401–410 of 539 posts
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There are people who can't afford groceries now - we don't fund that by having the government pay for all groceries for everyone.
universal healthcare is sort of the equivalent of free food. What if your medical condition is malnourishment?
Now s/food/health
The problem is that there is not a single reason that healthcare is so expensive. Even if you list the top 15 reasons, you still have to apply the "5 whys" to each of them to find root causes and possible solutions. - Doctor's are paid too much... why? - Well they need to be paid a lot because medical school debt is 250k or more... why? - Medical schools/the AMA are artificially limiting the number of students and re…
The likely answer is: They are all gouging us.
One potential benefit of a single payer system is simply being able to untangle that mess and put every player on a reasonable footing. For instance, make medical school free, but then doctors get to work for the government for a decent professional salary. It might even change the mix of people who are willing to become doctors -- more middle class. The primary expenditures of the medical system should be materials (capital and consumable like drugs) and salaries.
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Then imagine that there are some people who can't afford the food they need in the grocery store and are going to die. Alternatives and transparent pricing isn't going to make brain surgery affordable to the average consumer.
According to Wikipedia, there are only .5% of all physicians in the US who can perform neurosurgery. So it's probably safe to say the demand for brain surgery is much higher than the supply. This incentivises people to become doctors that perform such complecated procedures as it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to be able to do those things. If you were to force doctors to perform work on people that can't aff…
Imagine if grocery stores forced us to choose one of a few dozen grocery "insurance" memberships to buy groceries, and negotiated directly with the insurers. No prices are labeled in store, they just detect whatever you take and send you a bill at the end of the month. (Differing brands of the same food product are not available in store of course.) Individuals are charged 3-100x more per product than negotiated rate…
In a just world, nobody would go hungry, nor would anyone die prematurely or suffer needlessly due to lack of care. We can obviously afford both, in this country, just like they can everywhere else in Europe or Canada. So this entire argument about insurance is a straw man.
It’s not the doctors who set up this world. It’s people who want to pay less taxes, but blame doctors.
Imagine if grocery stores forced us to choose one of a few dozen grocery "insurance" memberships to buy groceries, and negotiated directly with the insurers. No prices are labeled in store, they just detect whatever you take and send you a bill at the end of the month. (Differing brands of the same food product are not available in store of course.) Individuals are charged 3-100x more per product than negotiated rate…
This isn’t a very good analogy. In a just world, nobody would go hungry, nor would anyone die prematurely or suffer needlessly due to lack of care. We can obviously afford both, in this country, just like they can everywhere else in Europe or Canada. So this entire argument about insurance is a straw man. It’s not the doctors who set up this world. It’s people who want to pay less taxes, but blame doctors.
The whole industry is a shame.
I would love if everyone that seems to be in support of a single player system would make a mental note right now that they were in support of it, and then years later after the US moves to such a system (seems pretty likely?) they review how much it helped. I grew up in a single payer system and I'm theoretically in support of it for the many reasons people already listed in the comments (larger negotiation position…
I feel like this simple joke highlights your point about some distinct cultural differences that allow a system to work in Germany that would utterly fail in America.
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This isn’t a very good analogy. In a just world, nobody would go hungry, nor would anyone die prematurely or suffer needlessly due to lack of care. We can obviously afford both, in this country, just like they can everywhere else in Europe or Canada. So this entire argument about insurance is a straw man. It’s not the doctors who set up this world. It’s people who want to pay less taxes, but blame doctors.
Why shouldn't doctors and the medical industry take the blame in the US? They artificially limit the supply of Doctors in the US and have the audacity to claim that building more medical schools will ruin their already lucrative careers. The whole industry is a shame.
That said, I doubt it would solve all the problems in the US healthcare system at this point. It seems to me the biggest one is that providers, i.e. doctors, hospitals and drug companies all bill way too much. I think it is just politically less palatable though to go after doctors than after a big anonymous insurance company.
I do remember when I had an appendix operation a few years ago and was billed $50,000 for it, including some gems such as $4,400/night just for the hospital room and $50 for 2 tylenol that the Walgreens down the road would sell you for $5 a 24-pack.
I know several doctor acquaintances making >$1m and even $2m a year - I know they get together regularly where they actually discuss techniques to bill their patients the most money. One dermatologist discovered that removing 2 skin lesions on the same day was a bad idea - he got paid about 50% less for the 2nd one that way. Sending the patient home and telling him to come back next week for the 2nd one would however double the bill. So that's what he does! More patient inconvenience and added expense - but who cares?
I see alot of the proposed solutions to the US healthcare system boil down to some form of "Medicare for all". I think a single payer system would be great and I am all for it. That said, I doubt it would solve all the problems in the US healthcare system at this point. It seems to me the biggest one is that providers, i.e. doctors, hospitals and drug companies all bill way too much. I think it is just politically le…
Healthcare. Education. Defence. Incarceration. Taxes. Bank Transfers. Telco. Roads. Infrastructure.
Patient convenience, Overall society happiness - whatever you want to talk about. It's a money machine. And the money is more important than the people.
When you ask for zero risk, you are asking for infinite cost.