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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

#911

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

Jimega36 wrote: post #854

Switzerland has the system closest to the US in my experience, but with universal coverage. As individual, you buy basic insurance costing roughly $500/month with a $2500 yearly deductible (LAMal/KVG). Applicants must be accepted even with pre-existing conditions. Post-deductible, you pay 10% co-insurance capped at roughly $800/year (no medical bankruptcy). Insurers operate basic plans as non-profit. They make their…

Thats too much trouble. In India, there is a new scheme of "ayushman bharat" 500K inr which is quite a lot of money, per family. No co-pay, you show the card in supported hospitals or government hospitals and you are in.

There are "problems" but overall it has had a net benefit with poor people who could not afford medical treatment just get it. If you are having an emergency, they just do whatever is needed and you are golden. I know hundreds of people in my neighbourhood who have had surgeries done on "card" and most could not otherwise afford it.

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

#912

Post by ryaniscool »

tptacek wrote: post #842
ryaniscool wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you cite zero sources. Survival rates for lung cancer in the USA, the most common cancer in the world, are much lower than Japan and South Korea. South Korea is single payer and Japan has strict government regulation of healthcare costs. The second most common cancer is Breast Cancer. The USA is "top-tier" but so is pretty much every other Western Country. Australia, also famously single-payer is a mere 0.4% b…

Start with CONCORD-3. I'm not saying that the US is better than every other country. I explicitly said somewhere else on this thread that there's a common critique of our outcomes that we just do detection better, and that our life expectancy outcomes aren't materially better. What I am saying is that it's difficult to make a case that US life expectancy is materially altered by our health insurance system. You won't…

I literally posted a link to the CONCORD-3 paper and made arguments using it and you rebutted it with "start with CONCORD-3".

I'll restate my argument so it's clear: CONCORD-3 does not mention insurance status anywhere in the paper. It does state that the statistics require diagnosis. It's reasonable to assume that if you can't afford healthcare, you're less likely to seek treatment or diagnosis.

You understand that CONCORD-3 is about tracking people who enter the healthcare system. Isn't it reasonable to assume that if healthcare is free or very affordable, there would be higher participation? And on the flipside, if it's outrageously expensive, there would be lower participation?

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

#913

Post by ThunderSizzle »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #862
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurers can only spend 15% of premiums on admin spend (e.g. salaries, etc). That means if the CEO (and everyone else) wants more money, they need to pay more money to the hospitals, so their 15% cut grows. Also, for beyond that, unspend premiums have to be refunded, which also cuts into the potential admin spend bucket, so it's best to always ensure your paying as much as possible in claims. Plus, patients hate deni…

Hm, seems to be a bit of a contradiction between what you’re saying in terms of “insurers want to pay more” and the infamous tendency of insurers to deny claims as much as possible?

Well, they also need to ensure they aren't spending past their premiums coming in...

Alot of insurers the past few years have actually gone bankrupt from ballooning costs and claims.

So, they want costs to go up, so the next year they can up the premiums, so they can then up their admin spend, but the costs still need to below the premium. And they can't just up the premium without an associated rise in cost, because groups are owed their premium money back if it isn't paid out.

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

#914

Post by trollbridge »

dbbk wrote: post #656
trollbridge wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, having lived under universal care, the dark side of it was atrociously long waits to see a specialist and having a GP who is obviously overworked and barely spends any time seeing you.

If you want to be seen immediately (even when triage determines it not necessary) you can just supplement with private insurance

But that’s not universal care. “Triage determines it not necessary” is a cold comfort to someone waiting years for a procedure they actually do need.

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

#915

Post by trollbridge »

testing22321 wrote: post #756
trollbridge wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America, anyone who earns $20k a year with with a 2 year old is going to get free medical care, too. I have several kids and my medical care is free up until we make about $55,000 per year. If we had no jobs, same thing. A close relative of mine (who is single) also had cancer and had 100% of it paid for. Transportation costs are also paid for, although we never needed overnight accommodation so far. My prior expe…

Why are 27 million Americans without healthcare, are why is medical bankruptcy so common? A massive percentage of the population don’t have and/or can’t afford healthcare. By definition, that is not a good system.

Well, by definition, someone who can’t afford it is eligible to apply for and receive assistance.

I know plenty of people who are eligible and simply don’t want to apply.

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

#916

Post by matheusmoreira »

arh5451 wrote: post #908
ggm wrote: post #901

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason to believe less healthcare professionals would be employed under a universal system? Insurance claims adjusters and call centre scripted finance deciders, sure. But actual health delivery agents?

The UK has a "universal system" as does Germany and the inevitable reality is that if administration does not limit/deny overuse of the system then it requires setting prices artifically low to limit costs. --> Causes Doctors to earn less wages and be overworked (many med cases). Ultimately, less doctors. =(

Alternatively, the government starts relaxing legal requirements on medical schools with the intent to flood the market with doctors. This not only severely depresses their wages, it leads to unemployment and indirectly to charlatanism and quackery as people try to make ends meet. Better hope the future AI doctors are good.

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

#917

Post by ChrisRR »

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.

Studies: Investing in green energy would reduce our reliance on the middle east for oil and create jobs locally

America: Sounds like communism

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

#918

Post by gmerc »

bentt wrote: post #724

There are a lot of people making a lot of money on the inefficiencies of the US system. They won’t give up their revenue streams without a fight, and they are filthy rich on the backs of sick people. You better believe they will play dirty.

Luigi had that idea already.

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

#919

Post by ajross »

anonymars wrote: post #853
ajross wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is that the people in Washington won’t make it a “votable” decision. Sorry, that's ridiculous. Universal Health Care policies are an almost 100% partisan issue. I can literally count on one hand the number of federal lawmakers who cross party lines here. The real problem is people like you refusing to vote for the people with the policy you want, as often as not as part of a bothsidesist stance designed t…

> The real problem is people like you refusing to vote for the people with the policy you want, as often as not as part of a bothsidesist stance designed to get more upvote in peer forums like HN That's a lot of words they didn't say. It is a true statement that Congress did not give the USA single-payer healthcare nor even a public option. Nothing about that says anything about who voted for whom, where anyone even…

> That's a lot of words they didn't say. It is a true statement that Congress did not give the USA single-payer healthcare

But that is what they didn't say! They said it wasn't "votable", in the sense I took that means that this isn't an issue you can get by voting. And it is, clearly. And was, in 2010, when they were within one senate vote for a "public option" in the ACA. It 100% boggles my mind that you'd look at that once again incredibly partisan voting result and decide "Oh well, I might as well vote republican" (instead of "damn Joe Lieberman").

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

#920

Post by satnhak »

platevoltage wrote: post #864
satnhak wrote: post #272

Come to a country with universal healthcare (England) and realise that if you work then you're paying 5x the market price for the worst healthcare imaginable. MRI scan - we don't know, one month wait, maybe two. Operation - are you going to die tomorrow with out it? No, ok then that could be years. You need to pay rock bottom wages to doctors to make it work, so guess what all the good doctors leave for private healt…

So the solution is get rid of private healthcare. I agree.

And we all sit on beanbags, sing kumbaya and write poems about our feelings.
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