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GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

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Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#101

Post by fatbird »

ekianjo wrote: post #58
sharkweek wrote: post #4

I like to write short stories in my free time. One that I’ve been working on over the last year is one where the concept of “crowdfunded healthcare” evolves into a dystopian game show where people go on TV and share their sob story on why they need money. Then the viewers at home get to choose who gets the show’s prize money each season through a bracket style voting system that crowns a champion at the end. I had to…

> On that note, I find it supremely fucked up that people have to turn to crowdfunding to get their unexpected healthcare costs covered by benevolent internet citizens. So who should pay for it? All taxpayers instead? All countries that have tried that are now in the red. The only good solution, I think, it to work to make healthcare a lot cheaper in the long run.

All the countries that have tried it are less in the red than the U.S. by any financial measure, and have longer life expectancies/lower infant mortality rates/better aggregate outcomes than the U.S., which is typically at the bottom of the scale for first world nations where medical outcomes are considered. And they spend less public dollars per capita than the U.S., which is an ironic twist.

The pure, brute facts show that taxpayer-funded universal health care is a vastly superior means of making healthcare accessible, effective and less expensive than any other setup, especially the American one. Your health care system is an insane joke that annually kills tens of thousands of Americans needlessly.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#102

Post by rosser »

conanbatt wrote: post #92
rosser wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it were strictly worse... Ohai goalpost. When did you get there ? The existence of .eu-to-.us medical tourism is utterly orthogonal to the availability of research in those countries. If you honestly took ten minutes to try, you'd be able to find dozens, if not hundreds of trials in every .eu member state, plenty of which are at least comparable to, if not more advanced than what's available in the US. I could g…

It means there are things the US healthcare provides that universals systems don't, and in a practical way that affects people, not purely in the world of ideas. The great folly of the world universal is that it implies everything would be available, and its a step in the opposite direction: a set of things will be made available, and the things that aren't will be delivered by the private market. Private care is sti…

Do you know what else affects people in a practical way, and not purely in the world of ideas?

Having to choose between medicine and the rest of life's necessities. "Can I afford both my kid's insulin and my rent this month?"

That's a real-world consequence which, offhand, only the US healthcare system offers.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#103

Post by conanbatt »

rosser wrote: post #95
conanbatt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because governments dont spend nearly as much as private investment into the medical field, and have a very different alignment in terms of costs/revenues. The second part of the sentence alludes to something I did not intend to imply.

> Because governments dont spend nearly as much as private investment into the medical field... Are you not aware of how much fundamental drug and medical research is actually conducted on the taxpayer's dime at the university level, and then exclusively licensed to private enterprise for commercial exploitation? I've seen a number of sources make a compelling case that "big pharma"'s number one line item is marketin…

At great cost to society. There should be no federal funding on this. This is one of the gravest reasons why healthcare is so expensive in the U.S. It subsidizes big corpo, big hospitals, then subsidizes richest employees, eliminating the most basic price mechanisms for competition.

Not only does it do all the subsidizing, but it also makes it expensive by putting extremely costly regulation.

But thats a whole topic on its own: government funding of healthcare research is not efficient and does not make it cheaper in any way.

Big Pharma's #1 expenditure is always going to be protect its patent monopoly process with the FDA.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#104

Post by [deleted] »

conanbatt wrote: post #100
toomuchtodo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d still prefer the state over private insurance companies (Medicare is well run and popular). As Steve Jobs said about Dropbox, you’re a feature (insurance companies) not a product.

> I’d still prefer the state over private insurance companies (Medicare is well run and popular). And I vote accordingly. Thats perfectly reasonable, but no need to make a single payer system for that. Just allow medicare to compete in the open market. Thats a much smaller program with a lot less risk. Unfortunately the chances of such a plan to succeed are nil. Thats why big healthcare reform proposals want to stron…

[deleted]

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#105

Post by fatbird »

conanbatt wrote: post #34
brodsky wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal healthcare. It works well in the majority of civilized world.

In universal care you dont get access to 'clinical trials and research and things like that, where people need access to leading-edge potential treatments' You are also not eliminated the need to get funds, you are changing who you are asking them from. And let me tell you that government officials are seldom generous.

Access to leading-edge potential treatments is a minor concern in health care: few need it, fewer qualify, and fewer are helped. Even then, your statement is false: leading edge medical research is carried out in all countries with universal health care.

The U.S. has an infant mortality rate worse than 43 other countries because large numbers of pregnant women can't access routine prenatal care. That's but one example of what real health care concerns are like.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#106

Post by hippich »

jimrhods23 wrote: post #43

We need to get rid of health insurance companies. They are the reason all of our costs are massively inflated. The same thing is happening in education: universities know that a large percentage of students are getting financial aid, so the true costs are buried in a layer of bureaucracy. Fees and administrative fees continue to go up and the universities will always get their money. The students are then on the hook…

I agree, that in a form current insurance companies exists - i.e. perpaid medical discounts plan, they should be removed.

People should be getting insurance from insurable events - i.e. accident, heart attack, etc. Not from routine vaccination, annual checkup, seasonal cold.

High-deductible plans are a hack to get people to pay for more of routine stuff and I think it moves into the right direction.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#107

Post by fatbird »

conanbatt wrote: post #90
thanatos_dem wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all do! Something something single payer. Edit: not sure why the downvotes, that’s the reality of things. If you want a more fully fleshed out thought, here you go: We would all contribute to the payment of expensive operations via taxes in a single payer system. In the current system we have insurance payments. It’s effectively the same, paying a small fee regularly, to subsidize the costs for expensive procedure…

> We would all contribute to the payment of expensive operations via taxes in a single payer system. That's just insurance, managed by the state. > But with single payer, we cut out companies in the middle pulling a heafty profit Oh boy. Lets say I concede, for the sake of argument, that government can run a private business with the same efficiency, and that the profits it would make as private are given back to its…

In Canada, 16% of the money spent on health care is spent on administration; in the U.S., 28%. Tell me again how the free market is more efficient?

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#108

Post by refurb »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #91
conanbatt wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would all contribute to the payment of expensive operations via taxes in a single payer system. That's just insurance, managed by the state. > But with single payer, we cut out companies in the middle pulling a heafty profit Oh boy. Lets say I concede, for the sake of argument, that government can run a private business with the same efficiency, and that the profits it would make as private are given back to its…

I’d still prefer the state over private insurance companies (Medicare is well run and popular). As Steve Jobs said about Dropbox, you’re a feature (insurance companies) not a product.

You realize Medicare Part C and D are entirely run by private companies right?

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#109

Post by conanbatt »

fatbird wrote: post #107
conanbatt wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would all contribute to the payment of expensive operations via taxes in a single payer system. That's just insurance, managed by the state. > But with single payer, we cut out companies in the middle pulling a heafty profit Oh boy. Lets say I concede, for the sake of argument, that government can run a private business with the same efficiency, and that the profits it would make as private are given back to its…

In Canada, 16% of the money spent on health care is spent on administration; in the U.S., 28%. Tell me again how the free market is more efficient?

The US healthcare market is not a free market. I know this well enough to commit to a challenge: name me any two actors in the space and I can name you how each one is screwing the other one thanks to a law or regulation.

Re: GoFundMe CEO: ‘Gigantic Gaps’ in Health System Showing Up in Crowdfunding

#110

Post by dang »

Judgmentality wrote: post #26
newprint wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will be down-voted to hell, but I have worked in health insurance company. Large insurance companies have doctors and layers that basically sit down and make decisions about how much they will pay (if ever) for treatment. Your scenario has real life basis.

> I have worked in health insurance company Well I'm convinced.

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
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