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Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

peri.umass.edu

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Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#61

Post by AnimalMuppet »

educationdata wrote: post #25

How can they assume this will not change how everything else works? Yes. You can say statistically we did the comparison by holding everything else the same, but it only means "statistically". It definitely does not mean in reality you can hold everything else the same. There is no way when the policy changes, the system still works as before. This kind of study is totally delusional. A policy works in other countrie…

Second order effects... the bane of well-meaning policies.

On the other hand, how else are you going to do it? Do you know what the second-order effects are going to be? How sure are you? Can you prove it to someone who doesn't hold the same intellectual framework or political leaning that you do?

Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#62

Post by ams6110 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #45
entee wrote: post #2

One thing that sometimes gets lost in the "health care is inefficient" discussion is that one person's inefficiency is another person's living. The cost controls the paper appears to advocate for literally mean someone is making less money, that someone will advocate strongly against it. I've spent the past 3.5 years in healthcare, everyone is convinced they're not the problem, that they're underpaid or overworked or…

The cost problem in healthcare is exactly that: many pigs at the trough, and everyone points at the other pig for being the problem. Healthcare administrators! Drug companies! Device companies! Trial Lawyers! Insurance companies! Doctors (especially specialists)! They're all the problem, and yes lots of them should make less money. I know cardiologists pulling down 500k+ and that is ridiculous. I can see highly skill…

> I know cardiologists pulling down 500k+ and that is ridiculous. I can see highly skilled surgeons making that much, but pill pushers?

I don't know about you but I'm not willing to be a student until I'm in my mid 30s, working crazy hours, likely accumulating a significant amount of debt along the way, without some kind of a substantial payout on the other side.

Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#63

Post by jashpool »

s3r3nity wrote: post #39
bedhead wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like, the living of some drug middleman who is a leach on the system and only exists because of some lobbying or other screwed up structure?

More like the doctor who has dropped six-figures + a crazy amount of years in education and certification to work very long hours seeing a lot of patients, many of whom think you're a quack and trust an online forum over anything you say. Oh and don't forget the high premiums for malpractice insurance, as you're working crazy hours without breaks, and if you make a mistake you're sued up the whazoo. And that's just d…

Cost controls also have a cost. The UK NHS has chronic staffing shortages, UK doctors are going abroad for better pay; currently the favourites are Australia, Canada and the Middle East. I have heard quite a few people say they actively discourage their children from being doctors.

Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#64

Post by dragonwriter »

maxxxxx wrote: post #43
dragonwriter wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe US citizens should demand better government instead of wasting time on the never-ending partisan warfare. Never ending partisan warfare is what you get when people demand better government but disagree deeply on what is necessary for better government.

I don't believe that people disagree along the lines drawn by parties. Most political fights are artificial constructs to keep the people busy while the the people in DC and their donors stay in power.

> I don't believe that people disagree along the lines drawn by parties.

There is plenty of evidence that they do, and also that (by comparing to other democracies and over time) this is directly a product of the party system—an electoral systen supporting small number of signficant parties results in a small number of significant viewpoints, mostly divided on the same lines that divide the parties.

> Most political fights are artificial constructs to keep the people busy while the the people in DC and their donors stay in power.

Even to the extent that is arguably true, that a fight is an artificial construct or a distraction does not mean that the people at whom it is directed don't deeply buy into and incorporate into their identity the side of the fight they have been propagandized into.

In fact, it wouldn't work if they didn't.

Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#65

Post by ams6110 »

Analemma_ wrote: post #30
ekianjo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prices help pay for the huge cost involved in developing drugs. How many drugs were developed in France in the past 10 years compared to how many were developed in the US? You know the answer.

Personally, I would’ve liked to be asked whether I consented to paying 10x the price that every other country pays, in order to subsidize drug development, cause I definitely don’t recall ever agreeing to that deal.

The problem is your other option is likely not having the drug at all.

Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#66

Post by okaram »

anarchimedes wrote: post #37
aczerepinski wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High earners were on average raised by high earning parents. Is being born rich fair? Which stages of the game should be fair?

(C'mon downvotes!) I thought the idea of paying your "fair share" was in relation to the services provided by the taxes paid. I can take an extreme example that I've tried to steel man to hold up this point: Bill Gates. Does Bill Gates the man use more taxpayer provided military/healthcare/infrastructure.. than anyone else? Of those things that he does use more of, if he taxed by the volume of those services used (ex…

What is 'fair' is always debatable, but ... let me tell you one way I look at it.

I see democratic governments as an extension of society; and their most important service is a reasonably stable, safe society (with a few exceptions, there's no rioting; I can walk around the streets without fear of getting killed; I don't even worry about whether I lock my hour or car doors).

Given a live a nice upper/middle class life, I value this a lot, and am willing to pay high taxes for it; if I'm a poor teenager in the ghetto, I'm not getting as much from this; Bill Gates is getting much more than I am from this; it makes sense he pays a lot more than me, and that I pay a lot more than the teen from the ghetto.

Imagine society goes to heck ; do you think Bill (or me :) would keep his money ? his nice life ? his life ? :) If that happens, most people would be worse off than now, but Bill would be much worse off, whereas the teen from the ghetto may only be slightly worse off (and some people might even be better off). It seems 'fair' Bill pays more; it actually seems to me it is smart for Bill to pay more to keep our nice society (which is one reason he, and many other billionaires advocate for higher taxes).

Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#67

Post by sedor0115 »

woofyman wrote: post #60
anarchimedes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(C'mon downvotes!) I thought the idea of paying your "fair share" was in relation to the services provided by the taxes paid. I can take an extreme example that I've tried to steel man to hold up this point: Bill Gates. Does Bill Gates the man use more taxpayer provided military/healthcare/infrastructure.. than anyone else? Of those things that he does use more of, if he taxed by the volume of those services used (ex…

>How does that make it right to make him pay more money? Because he can. And yes, he does use more Government services.

He was asking for a moral argument. "Because he can" is not an argument at all.

Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#68

Post by beginningguava »

VikingCoder wrote: post #51
pdq wrote: post #29

Hypothetical economic studies and analyses are almost worthless. In normal science, you need something to be testable, verifiable, and reproducible. I'm quite sure none of these are possible. Just as a counterpoint, the US public primary school education is state run and funded, and has both poor outcomes and is the most expensive in the world [1]. Just because something is run or controlled by the state does not mea…

Quick question: What if America's education problem is that the children don't have parents who can nurture them? Because we have stagnant or decreasing real wages? Because the cost of daycare, housing, health, and advanced education have all gone up? Because we're making it harder to declare bankruptcy? Because we're criminalizing activities, and ripping families apart? Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that our educ…

US education is top notch based on international PISA scores if you break it down by race and compare them to europe, latin america, africa, etc

https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2015/pisa2015highlights...

Singapore almost always takes 1st in international test scores and their long time leader didn't pull punches

https://imgur.com/a/a8nCQUO

and it's not an income thing, the poorest whites and asians score as high as black students from families making 200k+ a year

https://i.imgur.com/PD9hz9b.jpg

So in a way you're right, US government does run their education system very well, it just seems to be a racial thing which can never be spoken about politically so it's just ignored as the elephant in the room

Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#69

Post by darawk »

api wrote: post #33
pdq wrote: post #29

Hypothetical economic studies and analyses are almost worthless. In normal science, you need something to be testable, verifiable, and reproducible. I'm quite sure none of these are possible. Just as a counterpoint, the US public primary school education is state run and funded, and has both poor outcomes and is the most expensive in the world [1]. Just because something is run or controlled by the state does not mea…

America seems to have a huge problem with everything it does being incredibly costly. It's definitely true in the public sector and universities and also in large areas of the private sector. American healthcare being more expensive than anywhere else fits the pattern. It also apparently costs more to build a rail line or any other work of infrastructure here than anywhere else in the world. I'm not sure why this is,…

America has high costs anywhere that government is involved. Healthcare, infrastructure, etc...The pure private sector is quite efficient here.

Re: Economic Analysis of Medicare for All

#70

Post by epicureanideal »

VikingCoder wrote: post #51
pdq wrote: post #29

Hypothetical economic studies and analyses are almost worthless. In normal science, you need something to be testable, verifiable, and reproducible. I'm quite sure none of these are possible. Just as a counterpoint, the US public primary school education is state run and funded, and has both poor outcomes and is the most expensive in the world [1]. Just because something is run or controlled by the state does not mea…

Quick question: What if America's education problem is that the children don't have parents who can nurture them? Because we have stagnant or decreasing real wages? Because the cost of daycare, housing, health, and advanced education have all gone up? Because we're making it harder to declare bankruptcy? Because we're criminalizing activities, and ripping families apart? Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that our educ…

Something about this seems right to me. I'd be interested to see if there are any studies correlating these issues.
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