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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

#261

Post by dominotw »

saghm wrote: post #251
dominotw wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can someone tell me this. Right now level of care is rationed by type of insurance you can afford. eg: northwestern in chicago downtown is inaccesible to ppl below certain income level. In universal everyone has access to every hospital ? Why would someone go to lower level hospital if they can go to northwestern. Now the acess to best hosptials is gated by a queue? I am not saying this is right but ppl who already h…

> Now the acess to best hosptials is gated by a queue? I mean, yes? Literally the same principle we all learned in kindergarten for how to make access to something fair. You didn't get to skip the line in lunch because your parents had a better job than someone else either.

right. my point is last line of my comment.

most of the society doesnt operate in the way that you described.

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

#262

Post by _heimdall »

hnlmorg wrote: post #155
_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 point of nationalisation is to address those underlying concerns. But it’s fair to say that in practice, nationalisation doesn’t always solve those problems. The problem is you either need to regular or nationalise. And neither of those are particularly “American”.

I don't think our problem is a lack of regulation though. If anything its a lack of market competition, and that is caused by over regulation and legal protections that make holding companies responsible difficult or impossible.

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

#263

Post by robertoandred »

saulpw wrote: post #95
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 is not Universal Health Coverage. So this would be different enough. And you don't need perpetual majority control, only sensible politicians for about a generation (like FDR/Truman/Eisenhower/JFK) to lock in a popular entitlement.

It was pretty close until republicans pulled back Medicaid.

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

#264

Post by jandrewrogers »

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…

ACA also greatly increased costs. As an entrepreneur at the time, insurance premiums increased 25% overnight for the same plan. Many people had similar experiences.

That the ACA forced a large number of people to pay a lot more for literally the same product is not a good outcome for those people. Too many people try to pretend this didn't happen.

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

#265

Post by _heimdall »

giantg2 wrote: post #169
_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." And also how much is required. I bet a study investigating how much money and lives could be saved by reducing obesity would have 2x numbers

Exactly. I'd at least want to see similarly funded studies comparing solves for underlying causes beyond just insurance companies not being nationalized.

Similarly we could look into the likely cost of over medicating our people, and the atrocities we call food in grocery stores.

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

#266

Post by lapcat »

triceratops wrote: post #207
lapcat wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd bet on the Democratic leadership to come around well before the Republicans. Jeffries was already around. He supported single payer but now rejects it, so he's moving backward . > Without a 60-strong majority in the Senate, which must necessarily include some Republicans, it'll never happen. Democrats had 60 during Obama's first term. They'll always find a rotating villain to oppose it, Joe Lieberman, Joe mansi…

> Democrats had 60 during Obama's first term. They'll always find a rotating villain to oppose it, Joe Lieberman, Joe mansion, etc. So what do you propose? Is there a 3rd party that has a reasonable chance of doing it? Maybe if you flip a few Republicans (to supporting UHC) it might go easier. It'll give their leadership something to think about at least.

> So what do you propose? Is there a 3rd party that has a reasonable chance of doing it?

No, I propose calling out Democratic leaders for corruption, removing corrupt leaders from their leadership positions, and running primary challenges against them.

As you said, Republican leaders are calling single payer "Communist". When the Democratic response is, "I no longer support single payer", they're essentially allowing Republicans to win the argument. That's political malpractice.

I would note that the Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost a primary challenge in 2012, yet as you noted, this hasn't stopped Republicans from taking control of the House and the entire government. "Vote blue no matter who" is not necessarily a winning strategy.

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

#267

Post by dbbk »

dbspin wrote: post #50
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.

Interesting. In every European country I know of, the private option is still available. Just vastly cheaper and more beneficial due to having to compete with a public option which covers basic necessities, surgery etc.

Yes, this is what I find a little odd about the US proposals. I've lived in UK and Spain and in both they have great free public healthcare for everyone, and if you (or your employer) want to layer private insurance on top you can. Wouldn't that be a much more appealing proposal to Americans?

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

#268

Post by strictnein »

dylan604 wrote: post #258
strictnein wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Findings suggest Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act saved about 27,400 lives between 2010-22, including among younger adults." > "Their findings show that Medicaid expansions led to a 12% increase in enrollment and significantly reduced mortality—not just among older adults, but also younger ones, who accounted for nearly half of the life-years saved." Huh? Did you read it? My point was that we could…

Paid for how? The expansion of people not on medicaid to be paying in was supposed to be how expanding medicaid could be achieved.

The Feds pay ~$150 billion a year and the states pay ~$20 billion a year for that Medicaid expansion. Those are increases on top of previous spending.

How are we paying for that? Debt.

On top of that, the ACA provides $100 billion a year to subsidize the healthcare markets.

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

#269

Post by _heimdall »

Retric wrote: post #150
_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…

No, it’s not a question of who pays for it but who benefits. You could have universal health with zero additional spending by the US government, but all that administrative overhead is someone’s income.

No one benefits when there's a single player in an industry. When that single player also owns your taxes and military, its a risk we should at least avoid if at all possible.
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