care. He had no brain! There's no possible treatment.
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Excellent. We are in agreement that the American government can and does provide a health insurance program that covers lots of people and has the property that people don’t seek to leave it. Perhaps the idea that everyone be covered in such a system is not so far fetched.
Why would anyone refuse free money? Are you sure you understand the parent's point? They are taking the money but using private networks, which indicates they prefer private providers.
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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.
I don't need to show that, as I am not the one advocating a fundamental restructuring of the status quo. You need to show that the policies implemented in other countries will continue to work efficiently at the scale of the US, as you are the one advocating that course of action. "This policy worked well in [some place that is not the US]" just isn't good enough.
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No, I don't think these alternate examples are relevant. I suspect, and this is not my field of expertise, the largest differentiator is history. The US has been developing its health care system, uninterrupted, longer than other nations. It is much easier, politically, to build a great system if you start from scratch and have excellent examples at hand of what not to do as compared to modifying a deeply entrenched…
>The US has been developing its health care system, uninterrupted, longer than other nations. Can you describe this vis-a-vis England or France? I am confused as to how you think the US has been at healthcare longer or how an interruption occurs.