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

ysph.yale.edu

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

#211

Post by expedition32 »

epistasis wrote: post #75
jvanderbot wrote: post #21

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…

ACA has saved tons of lives. Due to the intense opposition, it was not structured in a way that could save money, but rather structured in the way that it could get through congress. Additionally, as somebody who was around pre-ACA, I can not tell you how much better, in every single way, the post-ACA healthcare world is. Pre-existing conditions? Access to healthcare as an individual? These are life-changing possibil…

The real problem with universal healthcare is that it immediately completely eradicates religious charity.

Any single mom who works as a stripper can go see a doctor who doesn't have the slightest inclination to judge- you're just a number in a government database. Everyone's getting free shit no questions asked.

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

#212

Post by strictnein »

poncho_romero wrote: post #23
afavour wrote: 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,…

In what world is the Republican Party pro entrepreneur/small business enough to make these rhetorical questions meaningful?

They used to be, before Trump and the MAGA clowns destroyed the party. So prior to 2015 or so.

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

#213

Post by otterley »

jayess wrote: post #112
FireBeyond wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, even with "platinum" healthcare in the US, urology referral, 4 months. "You should start PT immediately" after a car accident, "we can see you in 5 months". "Oh, your septum is deviated ~90% on the right. Surgery? No, first you need to go on these nasal sprays for a few months so we can decide they didn't reshape the cartilage in your nose before your insurance will decide whether they want to "allow"[1] surgery…

I got my urology referral last week and had an appointment this morning...

Lucky you. Maybe they had a last-minute cancellation, or you live in an area in which supply of urologists exceeds demand.

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

#215

Post by chaps »

consensus1 wrote: post #200
jonplackett wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1 trillion less profit.

Total profits for US health insurance companies in 2025 were $50 billion. The other $950 billion has got to come from cutting: 1. money to providers 2. overall healthcare consumption 3. bureaucratic redundancy and waste 1 is going to piss off medical providers. 2 is going to piss of the general public. 3 is going to piss off the 20 million healthcare industry workers who are not direct care providers. So pick your po…

Have you ever dared to dream of something that sounds impossible but isn't?

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

#216

Post by larkost »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #133
karakoram wrote: post #2

>A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.

FWIW, the methodology that produced this particular result is known to have significant issues. The claimed effect disappears after correcting for them. It also isn't the first time that these authors have published similar studies with these issues. They are not a credible source. Universal health coverage may save lives and money but this study doesn't provide actual evidence for it.

Please cite and explain what those significant issues are. As it is your post is a "trust me bro", and is not contributing to the conversation.

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

#217

Post by linsomniac »

otterley wrote: post #54
skuzye wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here in the UK. If you need to see a specialist, you regularly have to wait months, assuming you can even get a referral in the first place.

This is frequently true in the USA as well. My provider's dermatology department is pretty backed up and couldn't make me an appointment for an excision until November. Fortunately it's not urgent.

Agreed, it was 2-3 months wait to get to see an ENT for me last year. My daughter's regular eye check identified a problem and it's 3 months to get her into an eye specialist to review it.

Somewhat related: a couple years ago my spouse had cancer, and the doctor could do surgery either 5 days after our insurance was changing companies, or 2 months after that, those were the next two openings. The insurance said that if we proceeded with the surgery, without the new insurance company giving us approval, but they couldn't start approving it until the insurance started, and the pre-approval from the other company didn't give us anything. We finally decided to go ahead with it and take on the risk of ~$70K if it was denied. Which we decided to do rather than my spouse spending a few months worrying. Turned out that was a really good call, because when they did the surgery it turned out that instead of the expected slow growth, it was actually growing extremely fast. That was probably the difference between it being fatal and it being treatable.

The US system is far from smooth.

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

#218

Post by cactacea »

afavour wrote: 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,…

> 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?

Oh hi. That is me.

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

#219

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

_heimdall wrote: post #64
jvanderbot wrote: post #21

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…

It's extremely challenging to go after high costs in the current system, because the doctors who charge them are popular and the insurance companies who pay them are hated. There was a 2024 story that stuck in my mind (https://www.npr.org/2024/12/05/nx-s1-5217617/blue-cross-blue...) when Anthem tried to negotiate down the rate of certain anesthesia procedures; the public was absolutely outraged, successfully demanding that Anthem must back down and accept whatever the doctors feel is the appropriate pricing model.

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

#220

Post by jtbayly »

nsxwolf wrote: post #140
_heimdall wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We never attempted to solve the issue of distorted price signals that occur when customers aren't the ones paying for something. We're still charging $600 for a bag of saline.

Especially when the buyer and seller are the same huge monopoly entity, but the payer is “somebody else,” the incentives are completely perverse.
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