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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

#491

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

fortythirteen wrote: post #480
DanBC wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look again and you'll see that, as far as compulsory spending goes the US and UK spend roughly the same percentage of GDP on "healthcare" Yes, that's the point. The US government spends more on healthcare, but that huge spend doesn't cover the whole population. > "The United States does a better job of assisting it's poorer citizens into the highest quality healthcare in the world, Why does the US have such poor mo…

> But also Alfie had his own legal representation. What?! How does an infant/toddler receive legal representation arguing for the plug to be pulled, outside of the wishes of his parents?! That is the very definition of authoritarianism. > He wouldn't have got anything like this in the US. Absolute nonsense spread by someone who has no knowledge of the American system. A child like Alfie is given free medical care fro…

> What?! How does an infant/toddler receive legal representation arguing for the plug to be pulled, outside of the wishes of his parents?! That is the very definition of authoritarianism.

So, arguing the doctors' point of view of a terminally ill child's best interests is "authoritarianism", and arguing the parents' point of view is not? OK.

Fortunately English law disagrees, and believes that children are not their parents' property. If you want to know more, start here and follow the thread: https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/98919574700547686...

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

#492

Post by sykh »

Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #386
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 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. If no one has to worry about the monetary effects of their health choices, poor health choices are incentivized and those who make poor choices ar…

Thank you for exemplifying the attitude I decried. I wish people like would leave the U.S. Live elsewhere. Escape the burden of possibly having your tax dollars help someone else by emigrating.

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

#493

Post by 18pfsmt »

Frondo wrote: post #468
18pfsmt wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>You can't start any economic argument by saying that paying any cost is a must. You will get fleeced. >Paying taxes isn't getting fleeced. I think it's fair to accurately address the arguments being put forth, rather than reinterpreting them. Taxes are necessary, and I don’t think any serious person would argue otherwise. The problems come when we get into the details: Conflating local, state, and federal governmen…

I've never seen a plausible explanation of why a health care system would work for 60 million (UK) but not for 300 million (US). Bodies are mostly the same, they break down in mostly the same ways. There isn't a lot of mystery in providing care, either. Nor a lot of mystery in how you'd fund it. We just aren't doing any of that, cause our politicians are bought so very, very cheaply, and enough people are enriching t…

>I've never seen a plausible explanation of why a health care system would work for 60 million (UK) but not for 300 million

Scaling advanced systems to large numbers of users is very difficult and is the reason Facebook is worth ~1/2 Trillion dollars.

"James Madison argued, especially in The Federalist No. 10, that what distinguished a direct democracy from a republic was that the former became weaker as it got larger and suffered more violently from the effects of faction, whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger and combats faction by its very structure."

If this were true, we should arbitrage this value-mismatch and create a market for buyers and sellers of this powerful, political influence. "cheaply"? As the saying goes, "Extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence."

It is possible that the lawmakers share the same views as the for-profit/non-profit corporate execs, just like I agree with Green Peace(i.e. lobbyists) that we should end the practice of whaling significantly. The sovereign nation of Japan disagrees.

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

#494

Post by ordinaryperson »

firstplacelast wrote: post #470
ordinaryperson wrote: post #18

Universal health care is a euphemism for the poor and sick getting their medical care subsidized by the wealthy and healthy. Morally, caring for the sick seems like the right thing to do, but it's like when I hear Bernie Sanders call for "free college education": he doesn't mean free, he means the wealthy subsidizing it for others. Universal health care implies just distributed costs, but the focus should be on bring…

>Universal health care is a euphemism for the poor and sick getting their medical care subsidized by the wealthy and healthy. Have you ever worked in the US healthcare system? I worked for a medical diagnostics lab and spent a couple weeks in our billing department shadowing them at one point, we were writing off a minimum of 100k/day (and that is a very conservative estimate based on the 1 billing person I shadowed)…

> So the US healthcare model as it stands is a euphemism for the wealthy and healthy subsidizing the poor and sick in an insanely inefficient way.

Don't really understand this line. The US model itself is a euphemism? What?

I have no doubt that indigent patients get a break from a lot of facilities, but my question would be: why are those services so expensive in the first place? Why is it totally impossible for a person making a reasonable income to pay for a service like healthcare by themselves? You seem to be assuming the costs for your lab are totally normal and legit and wow, isn't it amazing the breaks we give people, but maybe your lab could be charging a lot less than it is for its services?

I don't know obviously, you work there, I don't, I'm just pointing out the underlying issue.

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

#495

Post by sykh »

Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #396
fastball wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's immoral for people to pay for the time and work of others?

Apparently doctors should only work for the public good and accept (relatively) piddling wages but startup tech bros and VCs are absolutely entitled to their billions.

Nice false dichotomy you have there. There are other possibilities than the status quo or doctors getting piddling wages.

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

#496

Post by mundo »

conanbatt wrote: post #466
mundo wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Nobody should go hungry, so everyone should be able to eat anywhere they want and not look at the tab". This is a violation of the most oft-ignored HN guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." What the moral argument side is saying is that it is immoral for a country this rich to not provide socialized healthcare up to a…

Lets do that excercise "It is immoral for wealth to exist in a way that, properly distributed, would solve the fundamental necessities of people. Thus, wealth should be confiscated until this goal is achieved for morality" And I answer "the very application of that goal will be immoral because it will take from all and give to all, and will do so unevenly on both ends while also destroy a part of everything levied."

> "It is immoral for wealth to exist in a way that, properly distributed, would solve the fundamental necessities of people. Thus, wealth should be confiscated until this goal is achieved for morality"

I don't believe anyone in this thread would say, "Yes, that is what I was arguing." I don't believe you do either. Stop trying to jujitsu random passersby in to discussing your preferred topic with you and the downvotes will abate.

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

#497

Post by fsloth »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #485
throwawayjava wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the entire thesis of the article. The thesis is that Finland (et al)'s education and healthcare systems are more efficient because they are socialized. Given one binary comparison between condition A and condition B (Finland vs. US), some causal speculation is justified. Given dozens of such comparisons, all coming out to the same result, your case becomes anti-empirical. soru's comment on this thread…

> Given dozens of such comparisons, all coming out to the same result, your case becomes anti-empirical. As others in this thread have pointed out, Finland vs. US is not a good comparison, Europe vs the US would be. We can socialize medicine in individual states with good results (see: MA) but US-wide? With 332+ million people? With all the differences in costs of living in different parts of the country? When the EU…

"When the EU rolls out a single-payer system for the entire Eurozone..."

Basically the national health systems inside EU co-operate not entirely dissimilarly to a european single payer system:

http://www.kela.fi/web/en/european-health-insurance-card

Given that the mishmash of european systems has much wider variance probably than US internal schemes do, I find the argument 'but US is too" complex not entirely convincing.

Given how much of the current scientific and technological context of our civilization comes from the US, and there are lot of single payer schemes working in other countries, I would find the "we don't want to" argument more convincing than "it's too complex for us".

Anyway, I don't know the nuts and bolts of any of the health care systems but generally when political will manifests itself people are capable of all sorts of things if they are within the realm of the laws of physics.

It's not like health care was rocket science. The best bang for buck comes from providing just the cheapest things modern medicine has come with within the reach of all. It's not surgeries and MRI machines and all that capital intensive stuff. A nurse with a basic kit could achieve all sorts of improved health outcomes in his/her patients.

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

#498

Post by monocasa »

endtime wrote: post #471
ryandrake wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people out there would honestly be willing to trade their universal healthcare system for a US style system?

Alfie Evans' parents probably would...as would some of the people waiting months to get a simple MRI.

Alfie Evans didn't have a brain anymore, and would have probably been pulled even quicker in the US system. Insurance agencies are quick to deny funding.

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

#499

Post by rogerb »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #442
rogerb wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

That's a nice saccade you've made from "you are a terrible person" to "healthcare ... ends at the borders." Universal healthcare would be great if it was cheap and covered everything.

It might be a little hard for you to understand - but on the other side of the USA is... another country ! And they are free to do whatever they want, which in the case of developed countries is universal health care !

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

#500

Post by arcticbull »

fastball wrote: post #322
aninhumer wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only the United States had some kind of system of geographic administrative divisions similar to the countries that make up Europe...

Right, and states are free to enact single-payer/universal health care for their residents if they so wish. In fact, you might want to look at the Massachusetts health care system. But implementation at a state level is obviously not what this thread is about. For a US-wide health care system you need US-wide infrastructure/bureaucracy. This decreases efficiency.

I'm down with this -- this is how Canada's system is run. Each province provides insurance for its residents meeting the requirement to provide a socalized system as defined in the Canada Health Act. States should provide the socialized system, the federal government should mandate a public option exists (either single payer or two-tier) and the basic rules that govern one.
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