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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

#241

Post by mcphage »

czgov wrote: post #191
strictnein wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ACA has saved tons of lives It was the Medicaid expansion that has been cited as saving lives [0]. An expansion that has almost nothing to do with the rest of the ACA. > "There's a very clear type of fallacy you are engaging ... There's no intellectual rigor or honesty in that sort of thinking" So you're claiming that the person who posted that is not only falling into a fallacy, but they are neither intellectually…

Your linked to article does not demonstrate what you claim it does. Your reasoning is wrong. Medicaid expansion was a big part of the ACA.

> Medicaid expansion was a big part of the ACA.

Well see, first you narrowly define the ACA to be "everything that didn't help"...

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

#242

Post by otterley »

slibhb wrote: post #226
otterley wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's AI slop published by a think tank, not to be trusted. It's not primary source data.

I'd love to see some other data. But afaik it's basically not contested that the US has shorter wait times than the UK and Canada

I agree with the main point. The thing is, in the US, wait times are a function of how much you're willing to spend. You can always pay for priority. But most people won't pay more, and the reality is that most healthcare systems have far less provider supply than demand, particularly in dense urban areas where most people live.

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

#243

Post by jtbayly »

QuercusMax wrote: post #198
jtbayly wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lost my individual healthcare plan, and I couldn’t afford the new ones. Remember when they said you could keep your plan? Yeah, that’s the one I lost.

There was never a guarantee that you were going to keep your plan anyway, was there? Insurance companies are changing plans from year to year.

The plan was cancelled because of ACA requirements. I had had it for several years prior. Yes, plans change, but this was different.

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

#244

Post by hintymad »

_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…

> The problem with US healthcare isn't who pays for it, its how damn expensive it is

Exactly! There's so much paperwork that a doctor sometimes need two assistants just for the paper work. There's so much cost for independent practice that increasingly more doctors end up joining big hospitals. Charges with and without insurance have a huge difference. Just to name a few.

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

#245

Post by _heimdall »

hx8 wrote: post #125
_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…

> The problem with US healthcare isn't who pays for it, its how damn expensive it is Saving $1,000,000,000,000/yr is directly addressing how damn expensive it is.

(1) we don't know the claims of the study will be accurate if implemented and (2) we would need studies modelling cost savings of alternative approaches to actually compare anything.

Obamacare made wild claims about cost savings as well. That didn't work out for many reasons that could show up again with another universal healthcare push.

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

#246

Post by BarryMilo »

solaarphunk wrote: post #19

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.

The number of ridiculous claims in this thread...

First off, all Canadian provinces are different. Here in Quebec, there is a absolutely a private option. Not everyone likes that it exists, but most people seem to like having that option.

Canadians live better for longer on average (for cheaper healthcare overall). Any other metric is just a misguided attempt to justify the US status quo, which has nothing going for it unless you're rich.

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

#247

Post by hombre_fatal »

cactacea wrote: post #210
epistasis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> These are life-changing possibilities, especially for entrepreneurs. I would quit my day job and completely focus on my side business if I didn't have to worry about healthcare.

I also think about people stuck in bad relationships they'd otherwise leave.

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

#248

Post by toomuchtodo »

cactacea wrote: post #210
epistasis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> These are life-changing possibilities, especially for entrepreneurs. I would quit my day job and completely focus on my side business if I didn't have to worry about healthcare.

Part of the reason why there is no effort to fix this, to keep you a slave to a job that provides healthcare. Imagine the reduction in labor supply and increase in labor costs if healthcare did not require employment. On can, in many cases (facts intensive), bail to a developed country with healthcare if you want to realize this dream earlier than whenever the US will achieve the outcome (and your life situation supports doing so). It could potentially takes years, if not longer (~5-10 years), for the US to fix healthcare as the situation continues to degrade for those who need affordable healthcare today.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47161587 (expat resources for those potentially interested)

https://relocateme.substack.com (a product of andrewstetsenko here, no affiliation, I just like resources that can help humans achieve their success criteria)

https://healthcareinfusion.org/ (for healthcare workers interested in Canada, likely does not apply to many here, but please share with others who might be seeking a path)

(i see this problem as a vulnerability management and exposure exercise to attempt to solve for, ymmv, no affiliation with any resources recommended)

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

#249

Post by a-posteriori »

loeg wrote: post #81
cityofdelusion wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Private health insurance would still exist alongside for the more wealthy (including nearly everyone on HN) that doesn’t want to wait a year for their public system MRI. Same thing that plays out in other countries. The U.S. already has a form of this in so-called concierge / premium providers too. Lots of profit to be made.

If private health insurance was allowed, UHC would be stillborn. It only works if providers don't have better options than medicare reimbursement rates.

What are you proposing happens to providers who freely contract with patients at rates above Medicare reimbursement?

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

#250

Post by fitsumbelay »

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…

> 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

So you'll never vote GOP again. And you tacitly agree with Trump's repeated claim that conservatives will stay in the minority unless they _reform_ election rules -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/trump-republ.... Vote suppression and the "perpetual majority control of legislative, executive, and judicial branches," is Republican stated aim since the late 60s/early 70s when their party began its creep into permanent minority status

> It has to be different enough that those who would oppose it right after the inevitable pendulum swing do not want to

What does this even mean? ACA was based on a GOP-governor-in-a-blue-state's successful implementation of HCR. Everyone loved it until Obama loved it, then the highly organized GOP minority hated it, fight it, wasted ~20 years claiming insanely to have a better solution they knew they never had nor will have

Back when Nancy's daughter Alexandra Pelosi used to make mini-doc shorts for the intolerable Bill Maher she made one about southern white Americans' opposition to ACA. She interviewed one fellow -- perpetually unemployed, alcohol/drug/legal problems etc -- who came well out of his chest against Democrats, socialism, The Gubmint and all the other typical lefty stuff that Fox News mentors him and so many others on. Then we find out he's on welfare. Then we find out he's on Medicare/medicaid. Pelosi's like "What?? Wait a minute ... I thought you didn't like this government stuff. Why're you all over it" and mans goes "WELL I DESERVE IT!!!"

Let's just call anti-UHC arguments what they are: wet bullshit from private healthcare industry stakeholders and the uninformed partisans who repeat Trumpist mantras

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