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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

#511

Post by Andre_Wanglin »

sykh wrote: post #486
Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not support the ACA but I use the healthcare exchange because it is in my best interest to do so. I get free money from others to pay for my family's health insurance. In fact, I get a 100% subsidy. But the reason I get a 100% subsidy is because I am affluent enough to live comfortably on only a small portion of my income and funnel the rest into tax-advantaged accounts that reduce my AGI to a fraction of my ac…

I feel sorry for you that you think this way. There’s a reason Medicare came into being. It simply isn’t profitable to treat people near the end of their lives. One illness, calamity is enough to wipe out a lifetime of savings and leave one penniless. The absence of a government program for providing healthcare to the elderly would be horrific and immoral. Some things ought not be profit driven. You wish to make our…

How can it both be unprofitable to treat people near the end of their lives yet also wipe out a lifetime of savings? If end of life care transfers the life savings of the elderly to the providers, that sounds quite profitable. Why shouldn't the elderly pay for these services? They have most of the money! And the dying have the least use for it whereas the young (whom you would tax for these services) have plenty of life and obligations yet to pay for. How is taxing the poor to pay for the healthcare of the rich moral?

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

#512

Post by Andre_Wanglin »

sykh wrote: post #492
Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #386

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. 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.

I invite you to do likewise. We will be quite well enough without ignorant busybodies posturing as moral crusaders hectoring us into enabling further deprivation of our property and liberty.

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

#513

Post by fastball »

beagle3 wrote: post #476
fastball wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that the US was larger than the EU... I said the US is significantly larger than any one country in the EU, and each country in the EU has its own health care system. What is being discussed in this thread is a US-wide health care system, which is definitely not equivalent to what is currently happening in the EU.

Each country in the EU has its own health care system, but in most senses they are regulated EU wide, and reciprocate with each other - if a French person needs urgent care in Italy, he will get it, and the distinct single payer systems will do the accounting. Said French person can also legally move to Italy, and will be covered by Italian single payer system from day one. The EU has only one medical "FDA"-like auth…

If a French person needs urgent care in America they'll get it too. I think you're giving too much credit to "EU reciprocity agreements".

Nowhere did I claim that a functional health care system cannot be built in the US. Good straw man though.

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

#514

Post by Andre_Wanglin »

sykh wrote: post #495
Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did not perpetrate a false dichotomy, I mocked the hypocrisy of any user of this site seeking to limit the compensation of anyone.

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

#515

Post by ScottBurson »

chimeracoder wrote: post #429
ScottBurson wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, this is wrong. Private Medicare plans fully replace Original Medicare. Uh, no. "Medicare pays a fixed amount for your care each month to the companies offering Medicare Advantage Plans." [0] So although the Advantage plans are privately managed, the premiums are subsidized. I don't think this counts as "leaving" Medicare. [0] https://www.medicare.gov/sign-up-change-plans/medicare-healt...

> Uh, no. "Medicare pays a fixed amount for your care each month to the companies offering Medicare Advantage Plans." [0] So although the Advantage plans are privately managed, the premiums are subsidized. I don't think this counts as "leaving" Medicare. By that logic, there's no way to leave Medicare, because you can't stop paying taxes for it or "disable" your eligibility for it (and all of the restrictions that Me…

> people using school vouchers for private schools is [not] a demonstration of their satisfaction with the public school system in their area

It certainly doesn't indicate dissatisfaction with the fact that the money for those vouchers comes out of tax receipts! The primary education system is a single-payer system, and the use of vouchers doesn't change that.

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

#516

Post by cfadvan »

Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #511
sykh wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel sorry for you that you think this way. There’s a reason Medicare came into being. It simply isn’t profitable to treat people near the end of their lives. One illness, calamity is enough to wipe out a lifetime of savings and leave one penniless. The absence of a government program for providing healthcare to the elderly would be horrific and immoral. Some things ought not be profit driven. You wish to make our…

How can it both be unprofitable to treat people near the end of their lives yet also wipe out a lifetime of savings? If end of life care transfers the life savings of the elderly to the providers, that sounds quite profitable. Why shouldn't the elderly pay for these services? They have most of the money! And the dying have the least use for it whereas the young (whom you would tax for these services) have plenty of l…

I doubt that people actually doing this are concerned with the morality of it, just the profitability. It’s not moral, but it’s easy, because they’re old and dying and desperate. I don’t think there’s more to it than the usual greed and expediency.

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

#517

Post by Andre_Wanglin »

sykh wrote: post #121
rukittenme wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Our spending on healthcare is grossly and immorally inefficient. A change is needed. One reason for the ineffiency is that public welfare is subordinate to special interests. All universal healthcare systems in the world are cheaper on a per capita basis than the American system. A change is needed. I’m not advocating for more money. I’m advocating for a change in perspective by our leaders.

>Our spending on healthcare is grossly and immorally inefficient.

Yes, because it goes to treat chronic preventable (voluntary) conditions and to keep rich old people alive for a few hours or days longer. The way to handle those freeloading on the system is to abolish the system, not increase its scope.

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

#518

Post by conanbatt »

dragonwriter wrote: post #453
conanbatt wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medicare is the core of all regulatory and pricing issues in the healthcare space. And if medicare were expanded to the entire population of the us, its expenditures could be 40-45% of gdp.

> Medicare is the core of all regulatory and pricing issues in the healthcare space. I can't see a reasonable argument for that. > And if medicare were expanded to the entire population of the us, its expenditures could be 40-45% of gdp. Even with a naive covered-population-number based extrapolation that ignores that Medicare currently covers the elderly, who tend to have greater medical needs than average, that's n…

Medicare is the reason there is fee-for-service, which is the biggest administrative overhead design if there is one. Also all private insurance works based of of medicare in the rates they pay, the way they code themselves etc.

On the extrapolation, of course they are all simplistic and wrong, both mine and yours. You are capping the NHE of GDP to cap medicare, as if the expansion of medicare were going to eliminate out of pocket or private health. Because it doesnt, if it replaced only half of expenditures, the 24% becomes 33%.

Its true Medicare takes care of older patients, but also private insurance subsidizes medicare all along the path to that because it pays more than medicare to every provider, which means on the pool of patients, the medicare patients tend to represent losses and the rest profit. Furthermore there is the argument that if medicare expanded 7 fold, it would also be less efficient the bigger it gets, which is true of private and public organizations alike.

We cant know, its messy and even expert economists cannot get this right: but it has to be in the order of magnitude of 25 to 40% of gdp. That is state-crushing expenditures.

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

#519

Post by sykh »

Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #511
sykh wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel sorry for you that you think this way. There’s a reason Medicare came into being. It simply isn’t profitable to treat people near the end of their lives. One illness, calamity is enough to wipe out a lifetime of savings and leave one penniless. The absence of a government program for providing healthcare to the elderly would be horrific and immoral. Some things ought not be profit driven. You wish to make our…

How can it both be unprofitable to treat people near the end of their lives yet also wipe out a lifetime of savings? If end of life care transfers the life savings of the elderly to the providers, that sounds quite profitable. Why shouldn't the elderly pay for these services? They have most of the money! And the dying have the least use for it whereas the young (whom you would tax for these services) have plenty of l…

How can it both be unprofitable to treat people near the end of their lives yet also wipe out a lifetime of savings?

It's unprofitable for an insurance company to insure someone near death and still provide a decent level of services. It's why there used to be pre-existing condition exclusions and why health insurance companies like Aetna went out of their way to try to deny claims.

Also, if the expense of coverage is greater than the amount of money a person has then it won't be profitable to treat them whilst still bankrupting the person.

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

#520

Post by sykh »

Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #512
sykh wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I invite you to do likewise. We will be quite well enough without ignorant busybodies posturing as moral crusaders hectoring us into enabling further deprivation of our property and liberty.

As the good book says, "For the love of money is the root of all evil". I'm not posturing. I actually do have a moral code that I try to abide by. The fact that all other wealthy nations provide what is colloquially called "universal healthcare" is an indication that yours is the abhorrent view. It would be worth your while to consider why your view, in just about all other advanced nations, is considered a fringe one.
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