Quote: Many advocates of health-care reform are admirers of Canada's state-run, no-opt-out, single-payer system. Indeed, in 2003, President Barack Obama voiced enthusiasm for such a health-care program.
Proponents of Canadian-style health care should meet Cheryl Baxter, a Canadian citizen who waited years for hip-replacement surgery, only to be told that her operation would not happen any time soon. Instead of waiting, Baxter did what an increasing number of Canadians are doing: She flew to a clinic in the United States, paid out of pocket, and had a life-altering surgery in a matter of weeks rather than years.
Baxter's experience doesn't just throw damning light on Canadian health care. The sort of clinic she went to in Oklahoma suggests a different way of delivering health care in the United States, too: A simple fee-for-service model in which providers openly advertise their prices, service, and reputation. Rather than a frustrating, complicated mess of intermediaries such as employers and insurance companies, U.S. health-care reformers should think about bringing medicine into line with the same dynamics that help deliver great service at great prices throughout most other parts of the economy.
While Canadian health care is certainly cheaper than its U.S. counterpart (health care spending in Canada is about 10 percent of GDP versus 16 percent in the United States), it is not necessarily better or more equitable. As a recent National Bureau of Economic Research comparison concluded, "Americans are more likely to report that they are fully satisfied with the health services they have received and to rank the quality of care as excellent." Not only do Americans have far greater access to basic diagnostic tools ranging from mammograms to CT scans, the researchers found "the health-income gradient is actually more prominent in Canada than in the U.S." That is, wealthy Canadians receive far better care compared to low-income Canadians than rich Americans versus poor Americans.
"A True Tale of Canadian Health Care" was produced by Dan Hayes and Peter Suderman. Interviews were filmed by Alex Manning and the segment is hosted and scripted by Nick Gillespie. Approximately 5.11 minutes.
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But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 09 Dec 2009 16:33
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Sooo...what exactly is the argument here? She was denied by her insurance company an unecessary procedure due to various factors in her overall healthcare profile. So she takes her own money and goes and gets this unecessary procedure done somewhere else.
The only differnce between this story and a story in the U.S. is that A) her insurance company was run by the state as opposed to a profit motivated company, and B) the treatment she was denied was largely at best a quality of life not quantity of life decision.
See in the U.S. when you have a quantity of life procedure that will be more expensive than the value of premiums you will pay in, you are dropped as you are no longer cost effective. In Canada, regardless of how sick you get, you will be taken care of in the best way possible.
So, basicly, in the U.S. or Canada, if you have money, you can get various quality of life issues taken care of. In Canada, regardless of money, you can have quantity of life issues taken care of.
This is the problem with this kind of argument. You look at a single procedure and damn the whole system because of it. Takeing it as a whole. The U.S. fails in three areas, 1) ensuring the sickest people get care. 2) ensuring the poorest people get care. and 3) ensuring those with general health care needs get preventative care.
The only place the U.S. actually comes out ahead of other nations is wealthy people with Cancer. If you have good insurance that you won't lose because you are sick, or are wealthy enough to pay as you go, and get cancer, you are better off in the U.S. If you are not a part of that rareified group your better off in a socialized or regulated healthcare system.
That's the facts, that's what the evidence shows. Now yes, it's great if you need a new hip that you can get one, but need is a relative term, and in a socialized system, the neediest get first dibs, as opposed to the U.S. system where the wealthiest get first dibs.
So really the question is, if you are wealthy or needy. I don't know about anyone else, but although I hope to one day be wealthy, I am certain I will one day be needy, and base my decision on that basic analysis.
Posted: 09 Dec 2009 19:45
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Well making it so nobody rich or poor can get treated isn't going to help anything. This hip replacement example just shows what can happen in the U.S. and it also makes you wonder where are the Canadians going to go if the government screws up America's healthcare system? __________________
Lucas McCain the Rifleman: A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark...but that doesn't mean you should go running *to* one, either.
Posted: 09 Dec 2009 21:21
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Tim, that is just willful ignorance of the facts.
Everyone gets treated in Canada, however it is based not on ability to pay, but on need.
As such, if you don't need a treatment you will likely have to wait for a treatment.
In the U.S. healthcare is just as rationed, only it is rationed by ability to pay, and not need. As such if you can pay for it, no one cares if you actually need it, you can get it. In canada, If you need it you get it, and no one cares if you can pay for it.
It's just a question of how things should be rationed Tim, not if they will be.
Posted: 10 Dec 2009 00:16
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First, the point of the video was about profit motivation and the complete lack of necessity in having personal inusurance to get something you need done. So, the ability to pay for some procedure becomes like buying a new car-you find financing. You simply don't get discounts as if you had insurance that won't drop you(not that I've heard of such insurance companies that won't drop you given the slightest chance). That precisely is my problem with the insurance system-it disappears when you actually need it and then you're stuck in the same place as if you had never had it in the first place, except you're far less wealthier having paid your premiums for that period of time that you did.
Second, a hip replacement can be both quantity and quality of life oriented- especially the older the patient. Found that out when my great grandmother fell off a ladder putting up laundry in the backyard- we lost her shortly after.
Third, Canadians can get quality procedures done right at home by specialists, only the prices are horrifying because of the 'free' system they have in play. What this place in Oklahoma in the video is at least trying to do is open the industry to free market forces and give people an opportunity at health care without the red tape of a third party in the mix. If they can do that, they deserve every bit of profit they can get. Same with the places that open near them. Same with the places that open (hopefully soon) near you and me. __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 10 Dec 2009 16:44
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Everyone deserves every bit of profit they can get, I agree Pak, it's just a question of beyond profit how is care handled.
As I said, everything is rationed by the finiteness of all resources, the question then becomes how is the best way to determine how to distribute the resource. Generally Free Market Principles distribute finite resources by ability to pay. However it is often understood that for the social good a base line system should be put in place for those who are priced out of the market.
You can hire private security forces, but you still nee the cops for those who can't. You can send your child to private school, but for those that can't leavining them uneducated would prove to be far costlier to society in the long run.
The issue with healthcare is that the free market model has a failing in that as we've seen, you can pay into the system and then get cut becuase you become too expensive to care for, or more commonly become too sick to work.
I support a single payer system primarily because it is more efficient. However a free market system with an ample safteynet is also equitable though often costlier.
So as a conservative I am faced with the following facts. 1) for social good it is best that some baseline health care be available to all people (nothing foments revolution more than the deaths of loved ones for preventable reasons) 2) our current system of mixed free market and socialized care for the needy is highly inefficient and expensive.
Essentially the govenrment must become larger and more intrusive because we limit it's areas of involvement than it would be if it were simply a single payer.
It should be noted that private health insurace exists in Canada, England, and many other countries with socialized medicine, precisly because those who can afford it (either through their employer or personal wealth) desire that extra level of care beyond the baseline. In that you can acheive the best of both worlds. A single payer, efficient system, plus a free market for addiitional levels of care beyond the base line.
Posted: 10 Dec 2009 18:48
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Quote: Everyone gets treated in Canada, however it is based not on ability to pay, but on need.
As such, if you don't need a treatment you will likely have to wait for a treatment.
What? The lady didn't need a hip?
Quote: a hip replacement can be both quantity and quality of life oriented-
Exactly. You need a good hip just to walk.
Quote: In the U.S. healthcare is just as rationed, only it is rationed by ability to pay, and not need. As such if you can pay for it, no one cares if you actually need it, you can get it. In canada, If you need it you get it, and no one cares if you can pay for it.
Even if that were entirely true it would be fairer because those that worked the hardest would have the best chance at getting the right healthcare.
If a guy blows all his money on booze and cigerettes all his life, gets cancer and can't afford a doctor because he doesn't have a job or never thought about insurance should he get taken care of before a guy that worked hard all his life never smoked but isn't as far gone as the boozer?
Quote: Everyone deserves every bit of profit they can get, I agree Pak, it's just a question of beyond profit how is care handled.
The way capitalism has always worked is when the government gets out of the way then hard working people see ways to make money and undercut the price of the competition and or create better services for the buck. In the end giving the consumer the best price and the best service.
If the government must get involved it should only be to help create more doctors or encourage private sector companies to get in the healthcare business to create more and more competition. Teach a man to fish right? In other words you encourage the private sector to work right on it's own and it won't cost the taxpayer billions year after year for nothing. __________________
Lucas McCain the Rifleman: A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark...but that doesn't mean you should go running *to* one, either.
Posted: 10 Dec 2009 19:26
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I don't see zero involvement from the government as a solution. Quality of healthcare would probably plummet to the point of it being safer to stay home and pray for wellness instead of seeking a physician which would actually be necessary under other circumstances. We need the law there to keep us safer, at least through threat of retribution.
Yes, as long as we have the society we have with all it's present elements we are most definitely going to have to cope with some level of socialized healthcare. Let me offer a small possible part of the solution to this. I'm gonna bring up this debt-based system of ours again. Our governments borrow money from central banks at interest and the main problem there which contributes to a majority of our problems on this planet is that the interest itself does not exist in the system to be paid back. One solution I've heard to this is for those central banks to spend that interest into the system. What better thing would there be to spend on than socialized medicine? With that out of the way we might be able to focus on the healthcare itself instead of dithering about insurance(which I still contend is unnecessary for the individual). We take that a step further and maybe we can lessen the harm that our foods and drugs and alcohols do to people in the first place. Maybe further clean up our air and water some. Perhaps people are less stressed and more healthy than we've been in a long long time.
Follow the money. It's at the root of everything. __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 10 Dec 2009 20:01
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Tim,
She may have needed a hip, but someone else might have needed it more. Just because Paris Hilton (who works harder than any of us clearly) wants a new hip, doesn't mean she should get one before someone who really needs it.
Tim, your version of capitalism is similar to radicalleftists view of communis, that is based on a nonexistant ideal that has never been applied in the real world.
Really, like most radicals, your understanding of the economics is really superficial, and more idealogically motivated than actual consideration history or facts.
Pak, I'm a little lost on what central bank is investing the interst in your scenerio, but to you point of insurance being unnecssary for the individual, I would have to agree. It is unnecessary, provided the individual remains healthy through their entire life, and ironically enough most people will.
Most people use very little on medical care. However, when someone does need to use medical care the costs tend to go up exponentially.
It's all a question of how much of a gamble each person wants to take. So for you, if you want to take that gamble that's fine, however there is a societal cost to that. Because you aren't investing in the health system, the health system has that much smaller of a pool of wealth to pay for those who are sick.
Hard Cheese I'm sure you'd say, except that if you did get sick, the system would still be obligated to provide care to you, and the cost would be passed along to the rest of the system which you ahve opted out of.
Since morality refuses to allow some people to die on hospital steps, we have to treat everyone. Because we have to treat everyone, everyone should have to pay into the system.
Much like public schools, there is a societal benefit to everyone regardless of their use of the system, and because you have the shared benefit, you likewise have a shared burden.
On the upside, being someone who is generally healthy, and not in need of insurance, you will likekly have a very small portion to pay into the system.
Posted: 11 Dec 2009 03:34
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Quote: I'm a little lost on what central bank is investing the interst in your scenerio
In our case, the Federal Reserve. So many problems arise because of the interest due on on this fiat currency we borrow for seemingly no reason- interest that isn't in the system to begin with. There is a fascinating book called Web of Debt which is part of what I have been trying to educate myself with:
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Debt-Shocking-Truth-System/dp/097956082 ...
One of her solutions is for the Fed to spend the interest into the system so it is there to pay back and we don't just keep borrowing more to pay back, thus increasing instead of reducing the debt. It costs the Fed nothing to produce and levels the playing field to a less destructive nature. She leans more toward using it on infrastructure if I remember correctly but I see no problem with using it on healthcare instead, considering the vitality of it(pardon the pun). No reason not to do both really.
I'm lost on how an individual paying insurance premiums(which is a gamble itself when and if they get around to actually needing the service) is investing in the health system itself. That third party still seems unnecessary to me, especially when disaster strikes. There's no reason to even joke about the morality of an insurance company-it's just another business and where the problem lies is the overinflated need for their unreliable product. We have got to do better. __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 11 Dec 2009 16:27
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With Premiums, the funds you pay in go to cover the care that others receive, this is based on the understanding that when you get sick you will likewise receive the funds others have paid. You may never get sick, but you are paying into the system on the assumption that you may well get sick someday.
If you opt out of insurance and get sick you will likely not have the funds to pay out of pocket for all your treatments, however given the charitable nature of our system, you will still likely get cared for, and the cost would be absorbed by the rest of the system. This causes the costs for those paying into the systme to go up as they are covering not just the other people in the system, but those who have opted out as well.
In the end the real problem with our healthcare system is human altruism. If we didn't care for those who couldn't pay we'd probably have a more practical health care system with regard to costs and benefits, and might even find insurance an optional luxury for those who want that extra security. However since we are an altrusitic creature we opt to cover those who can't or don't pay, which leads us to ask how are we going to pay for all this? In seeking to keep costs undercontrol we need to have a system where everyone pays in and everyone has the right to benefits.
Any thing short of that will likely just compound the problem.
Posted: 11 Dec 2009 17:14
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I get what you're saying. The problem I see with that is, we are still left with companies dropping people when they need the coverage most and people are still going bankrupt despite having medical coverage. Check this out from Reuters:
Quote: "Nationally, a quarter of firms cancel coverage immediately when an employee suffers a disabling illness; another quarter do so within a year," the report reads
Quote: "Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income," the researchers wrote.
"Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."
The researchers, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the share of bankruptcies that could be blamed on medical problems rose by 50 percent from 2001 to 2007
It's a nice idea to think that just because we don't use it, it will continue on to someone else who needs it. What's really happening is the companies are protecting their profits and when someone gets sick and gets dropped(the whole 50% of them within a years' time of getting ill), the buck literally stops there. It doesn't progress to the next patient, the next insurance company or back to the government pool. It goes to some individual who is more than likely paying for their child's schooling so that child too can one day profit off their own insurance company. __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 11 Dec 2009 18:23
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Which is an argument for regulation of the system or a federally organized system.
In the end the problem is that we do want a safety net. We do want something there to catch us and others when they fall, when you split the system as we do it leads to a great deal of inefficinecy that results in our ever rising healthcare costs.
Single payer isn't a perfect system, but it accomplishes what people want at the best price.
Posted: 11 Dec 2009 19:24
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It sounds silly at this point but I'm not 100% sure I understand it- what is single payer exactly? __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 12 Dec 2009 00:30
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Quote: She may have needed a hip, but someone else might have needed it more. Just because Paris Hilton (who works harder than any of us clearly) wants a new hip, doesn't mean she should get one before someone who really needs it.
Tim, your version of capitalism is similar to radicalleftists view of communis, that is based on a nonexistant ideal that has never been applied in the real world.
Really, like most radicals, your understanding of the economics is really superficial, and more idealogically motivated than actual consideration history or facts.
I've got to say Matches the radical idea here is for the government to come in and dictate who needs what medical procedure more than another person. That clearly puts us in a dangerous spot where next old people would get put low on this list. After all they don't need anything. They are going to die in a few years anyway. Even if it didn't go that far I'm terrified of a government telling me or my family to wait in line based on their determination of my need. That's why we live in America to avoid crap like that. __________________
Lucas McCain the Rifleman: A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark...but that doesn't mean you should go running *to* one, either.
Posted: 12 Dec 2009 13:47
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Quote: Even if it didn't go that far I'm terrified of a government telling me or my family to wait in line based on their determination of my need.
You already have insurance companies doing something just one little step below that-why worry about that now just because some other group might do the same thing? Look at that link I posted. Responsible people do the right thing and get insurance, which as Matches points out, most of them will not even need. Those that do incur some horrible ailment get dropped at an average of 25% immediately and another 25% within the next year. Of those lucky enough to keep their coverage after going through the gauntlet, 71% wind up in bankruptcy because the coverage they do have doesn't do nearly enough to affect the costs of the procedures and incidentals that go with them. That's 29% of the 50% who keep their coverage out of the minority percentage of people who need their coverage actually remaining financially stable after a procedure. You think the government can actually do worse? There's not much left to do worse on.
You want a solution? Let people who have the means to do so have the option to get personal insurance to make sure they're at the head of the line for care when and if a serious issue crops up. That's it. No more need for debates and nonsense on the hill. It's a busted system and no amount of legislation is going to fix it. Personal insurance has never been for the common folk and by all appearances, never will be. I am all for capitalism, but not of schemes or products that fail more than 3/4 of the time when they're actually needed. __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 14 Dec 2009 16:54 Last Edited By: Tim
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Quote: Let people who have the means to do so have the option to get personal insurance to make sure they're at the head of the line for care when and if a serious issue crops up.
Doesn't everybody have the option to get insurance now? I'm broker than Job's turkey and I've got a really lame bit of insurance in case of severe costly type of calamity, and I'm only one step above eating road kill stew on the side of the road. __________________
Lucas McCain the Rifleman: A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark...but that doesn't mean you should go running *to* one, either.
Posted: 14 Dec 2009 19:00
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Tim, you are young and healthy (You've posted pictures at the Cap Board, you've got great guns) so of course you can get relativly cheap insurance.
The question is what about the person who isn't as lucky as you? There are lots of people who for various reasons get marked as uninsurable, or they have what you have a handy dandy incase of emergency catastrophic plan, and because they didn't read the fine print, get dropped when they actually need it.
The government solution isn't a great solution, but given that market forces make insurance and healthcare in general a problematic product to leave to the private sector, you kind of need the state to step in somewhere and make it affordable.
Sort of like with rural telephone and electrification, the state sometimes needs to be there to cover the shortfall when the market fails. The market is failing us all, with raising costs for those who have insurance, and increased uninsurability for those who don't.
Yes it would suck if the state limited care for the elderly (something that has not happened in any democratic nation with socialized medicine)but it sucks even more when the private sector does the same thing.
The state in answerable to voters, corporations aren't. So when that very large group of elderly people who vote every election and put people in and out of office want something they usually get it. So I am much less worried about them, than I am about less organized and less politically active groups of americans.
P.S. No comment on how Paris Hilton works harder than you and thusly deserves better care than you?
Posted: 14 Dec 2009 22:14
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Quote: Doesn't everybody have the option to get insurance now?
Yes. That wasn't the point of my statement and what your question suggests is not something I even hinted at. __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 15 Dec 2009 16:16
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Quote: Tim, you are young and healthy (You've posted pictures at the Cap Board, you've got great guns) so of course you can get relativly cheap insurance.
My insurance keeps going up every year and nobody asks me if I work out or eat right or even whether or not I smoke.
So am I to understand that both of you guys want to make a law forcing people to get insurance whether they believe they need it or not.
Seems to me insurance could cost people any amount if they have to buy it or go to jail. And who determines who can't afford it so they presumably get it free? __________________
Lucas McCain the Rifleman: A man doesn't run from a fight, Mark...but that doesn't mean you should go running *to* one, either.
Posted: 15 Dec 2009 22:00
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Quote: So am I to understand that both of you guys want to make a law forcing people to get insurance whether they believe they need it or not.
Where did you get that from, on either of our accounts? Here's a quick reminder of what I said.
Quote: Personal insurance has never been for the common folk and by all appearances, never will be. I am all for capitalism, but not of schemes or products that fail more than 3/4 of the time when they're actually needed.
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But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 16 Dec 2009 18:28
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You know...education and nutrition were never for the common folk either. But at some point it was realized that providing these things would allow for a better society, I think the same is true for health care.
Through much of history, Health care was not that effective, so really having insurance was a luxury. Now that you can actually not die from things, it's a little less a luxury and more a necesseity.
If you allow people to starve you will have riots, if you allow people to go uneducated you will have crime, if you allow people to die or become financially ruined for treatable ailments what do you think you will have?
Disparity leads to unrest, which is as always bad for capitalism. It is necessary in a capitalist society, to ensure that the basic needs of the populace are cared for so as not to create an unbalanced, and as such revolutionary society.
Posted: 16 Dec 2009 20:58
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I still don't make the jump between having insurance and having health being insured. Simply does not follow as a luxury or a necessity. __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 16 Dec 2009 21:17
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Oh, well, yeah, Health Insurance isn't necessary if the health industry is set up in a way that would allow access to anyone.
Single Payer (which is probably the most cost effective system) isn't specifically insurance as it isn't paid or by premiums, and in a single payer system, insurance is a luxury (that many purchase so as to avoid the issues in a single payer system).
In the U.S. and in a few other countries there isn't a single payer system. In other countries that problem is rectified through subsidy and regulation to make sure insurance is affordable to all, in the U.S. you are told to go pound salt.
As has been said there is a humanitary and an economic issue with healthcare reform. The Humanitarian issue is how do you make sure that everyone has access to base line medical care, and the economic issue is how do you pay for that. The answer winds up being (if not going to a single payer plan) is to have everyone buy insurance (which should keep the cost low) and subsidize those who can't afford to buy insurance even with the cost reduced by everyone participating, and the industry being regulated.
Posted: 17 Dec 2009 02:01
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You know, I just finally got around to looking up info on this single payer thing because I honestly didn't know what it was. It's interesting. I'm looking at the chart on Wikipedia for instance, of the cross country comparisons:
We are the only country on that list without restricted universal healthcare and we have the lowest expectancy, highest infant mortality, highest(to extremes)per-capita expenditure, highest %(by leagues) of GDP and the lowest amount spent by government on actual healthcare. Insurance for the general populace is NOT the answer, this is crystal clear.
Tim, that whole attitude of 'I'm not paying for the drunk' is understandable, but it is THE PROBLEM. The whole issue of keeping this bogus insurance based system around is that no leader wants to be responsible for those jobs lost- those thieving and unnecessary jobs. I agree that you and I should not have to pay out of our pockets for someone else's poor choices, but look at the results we're getting. The insurance industry on this country fails over 95% of it's customers, whether that's the individual who pays forever and never needs it, or the one out of two who do need it that get dropped within a year, up to the 3/4 who retain their coverage and still wind up bankrupt. The media and our representatives have you convinced of somethings that are absolutely NOT in your best interest or mine. That self-interest which I personally normally laud and hold to the highest esteem is self-destruction in disguise in this particular case, this particular issue. The government is already spending too much- the issue is now to dictate how that money is being spent instead of pushing it off on us with the insurance battle we're being fed.
Matches, we still have much to discuss and debate in the way of economics with the free market and all but you were spot on about universal healthcare, even though we may not be in total agreement about the insurance aspect of it. Kudos and thanks. Things are a bit more clear now than ever.
Now, what to do with those people who deserve unemployment because of their chosen industry? What humanitarian path do we offer there? __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles