Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disaster compared to what? The insane number of medical bankruptcies in the United States?
Compared to dying because treatment a private health insurer pays for would simply be denied, as other payers are prohibited. Why would you want to make medicare supplemental coverage illegal , or forced to be completely separate, which is a characteristic of single-payer health care (as opposed to multiple payer universal health care coverage)?
What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
111–120 of 132 posts
Re: What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that the government is busted. But from what I understand, one of the two ruling parties is at least somewhat pro-socialized medicine. I do not understand what needs to be compromised about socialized medicine. I struggle with the idea that fear of the government is greater than the desire for universal medical coverage.
Eh, the two ruling parties have cleverly worked things out so that they never have to actually implement any of the policies they claim to support. They can always just blame the other party for making their policies impossible. Both parties benefit from this system. Look at Obamacare. A lot of Democrats will say that this was a genuine attempt to move toward single-payer, a public option, etc. and that they simply h…
Re: What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by socialized medicine? If you mean government required and subsidized, like the systems of France and Germany, which have great healthcare systems, that sounds wonderful . If you mean single-payer healthcare, like Canada and the UK, screw that disaster.
What makes single-payer healthcare, like Canada and the UK, a disaster? I'm from Canada and currently live in the US. I don't have many complaints about the canadian healthcare system. I got a suprise bill yesterday in the US healthcare system for routine bloodwork.
Re: What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
#114Wow, being used to Belgian healthcare... This article really makes America look primitive. We pay a lot of taxes, but at least I don't have to worry about money, if i would get severely sick. Eg. - A checkup at the doctor ( blood) costs 2€, results within 24 hours. - Additional costs are required upfront by law. If I'm not mistaken, you can't even get an estimate on the US.
Taking everything into account, taxes are not that much lower in the US (ignoring sales tax or VAT).
While I was working for a multinational, I enjoyed excellent health insurance (including dental). Still, filling a cavity in Belgium without insurance was cheaper than in the US with insurance.
Re: What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
#115I've tried to understand the circumstances preventing socialized medicine in america. I understand there are arguments against socialized medicine, but they make no sense to me on their face (eg. the idea that long wait times would occur, when wait times for USA and wait times for other first world countries with socialized medicine isn't very differe. The idea that socialized medicine would cause less medicine resea…
I've tried to understand the circumstances preventing socialized medicine in america. Just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz , the answer was staring you in the face this whole time: "socialized". You say that magic combination of "social" and any of "ist", "ism", "ized", and g-ddamn it, my Granddad didn't fight Mussolini in the war just to the let the socialists take over. I swear to $DEITY that I do not exaggerate t…
Yeah that might be because “The goal of socialism is communism.”
Re: What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would we trust the government that just fed us the propaganda you're talking about to run a healthcare system in our interest? > "In fact I think we have the millennials to thank as they grew up after the cold war and did not experience much of the propaganda that older generations did, so they are more open to policies like universal healthcare." So they haven't seen the negative consequences of too much governm…
Great question, one that I'll flip on you as well. Why would we trust private companies to make a healthcare decision that might sacrifice profit for my health? Anticipating your answer that the marketplace solves that issue, but that doesn't exactly help the people that were adversely affected before the marketplace stepped in to solve the problem. Answering your question, I put more trust in my government than priv…
You really trust the government to take care of you? How blind are you? The UK government wasted £12 billion of taxpayer money on an abandoned IT system.
Re: What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
#117I've tried to understand the circumstances preventing socialized medicine in america. I understand there are arguments against socialized medicine, but they make no sense to me on their face (eg. the idea that long wait times would occur, when wait times for USA and wait times for other first world countries with socialized medicine isn't very differe. The idea that socialized medicine would cause less medicine resea…
> circumstances preventing socialized medicine in america Honestly I think it has a lot to do with the popularity of Fox News and its bias against any centrist/left policy. Also, keep in mind that the US was for decades fighting a war against communism which branded any socialist idea as evil and even going so far as to overthrow socialist governments. So, there are decades of propaganda that needs to be overcome. In…
An orange is not necessarily orange.
A government with social programs is not the definition of Socialism.
Socialism is two things:
- No profit
- No private property
The consequence in 100% of historic attempts has been immense suffering. More than even the Nazis could deal out.
It’s not propaganda. Open a history book.
Regards,
A left-wing liberal who’s ancestors suffered first under Nazi occupation, and then under Communism — which is the goal of Socialism.
Re: What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
#118I've tried to understand the circumstances preventing socialized medicine in america. I understand there are arguments against socialized medicine, but they make no sense to me on their face (eg. the idea that long wait times would occur, when wait times for USA and wait times for other first world countries with socialized medicine isn't very differe. The idea that socialized medicine would cause less medicine resea…
What do you mean by socialized medicine? If you mean government required and subsidized, like the systems of France and Germany, which have great healthcare systems, that sounds wonderful . If you mean single-payer healthcare, like Canada and the UK, screw that disaster.
Pure private like the US is just insane. It technically works but when you go in you have no idea what you're paying. Random service providers can bill you months later and there's not much you can do to stop it. Plus you have to be sure your provider is in-network and a bunch of other pointless nonsense. Finally, insurers can charge you whatever they want.
Switzerland's eliminates most of these problems. Everyone is required to have a "basic" level of cover, where "basic" is defined by the government to include basically everything medically necessary (in much more precise terms than mine). The maximum premium is fixed to be just a little over what's profitable for a well-run company but customers get to choose their deductible, up to a mandated maximum. All procedures and medications have fixed prices.
Thanks to the regulated premiums and procedure prices, you end up with everyone paying roughly the same amount for the same thing but to different people. Service providers have to send and process bills for 30 or 40 different insurers or hundreds of individual customers. Customers have to pay bills to their insurer and/or each service provider they visit.
This makes no sense to me. When everyone's paying the same amount for the same thing, it doesn't matter that there are different choices. By centralizing everything with one insurer, you can drastically reduce the paperwork for everyone. Providers send bills to one insurer. Customers pay bills to one insurer.
Re: What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that the government is busted. But from what I understand, one of the two ruling parties is at least somewhat pro-socialized medicine. I do not understand what needs to be compromised about socialized medicine. I struggle with the idea that fear of the government is greater than the desire for universal medical coverage.
Eh, the two ruling parties have cleverly worked things out so that they never have to actually implement any of the policies they claim to support. They can always just blame the other party for making their policies impossible. Both parties benefit from this system. Look at Obamacare. A lot of Democrats will say that this was a genuine attempt to move toward single-payer, a public option, etc. and that they simply h…
they simply had to make compromises to get what they got passed
For much of that Congress, the Democrat caucus had complete control (with filibuster-proof control of the Senate); they didn't have to "compromise" with a single Republican, hence zero Republican votes.Re: What We Learned from a Year of Americans ‘Risking It’ Without Insurance
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disaster compared to what? The insane number of medical bankruptcies in the United States?
Compared to dying because treatment a private health insurer pays for would simply be denied, as other payers are prohibited. Why would you want to make medicare supplemental coverage illegal , or forced to be completely separate, which is a characteristic of single-payer health care (as opposed to multiple payer universal health care coverage)?