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Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

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Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#61

What about quality of care tradeoffs? In Canada, for example, you are forced to use the government system, and if it doesn't deem you important enough, there is no private option.

What about them? The Canadian healthcare system has better outcomes than the American healthcare system in several areas. Most simply, Canadians live longer.

6 month median wait time for treatment, as in the case now in Canada, is not something I'd trade the American system for.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does American private insurance pay for everything? And if you say "but they can pay out of pocket", well Canadians can come to America and pay out of pocket too.

No. For a lot of people it very much doesn’t. And the cost is very prohibitive for people getting any care at all when insurance doesn’t cover it, so they end up not getting necessary care and then ending up on disability for life. A healthy population *makes money for taxes and buying things*, too.

> For a lot of people it very much doesn’t.

It was a rhetorical question. I'm aware it doesn't.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#63
post #15

In a more sane world the Republican Party would be in favor of universal health coverage. How many potential entrepreneurs stay working at BigCorp because they need the health benefits? How many small businesses are crushed by the cost of providing healthcare to their employees? It would be great for business to remove any involvement they have in personal healthcare. But I suppose they are the party of big business,…

BigCorp gives money to politicians and gets to depress worker wages because they can't leave — sounds perfectly sane to tie your insurance to your employer under capitalism.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#64

We've been down this road. ACA was predicated on studies like this, to no avail (it turns out that intense opposition chips away at it over time regardless of these studies). I'm of the opinion that, if your solution requires perpetual majority control of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, your solution is in fact a campaign slogan. I'm not saying that this is what is happening now , but I am saying that…

These types of studies, and the goals they aim to support, always frustrate me as solving a surface-level problem rather than root cause.

The problem with US healthcare isn't who pays for it, its how damn expensive it is. As always there are multiple factors at play, my list would include corruption, lack of legal accountability/responsibility, and a population that is much less healthy than reasonable.

Go after any one of those and we'd make a lot more headway than trying to ram through a universal, government-run healthcare or insurance program. And yes, such a program could impact the above topics, but it doesn't have to and could make any of them worse.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#65

We've been down this road. ACA was predicated on studies like this, to no avail (it turns out that intense opposition chips away at it over time regardless of these studies). I'm of the opinion that, if your solution requires perpetual majority control of legislative, executive, and judicial branches, your solution is in fact a campaign slogan. I'm not saying that this is what is happening now , but I am saying that…

> if your solution requires perpetual majority control

I think once universal health coverage is established, it amounts to political suicide to try to take it away again.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#66
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1 trillion less profit.

$1 trillion more efficient in allocation of resources, freeing up money for consumer spending on everything.

Are you saying the government is an efficient allocator of resources?

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#67
post #15

In a more sane world the Republican Party would be in favor of universal health coverage. How many potential entrepreneurs stay working at BigCorp because they need the health benefits? How many small businesses are crushed by the cost of providing healthcare to their employees? It would be great for business to remove any involvement they have in personal healthcare. But I suppose they are the party of big business,…

The original universal healthcare plans were promoted by the GOP until Hillary got involved and it became a political football.

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#69

The US is far too broken for such a thing to ever come to be. Politicians are bought and paid for, and the impact on the insurance companies and their profits make this impossible. US legislators will never, ever, ever put the needs of the people above the needs of corporations, not as long as corporations can wield their massive wealth as "free speech" in the form of lobbying and political donations. Sounds nice, th…

I'm earnestly curious what the alternatives to CU look like and what that would mean for for-profit companies like The New York Times?

Re: Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

#70
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this quality improvements including or ignoring the 30-ish percent rejection rate of the most popular healthcare system, including such gems as insulin and pre-authorizations refusing surgery for necrotic tissue when “maybe they could PT it, have you tried?”

PT? Luxury! My daughter had PT referred by her pediatrician, then the insurance didn't pay all of it and when I asked the insurance company for the EOBs they said they were not allowed to give them to me because it would violate my daughter's privacy.

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