Because children don’t contribute to GDP.
> Because children don’t contribute to GDP
The simplest model of GDP is productivity per capital times population. And the simplest model in finance is moving cash flows around in time.
The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
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Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
#32Nearly 2 in 5 Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. TANSTAAFL. The other 3 bear the burden. At some point Atlas shrugs and decides welfare is a better deal.
In Australia 5 out of 5 people are covered by Medicare, and 5 of them bear the burden. (at some point in their life. assuming they become a tax payer, which seems likely for most.)
On top of that, 53% pay for Private Health Care as well.
https://www.health.gov.au/topics/private-health-insurance/re...
On top of that many things that are 'not urgent' you have to pay for yourself.
I have recently paid over 20K for back surgery. Prior to the back surgery I could barely walk. This was deemed 'not urgent' and had I would have had to have waited at least 18 months for surgery via Medicare.
I also have private health cover.
So, it's important for non-Australians to understand, our health system is far from a panacea where taxes pay for everything.
Currently 778 K Australians are waiting for 'elective surgery' .
Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
#33Nearly 2 in 5 Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. TANSTAAFL. The other 3 bear the burden. At some point Atlas shrugs and decides welfare is a better deal.
In Australia 5 out of 5 people are covered by Medicare, and 5 of them bear the burden. (at some point in their life. assuming they become a tax payer, which seems likely for most.)
The burden of this isn't a big one to bear. I just compared tax rates for a $65k USD income in Australia vs the US. You'd be taxed ~$800 less in Australia.
Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
#34Nearly 2 in 5 Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. TANSTAAFL. The other 3 bear the burden. At some point Atlas shrugs and decides welfare is a better deal.
The amount of money the US Government pays just for that 40% should be enough to cover all 100%. We know this is possible because it happens in other countries, which have shorter waits and more coverage since that talking point keeps being brought up despite collapsing in the face of reality.
The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world.
Whether that quality is necessarily (or good) is debatable, but we are getting something for the money.
You also are just completely wrong in your main point. We cannot provide the same efficacy of healthcare as we are now for 60% less. We are the richest country in the world, labor costs more here than other places.
Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
#35Because children don’t contribute to GDP.
Having a child definitely more than doubled my contributions to the GDP.
Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
#36We desperately need to increase the number of doctors to decrease the cost of medical care. We also desperately need to cut down on regulations so we can reduce the number of healthcare administrators.
Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Australia 5 out of 5 people are covered by Medicare, and 5 of them bear the burden. (at some point in their life. assuming they become a tax payer, which seems likely for most.)
I guess your health industry is not raping you with outrageous costs?
From the top:
Health spending in 2023–24
In 2023–24, Australia spent an estimated $270.5 billion on health goods and services– an average of approximately $10,037 per person. In real terms (adjusted for inflation), health spending increased by 1.1%, or $2.8 billion more than spending from 2022–23.
In 2023–24, health spending accounted for 10.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in Australia, approximately 0.2 percentage points higher than in 2022–23.
From the bottom:
In Australia, 15% of all expenditure on health care comes directly from individuals in the form of out‐of‐pocket fees — this is almost double the amount contributed by private health insurers.
There is concern that vulnerable groups — socio‐economically disadvantaged people and older Australians in particular, who also have higher health care needs — are spending larger proportions of their incomes on out‐of‐pocket fees for health care.
A 2019 study identified that one in three low income households are spending more than 10% of their income on health care.
There's little to no public advertising of prescription drugs, cheap generics are widely available from federal scale bulk negotiation deals.
Health outcomes are greater life expectancy than the US, national scale cancer survuival rates are better by a few percentage points (IIRC - they are close but higher).
Australia has long had an innate "we're all in this together" society built on individualism. It's not great, it's not perfect, but the first instinct is generally to look after our own - across the board.
Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
#38My scheduled C-section (which my insurer likely didn't question me about because I was 40 and have other health issues) plus three-night hospital stay was about 5,000 EUR, all paid by my health insurance (private, so I know that 5,000 was the "retail" price), in a fairly prosperous part of Germany.
Not that the German health system isn't facing down some of the same demographic issues the rest of the well-off world is, but comparing wait times for specialists now that I'm on public (more like, very strictly regulated) insurance with my dad back in Texas on a combination of Medicare and supposedly good supplemental plan, I'm still in a better situation.
A strong public/heavily regulated independent insurers system gives the private insurers enough competition to keep prices in check.
Plus, I don't know of an insurer here, public or private, who also owns clinics or employs physicians, and they don't own pharmacies.
Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely removing the U.S. Government from the health care market (Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, uncompensated care, etc) would be a great start.
Could you explain how this would help? I'm struggling to understand where you're coming from here, besides perhaps a reflexive libertarian reaction to government.
Massive government subsidies for health care consumption not only eliminate, but disincentivize price discovery. If your biggest consumers of health care (seniors) have access to the best health insurance plan in the world (Medicare), that's going to drive costs up
Re: The healthcare market is taxing reproduction out of existence
#40Clickbait. I too think insurance costs are too high, but the author included their annual insurance premiums in the calculation.
Fair, he's lucky enough to have not been in a major car accident that year, so he can attribute it all to the cost of giving birth. What would have been the out-of-pocket cost of a normal birth without health insurance? It's still your choice to go without.
No one is forcing you to give birth in a hospital. Rational people do it at home all the time to this day.